Elementary reinvents a well-known recurring character in Sherlock Holmes canon as a transgender woman with a narrative that does not involve victimization or analysis of her gender identity. She is also played by a transgender actress.
This show, man.
Fringe writers weren’t just careless this week. They were outright lazy. There are at least seven Quincy Streets in Greater Boston—Boston, Cambridge, Somerville, Arlington, Medford, Dorchester, and Worcester—and you can go south on five, or arguably all of them depending on how complicated you want your route, to get to Worcester Union Station. That Walter didn’t qualify which municipality is unusual. Usually we Bostonians qualify which street or which part of a street we’re on by adding the municipality because small New England towns that combine to create larger New England cities often repeat street names. Broadway in Cambridge is a completely different street from Broadway in neighboring Somerville. Also, Walter seems to be riding a bus, not the Red Line, which is a subway train. Not that he could take the Red to Worcester Union anyway because the Red doesn’t go there.
Nothing Walter says makes sense, but this is Walter and likely he didn’t even think through his course or how to explain it. So let’s see if we can piece this together.
Since Walter’s lab is at Harvard, it’s likely that he grabbed the 86 bus that does run south on Quincy St in Cambridge to the Harvard T station, which lies on the Red Line. Then Walter could take the Inbound train to South Station where he could take the Framingham/Worcester Line Outbound on commuter rail to the last stop at Worcester Union Station.
So Walter isn’t completely off, but what he said was off enough for this Bostonian (now Cantabrigian) to stop and gape at the video. Simply, that’s not how we talk about routes here. We take the 86 down to Harvard to grab the train to South Station and then take the commuter rail out to Worcester.
Also, Walter’s destination, 167 Cedar in Worcester, doesn’t exist, but the map Astrid shows on her tablet is accurate otherwise.
As I implied earlier, Fringe often mislabels locations, and it soon became a game for me to figure out what those places really are. Harvard is Yale. The Boston Federal Building is actually the John Hancock Tower. My favorite mislabel, however, is the one pictured above, especially since I lived at next T stop down.
For the curious, a partial list of filming locations can be found at Movie Maps.
My favorite scenes in Fringe are when the locations are labelled correctly.
It’s sexual harrassment, Nigerian Prince advance payment style. A coworker commented, “He has 3,000,000 nude photos waiting to be sent, but first he needs just 10 from you to authorize the payment.”
I’ve been delighted that I discovered the Gallup iPhone app, but the application is too limited for my nerdy needs. The app only displays the Gallup Daily, not the numbers for Election 2012. I still had to check the website for those polls.
So I went back to the iTunes store and after some exploration, I added a few more apps to my arsenal:
RCP has a very thorough and easily accessible compilation of polling data taken from multiple sources. Great for a quick glance at the numbers and headlines.
Price: Free
Free access to the top stories, but to experience all the features of the app, you need to have a subscription. The poll numbers aren’t as neatly displayed as they are on RCP, but easy access to The Caucus Blog, FiveThirtyEight, and NYT Politics—as well as whatever else NYT publishes—easily makes the subscription worthwhile.
Price: Free to download, $0.99 for 4-week trial, $14.99/month for smartphone access, $34.99/month for complete digital access
Bloated, this app loads so very slowly, but it is one of the few who lists all candidates from all parties.
Price: Free
Great reference on the 112th US Congress! Learn more about your representatives, their staff, and the legislation they sponsored. Updates only once when you purchase.
Price: $4.99
What it says on the box: Get updates from Congress live.
Price: Free
Choose a political party, and then face-off with history and geography quizzes. Sadly, you can only be Democrat or Republican and the forum is a little juvenile, but still a lot can be learned from the game!
Price: $1.99
At level 13, my wizard is dressed much more appropriately.
The lack of cosmetic character customization in the Diablo games has always been a quibble for me. I played the rogue in the original because I didn’t want to play a male sorcerer (though I did play though again as the spellcaster). I got lucky in Diablo II and was able to play a female spellcasting character (though I did have objections to her wardrobe). In Diablo III, I am able to choose my class and gender, but the female wizard begins the game wearing nearly nothing while the male wizard gets a complete outfit.
Curious, I looked at the starting gear for each class. The women are definitely more scantily clad. The female demon hunter is in heels. I don’t even know where to begin about the witch doctors.
And I haven’t even started on the gameplay yet.
Just starting the Diablo 3 beta. Immediately, I want more camera flexibility.
