Quatermass and The X-Files

In my 2004 review of the adventures of Nigel Kneale's Prof. Quatermass, I described Quatermass II as "a nicely paranoid proto-X Files kind of story"; I was probably driven to that thought by similarities with the plot of the feature film The X Files: Fight the Future.

Turns out back in the Nineties, this guy argued that The X Files had ripped off substantial material from every single one of the Quatermass serials. I'm really not enough of an X Files fan to judge the parallels he draws, but I like the speculation that the incoherence of some of these stories came from Chris Carter lifting story elements from Nigel Kneale without entirely understanding them and pasting them where they didn't really belong.

(Via quod_scripsi on the LJ community for doctorwho, a show whose degree of Quatermass thievery is legendary.)

Laughing

Over the past couple of days Jorie seems to have really gotten the hang of laughing. Before, she'd make the occasional amused squeal or isolated "ha" now and then, but now she laughs in continued bouts. It seems to have started as an imitative thing--I'd laugh and she'd laugh along--but she almost immediately started to carry it over to other situations, like being tickled or Daddy making goofy noises.