All of my IRL friendships are based around activities - we play games together, we volunteer together, etc. When someone moves away and we try to keep the friendship going, it always just sputters out after a few weeks or months. It just seems to devolve into small-talk / catch-ups that neither of us are really interested in (I don't mind small-talk too much, but it can't be 100% of any meaningful relationship).

So: What is the point of a long-distance friendship for two people who have no plans to live locally again? What am I missing?

EDIT: I have close conversations in person that are deep and meaningful, just very rarely over text. Maybe I ought to phone or video call once in a while..

If the remap is better in every way, why wasn't it just made like that in the factory? What am I missing?

Although the TARDIS is technically a time machine, for most episodes the Doctor could rock up in a bus and it wouldn't change anything.

The most obvious answer for me is Blink, with the conversation on the DVD Easter egg. Very cool use of time travel, and seeing it come together is brilliant.

I'll also add Waters of Mars. It's not really got any time travel in, but I feel like the foreknowledge which shapes the plot just about counts.

What are your favourites and why?

I think it's a tobacco trial. The main character is the wife of one of the jurors? I think the bad guy / big company is trying to buy the jurors out by using the services of the wife

An option for me to buy a house has come up very suddenly and it seemed like a good idea at first - but I look at a mortgage and think "that's 15 years I'll spend paying back, at absolute minimum. Probably more like 25 years" - how can I possibly plan that far in advance?

So, how did you feel about getting a mortgage and seeing such a serious commitment stretch so far into the future? I'm mainly talking about the emotional side of things rather than financial

Cooking my dinner, best set a timer because I'm bound to forget it's in the over.

Get bored and start reading book.

Timer's done - I'll turn off the alarm and just finish the page.

Ten minutes later ...Wait, what's that burning smell?

I've been driving a van for a couple of years now, but I'm much more used to driving a car. My van is heavier and has much less power than my car and I sometimes have trouble merging onto fast roads so I'm looking for any insight from more experienced van drivers.

I don't have rear windows or a rearview mirror (only side mirrors) so visibility isn't always great. The van's also pretty slow, so I'm usually only going 50-60mph as I merge. This isn't a problem on motorways because the slip roads are so long I can plan my spot to merge easily enough. On dual carriageways where the slip roads can be really short, it feels like all I can do is put my foot down and hope. There's sometimes only a few seconds where the sliproad and main road are lined up such that I can see traffic in my mirrors, and by then I'm pretty much stuck at whatever speed my poor van has given with my foot to the floor.

Bigger and heavier vehicles than mine merge safely all the time, so I must be missing something. I'm also fairly inexperienced with such slip roads because there are no examples near me. I only encounter them a couple of times a year.

Looking for songs where there's a very definite, regular beat that's played by a non-percussion instrument. (piano counts as non-percussion for this particular request).

Very fun, upbeat song about someone figuring out their life. I like this song a lot and it's one of the rare occasions where I feel the music video adds to the story in the song.