Nothing to See Here

10:57 am - A brief slice of work conversation :)

... on entirely non-work topics: Whedon, The Cabin in the Woods, and rambling into steampunk!

(Beginning review: Wed Jul 9 10:37:57 2008 PDT)
# <- (10:38) From sj [awake (why?!)][WFH], to water, geektalk, Movies:
# - According to Yahoo! News, MGM has given the go-ahead for production on
# - "The Cabin in the Woods", co-written Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard. Goddard
# - will direct and Whedon will produce.
#
# -> (10:38) From ashton [@2000, la humidee], to water:
# - Coming next, "The Cottage By The Lake", followed by "The Split-Level Ranch
# - In The Subdivision".
#
# <- (10:38) From sj [awake (why?!)][WFH], to water, geektalk, Movies:
# - (which is the first I'd even heard of it, showing how out of the loop I am)
#
# -> (10:38) From ashton [@2000, la humidee], to water:
# - With the special short film "The Outhouse On The Prairie".
#
# <- (10:38) From sj [awake (why?!)][WFH], to water:
# - ashton - geez, don't ruin the trilogy!
#
# -> (10:39) From ashton [@2000, la humidee], to water:
# - In the end, it turns out that they're ALL THE SAME HOUSE.
#
# > (10:39, to cooler) ashton ruins it for sj
#
# <- (10:39) From sj [awake (why?!)][WFH], to water:
# - WUH!
#
# -> (10:39) From mjr, to water:
# - What a twist!
#
# <- (10:39) From sj [awake (why?!)][WFH], to water:
# - That sounds more M. Knight Shyamalan than Joss Whedon or Drew Goddard. :)
#
# > (10:39, to cooler) ashton . o O (Starring Mark Wahlberg as the cedar
# > siding)
#
# -> (10:39) From mjr, to water:
# - It was supposed to.
#
# < (10:40, to cooler) sj says, "He was BORN for that role."
#
# -> (10:40) From ashton [@2000, la humidee], to water:
# - For Joss Whedon, just add "IN SPACE"
#
# -> (10:40) From ashton [@2000, la humidee], to water:
# - Or "STEAMPUNK"
#
# -> (10:40) From mcl [@2000, exhausted], to water:
# - does a bisexual vampire fall in love with the ghost of a 1930's noir
# - hard-nosed detective whose spirit is trapped in the same house, and they
# - communicate by leaving words spelled out on a scrabble board?
#
# -> (10:40) From mjr, to water:
# - Little House in the Asteroid Belt
#
# <- (10:40) From sj [awake (why?!)][WFH], to water:
# - The very idea of a Joss Whedon steampunk series is mind-blowingly awesome
#
# -> (10:41) From ashton [@2000, la humidee], to water:
# - Asteroid Of Sand And Fog
#
# -> (10:41) From mcl [@2000, exhausted], to water:
# - been done. He called it, "Firefly".
#
# -> (10:41) From mcl [@2000, exhausted], to water:
# - if you're willing to overlook fusion and things like that.
#
# -> (10:41) From ashton [@2000, la humidee], to water:
# - yes, but, see, this new one is about the Cabin in the Woods /with
# - fireflies/.
#
# <- (10:41) From sj [awake (why?!)][WFH], to water:
# - hah! not exactly steampunk
#
# -> (10:41) From mcl [@2000, exhausted], to water:
# - it's steampunk with fusion reactors. Same thing.
#
# -> (10:41) From ashton [@2000, la humidee], to water:
# - Nukepunk
#
# -> (10:41) From mcl [@2000, exhausted], to water:
# - steampunk isn't even sure what it is.
#
# -> (10:42) From mjr, to water:
# - It involves lots of brass fittings, generally.
#
# -> (10:42) From mcl [@2000, exhausted], to water:
# - and petticoats.
#
# -> (10:42) From ashton [@2000, la humidee], to water:
# - Leave your personal life out of this.
#
# -> (10:42) From mcl [@2000, exhausted], to water:
# - and english accents.
#
# <- (10:43) From sj [awake (why?!)][WFH], to water:
# - I suppose there /were/ goggles in Serenity
#
# <- (10:44) From sj [awake (why?!)][WFH], to water:
# - I was about to say "it's not steampunk without goggles"
#
# -> (10:44) From ashton [@2000, la humidee], to water:
# - It's not steampunk without cleavage
#
# -> (10:44) From mcl [@2000, exhausted], to water:
# - covered in goggles, brass fittings, petticoats, and bacon.
#
# -> (10:44) From mcl [@2000, exhausted], to water:
# - with a random monocle for good measure.
(End of review)

Current Mood: amused

10:28 am - "INFECTED" book launch today!

Another of my compadres, one Scott Sigler (soon to be the next Stephen King), has just today launched his first major hardcover novel, "INFECTED". Ooh. It looks so shiny. Plus, check out this promo video! Wow!


I have never seen a video trailer for a book that rivals movie trailers. Holy carp!

Anyhow, my (first) copy is winging its way to me from Amazon. I think I shall go to a book store today to see it on the shelves. Maybe snap a shot or two. Maybe even pick up an extra copy.

Current Mood: impressed

05:28 pm - Bizarre Firefox/web site behaviour!

So, I went to look at information about the Star Trek tour thingy at the Queen Mary, and was presented by Firefox, to my astonishment, with this:


(Click on the image of the web page to see the text detail...)

The text ... it is ... uh ... well, bizarre!

For example:

SSAR SREK SHE SOUR will be at the Pueen Mary Come from Friday January 18, 2008 to Sunday February 17, 2008. Sicjets are now on sale at Sicjetmaster.com, Sicjetmaster outlets and the Pueen Mary Come Boy Office.

STAR TREJ THE TOUR - www.startrejthetotr.com
...

STAR TREK THE TOUR will be at the Queen Mary Dome from Friday January 18, 2008 to Sunday February 17, 2008. Tickets are now on sale at Ticketmaster.com, Ticketmaster outlets and the Queen Mary Dome Box Office.

STAR TREK THE TOUR - www.startrekthetour.com
...

Current Mood: amused

08:12 pm - Mur Lafferty again takes the podcasting world by storm!

Mur's new podcast audio book, "Playing for Keeps" is really great, especially as read by Mur herself! It is also available right now for purchase in print in softcover and hardcover editions.

Press Release: http://www.prlog.org/10045735-superheroes-lend-voices-to-audio-novel.html

Current Mood: impressed

04:37 pm - What are QMx smoking?

QMx are apparently coming out with a Cylon Raider model ...... which looks NOTHING like the actual ship it's meant to be a model of. What are they smoking?

09:39 pm - "7th Son" according to Sigler!

"If you're not listening to J.C. Hutchins' 7th Son, you're missing out. Seriously, that's some good freebasing audio meth." -- Scott Sigler

Speaking of Scott, you really should listen to his audiobooks too. My favourite of all (which is weird, because I'm not an American Football fan) is "The Rookie", however all of his books are really good. His new, upcoming novel is due to drop (podcast, that is), rather appropriately if I know Scott (and I do), on Halloween.

03:41 pm - Podiobooks galore finishing -- and a minor claim to fame

I had the rather impressive honour earlier this week of being asked by the esteemed J.C. Hutchins to do an ID/intro for episode 12 of 7th Son, Book Three: Destruction! Wow. I mean, seriously... wow. That was so frickin' awesome. 30,000 listeners! I'm in pretty impressive company, too. :) Even more mind-boggling was that J.C. came to me and asked me to do it. You rock, J.C.!

7th Son is one hell of a roller-coaster ride of a story. Plus ... guess what? Free! Yes, a free podcast audiobook. Give it a listen. Do yourself a favour and start with Book One: Descent.

A bunch of podiobooks (podcast audiobooks) I read are finishing up soon! Yipes!

J.C.'s 7th Son (not only the current book, but the whole trilogy), Seth Harwood's Jack Palms II: This is Life and Phil Rossi's Crescent are all within 4 episodes of being over. All getting in to their exciting finales!

urox and I are also within 4 or so episodes of the end of Matthew Wayne Selznick's Brave Men Run, though Matt's novel finished being podcast some time ago. :)

All of these are fantastic books. 7th Son was the first podcast audiobook that I ever listened to, and I've been a big fan all along. I've met, hung out with, and become friends with J.C., Seth and Matt. They're all great guys. I've not met Phil, but by all accounts he's a good guy too. :-) A sick, twisted guy, but no more sick than Scott Sigler, another really nice fellow who writes disgustingly horrible stuff at times. =)

Matt's book is also published in both paperback and eBook (not encumbered with DRM) forms, by the way, but the podcast version is still free.

Current Mood: excited

02:12 pm - Can't Stop the Serenity!

This weekend and next! If any of you have any interest in... seeing "Serenity" on the big screen, helping out a really good charity, having the opportunity to win some schwag ... then please check out: http://www.silicongulchbrowncoats.org/csts/ Campbell, CA This Sunday, June 17th http://www.sfcsts2007.com/ San Francisco, CA Saturday, June 23rd ... along with http://www.cantstoptheserenity.com/ for more details of the overall effort (there's screenings all across the US and around the world).

07:24 pm - Hertzfeld and Sanctuary and HERO and COW and Ads! Oy vey!

I want this:

bitter films volume one: 1995-2005 DVD
(from Don Hertzfeld)

Sanctuary
(a sci-fi show created by real TV people [crew and cast] for distribution over the Internet)

HERO: the future of gods, icons and heroes

COW - Programming for Bovines

Office Platoon:

Raiders of the Lost Network:

Current Mood: busy

06:00 pm - Stop-gap update, or: "Where the hell are you?"

Hi all!

I've had no time to update. I thought I might update during our trip to Japan, but no frickin' way. No time. Too much fun stuff to do/see. Since then, I planned to update, including writings about our trip, but I haven't had any time (when your boss greets you with a too-enthusiastic, "Welcome back!!!", that's an, "Uhoh...", moment). I have my "trip report" about 1/2 written. I'll try to get to the rest soon-ish.

I've had no time to read LJ either. Alas, I think I'm well over a month behind. I doubt I will come close to catching up, but I'll see if I can get back to keeping up with the present at some point, at least.

I am now on twitter. It's sort of like LJ for IM. ;) You can use it via the web site, via your existing IM account/client, or via your SMS-enabled phone (if you're crazy). I use it via the web site and via Google Talk. It's kind of nice because 1 IM window covers all of one's twitter interactions. It's silly, amusing, and fun and stuff. Definitely not so much of a useful tool. I don't have too many friends on it, so it doesn't generate much traffic for me to pay attention to. Feel free to friend me if you're on twitter, or if you join.

I have uploaded some pictures from May 5th -- from the Silicon Gulch Browncoats meet-up, from making of chocolate-dipped strawberries for a Cinco de Mayo party, as well as other miscellaneous shots -- for "24 hours of Flickr". I chose to submit this photo to the pool (limited to 1 per person).



BTW, here's some pimpage for the SF "Can't Stop the Serenity" charity screening:



Hopefully we'll also be getting a south bay one, but it will be on a different night, so if you're really dedicated, you could go to both... :) I know I'm tempted. I haven't seen Serenity on the big screen (or at all, actually) in a long time.

-me

Current Mood: busy

10:09 pm - WonderCon 2007 - fun, panels and--d'oh!

So, we spent the weekend (except for attending a party at wendelina2's place on Saturday night) up in San Francisco, at WonderCon 2007.

We got to see the first public screening of "300" (as mentioned in my last post), attend some interesting panels, collected some pretty cool schwag (including "driver's licenses" of the main characters from Tim Minear's upcoming [April 15th] show, Drive and cool metal Transformers pins [autobot and decepticon logos]). We got autographs from Jane Espenson (yay!), as well as getting to chat with her a fair bit. Jane is so cool. :) We got to hang out and chat with Richard Hatch a bit too, and get his autograph also. We both managed to get (though not quite the way we were meant to get them [which is to say, drawing the magic tickets]) special wrist bands which allowed us to get Nathan's autograph, along with his co-star Kristin Lehman! Studio provided item (really nice glossy promoting Drive), and got to chat with them for a minute while they were signing.

Panels:

Saturday:



• "Trailer Park": A few interesting trailers; nothing so stunning that it jumps out at me, but it was fun.
  

Sunday:



• "TV Guide: 2007 & Beyond": A discussion of current and future genre television. On the panel were executive producers of Heroes (Jeph Loeb) and The 4400 (Ira S. Behr) along with Chase Masterson (Leeta on Deep Space 9) and Billy Campbell (Jordan Collier on The 4400).
  
• "Gender and Genre", a really cool discussion panel with moderator Amanda Sullivan from Equality Now, and featuring Jane Espenson (frakking excellent TV writer)
  
• "Drive: Exclusive Sneak Preview": Executive producers Greg Yaitanes and Ben Queen, and two of the actors, a little-known Canadian actor, Nathan Fillion (hehe) and Kristin Lehman. The long opening scene that Tim showed us at B3 was much more awesome than anything they showed at WonderCon and disappointingly they've dropped the cool red phones in favour of little black cell phone type phones, but the discussion and Q&A were really interesting. Nathan was of course his usual wacky self.

Current Mood: exhausted

09:32 am - 7th Son

I think the best opening line I've ever seen (well, heard) (well, ok, it's two sentences, so I'm not sure if it qualifies as an opening line or not, but...) in any work of fiction is:

(I posted something analogous to this as a comment on one of brianrubin's posts, but I thought it was worthy of a post of its own. :)

Current Mood: cheerful

11:35 pm - Browncoats' Backup Bash Retrospective

This post is my attempt to keep a somewhat comprehensive list of links to people's photos and accounts of the Browncoats' Backup Bash, a set of private events held by and for Browncoats (along with some wonderful TV stars and other helpful people!) when Flanvention II was canceled at the last moment by Booster Entertainment LLC (aka Booster Events). Obviously it won't really be comprehensive, but I'll make my best effort! Please help by forwarding URLs to me! :-)

Browncoats' Backup Bash (B3) in the "news":

• C|Net News
  
• Whedonesque
  
• Metafilter
  
• Fark
  
• Daytona Beach news-journalonline.com
  

• California Browncoats
  
• Browncoats' Backup Bash web forums
  
• Flanvention Helpline
  
• be_victims
  

• Photographs tagged with 'browncoatsbackupbash' on flickr
  

• Stephen
  
• The One True b!X
  
• Francis
  
• Richard
  
• Kim L.
  
• Sue
  
• Roman
  
• Dean
  
• Joe
  
• Nicole
  
• Marsia
  

• Brian R.
  
• Maribeth
  
• The "Rack of Lamb" LJ community
  
• Cathy
  
• Jennifer
  
• Scott
  

• How The BE Grinch Tried To Steal Flan!
  
• An early version of Cedric's (Bedlam Bards) song about "Flan B"
  
• Fanvid originally intended to be shown at the Flanvention II opening ceremonies
  
• Tim Minear's videos on YouTube (including the "some stuff" video he showed at B3)
  
• A video of Tim Minear's appearance at B3
  
• A collection of videos from B3
  
• Friday Fangirl Fantasm Internet TV show episode about B3
  
• QMx TV video from B3
  

bdbdb

Current Mood: bouncy

04:27 pm - B5 complete series $150

Whoah..... Amazon.com has the complete series of Babylon 5 for only $150 (50% off). That's incredible. I wish I'd paid that little for them. I think I paid almost 2x that... at Costco prices... with a coupon...

They also have Robot Chicken, season 1 (Seth Green) for the ridiculous price of $8.99 (MSRP $29.98; 70% off).

Current Mood: impressed

06:38 pm - California Browncoats possibly to the rescue?

California Browncoats - http://www.californiabrowncoats.org/ - are working on backup plans for if Flanvention II does in fact end up cancelled. I don't know what's going to come of them, but some people (James, Lynn, Adam, Karla, Arielle, Louise, ...) are doing their darnedest to make sure that something worthwhile happens if Flan II doesn't happen in any official capacity. In "honour" of BE (Booster Events), some are referring to the backup plan as BEscrewed, though I suspect that's not an official name in any sense of the word.

It's heartening, anyway, to see so much effort being put in regardless of what comes of it.

Hopefully on Friday we'll find that Flan II isn't cancelled after all, they won't have to put the backup plans into operation, and I won't have to start calling my credit card company. I'm not hopeful, but we shall see how it goes.

Current Mood: impressed

12:46 pm - Browncoat Ball Retrospective

Photos from the Browncoat Ball, 2006

The following is a collection of links to photos from the Browncoat Ball posted by a whole slew of people (including me!), since this is easier to keep track of than hundreds of e-mails. :) I know waywardbound said he'd post a list on browncoatball.com at some point, but I can't find it yet, so I don't know if it's up yet or not and, well, maybe he can use this list to help populate it. :)

• Stephen
  
• Adam L-R (Friday, Cruise, SF, SaturdayNight, ChinatownTour, best-of album)
  
• Maribeth
  
• ziggybecket
  
• Corinne
  
• James 'danregal_ff' R. (Friday, BoatTrip, SaturdayNight, Sunday)
  
• Greg
  
• Mike S.
  
• Patti
  
• Brian R. (ArrivalThursday, Friday, BayTour, SaturdayNight, Swig, Sunday, best-of album)
  
• Jen and Bryan
  
• Norm and Barb
  
• Jen
  
• Rosie
  
• Gingi
  
• Celeste
  
• Paul
  
• Elizabeth (FridayNight, SaturdayDay, SaturdayNight)
  
• Jean
  
• Thad (Friday, Saturday, Sunday)
  

• Brian R.
  
• Jimmy Aquino (Part1, Part2)
  
• Article in SF/SF issue 32
  

• Video of the "Shindig dance" taught at the BCB
  

Current Mood: happy/tired/sick

10:37 pm - Ow.

Two of my left toes (big toe and toe next to it) hurt. Enough, following their unintended meeting with one of the steps of the stairs up into our apartment, that we went to urgent care and had my foot x-rayed. Apparently nothing broken, but they may have missed a hairline fracture, or that's urox's theory. They bloody hurt.

P.S. The Browncoat Ball rocked! Met friends old and new, and danced a fair bit, including at least three instances of Congress of Vienna.

Current Mood: ow

10:32 pm - Browncoat Ball update

The Browncoat Ball is fast approaching (5 weeks from now). Time is running short to purchase tickets, and now there's 1-day tickets available for Friday and Saturday in case you don't want to attend the whole weekend. Sign up now! =)

( Full text of update about Browncoat Ball )

Current Mood: anticipation

11:13 pm - No Dragon*Con for me...

I was already pretty much at the point of having decided that I really couldn't afford to spend the time or money travelling to Atlanta for Dragon*Con over Labor Day weekend. I really would love to go, but it's just not practical. :( It's a real pity because I would presumably have got to hang out with irtluhc and maeglin73, in addition to hanging out with fun Browncoats, seeing Firefly/Serenity cast members, going to the live version of The Signal podcast, going to parties, and so on. D*C was a tonne of fun last year, and I think it would be fantastic this year too.

The fact that flying is going to be such a huge pain in the posterior has made it a whole lot easier for me not to keep rethinking my decision.

Current Mood: disappointed

06:17 pm - Star Trek motivational posters

http://echosphere.net/star_trek_insp/star_trek_insp.html

Quite amusing, some of them. :) URL courtesy of ruthanne.

Current Mood: amused

02:36 pm - Hello Vader!

Oh ... my ... ${deity}!

That picture produced an intriguing array of reactions here at work:

    Urk!  *spaf*
    That _rocks_!
    kekekek
    :gonk:
    AGLAGLALGAG
    Hello Vader!
    Hello Annie!

Current Mood: amused

01:58 am - Movie Night, etc.

So, I went to see 2 movies, back-to-back, tonight.

The DaVinci Code - Not having read the book, I really rather enjoyed the movie! I'm sure it's historically ludicrous, mythically nutso, and totally unfaithful to the book, or whatever, but I really liked it. While many of the puzzles and twists were not too surprising or were down-right obvious, it ehlp my interest and entertained me, and that was really all I was looking for. I imagine my reaction might have been quite different had I read the book, and I'm fine with that. I will probably read the book at some point, since it's been sitting on the shelf waiting to be read for a couple of years now, and hopefully that will be entertaining too. We shall see.

Mission: Impossible III - Ignoring all the various mediocre-to-terrible reviews of M:I-III, I knew I wanted to see it because, well, what-the-frak-EVER about Tom Cruise ... J.J., man! Frickin' J.J.! How could I not see it? Well, ok, that is a little bit of a silly question since I damn near let it escape theatres before I found time to see it, but ... ur... it's the thought that counts. People dissed it as being like a 2hr episode of Alias. I say it pretty much rocked because it was like a 2hr episode of Alias! The music and the on-screen locational cues were a bit ... TV, but it was really quite entertaining, and, well, J.J.! Oh, right, Philip Seymore Hoffman was bloody good as the awfully evil guy too.

Oh, hey, BTW... topic switch... someone took some great photos (not sure how they managed that given the 'no cameras' directive, but perhaps they had some dispensation, or perhaps they were just a major chancer) at the Serenity Premiere After-Party which urox and I (and quite a few friends of ours) had the honour of attending. Yes, I know this is many months later, but "ooh! pretty pictures!".

P.S. Happy 4th of July.

Current Mood: movied

08:09 am - 'bout that time, eh?

So, today's the day to buy Serenity on DVD if you haven't already / want a second copy / want to give a copy to someone and would like to take part in the attempt to shoot it to the top of the DVD sales charts for today. :)

I didn't actually have a second (loaner) copy of Serenity yet, despite having bought ... ur ... 14 copies in total? ... so I just bought a loaner copy. :)

Current Mood: busy

10:45 pm - Free Serenity ticket

I have one (1) ticket to see Serenity at The Bridge Theatre in San Francisco at 11:55pm tomorrow, Friday 2006.06.23.

I am not going to make it, more's the pity (I wish I could) because we're planning to drive to LA really super-early on Saturday morning, and I'm already exhausted, so I cannot drive to LA on an hour or two's sleep...

... so, let me know if you want it! If you want it, you'll have to pick it up from me in Redwood City (at my office) or some time later in the evening (say, 8pm) further south (San Jose), I can give it to a colleague who's going up and he can give it to you up there, though that might be error-prone if you don't know him (Brian), and if you don't get it from him by the time he has to go in, alas that would be tough luck, as I don't want him to be inconvenienced if I use him as a ticket conduit.

Call me on my cell if you want it, or send me e-mail, or comment here.

See http://www.sfbrowncoats.com/ for further info, including info on people meeting up beforehand at a pub type place.

If nobody claims it, no problem. I just donated the ticket price to a great charity, so I don't feel bad about it at all. In that case, I'll give it to Brian and he can give it to someone random if the show sells out (perhaps making the person promise to donate the face value to Equality Now or something; if it doesn't sell out, I'd just tell him to hang on to it and make random people buy tickets, thus getting more money for EN :).

Current Mood: tired

05:41 pm - Woot! Joss loves BSG!

"I'm just sneaking in to say I've been continuing to watch BSG, the wife and I are about halfway through season one and gushing isn't gonna cover this one. You guys have heard me gush, so it won't have any real meaning. You have to imagine Pauline Kael bursting into song, Lionel Barrymoore In "Wonderful Life" jumping up and jitterbugging with George Bailey, the Grinch's heart growing three sizes... you gotta start down there to explain what it feels like up here. I'll put it simply. The show is humbling. Not since the Matrix (the first one) have I had such a strong desire to go to writing school. I think it's so passionate, textured, complex, subversive and challenging that it dwarfs everything on TV. Or in theaters. Or boho perfomances spaces. Stuff hanging in the Tate? Not as cool. I'm not gonna go on, because I have to get back to work and because if I really start, this post will crash the internet from sheer length. Only downsides are a) I was already having a crisis of confidence, thank you very much and b) I can't go near any Sci-Fi mags for fear of spoilers. Apart from that, life is to be loved. The Gods are to be praised. Back to the job. -j."

http://whedonesque.com/comments/10584#129304

Current Mood: tired

08:19 am - Amazon: Firefly/Serenity update

Firefly just went from $25 to $35 on Amazon.com the other day. Boo! :( Its sales rank today is #27 in DVD -- not bad ranking!

Serenity just went from $19.96 (the highest they've had it priced) to $15.96 (the lowest they've had it priced) on Amazon.com the other day. Yay! :) Its sales rank today is #55 in DVD -- not too great.

Current Mood: eh

03:58 pm - My BSG print arrived the other day :)

Yay! It's frakkin' shiny!



The remarque (a sketch done on the print; never repeated) is really great. I think it's a better likeness than in the print itself. Very cool. :) For a better picture of the print itself, not my copy in particular, see the image on jasonpalmer.net.

( ...goes nicely with my Firefly print )

Current Mood: happy

08:59 am

I just had to repost this, from mitrian:

Someone made a short (~7.5 min) movie of this. It's here - go watch it.

Current Mood: amused

11:46 am - Jewel blogs; Flan II update

Jewel Staite posted to her blog the other day, and confirmed (it was news to me) that she'll be at Flanvention II, which totally rocks!

So, so far we have Nathan Fillion, Alan Tudyk, Adam Baldwin, Jewel Staite, Christina Hendricks and Mark Sheppard confirmed as headliner guests. Nice!

Hopefully they (esp. Nathan, Alan, Adam and Jewel) can exert sufficient peer pressure on Morena, Gina (we can hope, even if the indications are that she may be avoiding doing conventions), Summer, Sean and Ron. :) Regardless of whether other headliners are reeled in or not, it is shaping up to be a heck of a lot of fun. I'm really interested to see who the non-headliner guests will be. Last year, it was really cool to have Yan, Rafael, Dennis, James, Jason, Jonathan and Camden -- oh, and kradical -- as guests at Flanvention. While I did get to meet all the headliner guests, I spent a lot more time just hanging out and chatting with the non-headliner guests. I thought I heard somewhere that Greg Edmondson might be at Flan II. Oh, and I believe The Bedlam Bards are set to appear. Anyhow. 'twill be fun, that's for certain.

Current Mood: anticipation

12:25 am - Incredible show. Incredible music.

Francis, a fellow Browncoat, just reminded me about some of the most intensely beautiful and heart-rending scenes in Battlestar Galactica (yup, BSG fandom is spreading like wildfire among Firefly fans).

Bear McCreary's site has a slew of video clips from Battlestar Galactica, showpiecing his compositions.

The "Passacaglia" clip is one of the emotionally most difficult parts of BSG for me to watch. Especially the Boomer parts of it. It is an amazingly powerful piece of work. It's like watching "Out of Gas". Painful, beautiful and an intensely rewarding experience. The music is a huge part of that.

If you have not seen all of BSG season 1 yet, I do not recommend watching those scenes, as they are definitely spoilerish.

Current Mood: emotionally charged

11:23 pm - BSG season finale?!?

Nooooooooooooo! It can't be the end of the season next week!!! What on earth am I going to do until Season 3?!?

Current Mood: anxious

01:24 pm - CDBaby is teh weeeeeeeird!

The people who run CDBaby (from which I recently ordered this CD) are ........ really odd.

The following is the (so ludicrous that they can get away with it being clearly full of lies :) e-mail that I received from them to tell me that my CD had shipped (minus some boring actual factual goop about my order from the top):

( wacky e-mail )

P.S. Being sick sucks. :/

Current Mood: amused

01:06 pm - Free Enterprise

So, the very amusing film Free Enterprise is being re-released on DVD ... 5 days from now (March 7th). :) (Cool!)

So, I got an e-mail a few weeks ago from someone from M80 Interactive Marketing asking me if I'd be prepared to put up a banner or press release on my Star Trek site and that if I was amenable to the suggestion, she'd be happy to send me a copy of the DVD. It was slightly strange, but it seemed like it could be legit, so I decided to respond and ask more. Anyhow, to cut a long (well, not very, but a bit) story short, I put up a banner, and she said she'd send me the DVD. Not only was it legit, but I got my DVD today, less than a week, I think, after I put up the banner, and almost a week before it's due to be released! :) Nice! That's the most I've ever got (in a concrete sense) from any of my web sites. =)

Anyhow, the movie is cool, the guys who created it are very amusing/interesting (saw them both on a panel at WonderCon 2006), and I hope they do really well from their DVD sales!

Current Mood: grateful

09:47 am - Now's the time to buy Firefly!

If any of you are still holding out and haven't yet bought Firefly, or if you want to buy a second copy (I have a loaner copy and one I don't lend out), or if you think copies would make good gifts ... now's the time to buy. Amazon.com just decreased the price a LOT. It's now 60% off which makes it $19.86. I'm kind of stunned at that price. I've never seen it lower than around $30 before. I have to figure out now who I can give copies to as presents. :)

Here's where it's at: Firefly - The Complete Series (DVD)

[EDIT: Blah! They've raised the price up to 50% off rather than 60% off, so just under $25]

In other Firefly-related bargain news, Black Market Beagles is having a 10% off sale. =) ... and they have new stuff including a Wash shirt or two.

Current Mood: impressed

11:43 pm - "Downloaded"

OMG! Holy frakkin' carp! ... WOW ... !
[Did I really just say "OMG"? Urr...]

BSG frakkin' rocks! I love this show!

( *** BEWARE: SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS for BSG s2 e18 'Downloaded' ***  )

Current Mood: enthralled

12:05 am - Eddie at Cinequest!

Ok, so I don't call him Eddie, but Ron does. Ur. Mr. Ronald D. Moore, I mean. Sir. I call him Edward J. Olmos, bloody fantastic actor, and Battlestar Galactica's Commander--ur, Admiral Adama. :)

As part of the Cinequest Film Festival in San Jose, there is the follwoing event...

Maverick Spirit Award: Edward James Olmos
Venue: California Theatre
Date: 03/12/2006 3:00PM

11:53 pm - It's the frakkin' truth!

So, I was writing it as "frak", and crankyfool opined that it was "frack". Well, I've sort of been using the two interchangeably, but I really wasn't sure about the whole 'c' thing. I was dubious about it. I had a bit of a look around, but it was actually crankyfool who disproved his earlier assertion and confirmed my suspicions. He found the following two sources:

1. http://www.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Frak (from the fan perspective)
   
2. http://blog.scifi.com/battlestar/archives/2005/02/ (from Ron Moore's blog)

Current Mood: geeky

05:48 pm - TWoP posts summary of "Serenity"!

Television Without Pity just posted a summary of Serenity (URL courtesy of lianthe):

http://televisionwithoutpity.com/story.cgi?show=95&story=8865

Television Without Pity >> Firefly >> Recaps & Extras >> Season 2 Episode 1

Current Mood: happy

10:58 pm - WonderCon 2006

I know, it was, like, a whole frackin' week ago. What am I doing writing about it this late? Well, consider that I still haven't got around to writing about the majority of cons I went to last year, and this is pretty speedy.

WonderCon was lots of fun, and has the advantage of being (figuratively speaking) right on our doorstep. It's not the insane crush of Comic-Con ... and while it's a lot smaller, there's still a lot of fun stuff going on.

( I wrote so much about it that I figured I'd put it behind a cut! I only *meant* to write a few lines! )

Current Mood: verbose

05:41 pm - Well, I guess I got the right show.

( silly meme results cut to avoid cluttering people's friends pages )

Current Mood: silly

02:15 pm - Andreas Katsulas, R.I.P.

When I heard the other day that Andreas Katsulas had died, I was sad as I thought he was really a great actor and his character G'Kar on Babylon 5 was very true--very real--in no small part because of his portrayal of the character as an actor.

It was indeed sad, but it really hit me when I read JMS's post about Andreas Katsulas' passing on the front page of ISN News, a URL that was sent to SoCalBrowncoats. I got pretty choked up reading it. The world has lost a good man and a wonderful actor, and JMS' obituary is a beautiful tribute to the man as well as the actor.

There's also a video tribute (larger version, 92Mb).

Current Mood: melancholy

02:30 pm - For elite? :)

From SoCalBrowncoats:

http://marabelljade.livejournal.com/60406.html

07:11 am - Battlestar Galactica

O. M. F. G. ... !

BSG is unbelievably fantastically incredibly brilliant.

Other than the fact that there's a back-handed dissing of Lost (another fantastic series), this article on Salon.com is a really nice analysis of the show. BEWARE: It contains spoilers for the new Season 2 episode, "Resurrection Ship," so please do not read it if you have not seen it. It was one HELL of a powerful episode.

Any thoughts that Tricia Helfer was hired just for her looks are totally dispelled, also. Wow. She is an excellent actress who just happens to also be really ... tall.

BSG is getting to the point of making me almost rank it up there with Firefly. It's close. Really close, frack it.

Ok, so Lost doesn't completely blow my socks off quite as much as BSG, even though I do really love Lost as well (all hail J.J.!).

Wow! I mean, really. Wow!

Ron Moore's come a long way since DS9 (even if I did really like DS9).

It is fracking fantastic.

It is bloody incredible.

It is so powerful!

I really can't wait for the next episode! I would have to say that ... I think Firefly and Battlestar Galactica may be the two best TV series. Ever. Really. I can't think of a counter-example. I mean, I love and have loved many shows. In the past, various trek shows. In the more recent past, Buffy. Even more recently, Wonderfalls. None of them, however, have me gushing as much about how wonderful they are as Firefly and BSG.

Oh, and, well, in case it wasn't obvious ... I'm talking about the new Battlestar Galactica (in particular, the series, not the mini-series, though I would start watching with the mini-series and continue watching from the start of the new TV series). I am most certainly not referring to the 1970's show. :)

P.S. The soundtrack is mind-blowingly good. It is some of the most powerful, emotive music I have ever heard, from any century. I love it.

Current Mood: droolingly ecstatic