Wandering the Vortex

After my weekly dose of adequate sleep, I spent this afternoon and evening wandering through a series of playgrounds, most of them electronic. In retrospect, my collected experiences of the day seem someone haphazard and disconnected, like the Doctor's travels with the randomiser enabled. But heck, I've had fun! My Magical Mystery Tour has taken in the following sights:

• I've researched Harlan Ellison's connection with the 1950s paperback publisher Regency Books, only to discover that Harlan is more interested in spinning wild, "surreal" tales about his life than in setting out the facts. (He has claimed on dust jacket bios to be a "sightless Mennonite mendicant," a the vigilante hero of the barrio called "El Fiera de Batata ("The Wild Beast of the Sweet Potato"), and a retired school bus driver with a perfect driving record, among other fantasy personae.) Nearly as giggleworthy was a compilation of nonexistent story titles by Arland Hellisunk.
• I've had yam bisque at Sweet Tomatoes, and could have sworn I tasted rutabaga in it. This led me to wonder whether I could sustain an entry (or part of one) called Turnip Anything? Good pun, anyway.
  
• I've watched bits of the TV adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time, and discovered that I hardly dislike it at all any more. It is utterly unfaithful to the book, often corny or clumsy, and relies heavily on pointless, uncanonical scenes and unnecessary special effects; but there are some neat explorations in their version of this story and these characters.
• I went looking for citations to add to the Murray Gold article on Wikipedia, and found a) a website on the history of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, a bio of the Doctor Who composer on his management's website, and a somewhat embarrassing fan site, whose originator apparently considers Gold as cute as he is talented.
• Back in the live world, specifically Safeway, I photographed Cliff's successful stacking of some of a customer's purchases. While there, I took a call from Eva, my 102-year-old friend. Hooray! She's well enough to go to church!
  
• I've helped John fuss with some video files in an odd format his Mac doesn't like - or tried to. The Vaio doesn't like them, either.
• I've put the First Doctor DVDs in chronological order. So far, I've watched the first four stories, including Marco Polo, which doesn't exist. Well, sort of. It's one of the missing serials, but I watched a reconstruction, consisting of the original soundtrack of the show and a series of colorized photos from it. Someone had also persuaded guest star Mark Eden to reprise his role as Polo, in a framing device of the aged Polo reminiscing about his literally unbelievable encounter with the Doctor and his friends decades before.
  
• I've made a second attempt to read an older Doctor Who book called The Face of the Enemy by David A McIntee. The Doctor appears in about two pages of the book, which in theory features UNIT, Ian and Barbara as well as the Master. I'm curious to see how Ian and Barbara are portrayed, nearly a decade after their initial travels with the Doctor, but I'm having trouble getting deep enough into the book for them to appear at all. So far, it's mostly a police procedural!
• I've discovered how much Tuffy likes meatloaf. She likes it a lot.
  

And having done all these things, I'm going to bed now. Good night!