Monthly Archives: November 2010

Back From Convention

We got back last night from Loscon 37, the Los Angeles Area SF convention. This was a good Loscon and I had a great time. There were lots of interesting panels and presentations plus Saturday night I enjoyed the parties so much I stayed out past my knees’ endurance.

I would chat more about the convention, but I’ve been headachy today and am so now. This is going to be a brief post before bed.

It does, however, look like there is a road trip in the near future. The Mojave Air and Spaceport has an open house event every third Saturday they call Plane Crazy Saturdays, and on those Saturdays Xcor — a private enterprise rocket company — hosts open-houses. Xcor is a cool company staffed by cool people and if they stay on schedule they’ll be flying their sub-orbital spaceplane next year.

Not a dropship like Spaceship one and Two, but a craft that takes off like an airplane, scoots above the atmosphere into space — briefly — and then return to the spaceport to be readied for another flight.

Share

I’m back

with updates.

Turns out my lost post was made too quickly as Saturday was not super.

Oh most of the day went fairly well and I had a fun time at the San Diego Vintage SF screening of Them! However I learned just how modern I have truly become. During them film one of the characters, a female scientist named Pat, is looking at information on a clipboard. It was the style of clipboard with a flip-top cover, and she held the cover up while she read the sheets underneath. The camera’s POV was from the far side so all the audience could see was the cover upright and vertical, I saw it and the first thing my mind registered was a scientist working at her laptop. It took a moment for me to realize that I was NOT looking at a laptop fifty years early. I swear I had to make myself look and realize it was just a clipboard.

Anyway I Got home from the screening and with a couple of friends proceeded to play on the Xbox. I started feeling poorly, headache and upset GI tract. I had to suspend the xbox gaming and call it a night.

The next morning I was feeling a little better and I went and saw Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 1 with my sweetie-wife. (Good film I really liked it.) We had lunch and soon after I was feeling worse. We made it home but by that time I was weak and feeling like someone had overinflated my abdomen.

This is was state until yesterday. I made it back and forth to work, but beyond that I end no energy or inclination for anything more strenuous than watching videos, and not much of that.

(My Sunday Night Movie was going to be The Omega Man, but I couldn’t watch the entire film. I bailed early and went to bed.)

Tomorrow we’ll scoot for LosCon and luckily I seem to be recovered. I took a walk this morning, about an hour across uneven ground and I tolerated it well.

Share

Super Saturday

So I picked up Call of Duty: Black Ops for my Xbox 306 and that has proved to be a very enjoyable game. I love a couple of the new feature, such as theaters where you can watch and clip your past games as movies and I love that you can now take a friend on-line as a guest. (Shame it doesn’t allow two friends.)

Tonight I’ll be heading out to San Diego Vintage SF for a screening of Them!, so tonight is looking good.

Share

Calm Down Liberals and Sullivan

Thanks to the synergistic timing of Sarah Palin’s TLC Realty show and her daughter’s entry into the finalist rounds of Dancing with the Has-Beens, people are again freaking out over Sarah Palin and the thought she might run for president. Andrew Sullivan certainly in this pack and is always a twitter over the GOP being remade in Sarah;’s image.

Everyone should just take a deep breath and take a stress pill.

First off the idea that the GOP is being remade into Sarah’s image didn’t seem to pass the election test. The Candidates most like her in style and in substance, O’Donnell and Angel both lost. Angel very much avoided the main stream press and tried to get to the Senate without facing serious inquiry. Yes, she nearly won, against an incumbent who was hated in his own state, and on the wrong side of a wave election. That fact that she couldn’t beat Harry Reid is evidence just how weak of a candidate she truly was. Any sort of mainstream Republican candidate would have blow Harry out of the water in this election. The same goes for Delaware and Christine O’Donnell. So the Sarah Palin model — if there is such a  thing — is a losing one.

Yes, Sarah Avoids the press and only get interviewed by friendly press. So what? She is not running for anything. She is not a politician, she is a celebrity.

I maintain that she is not an idiot, in fact I am counting on her not being on idiot. She is in her happy spot, she had found her niche in the modern entertainment/political ecosystem. she gets paid loads of money, get all the friendly press and attention she could want, and has zero real responsibilities. I do not believe she is going to throw that aside.

Nope.

She’s not going to run. She’ll tease her base with it, ’cause that brings in teh support and love and the dollars, but she’s not going to do it.

Share

not a hundred percent

I am suffering from a headache anda clogged sinuses tonight so there will not be any real blogging.

On the plus side I had an idea occur to me for a fantasy short story. On honest-to-god sword and spell fantasy short story. Being me it is of course entirely from the bad guy’s point of view.

see you peeps later

Share

Sunday Night Movie:Rollerball (1975)

Jonathan E. only wants two things out of life, to have his wife back and to play Rollerball. He’s played Rollerball for the Houston team on behalf of the Energy Corporation for nearly ten years. Longer than any other man has ever player the brutal and often deadly sport. Now the Corporation, one of seven that rule in a world without nations, has told him to retire. Jonathan, one man, stands against the corporate machine in defiance and the corporation will not be defied.

Rollerball is one of the first stories that can be called cyberpunk. Made in 1975 the film depicts a world without want, without suffering, with war, and without freedom. A world where the nation-state has withered away, but communism did not rise rather corporations did. They manage the world and provide for everyone’s needs, all they ask is that people keep out of managerial decisions.

Rollerball stars James Cann as Jonathan e, the best Rollerballer the world has ever seen, and that is a danger to the corporation. The game is both gladiatorial bloodsport to keep the masses happy and entertained and symbolic message that one man can not make a difference.

This is a brand of SF filmmaking from the 70’s that I truly miss. Before Star Wars, the Sf films of the 70’s by and large had important themes and messages. They were concerned with ideas and the implications of those ideas. Thanks to ground breaking films before them. 2001, The Planet Of The Apes, The Day The Earth Stood Still, SF films were beginning to be seen as a fully adult medium for story telling. this fully matured in the 70’s until Star Wars.

Don’t get me wrong I love me my fun action filled Star Wars, but it displaced by the massive box office it generated, the idea of the small thoughtful SF movie. Science Fiction at the theater became the domain of the block buster, the wanna be blockbuster, always with more and more elaborate special effects.It is like the SF buffet was now comprised solely of Ice cream and Cookies.

We’ve seen a few thoughtful Sf films post Star Wars, but by and large the spectacle has ruled the day.

Share