Geek-A-Thon, Day 1

What a great start to the con! I arrived mid-afternoon, hotel check-in and con registration were quick & painless, and I was able to catch the last half of a panel with John DeLancie [Q on ST:TNG and Simmons on SG-1]. From there I went to a panel with a few of the actors from Farscape, a uniformly hot group of people. And though there were other panels I'm sure I would have enjoyed, I spent a good bit of the evening just walking around & checking things out. The people-watching is fantastic, and not just for all the cool costumes.

Speaking of which, Brak's mom looked totally cool --

I made a quick run through the exhibitors' hall, but haven't been to the dealers' room or the art show yet. They're not priorities, but I'd like to check them out. Now, however, it's coming up on 2am and I'm tired. Tomorrow's going to be a big day, between the DC parade, half a dozen panels and a few exciting late-night events.

Oh, hey, I almost forgot - George Lucas is here! I saw him, he stood right in front of me patiently waiting while a handful of geeks took his picture. Okay, so he might be on my shitlist [he & Peter Jackson are the only ones, so it doesn't really mean anything], but, dude, George Fuckin' Lucas, at DragonCon!

One more day!

Wow, I arrived in Atlanta Tuesday evening in a shocking state of preparedness, and now all I have to do with myself is be very excited about DragonCon starting tomorrow. Pleasantly, I'm staying with friends before the con, so I have good company. My costumes are ready to go, I've done a quick scan of the pocket program [conveniently available online], and I'm as braced as I'm likely to get to face a throng of 25,000 geeks.

Holy shit!

It's a great big universe

Check out this cool photo essay of the Top 10 Views of Earth from Space. Number three on that list, Saturn, is the same photo as my new show & tell picture, which is definitely one of the most awesome saturn pictures ever.

At least Flash is cute

Well, I'm giving Flash Gordon a chance, but yesterday's episode did little to impress me. I did, however, laugh a few times, so that's something. The writing for this ep was particularly bad and the story was weak. I'm enjoying the bounty hunter character, although she is a little too cliched. That said, we are just three episodes into it. Other than Battlestar Galactica, which had a wickedly good first season, I can't think of any series that didn't have some serious stinkers in their beginnings.

One thing I'm not feeling so generous about is the level of silliness. Perhaps the writers are trying to recreate the camp of the 1980 movie, but it just ends up being irritating.

Anyway, unless it really starts to suck hard, I'll keep watching Flash Gordon and hoping for improvement, because that's the kind of sucker I am.

This week in television

Tuesday's Eureka was pretty good. The super silly dream sequences were a little over the top, but kinda funny anyway. It doesn't seem like Allison & Stark are using very good judgment in their pursuit of answers about Kevin and the artifact. Stark actually seems a little wacko, in fact. And by the way, when are people going to start asking questions about Beverly's absence?

I think I could come to enjoy Flash Gordon, though it's going to take some time to warm up to the characters. Ming is kind of a candyass, like he's not really a bad guy but he plays one on tv. I get a kick out of the funny, creepy little hovering guy, though. He is one unpleasant son of a bitch.

Current Reading: The Physics of Superheroes

I took Physics for Poets in college. That wasn't actually the name of the class, but I think many schools have an equivalent - hard science packaged for the literature set, the fundamentals of the field for the unscientifically inclined. That is the place from which James Kakalios brings us The Physics of Superheroes. Kakalios teaches in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the U of Minnesota, and offers a class called "Everything I Needed to Know about Physics, I Learned from Comic Books." Instead of the usual physics course fare of studying how pulleys pull and levers...leve?, Kakalios primarily uses examples from the Silver Age of comics [the 1950s & '60s] to demonstrate the principles of physics.

He promises up front that if you can grasp the equation 1/2 + 1/2 = 1, you will be able to handle the math he presents. He starts off with a couple of fundamentals: F=ma [Force equals mass times acceleration]; and, how Superman can leap tall buildings in a single bound. His explanation is clear, his math straightforward, and his forgiveness for comic book reality bountiful. The rest of the book is pretty much the same thing: each physics concept explained through some exciting action in comics history. Superman and Spider-Man help teach us about gravity and centrifugal force, respectively. From Ant-Man's escapades we learn about the structure of atoms, and torque. Magneto helps us understand - of course - magnetism. We even get an explanation for how the Hulk manages to keep his pants on when he gets angry.

It's a physics book, so it's not exactly entertainment, though it is entertaining if you get off on physics. Which I do. I'm sure it's still more entertaining if you get off on comic books as well. Kakalios cracks a lot of bad jokes & painful puns, which kind of reminds me of actually being in a physics class. That's okay, though - nice, in fact. The occasional groaner keeps his plain, straightforward writing style from being dry and textbookish. To sum up, The Physics of Superheroes is a good read, and I really want to take this guy's course.

If it wasn't for disappointment, I wouldn't have any appointments

Disappointment: Katee Sackhoff [Starbuck on BSG] is on the DragonCon cancelled list. Aw damn.

Consolation: Claudia Black [Aeryn Sun on Farscape & Vala on SG-1] has been added to the guest list. Yay!

Further consolation: Adam Baldwin [Jayne on Firefly] is also scheduled to be there.

Saviour of the universe!

So, I watched the pilot for the new Flash Gordon series last night and overall, I'm sold. I don't know what's considered canon for Flash Gordon and though I've seen the 1980 movie a bunch of times, I don't know anything about the serial, so I can't say how well the new show is "sticking to the story." The new series does feature some recognizable elements, while introducing a few interesting new twists. Steven "Flash" Gordon is a local hero, a marathon winner & the high school sweetheart of Dale Arden. However, it's well past high school, Flash is still living with his mother, and Dale has moved on to a respectable job as a reporter, complete with a fiancee on the side. Of course, her fiancee isn't destined to become an intergalactic hero, so we already know he doesn't stand a chance.

The writing didn't strike me as particularly good or especially bad, though there were a few bits of dialogue that I found pretty entertaining. The story so far is engaging and while I'm not exactly pulling for the hero yet, I am curious to see what'll happen next. Also, if nothing else would have kept my attention, this show does make with the hotties.

The christening of a spectacular new device, catching up on Eureka, and other sundry entertainments

There's been a fair bit of scifi activity going on lately, but not a lot of writing about it because, well, the entertainment is too distracting. These days, I'm heavily into costume making for DragonCon. It's been something of a challenge as I pick up some handy new sewing skills. The task has been a great joy, though, as I both learn new things as well as get some really good time with my new sewing machine, The ESM* Sam Carter. It's a Brother CS-6000i, and it is totally awesome. As I work on costumes and test the handling of this most excellent machine, I'm reminded yet again of what a great difference good tools make.

So, I didn't post anything about last week's Eureka, but I definitely enjoyed it. For the most part, it stayed on the tolerable side of sappy, though I could have done without the part where the entire town traipses past Jack's bedside. However, that sap was more than made up for with SARAH's touching musical accompaniment at the end. Heheh. And of course, I'm glad Zoe's sticking around.

This week's episode was another entertaining one, though maybe a little further toward ridiculous than some eps. Ridiculous as any situation might be, though, Jack plays the consummate straightman. After a year in his job he's come to accept the extraordinary being ordinary, but he's still continually amazed by what passes for normal.

Finally, the premiere of the new Flash Gordon is on tonight. I haven't seen much beyond commercials and bits of news on the interweb, but it doesn't look half bad. Bear in mind, though, this is coming from someone who loved the 1980 movie, so take my opinion as you will.

*Erica's Sewing Machine. I named it The Sam Carter after the character from Stargate SG-1.

Maybe they should have stayed lost

The first installment of Babylon 5: The Lost Tales was released last week on DVD. Voices in the Dark consists of two brief, unrelated stories that play like short B5 episodes. The first segment follows Colonel Elizabeth Lochley [Tracy Scoggins] as she encounters a crafty hellspawn who's taken up residence in one of the station's crew. In the second, President John Sheridan [Bruce Boxleitner] struggles with the decision to kill a future Hitler. Oy.

Unfortunately, I really don't think there's much good to say about The Lost Tales. Given how incredibly bad the last B5 effort was [Legend of the Rangers, 2002], my expectations were low. I was not disappointed. Bored, but not disappointed. Series creator J. Michael Straczynski shows his flair for heavy-handed writing and is perhaps even more two-dimensional in his moralizing & philosophizing than on the original series. It's hard to knock the actors much, given what they have to work with and the fact that JMS not only wrote but also directed. The cast didn't stand a chance. This is frustrating in the same way the Star Wars franchise frustrates me. JMS, like George Lucas, can craft a hell of a story, but then he doesn't have the sense to back off and let the professionals do their jobs. A reprise of the B5 universe could be magnificent, if only JMS would delegate some of the work. As it is, he demanded complete creative control on this project, and it shows in the results.

On the plus side, Bruce Boxleitner is aging well, so I guess I can be grateful for a little eye candy. Seeing Teryl Rothery [Dr. Frasier on SG-1] also made me smile. I can't say I recommend bothering with this unless you're a pretty hardcore B5 fan. Perhaps this was just a warm-up, though, and the next installment will offer a substantially higher grade of entertainment. Yeah, that's it.