Want a good laugh?

Go here. Grab the Weird Al Yankovic/Firefly video "Your Horoscope."

High-larious.

Don't misunderstand: I thought I Am Legend was a wonderful adaptation and update to the original story, well-acted and scary; Sweeney Todd was a horrid delight; and even Golden Compass was an enjoyable romp (kudos to Meera, I think, (or De) who summed it up as 'great frosting, white cake').

But for sheer joy of watching, truly laugh-out-loud moments that made me cover my mouth to keep everyone else from losing the dialog, heart-warming, heart-wrenching, touching, smart, true film making? (With perhaps the best soundtrack I've heard in years as an added bonus.)

Juno. Number one with a bullet. I highly, highly recommend you go see it, if you have the means.

As I may have mentioned, I got most of the expansions available for Catan during the holidays, and we've had a chance to play a couple times since then.

Current tally:
- me: 1
- kate: 1
- champagne: 2

I hope everyone had a happy New Year's Eve Arbitrary Calendar Event Celebration. We had Kaylee, so the evening was a relatively quiet one spent at home, working on a Super Secret Web Project, and then curled up on the couch to watch the extended director's cut version of Return of the King until well into the night (Denethor was taking a flaming header off Minas Tirith when midnight rolled around).

There are worse ways to see in the New Year.

Tomorrow, it's back to the grindstone, not to mention a new agently-originated series of revisions for Hidden Things. Evenings, I suspect, are going involve more work on the kitchen/family room project, which ended up being much more involved than we'd anticipated. More on that (with videos!) later.

My personal opinion? Sweeney Todd was wonderful and entertaining and totally at home on the screen. The Golden Compass was annoyingly reminiscent of the fourth Harry Potter installment -- short-shrift summary, like a visual cliff notes version of the original text.

Now, I've heard from folks who haven't read the book, saw the movie, and really enjoyed it, so perhaps some of my impressions comes from having seen the whole cloth the shortpants suit was cut from, but that's my impression -- they could have done better than they did. I was particularly annoyed by an unnecessary inclusion toward the end of the movie that actually introduced a fairly obvious plot hole that doesn't actually exist in the book it's based on. That's just sloppy.

Still: armored bears, Sam Elliot, and clockwork technology -- there's a lot to like in what you get. (Even with Nicole Kidman and her distracting plastic face getting in the way.)

Though, in talking to the locals, it doesn't sound as though I could have gotten into a showing anyway.

I am Legend opened this weekend to record-breaking attendance. This TOTALLY NON-HOLIDAY MOVIE was the highest-grossing December release of all time, and the biggest opening week movie for Will "Mister Fourth of July Blockbuster" Smith.

I read the book a few years ago and really believe it deserves to be listed as one of the great genre classics. I can't wait to see the movie next week when Kate gets into town.

Nathan Fillion, on being Malcolm Reynolds

Somebody once asked me what it was like to be Malcolm Reynolds. Usually I get, “Why was Firefly cancelled?� and “Is there going to be another season/sequel?� But what was it like? Specifically, to be Mal? I wasn’t quite ready for it. I mean, sure, it was great. Boots. Coat. Gun. Ride horses. Shoot guns. Shoot guns at horses. Stinks like awesome. But what was it like? It was so long ago it pieces together like childhood memories, complete with those moments of clarity that suddenly strike you with, “Oh, yeah! I remember that!� and a lot more moments of, “Really? We did that? Was I drunk?� But like those childhood memories there are images and feelings that are indelible.

Faith in the Firefly 'verse.

Good article. Makes me want to watch the show again.

Pick a random page on the TV Tropes and Idioms wiki.

Click on any link in that entry that looks interesting, or uses a term you don't know, or want to see if you know.

See how much time you burn before you realize you are STILL browsing the site.

That's all the Whedon fan-chilluns, freaking out, as Joss Whedon announces a new television series.

Echo (Eliza Dushku) [is] a young woman who is literally everybody's fantasy. She is one of a group of men and women who can be imprinted with personality packages, including memories, skills, language—even muscle memory—for different assignments. The assignments can be romantic, adventurous, outlandish, uplifting, sexual and/or very illegal. When not imprinted with a personality package, Echo and the others are basically mind-wiped, living like children in a futuristic dorm/lab dubbed the Dollhouse, with no memory of their assignments—or of much else. The show revolves around the childlike Echo's burgeoning self-awareness, and her desire to know who she was before, a desire that begins to seep into her various imprinted personalities and puts her in danger both in the field and in the closely monitored confines of the Dollhouse.

Better still is the interview that follows the announcement.

Eliza had her deal with Fox, and we went to lunch, as we sometimes do, to talk about her career and what her next step should be. Like, do I know writers, and what was the best way to protect herself, and what type of show. Eliza and I do this sometimes, because she's a friend and a great talent, and that's easily misused. She was trying to protect herself, and I was trying to get a free lunch. In the middle of lunch, I came up with the idea of this show and the title by accident.

On this, Blog Action Day, the topic is the Environment. Of course, we're supposed to talk about the real life environment, but there are some lessons that we take from fiction.

Namely, hobbits.

I've been playing a lot of Lord of the Rings Online, and during that time I've been spending a fair amount of time in the area of the game built to represent the Shire. This has been a kind of geeky paradise for me, because I love love love Tolkien's work and seeing it realized more fully in a virtual setting is just tons of fun.

But while I'm geeking out, I'm looking at the hobbit-houses in the game and thinking "man... wouldn't it be great if you could live in a house like that? Forget about how awesome it would be... just think of the savings on heating and cooling... look at the profile of the thing... it's just such an excellent DESIGN."

So... half geek and half responsible eco-parent. Okay. Fine.

Now, we can't bulldoze all the houses and buildings that are out there, of course, but how excellent would it be if someone out there was at least trying to provide a solution like this for NEW housing. If you can't get the government to do a damned thing about Global Warming, make changes on a personal level, right?

Personally, I want a real, beautiful hobbit hold, but if not that, maybe Earthship?

(Thanks to the WoW Insider poster that linked to this earlier.)

Genius, fan-created videos promoting Stardust as the ultimate tourist destination: Visit Stormhold

xkcd - by Randall Munroe

The DVDs for both 300 and Hot Fuzz (from the geniuses behind Shawn of the Dead) are both out today.

Fox picks up Drive.

Drive gets a lot of good press.

Fox cancels Drive.

Drive gets a lot more good press.

Drive, canceled, still gets an Emmy nomination, and makes Emmy history.

Fox gets good publicity for a show it axed.

Again.

Wednesday last week Kate got into town late, due to flight issues, so that meant she and Kaylee and I finally got back to the house around 2 am. Yuck.

Thursday Kate spent some time at the gym and biking around the neighborhood. She was heard to comment: "street names like TimberRIDGE and NorthRIDGE, all located in HIGHLANDS Ranch seem to indicate hilly terrain. Who'da thunk?"

When I got home, we finished up a project Kate had started -- cleaning out the hallway hutch to make a space for our wedding china and other pretties. It felt good to get that generally cluttered and poorly used area all straightened up.

We then went to Transformers. This is a great, fun summertime flick. If you saw and enjoyed Die Hard for its summer movie goodness, you will enjoy this movie -- that's my personal belief. Good stuff -- lots of funny -- we had a great time.

FridayI had work, and Kate went back to the gym and a longer bike ride. This time, she was lulled into a trap by the innocuous sounding "Venneford Ranch" street name, which is actually both steeper and longer than any of the streets with "Ridge" in the name.

That evening, Dave and Margie and Jim and Ginger and Katherine came over. We ate a lot of good food, talked about home improvement stuff, let Kaylee charm us, and then Dave and Margie and Kate and I played Primetime Adventures, and other three headed home.

Saturday, we dropped Kaylee off at Jackie's and headed to the Aurora Reservoir for check in and orientation for the Triathlon. Met up with Kate's longtime friend Yi Shun and her husband Jim, who came in from Chicago to do the tri, as well as visit friends and do some work meetings. The orientation, bike drop off, and lunch took up most of the day. We headed home, got some pizza for supper, and watched the fourth Harry Potter movie on DVD.

This was not the movie we watched.

My thoughts on HP #4, from a guy who hasn't read the book yet:

#4 is not a movie adaptation of a book. It's a audiovisual summary of the book... and not a great one; about like having a friend a stranger who read the book try to get you caught up before you go see Order of the Phoenix. I was left thinking "if all I had to go on was this movie, I would be wondering what on earth made someone think making a movie from these books was a good idea." It's not... BAD -- it's just... uninspired.

Sunday The Triathlon, about which more has been said elsewhere. Check out my Flickr page for more pictures.

I love Flickr, by the way. I've upgraded to the Pro Account for the extra functionality, more sets, unlimited uploads, and what amounts to a private domain just for hosting my pictures. The price is reasonable, the service is top-notch, and I can pick up prints from my local Target about an hour after making the order. Plus, it allows picture blogging from the phone, and a host of other goodies. I'm in the process of getting ALL my pictures up there.

In the afternoon, we moved Bert-the-Oven over to Jackie's, and moved Unnamed Oven back to our place.

Yes, after getting up at five in the morning and doing a Triathlon, Kate then helped me move two ovens across town. She's like a super hero or something.

That evening, Kate and I went to Harry Potter #5.

My thoughts on HP #5, from a guy who hasn't read the book yet:

This is a great movie. It's fun, it's dark, the translation from book to film is inspired and well-done (notable: this is the only movie that hasn't been translated to film by the same guy as #1, #2, #3, and #4, and it makes me sad and worried that Mr. 1 though 4 is coming back to translate #6), the acting is superb, the real villain of the piece (played by Imelda Staunton) is easily the most HATEABLE character in the HP stories, and quite possibly in any movie I've ever seen. Most villains (and the actors playing them) go for a kind of bad-boy cool -- Staunton goes for the most pleasantly loathsome creature I've ever ...

*shakes head* She steals the movie, then tortures it, while you watch, breathless. She's THAT good at being THAT evil. GOD I hated her.

Anyway: good movie. Easily my favorite of the HP series to date. (Azkaban was good, but still managed to disappoint me in its delivery in some places. Ever nit I've ever picked about the HP series in general is handled with a kind of inspired grace in Order of the Phoenix.

To compare: OotP made me want to read the book because it was a fun movie and I want to reexperience the good stuff from the screen and get all the extra bits that they had to take out. Goblet of Fire made me want to read the book because I figure that the story can't actually be that bad. (I'm assuming/hoping, there, that #4 isn't bad for the same reason #2 was: that it was based on a bad story to begin with.)

Monday Countdown, a plugin for your iGoogle page, is very handy. What date could I want to count down to? Hmmm...

Did a bit of errand running in the afternoon, then picked up Kaylee (I have her all this week, due to some work stuff Jackie's got going on) -- we all sat around and watched Titan A.E., which both Joss Whedon and Ben Edlund wrote for -- good fun stuff, and Kate hadn't seen it. After the wee munchkin was off to bed, Kate and I watched Resident Evil, which she also hadn't seen. Fun Zombie flick. No nearly as scary as the game, but good action movie zombie fun.

Tuesday Kate flew back to New York. Happy Doyce is all out of Happy. :P

That evening, Kaylee and I played and watched a bunch of Avatar, Book 2 episodes. That is one of my favorite animated shows ever, I think. Great stuff.

Wednesday Today! Umm... not much going on. How about you?

Kung Fu Monkey: Astonishing Adventures Magazine

"But what is pulp? Star Wars, of course, is pulp, not science fiction (Star Trek always stays in sci fi), as is Doctor Who. 24 is pulp. Farscape was best when it was pulp. Transmetropolitan, which you MUST READ, is scifi-journo-hero pulp. Heroes is not pulp, and Lost is sometimes pulp, depending on who's writing it.

Any time the heroes resolve a complex situation by running down a corridor as shit explodes around them and completely over-the-top implacable enemies scream imprecations through rising flames and our guys pause just long enough to say something somehow simultaneously smart and corny and heart-achingly true, then start running again because the clock is ticking and nobody saw this twist coming and they're *making it up as they go along* -- pulp."

That analysis screed, combined with a link to a new online-only pulp magazine... that's taking fiction subscriptions...

Hmmmmmm.

Seriously, how does something like that happen?

Also inexplicably absent from my DVD library: Batman Begins, Superman Returns, and Casino Royale.

Movies I'd like to see: Silver Surfer, Waitress, Ocean's Thirteen, and Die Hard 4, about which I have heard many many good things.

Priceless.

And there's four of them. :)

Even BETTER: "I'm a Marvel, and I'm Batman." Two of em.

Even better than THAT: The Villain Edition

Elizabeth: The Golden Age

All sequels should be this good.

Othar Tryggvassen has a TWITTER PAGE.

Bummed that Othar isn't around that much? WORRY NOT! Keep up to date with his adventures via his Twitter page.

Granted, the stated use of Twitter - to out-blog blogs by letting you spam your friends with the minute-to-minute trivia of your life - that's kinda horrible (I tend to use it for the mo-blogging that MT doesn't support. :P), but this? This is Genius.

Girl Genius.

I Am Legend, the movie. Starring... Will Smith.

Huh.

supersecretthingy -- redefine your heroes

As much as I lust for a PowerMacBook or seriously consider reformatting my laptop with Ubuntu Linux, one truth remains: something like the OQO Model 02 is what I *really* want my next portable computer to be.

The OQO 02 is powered by a 1.5GHz ultra low-voltage CPU that breezes through Windows XP or Vista. There is 1GB (max) RAM, and up to 60GB hard drive. The 5" 800x480 outdoor-readable glossy TFT is nothing short of spectacular; it slides up to reveal the keyboard. It also has 802.11a/b/g WiFi and Bluetooth 2.0 with EDR stereo headset support.

That's right: this uPC (ultra Portable Computer) is more powerful than my current laptop, and is about the size of a Gameboy Advance. Runs about 1500 to 2000 bucks. Bonus: it even runs WoW. :)

A modern remake of the Bionic Woman series is the worst idea ever in the history of everything. Right?

NBC is doing it. It's coming this fall.

It's from the folks who created the new Battlestar Galactica. Could they possible take yet another old show and recreate it to make it better than it has any right to be?

NBC has released a 60-second clip of the show to YouTube.

Bionic Woman

The answer is "yes."

'Heroes' Expands Universe with 'Origins' quasi-spinoff

The network has hit upon a way to keep the show off of reruns for nearly the entire season, ordering more episodes of the show and embarking on a quasi-spinoff called "Heroes: Origins." Combined, the shows will account for 30 original episodes next season.

Essentially, the Origins one-off episodes will focus on the background of newly introduced characters. Awesome.

A quick word about one thing I really like about the Heroes character concepts: with a few notable exceptions (Peter, Syler) the paranormals are all fairly limited in the scope of their abilities ("I do one thing, and I figure out cool ways to apply that one thing in multiple situations."), and the writers aren't afraid to create people whose one ability is very ... non-comic-traditional-booky. "The guy who can can hear really well" is never going to suit up for the X-men. In a way not unlike InSpectres, the "Cool" thing about each character is the ways in which they are wholly human, not the ways in which they are not.

And yes, there are some people who totally could, as Peter says, "run around in a cape with my underwear outside my pants" in a 'normal' comic book. Clair. Nikki/Jessica. D.L. Their son Micah... Hmm. Sensing a theme?

Related Links:

* As the originator/creator/builder of Fireflywiki.org, I have feel a lot of respect (and surprise) for NBC creating and hosting a Heroes Wiki on their main site.
* I feel like geeking out. Here's some Heroes Swag I can buy to accomplish that.

Can hardly wait for the season finale next week.

*makes a helpless gesture*

Once again, the battle is on.

This is how it works.

Tim Minear executive produces a show for Fox. (think Firefly, Wonderfalls or The Inside)

Critics say mostly nice things about the show.

Fox cancels the show in <13 episodes.

Somehow, despite this, Minear keeps going back, and Fox keeps paying him. Drive is the latest entry into the Dark Tower cycle of destruction.

And of course I like it. A lot.

Now, I have to first point out that that doesn't automatically mean that the show is doomed. Not entirely. I like Heroes, right? (Of course, WHEN is that going to air again? Damn...) Generally, Minear's stuff is pretty wacky and hard to get into the mainstream, and THAT is why they struggle. Firefly: cowboys and spaceships... whatever Wonderfalls elevator-pitches as... et cetera.Drive isn't like that. This thing is (on paper) a mainstream slamdunk, embodying concepts from a number of shows that do pretty darn well -- it's got 24's time-crunch feel, the 'chase' elements of Prison Break a large but memorable cast with some great anti-heroes (like um... Heroes). Wonderfalls might have suffered from casual neglect and Firefly was all but sabotaged, but Fox is really getting behind Drive and promoting the heck out of it.

So what's it about?

The characters are all (well, mostly all) participants in an illegal cross-country roadrace, with a final payoff of 32 million dollars. Sounds like Cannonball Run? Sure, but while that idea and others like it are shoe-ins for American-viewer love (as the show's trailer points out -- and I will talk about later -- cars idle along at very real heart of Americana), that's not really what the show's about. The car-race stuff (almost entirely and almost undetectably shot on a green screen) takes a back seat (heh) to the people in the race and whatever Issue has them gunning for the finish line. The main guy -- Alex Tully (Firefly's Nathan Fillion) -- is a landscaper who gets blackmailed into joining the race to recover/save his kidnapped wife (played by Angel's Amy Acker). Sound like a complicated motivation for someone in a race-show? That's too bad: pretty much everyone in the Race has complicated stuff going on. We've got estranged half-brothers who just found out about each other, Hurricane Katrina survivors, a mentally unstable -- or abused, or both -- new mother... and some spooky kind of all-seeing, all-knowing forces behind the race itself -- the kind of people who say things like "Oh, you lost this leg of the race? Here's your penalty -- go do [something morally objectionable] -- we want to watch."

So why do *I* like it?

1. Issues, issues, issues. These characters have got em, in spades, and it makes them interesting as hell. I really want to know what's going on with these guys -- what's going to happen to them, and how long these partnerships will last before shattering and reforming and shattering again under the pressure.

2. Depth. These characters have got it. Sometimes that depth is really profound and moving, and sometimes it's a dark, watery place with strange, scary creatures moving around within. Watch the third episode. Watch Alex Tully racing along the highway, cocooned (literally) in his past life. Watch that small, fierce little smirk crawl from the corner of his mouth and up into his eyes. You'll know what I mean. Watch the depths that get hinted at in the forces behind the Race, too -- it's good stuff.

3. Cars. I've spoken about this before in another context, but there's something about cars that taps into people at a bone-deep, hind-brain level. There isn't an environment today that cars don't seep into, or an activity; we've left our life behind in them, traveled in them, arrived in them, broken them, fixed them, abandoned them, found them, had sex in them, lived in them, died in them, and carried ourselves, our families, or bodies (dead or alive) in them. They're as much a part of our lives as our pets, our family, our loved ones. Sometimes they ARE our loved ones. Minear gets that, and he brings it in without hitting us over the head with it -- not every car is special, or has a story, or a personality, but every single one of them in the show -- every SINGLE one, tells us about the person driving it with a kind of genius, instinctive shorthand that I bet most of us don't even realize we know how to read, fluently; HAVE known how to read since before we could ride without a booster seat.

Watch the show. Afterwards, pick out the cars and see what they tell you about the drivers. It'll fill pages.

Watch the show into its third episode, where we finally get past all the intros and lead-in action and basic backstory and get to sink into the characters a little more.

Mostly, just watch the show. Try it out. If you don't like it, I won't say a thing. :)

Neil Gaiman has begun writing his next book. Longhand, apparently, which both impresses and awes me. He details part of the process here, with pretty pictures.

You can watch all three episodes of Drive in HD, sans commercials, here.

Caveat -- you need to view the page in IE, and use their embedded player.

Go. Watch. Set your recorders for Monday nights. What ELSE are yah gonna watch as the summer TV doldrums hit?

((Thanks to Jae for the tip!))

It's so good. Nathan Fillion is so good.

The ratings for the first night were terrible. I'm sure it's going to be canceled.

But it's So. Good.

I don't suppose anyone recorded the first part of the premiere of Drive, did they?

Someone please give me permission to buy these ten, 18x24, limited edition, gorgeous Serenity blueprints.

Please.

From Locus Online (April 1st edition)

VATICAN CITY - Today the Roman Curia announced that the beatification of Neil Gaiman had been completed, putting the writer one step closer to the official recognition of his sainthood. These steps were carried out despite the fact that Gaiman himself has repeatedly denied being a saint, pointing out that he was not Catholic, not really religious and, most importantly, not dead.

Mark Sheppard on his role on Battlestar Galactica

Two great spoofs of Mac's anti-PC ads, featuring the introduction of the third character, Linux. I thought it was funny, until Kate asked me in all honesty "there's another operating system out there, called Linux? Really?" *

Really.

In fact, as SEB reports, Dell is going to start offering the OS on even more of their PCs and Laptops (they already offer it for Servers and their "work" line of desktops).

Based on customer feedback Dell began soliciting last month, Dell said that top of mind among customers was that the company should begin offering Linux as an alternative to Windows on its personal computers, according to a posting on a company blog. Dell said it "has heard" what customers said and will act accordingly.

"We will expand our Linux support beyond our existing servers and Precision workstation line," the company said on its IdeaStorm blog. "Our first step in this effort is offering Linux pre-installed on select desktop and notebook systems."

This may very well induce my next computer purchase.

(* - And that's not to poke fun at Kate -- it's to register my surprise at the relatively low amount of presence that Linux has achieved in the public awareness.)

WoW Style

Is it funny, cool, or sad that Kate sent me this?

Neil Gaiman's most recent Journal entry

• Test runs of the new Stardust movie!
• Russians are stealing our bees!
• Unabridged Neverwhere audiobook, read by Neil, coming soon!

All his posts should have this much valuable info.

On writing nonlinear plots that work, namely "Out of Gas". Peter Rogers digs into "Out of Gas" and explores how a truly excellent non-linear story can work.

Also, the script copy that he links to for reference? It's on Fireflywiki.org, so... heh. Go me. :)

Things I Desperately Wish Women Would Say to Me on First Dates. I don't think Kate's ever actually said any of those things (except, thankfully, the last one), but there HAVE been quite a few super-geeky bits of conversation over the last year. :)

Seven Things I Learned from World of Warcraft (Go to http://johnaugust.com/?p=718 to read it -- I'm killing the link because the trackback spammers are coming back here.)

1. Kill injured monsters first In Warcraft: When facing multiple bad guys, the temptation is to go after the one who's hitting you hardest. This is often a mistake. That injured razorback, the one who is running away? He'll be back in 15 seconds, likely with other baddies in tow. So take a few clicks to kill him now. Once he's dead, you can focus completely on the guy who's smacking you.

The real world may not have druids and paladins, but it's chock full of monsters. They're called "term papers" and "errands" and "mysterious car problems." At any given moment, there may be one monster that looms larger than all of the others, who clearly needs to be attacked. But before you do, look around for injured monsters -- the half-finished tasks that probably need only a few more minutes to complete. If you don't deal with them now, they'll be a constant distraction, and may eventually come back stronger.

This "injured monster theory" is why I try to return every phone call the day I receive it, and respond to every email within 24 hours. If a warning light comes on in my car, I go to the mechanic that day. Whenever I find myself thinking, "I need to remember to..." then I know I've failed. I don't need to remember. I need to do. I need to finish.

There's more I could write about this, but honestly? I need to train up my Revision skill, grinding on adverbs in Hidden Things.

How do you know that the cast of Hellboy really enjoyed working as those characters? When they ALL get back together to make two Hellboy animated features... before starting work on the next live-action feature.

Weird bit of trivia that came out of this: the guy that physically plays Abe Sapien in Hellboy (Doug Jones) was also Pan in Pan's Labyrinth and will be playing the Silver Surfer in the next Fantastic Four movie.

Dr Who Tardis USB hub: the light on top works and it makes "the sound."

• It's ironic that so many girls were all over the snowboarder at an Abstinence Fundraiser.
• The writer guy is going to tell Simon that the reason he didn't want to do the Militant Fruit of the Loom sketch isn't because it's black, but because it's stupid and not-funny. Because it's stupid and not-funny -- you can see it in the rehearsals. His line, spoken so softly I have to turn up the television, will be something like "I'm not anti-black... it's just a dumb idea." That is my expectation.
• Danny will tell Jordan exactly when he fell for her, and it'll totally charm her.
• Matt will get metaphorically kicked in the man-parts by Harriet so hard that one of them will pop.
• HOWEVER, his introductory speech at the benefit dinner for her will be so insanely touching that her dolphin heart will grow three sizes anyway. Which effect will just make her angrier, or at least more frustrated.
• Where the heck is the gossipy chick that Matt was dating before? The cast member? She hasn't been on, even in the background, in ages.

That is all. Back about your business.

M. Night's Shyamalan just announced he's doing a movie based on Nikolodean's (wonderful, funny, inspiring) Avatar: the Last Airbender.

In other news, the Amish have decided they like browsing the Internet -- especially shopping for cars online.

The instructions were: Bold the ones you've read, strike-out the ones you hated, italicize those you started but never finished and put an asterisk beside the ones you loved.

1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien *
2. The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
3. Dune, Frank Herbert *
4. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein
5. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin *
6. Neuromancer, William Gibson
7. Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke
8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
9. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury *
11. The Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe
12. A Canticle for Leibowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr. *
13. The Caves of Steel, Isaac Asimov
14. Children of the Atom, Wilmar Shiras
15. Cities in Flight, James Blish
16. The Colour of Magic, Terry Pratchett
17. Dangerous Visions, edited by Harlan Ellison
18. Deathbird Stories, Harlan Ellison
19. The Demolished Man, Alfred Bester
20. Dhalgren, Samuel R. Delany
21. Dragonflight, Anne McCaffrey
22. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
23. The First Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, Stephen R. Donaldson (now if I could only strike it from my memory)
24. The Forever War, Joe Haldeman
25. Gateway, Frederik Pohl
26. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, J.K. Rowling
27. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams *
28. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson *
29. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
30. The Left Hand of Darkness, Ursula K. Le Guin
31. Little, Big, John Crowley
32. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny *
33. The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick
34. Mission of Gravity, Hal Clement
35. More Than Human, Theodore Sturgeon
36. The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
37. On the Beach, Nevil Shute
38. Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke
39. Ringworld, Larry Niven
40. Rogue Moon, Algis Budrys
41. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien * (Sue me -- it's essentially a history book, but I enjoyed it a great deal.)
42. Slaughterhouse-5, Kurt Vonnegut
43. Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson
44. Stand on Zanzibar, John Brunner
45. The Stars My Destination, Alfred Bester
46. Starship Troopers, Robert A. Heinlein *
47. Stormbringer, Michael Moorcock *
48. The Sword of Shannara, Terry Brooks
49. Timescape, Gregory Benford
50. To Your Scattered Bodies Go, Philip Jose Farmer

As documented here, I went to the very good Casino Royale and returned to the internets gushing about the upcoming Pan's Labyrinth. I am not alone in my gushing; Guillermo del Toro's gothic fantasy has been named the best film of 2006 by the National Society of Film Critics. I can hardly wait to see it for myself.

Although I have been using feed readers for ages (rather than the blogrolling links featured along the side of my site), I hadn't heard of or made use of Google Reader, so it actually fell to Kate to forge the way into this new bit of lovely geek-toy-ery.

I love it. It's not a perfect reader by any stretch, but as there isn't actually a perfect news reader out there, that's not as big a problem as it might seem at first glance. One of the major benefits Google Reader has over its competitors is that (like GMail, Google Calendar, Google Spreadsheet, and the forthcoming Google-Everything-You-Will-Ever-Need) is that it is accessible anywhere you can access "The Internet." This is of great benefit to me, as I will routinely use four five different 'personal' computers to 'do stuff' in the course of any given month, so the less that I have to reinstall and try perfectly replicate my preferred tools on those five different machines, the happier I am. FeedDemon, which is what I've been using, is a fantastic tool, but it's also one of the programs that I MOST dread installing on a new machine, due to the fact that then need to reload all the different web pages I want it to watch.

NO MORE! I had Google reader import my FeedDemon settings this morning and new the deep, heartfelt satisfaction that comes from being really really lazy and, at the same time, knowing I had just added a significant task to the list of Stuff I Don't Have to Do Again.

Thus: Happy.

Jewel Staite (Firefly's Kaylee) will be joining Stargate Atlantis for Season Four. I would be more jazzed about this if I had seen even one episode of any of the Stargate shows.

Pan's Labyrinth looks very very good.

Then make sure that those toys are AWESOME. I present: Ninja Launcher!

Alias - The Complete Collection (Seasons 1-5 Rambaldi artifact box)

NBC ordered an additional 9 episodes of the show, bringing the total up to a full season of 22.

Attention, Robot Chicken fans: a full half-hour of Star Wars-inspired Robot Chicken goodness, financed by Lucasfilm, airing on Superbowl Sunday (probably on a network NOT airing the Superbowl, timed to coincide with the halftime break).

Amazon.com: Dungeons & Dragons: Complete Series

Included in this collectible package is the official "Dungeons & Dragons" hardcover game supplement. Created exclusively for this release by Wizards of the Coast, the Animated Series Handbook is 32 pages of official character profiles with full stats, magic items and a brand new adventure. The adventure is a prelude to the episode "The Dragon's Graveyard," designed to bridge the gap between the game and the animated television series. Also included is an Episode Guide Booklet with show's synopsis, writers, and original air dates.

On Battlestar Galactica, the Commander and XO of the Pegasus are "Lee" and "De."

Wacky.

MAN that's a good show.

The night before I left for Prague, I made time to watch Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, which came (a) from Netflix.com and (b) highly recommended.

This is (like Hudson Hawk) a love it or hate it cult hit.

Me? I loved it. Laughed a LOT -- heard more quotable quotes than I can easily count, let alone remember.

Still, this one stuck with me: "Thanks for coming, please stay for the end credits, if you're wondering who the best boy is, it's somebody's nephew, um, don't forget to validate your parking, and to all you good people in the Midwest, sorry we said fuck so much."

I didn't realize I missed last week's Heroes -- I'm playing catch up again -- people are sleeping with people they weren't before, Hiro's in Las Vegas, Claire drowned or something and got better from an AUTOPSY.

Cool: Battlestar Galactica's Season Three starts tonight.
What the...: There's ten "Webisodes" on scifi.com that cover time between the end of Seasons Two and Three? ACK!

Clearly, I need to take a long lunch break, haul my laptop somewhere quiet, and watch em all before tonight.

... And I'll probably be taping BSG regularly -- the first time I've taped a show since Angel went off the air. Wacky. Might have to finally cave in and get a DVR service.

Heroes picked up for a full season.

NBC has given a full-season order for its superhero series Heroes. Heroes is averaging a 5.7 rating among adults aged 18-49 and 13.5 million viewers overall, making it the number-one new series this fall in adults 18-49.

Wait... I like it, but it's not cancelled? I'm confused.

Discworld Cake: Someone got this for their WEDDING, people!

If you, like me, missed most of the first episode of Heroes when it aired this week, but you caught part of it and thought it looked cool, or heard about it and thought it sounded cool, and you're bummed you missed it, you can watch the whole first episode online at the NBC.com - Heroes site.

Good writing, great art direction, excellent comic tie-in that you really have to see to understand, and some of my favorite actors and actresses.

Yeah... it's totally doomed.

Gridiron Gang, starring the Rock. Trust me, you do not know what this movies about from those two facts. MAN it looks good.

Joss Whedon's commentary on Serenity is currently no.1 at the Top 100 list of the best commentaries ever.

... and I lose major geek points for not having listened to it yet... I don't think.

I don't even know what this list is about, exactly. Or the one that Joss did before that (referring to Mary McDonnell as President Stands-With-A-Fist made me shout a laugh). I think it's your favorite TV Show characters, or something.

Whatever. It's a list. I like making such things in my head, so...

... I mean, this is my head isn't it? This is where I keep all the stuff I want to remember so... yeah, this is my head, and welcome to it. These are the folks that make me scootch a little further down into the couch when they show up on the screen, thinking "oh cool, they're in this one."

1. Malcolm Reynolds, played by Nathan Fillion, on Firefly. My kind of hero -- period.
2. Willow, on Buffy. SMG never really did much for me in any category, but Ms. Hannigan? Sure. Yes, please, in fact.
3. The defiantly bald, bear-aggressive Daniel Benzali as Teddy on Murder One. He made that show.
4. James Callis as Doctor Gaius Baltar in Battlestar Gallactica, but in a steel-cage deathmatch between him and Donnelly Rhodesas, my money is totally on the chain-smoking Dr. Cottle -- he rocks.
5. Christian Kane, as Lindsey, on Angel.
6. Gir, on Invader Zim. How do you know if a Zim episode was going to be good? If it had a lot of Gir in it. Period. And no, I don't care that he's not a real person.
7. Brad Dourif as anyone or anything, but mostly (on TV) the doctor on Deadwood, and really the possessed guy in Exorcist III.
8. Michael Rosenbaum as Smallville's Lex Luthor. Caveat: I only watched the first season or two, but based on that, he's awesome. Damn fun in Sorority Boys, too. I heard he's playing Tanis Half-elven in the new Dragonlance thing, too, which makes it marginally less potentially suck-tastic.
9. Adam Baldwin, the hardest working guy in showbiz, as Jayne on Firefly, but not really as Jayne in Serenity. I know, wacky, right?
11. Carla Gugino on (and as) Karen Sisco... or Spin City... or Sin City. She's got that thing, y'know?
12. Sue me: I really liked George Clooney on E.R.
13. Yeah... David Addison on Moonlighting. Like him? I wanted to be him.
14. Caroline Dhavernas as Jaye Tyler on Wonderfalls. She has a great smirk.
15. V's dad on Veronica Mars. He's awesome. More and more, I bond with the concept of that guy.
16. Ian McShane as Al Swearengen on Deadwood

How many is that? It's supposed to be 25, but I'm pretty sure it's not. Ah well, it's my list, so there. :)

Also, despite the numbering, these really aren't in any kind of order of importance.

Bubba Nosferatu (2006)

KBCO is streaming a Studio C performance by Angie Stevens (the best new artist in Denver) tonight, around 8pm Mountain Time, over here. I highly recommend giving a listen.

She's also playing for about an hour at the all-ages People's Fair this Sunday at 6pm, if you're going to be there (which I'm suddenly considering).

I won't see it until next Friday.

Spoilers will result in a sound caning, and this boy ain't joking.

I haven't seen even one PREVIEW for this thing, and only one poster. I'm going in with little foreknowledge and few expectations. Let's keep it that way, shall we?

Is it unmanly to cry?

Is it geeky AND unmanly to cry at a comic?

Read the first story in the lastest (and by "latest" I mean "last year's, which I'm finally reading now") Astro City and got all snuffled at the end. The one about the doorman.

God I'm an easy mark.

Serenity: The MST3K Version

Darn funny, and an excellent 'copy' of the MST3K style.

For those with iTunes: you can now get the first season of Buffy and the first (ha!) season of Firefly via iTunes.

Via SEB: Original 'Star Wars' films coming to DVD - Sept 12, 2006

The original theatrical versions of the first three "Star Wars" films are finally coming to DVD on September 12, two years after diehard fans blasted George Lucas for releasing only the digitally modified 2004 versions of the celebrated trilogy in a boxed collection.

I will HAPPILY and PROUDLY point out that I didn't buy the 'new' versions of Episodes 4 through 6 when they came out on DVD, because I wanted the undoctered versions far, far, more.

Vader says "Bring me my Shuttle," dammit, and Han shoots first. That. Is how. It happened.

Ahem. I'll be having these, yes.

The Je Joue programmable massager.

"The great thing about foreplay is that unlike doing it yourself, you don't quite know what's coming next," he says. "There's a sense of 'otherness,' which is very exciting. It's unpredictable. I wondered why you can't have a product that does that. It's not trying to replace a person, but it's easy enough to have a programmable product that has enough ability and variability to be able to surprise you."

The passage above, incidentally, is how I found the Wired article, via a perfectly innocent Google search. I swear!

If you like what it's doing and you want more, you can adjust the intensity or speed with a press of a button. To make sure it keeps doing what it's doing, press and hold the "don't stop" button.

I'm sorry, but that's awesome. All technology should have a "don't stop" button.

Older ones - but I like the character descriptions better (they read like Heroquest attributes, actually).

• Jayne: Mercenary. Tough. Easy to bribe. Fond of grenades.
• Kaylee: Mechanic. Sweet. Sexy. Hot on machines.
• Wash: Pilot. Funny. Level headed. Soars like a bird.

Newer ones - better images, but the character aspects listed aren't nearly as interesting or succinct.

The ThinkGeek :: Joss Whedon is my Master Now t-shirt is overstocked and selling cheap...

The Sci-Fi Channel (U.S.) will be showing a Firefly Marathon on March 10th ~ the episodes will start with the pilot "Serenity" and continue in original (intended) order through to "Out of Gas".

Joss Whedon and Warren Ellis "flamewar" at Warrenellis.com » The Long March To Nerd Prom Begins

This is just like the Algonquin round table, except there’s only two of us, and no table, and no particular surfeit of wit, and no great certainty about how spell ‘Algonquin’. Huzzah!

(via ktbuffy) :)

Elayne writes:

You were the first person I ever heard talk about Firefly, and I wondered what on earth you were so het up about. Then I saw the movie Serenity, and someone said, "Yeah, it's based on the series Firefly," and I went "ooooooooooooh," and rented the first DVD of the series. The next day, I went out and BOUGHT the entire first series, and have been cultivating a stalkerish one-sided love affair with Mal Reynolds (that's right; I'm in lust with the character, not the actor) ever since. I don't know if you've seen this, but I checked your "geeky fanboy" archives and didn't see anything - a reader of my blog just posted a link to Joss Whedon's Firefly, Season 2 - apparently a fan-club is trying to work out a way to get a second series. I don't know what the odds are (or whether the actors, writers, Joss Whedon, etc are aware of this/willing to do it) but I thought I'd drop you a line anyway in case you somehow missed it, and also to apologize for all those times I thought "What on earth is he even TALKING about?!" (c:

I love that I've turned even one person onto the show. I love that people bring stuff like this to me. Just gives me a happy. :)

TCM's Space Bazaar : Kick Ass Firefly Stuff

(via Seki)

Blue Sun's domination of the 'verse has begun ...and it all starts with biodiesel fuel.

To quote Mr. Universe, "how weird is that?"

Doyce,

We publish the official Serenity weblog in Spanish (http://serenity.weblogs.es) commissioned by Universal International Pictures. On the run up to the opening on cinemas in Spain (tomorrow actually), we would like to run a series of profiles of the characters translated from the material you have on the wiki.

We had started to run it, linking back to the original pages on the wiki, when we realized that your license is by-nc-sa and since our blog is made for a company and has its contents under copyright, we believe we need to get your explicit permission before publishing it.

Would that be ok with you?

*beams.

Would that be okay with me?

*grinning.

The thing that will really determine the 'success' or 'not-entirely success' of Serenity is in the second week turnout for the movie -- first week estimates were dead-on-the-money for what Universal had estimated, almost exactly, but their projections for the second week are a lot fuzzier, and a good turnout means a great deal to the suits, when folks start talking about sequels.

Maybe you've gone already. It's a good movie. Go again. You know Corpse Bride's going to be running in 10 theatres an hour until Halloween -- you can skip it another week.

Maybe you haven't gone yet. Don't wait. It really is that good, it really is funny, it really does have great dialogue and great actors and scary bad guys.

Go. See the show. It deserves it, and so do you.

Ebert Reviews Serenity

It has the rough edges and brawny energy of a good yarn, and it was made by and for people who can't get enough of this stuff. You know who you are.

Great article/interview with Joss on Reuters.com about the trip from Firefly to Serenity:

"We have a much broader base than just sci-fi people," he says. "That's what I found in our screenings so far. They're a diverse group, fairly well-adjusted socially, and I expect that a lot of them are even having sex. I really think the line between geeks and the rest of the world is blurring."

For those of you who aren't slavering mad crazy for the release date keeping track, Serenity, one of the best movies I've seen in a really,

really,

long time...

Is in theatres this Friday. Go twice. I dare yah.

Lab Notes: The Worlds of Serenity.

Good, Geeky Fun that makes your Brain Hurt.

Related to Serenity's premiere at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, Serenity tops Audience exit polls.

Also: Official Ediburgh Serenity review from a Firefly Virgin.

As the normally self-serving crew find themselves caught in a fight with a higher purpose to it, Serenity becomes that great thing: a blockbuster with a heart and soul.

Serenity gets it's IMDB listing and a very high fan-rating.

Also, the final version of the movie open in... Ediburgh?

Lego Firefly!

(Via hythian)

And every Friday for the next 15 weeks, we'll have discussion of each episode as it airs. All part of the countdown to the release of 'Serenity' on the big screen.

Serenity Amps the Signal : A fan review from Denver, from a lucky bastard someone who has attended all 3 screenings. Minor spoilers in the second to last paragraph.

Joss Whedon is my Master Now t-shirts are now available.

A newcomer to the Firefly universe talks about his Serenity pre-screening sneak peek.

In his introduction [Joss] artfully describes how utterly unlikely it was that this film could have ever gotten made. It is obvious that he loves his creation and that he is moved by the groundswell of fans who have supported a show that was dead before it even had a chance to live. Likening the show's fanbase to the brown coat wearing revolutionaries of the 'Firefly' universe, he issues a call-to-arms for all his faithful to help get the word out to the rest of the world, to the people who know nothing of the show. It's a modern sci-fi version of Jesus' "Great Commission" (Mark 16:15-16: "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel unto every person. He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved; he that believeth not shall be damned."). It's a great introduction to the film and a direct tribute to the fans.

And damned I'd be by those fans if I dared give this film a bad review. Fortunately (for me), I can't give this film ANY review because it's technically not yet finished. What I can do is to tell you that this movie has more heart than the last three Star Wars movies lashed together and dipped in hearty sauce.

Details here.

this post enabled by airblogging.com.

Six-word 'Serenity'

Roughly 100 Browncoats entered the "Six-word 'Serenity'" contest -- submitting six-word "micro-stories" about the "Firefly" TV series for the chance to win tickets to the June 23 "Serenity" screening in Portland. Good stuff resulted.

Diamond Select Announces Serenity Figures

(via Seki)

Can't Stop the Signal: New tickets for a screening are up.

Can't buy em yet, but the times and towns are listed.

Transcript of Joss' 'speech' that played before the Serenity pre-screening.

The site was down the first time I tried to link to it this morning, but it looks solid now.

the futon critic

FIREFLY (FOX) - The Sci Fi Channel has landed the repeat rights to all 15 hours of the short-lived FOX series (and basis of the upcoming "Serenity" feature film). The network's July schedule lists the series as joining its Friday lineup on July 22 at 7:00/6:00c where it will precede original episodes of "Stargate SG-1," "Stargate Atlantis" and "Battlestar Galactica."

Great lightsaber fights.
Predictably pretty ships.
Zero surprises.

Amazon.com: DVD: Moonlighting - Seasons 1 & 2

I swear, after this show went off the air, I stopped watching television until Buffy came out.

So. Ordered.

Amazon.com: Books: Dungeons & Dragons For Dummies

Holy.

Cats.

As Stan said, "So nice to see that Doyce made it into PvP today."

Joss announces more Serenity screenings.

You might have heard rumors, but I'm here to confirm. On thursday the 26th the studio is doing another round of hit-and-run screenings, and this time it's not ten cities -- it's twenty. It's another vote of confidence from the studio and another chance for us to say "thanks" to you guys for keeping this all rolling. And most importantly, another chance to run that videotape of me before the movie, looking so tragically sexy.

"Wait a minute! What cities!?!?! Hey, %#$@face, stop talking about how sexy you are (although you are confessedly quite the dish) and give us the info!" Well, I don't actually know. I think we'll be repeating in the cities we've hit and adding 10 new ones. I expect can'tstopthesignal will have the info some time tomorrow, and let the manager-threatening begin! (Or, you know, the ticket buying.)