Judge does theater criticism

The quixotic quest by Minnesota bar owners and patrons to get around "no smoking" prohibitions by presenting "improvisational" theater performances where all of the patrons are actors, who just happen to smoke (smoking during a theatrical performance is allowable under the law) has been quashed by a Minnesota judge. 

As the evenings had no script or attempt to tell a story, they really didn't fall on the side of a performance and the smokers will have to return to their now-familiar post outside, huddled against the, er, rather nice spring air. 

At their present course, I don't see how they could win, unless the actually go the extra step and present some kind of show. After all, Minnesota is lousy with actors, directors and writers, including tons with improvisational experience. The cost of a couple hours of a lawyer could probably buy an actor's services for several weeks (more if you toss in free drinks). They, in turn, could guide the evening. Maybe there's been a murder in the bar and someone's the killer. Maybe the band hasn't shown up. Maybe they've run out of rum. The possibilities are endless -- and maybe even entertaining.

Ah, the sucky Doctor Who episode at last

You know I had high hopes for Doctor Who and Agatha Christie, but instead I got giant space wasps and a story that couldn't decide its tone (serious?, mysterious? parody of drawing room mysteries from the 1920s? What?) and containing a message basically the same as the Charles Dickens' show from season 1. Well, Steven Moffat's space library show looks promising at least...

More Doctor Who stuff:

The Battle for the knitted Ood goes on...

The A.V. Club interviewed Freema Agyeman this week.

And this bit appeared in Neil Gaiman's blog this morning: 

I know that David Tennant's Hamlet isn't till July. And lots of people are going to be doing Dr Who in Hamlet jokes, so this is just me getting it out of the way early, to avoid the rush...

"To be, or not to be, that is the question. Weeelll.... More of A question really. Not THE question. Because, well, I mean, there are billions and billions of questions out there, and well, when I say billions, I mean, when you add in the answers, not just the questions, weeelll, you're looking at numbers that are positively astronomical and... for that matter the other question is what you lot are doing on this planet in the first place, and er, did anyone try just pushing this little red button?"