Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Serving fandom in a very cool way

Some of you know I'm into slash (in short: dirty stories about hot men on scifi shows). Well, slash is a subset of a genre called fanfiction, itself a subset of something dubbed "transformative works" - original works based on existent materials. For example, Gregory Maguire's Wicked ("The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West") falls into this category, as it is an original piece of writing that used L. Frank Baum's Oz stories as a springboard.

Really, though, the Organization for Transformative Works can explain it better than I can, which is the point of this post: go check it out if you're into that sort of thing. The OTW seems like a really great idea and can use your support.

Stargate Continuum trailer

Though I've watched the first Stargate straight-to-DVD flick, The Ark of Truth, I haven't posted about it yet and I'm not sure I will. I just don't have that much to say; it was a decent episode, on par with anything else from seasons 9 & 10. The movie I'm looking forward to, though, comes out this July - Stargate Continuum.

If you're impatient like I am, and can tolerate terrible quality, check out the trailer that was shown last weekend at the Stargate con in Vancouver. Be warned, it's a fan recording of the showing, so it really looks awful. Also, I wouldn't expect it to be available for very long. Hopefully, an official trailer will be online soon.

No surprise here, but I squeed along with the rest of the audience when Jack O'Neill showed up onscreen.

Geeks who can kick your ass

Q. What's the difference between people with tattoos and people without?
A. People with tattoos are cooler than you are and can kick your ass.

I just love that joke :) While I've seen lots of cool tat sites, a friend pointed me to Carl Zimmer's Science Tattoo Emporium, which is among the coolest, featuring a huge variety of ink from all geekly disciplines. It's definitely worth a look-see!

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Holy shit, that was cool!

For a few days, that's about as far as I was able to get in my thoughts about the Battlestar Galactica season 4 opener. I'll try to expand on that a bit now, though. It wasn't the best episode ever (that was season 3's "Exodus pt. 2"), but it definitely did not suck. That said, I'll start with the things I wasn't so fond of. I won't say I exactly disliked Tigh's murderous little trip to Imaginationland in the beginning, but I wasn't crazy about how it was done, all heavy-handed and something between too weird and not weird enough. I'm also not sure at all what I think of Roslin. Yes, I've been saying that for awhile now, but I continue to wonder. She's a great character and super hot, but she's also pretty damn frightening as the president, and I have big issues with her being so damn close to the military commander of the fleet. Of course, the part of me that's a sqeeing fangirl loves that she's staying in Adama's quarters while she's on the Gallactica.

Well, on to something I feel much more clear about - Anders getting scanned? activated?...at least recognized by the cylon raider, was fantastic. Though when that was finally discussed by the four - Anders, Tigh, the chief & Tory - I was a little confused by what the hell their agreement was about. We're not going to do anything bad because we don't want to? I appreciate their determination, but good luck with that, ya toasters! And that's not even saying I think any of them is going to get activated by the cylons and try to do something to endanger the fleet. I just think that scene was a little ridiculous, because there's no reason to think they'll have a choice should that, in fact, be part of their programming. But regardless of all that, I don't think these four pose the same kind of threat to the humans that the other seven do; they are markedly different and the fact that they've been in the fleet all this time just scratches the surface of those differences.

Later, though, when Starbuck told Anders she'd put a bullet between his eyes if she found out he was a cylon, that scene made me happy. How wonderfully in character of her.

Which brings us to the big questions - where the hell has Starbuck been for the past couple months? What happened to her Viper? Did she actually find Earth? Was she with her cylon boyfriend, Leoben, being programmed? Clearly, something big happened to her while she was gone, because she's having a hell of a reaction every time they jump farther away from what she believes is the path to Earth. Is she right? I suspect we won't get any real answers for a good long time.

And finally, there's Baltar and his cadre of worshipful hippie chicks. Not even sure what to say about that. He was funny and so very himself, and as much as I don't like all the religious BS, I can't wait to see where that goes.

I'll close with a pointer to a great pic from a GQ shoot, featuring Grace Park, Tricia Helfer and Katee Sackhoff in full Barbarella regalia. Scifi is all about the hot chicks!