Dog Day of the Dead -- "The Day"

"The Day" started out, like well, every other day before it. I got up out of my bed and stretched the limbs. Then after a brief stop in the bathroom for a refreshing drink, I headed to Sally's room. When I entered her room I was sad at the sight of her still made bed. Normally the bed is very unkept and, at this time of the morning, containing a half sleeping girl. That's when I remembered she had been at summer camp for the last four days and that day was the day she was supposed to be returning to us. The thought of this got my tail waggin, if you can really call it a tail, its more like a stump ever since that bicycle accident when I was three. I still jump everytime I hear a bicycle bell ring. I had wanted to just lay next to Sally's bed until she returned but remembered did have a morning duty to perform.

I ran down the stairs and out my special dog door. I call it my special dog door, not only because I am the only one who could go through it , but because there is a small wooden board that is hung above it that has my name painted on it. "Chesterfield" was stenciled in a beautiful shade of grey along with a couple of flowers on either end of the name. Sally made it for me a few summer camps ago. It made me smile everytime I saw it. What didn't make me smile was the smell that hit my nose when I reached the outside.

I didn't really notice it until I went to pick up the paper. A breeze blew in the right direction and the aroma of death was so foul, it made me drop the paper I had just picked up in my mouth. I nearly puked. The morning air was filled with more than a foul stench. I had been so focused on my thoughts about Sally's return and getting the paper, I didn't pay attention to what my ears were hearing at first. With the distraction of the smell of death filling my nose, my attention returned to the present and thats when I realized the neighbor hood was very noisy. There were sounds of car alarms and sierns coming from everywhere. At one point I thought I heard an explosion in the distance. Fear slowly started to reach its icy cold hands around my neck. I immediately shook it off and went into protection mode. Something was happening in the "not good" category and I was damned if I was going to let whatever it was into my yard. I abandoned the paper to patrol the area.

Like many of the houses on our block, a 5 foot high wooden fence bordered our land. The fence was stained just that spring and the smell from the fresh stain helped mask the smell of death, at least a little. With nose to the ground, I walked the perimeter checking to see if anyone or anything had come into my yard. I heard something thud against the front gate as I passed it. I stopped and waited to see if it had been my imagination. Thats when I heard the thud again. It sounded as if someone were bumping up against it over and over again. From where I was I could not see over the fence so I moved to the porch to see if I could see what was trying to get in. It was at that moment I saw my first "changed".

It was Charles, our paper boy though the term boy didn't seem to fit him since he was a freshman in High school and already over 6 feet tall. He was usually being followed by at least one or two females but on "The Day" I think they would have wanted to be as far away from him as possible. The baseball cap he always wore was tilted to one side and very dirty, his hair was a mess and his eyes were cloudy white. His neck had a huge gash in it. The blood from the wound had since dried but you could still see the muscles where the skin was missing. His arms were limp and swayed as he continued to walk into the fence. He just kept walking. Step-bump-step-bump. I had never seen such thing before, it creeped me the hell out.

Dog Day of the Dead

I miss playing catch out at the Park. Frisbee, tennis ball, hell any stick would do. Sally and I would go to the Big Field and play there for hours. The Trees stood tall along the Field's edge and if the wind blew just right they sounded as if they were speaking to you. Occasionally a squirrel would venture from its tree sanctuary, out into the field, only to be chased by me back to its home. It's not like I ever intended to catch the little bastards, they were just fun to chase and let me tell you, we springer spaniels love the chase. Sure we had squirrels at home too but there wasn't as much running room and a lot of times the squirrels there would sit on top of the fence, just out of reach, and mock you, shake their little furry asses in your direction and even hit you with their nuts, little bastards. Park squirrels were more respectful. I would like to believe that they enjoyed being chased as much as I enjoyed chasing them. More than chasing the Park squirrels and the trees, and playing catch, I loved the smell of the grass.


The grass at the Park had such a magnificent fragrence to it, I would sometimes I would just lay in it and breath deep, let its wonderful aroma fill my nose as I watched Sally with her parents Tim and Maria enjoy a picnic in the sun. The grass smell was so perfect it would sometimes even put me to sleep where I would dream of chasing squirrels through the clouds. With each breath of grass air, I would float higher and higher in the sky until I was drifting in a sea of delicious aromatic bliss. Today the grass smells like shit.


Actually shit smells better than the Park grass does today and let me tell you I have smelled a lot of shit in so I would know. The smell of death has erased the beautiful essence of the grass that I use to enjoy so much. It's not just at the Park either. Nope I would say that there isn't a place in this whole damn city that didn't smell of death, or worse, but then again this is no surprise considering how many of the walking dead are, well walking about. They just spend their entire day and night walking, I always wondered where they thought they were going. Phil, he's the oldest of our group and one of the craftiest son of a bitches I have ever met, but then again it should come as no surprise considering he's a raccoon, anyway Phil thinks they are on the search for food. Lucky enough for us it appears they only care for the taste of human flesh. Oh my dog! I am sorry I forgot to introduce Phill and Crow and FiFi and "The Day" and... tell you what, if you would allow me the courtesy, I would like to back up my little tail to when it all started. It has become known among most of us as "The Day".

The Doctor is dead, Long live the Doctor

So I finally got to seeing both parts of the End of Time and On the whole I was actually surprised that it was better then expected. Now I will try not to give away spoilers just in case any Dr Who fans actually read this and have not watched the End of Time yet. Lets weigh in the best we can shall we.

Part One:

Part one was a little more of your standard Davies episodes. It was one of those that you saw most of it coming due to the trailers for the episodes. The way they had the Master return (again in the trailer) I thought was a bit of a stretch but any chance to see Simm back in that character is fine by me. This episode really had more of the Davies Finale type of feel which isn't exactly bad BUT isn't exactly good either. The one problem I have always had with Davies writing is the scale he feels he almost has to have everything on. It's so huge and always involving like the entire planet...while dramatic and epic as this is, it almost has become a cliche by now. We get some excellent dialog and, between the Davies epic moments, their are some fantastic bits of conversation and well you can tell Tennant put in his all in this part. The cliffhanger caught me as a surprise as well. In all a better than average story for Mr. Davies even with his rather cliche Epicness. The cameo of a certain actor was great as well.

Part 2:

Talk about you snow ball traveling down hill. Things just continue to ramp up as this episode went on, in a good way. This is definitely an episode where you have to really pay attention to the dialog. I suggest you do your bathroom breaks ahead of time because if you lose your focus on this episode you could lose a lot of exposition. This episode is truely a tie up episode not just for the story from part 1 but basically manny of the Davies story archs. Where the performances were decent in part 1 , part 2 was just fantastic. Tennant and the crew put their all into this episode and it was really a solid piece of work. There were alot of moments where you think they are going to do something and then they actually take it in a different and better direction. There are some subtle items addressed in this episode that give some foundation for future story archs. Tennant delivers a fantastic bit of monolog and I got misty. The event that actually causes the generation was a surprise but it made a lot of sense for the way this Doctor has always been portrayed and it again made me misty eyed.

While watching Part 1 I was a bit worried about the direction the finale was going to take but Part 2 really helped create a solid story worthy of Tennants send off.
Not only that but some how they managed to end it in a way that I really want to see the next doctor in action. In just a few minutes my doubts kind of dissolved and I can't wait for the next season.