Archive for August, 2009

Turns out that in the future, we're not limited to just guitar, fiddle, and whatever else was playing in the background. The future will also include punk rock.

Rock and roll, mudder's milk and shindigs. The Browncoats is a rock group that wallows in singing about outer space, flying miscellaneous aircraft, and places and people that just do not exist… yet.

They've had great success with their raucous version of "The Hero of Canton" (see video above) and now they have a whole CD to abuse people with. Captain Paul Moerke, Air Marshall Bailey and Co-Pilot Gary Miller use guitars, drums, cigarettes, and lots and lots of beer to produce hard rockin' mudder goodness.

Register at their website to get a free copy of the CD's title song "Space Age Loser," buy a few tracks from Amazon or iTunes, go check out their upcoming performance at Dragon*Con, or stop out their MySpace page for more videos like this one with SNL actor Bill Chott, "Make Mudder Milkshakes" (not for the squeamish).

He's made prints, he's made canvas versions, he's made a book, and he's made T-shirts (including a new muscle-tee Kaylee one). What else can Jason Palmer do with his amazing amazing character portraits?

He can make them bigger.

These are the big ones! Jumbo banner prints, measuring 24"x70". Perfect for taking up a wall or hanging on your door. Done on our Giclee printer with archival inks, on beautiful and durable Luster art paper.

Get the crews of Firefly and Battlestar Galactica, or go for individual crewmembers to fit your fancy. Available for a limited time.

And more stuff's coming; new shirt designs for Jayne, Kaylee, Serenity herself, and BabyTees. You can find out more by signing up for his newsletter.

OK, this isn't my usual sort of post and I'm not trying to be Billy Mays here, but I bought something and tried it and it worked, and that's rare for me when cars are involved. Generally anything more intricate than adjusting the stereo volume bewilders me.

But my brother-in-law, who worked tirelessly — and a wee bit obsessively — to turn my newly bought cheap used car into something worth several times what I paid for it mentioned something I might consider trying on my old and yellowed headlight covers. And since he's spent hours fixing, tightening, or replacing most of the innards of my car for me, I figured I should take some initiative and do something that was supposed to take about 10 minutes. Because that's the kind of self-sacrificing guy I am.

Of course, me being me it took me about 25 minutes, but I didn't actually set fire to anything so I consider it a win.

Crystal View's Headlight Restorer actually freaking works. For about $20 (average retail price around my area) you get some sandpaper, some polishing cloths, some packets of polish and some packets of sealer and in about 5-10 minutes per headlight you get non-yellow, clear headlights. To the right is my car, before and then about a half hour after.

That's it. Not selling it, don't get commissions, and you'll get nothing extra If You Call Now. But if you've heard of this (or similar) stuff and was wondering if it worked, just wanted to let you know it does. Easily.

Second round, challenge three of NYCMidnight's Creative Writing Championship. New writing group, new restrictions. Mine were: "Genre: Romantic comedy, Location: arcade, Object: coffee pot." And we're off…

The Final Score
By C. A. Bridges (1,000 words)

Being a coffee shop barista, even an emergency temp one, was everything Aly thought it would be. “Here you are sir, have a nice day, die in a fire,” she muttered before turning to her mother, who was filling the large catering pot. “How do you keep from murdering your customers?”

“That gets you talked about,” her mother said. “Try making terrifying designs in their latte cream instead, that always cheers me up.”

Aly sighed. Helping out her mom was one thing, but she couldn’t take being back in this town for long. At least she didn’t have to go near—

“You know where Electricland Arcade is, right?” her mother asked suddenly. “I need you to run a delivery… Aly? Why are you hitting your head?”

—

Matt stood ready, his hands dry, his shoulders loose, a retired gunslinger here for one last battle. Looming in front of him was his old archenemy.

“So, Donkey Kong,” he said grimly. “We meet again.”
Read the rest of this entry »

Neil Cameron's amazing A-Z of Awesomeness — 26 illustrations he created in 26 days, based on suggestions from people from his blog, Twitter feed and Facebook group — is being released as a limited edition poster print. Only 250 available! (Well, 249, I bought one)

The posters are 286mm x 439mm, on glossy full-colour poster paper.

To make them a bit more special I'm signing each one and I've put a space at the top for a sketch of a character of your choice – from the A-Z or indeed anywhere else. Just tell me who you'd like in your sketch, and any message you'd like included, in the PayPal 'instructions to seller' field. (Note: please request a single character only!) If you leave this field blank I'll sketch something random of my own choosing…

You can see them all here, and they're hilarious. Captain Britain and Cerebus, Indiana Jones and a drunken Iron Man, Q and Q (reading "Q"), even a naked Joss Whedon. If nothing else get this just to hear the reactions from your guests when they walk by it…

£7.50 (GBP), with £2.50 shipping (works out to $16.80 US).

Jeanne Robinson — dancer, choreographer, Soto Zen monk and wife of Spider Robinson, with whom she co-authored the multi-award-winning book Stardance and its sequels — has been diagnosed with a rare and virulent form of biliary cancer. She's beaten it back so far but now will require therapy, dietary changes, and a stress-free lifestyle, and none of those are cheap. So her friends are helping her out.

A benefit concert and silent auction is happening on Bowen Island, BC, at the Cates Hill Chapel at  7:30 pm, Friday, Sept 18  (see above). There's also  an eBay auction here (with more stuff coming). You can donate items to auction off or send money by check or PayPal, head to WeDreamForJeanne for more details.

Spider Robinson has been one of my favorite authors for many years now (only for about as long as he's been writing) and Stardance remains one of those books I have to pull out and reread every year or so. There's a different kind of depth and, in places, a tranquility in Stardance that isn't in his other works, and I have to assume that's Jeanne. They're one of science fiction's great and lasting love stories and it shows in their work.

You can see what Jeanne's done towards finally realizing zero-G dance in the Stardance Project, and you can hear Spider and Jeanne talk about their collaboration (and their courtship) here.

If you can, please do what you can to help out. Thanks.

Last weekend was Mini MegaCon in Orlando, Florida, and several notable "Buffy" stars were there. Charisma "Cordelia" Carpenter, Emma "Anya" Caulfield, Amber "Tara" Benson, and Adam "Warren" Busch. I was going to tell you about the Buffy Q&A panel they gave, but Phil of NeatEntertainment.com (and the panel moderator) just transcribed the whole thing, so I'll just send you there. Many of the photos on that page are from my Flickr set of the whole con.

The con was a lot of fun, if a bit smaller than I expected. The MegaCon folks planned this mini version a few years ago and made commitments just before the economy tanked, but they went ahead with it anyway. It was roughly half the size of their usual springtime con, which drew 32,000 people last March.

The big guests were supposed to be three stars from the Twilight series, but shooting conflicts forced them all to cancel. Still, the Buffy panel had to move to a bigger room, then had to connect the new room to the original room to make an area big enough for the crowds. You still got it, guys.

Also met Sylvester McCoy, the seventh Doctor. And Lisa Loring, "Wednesday" from The Addams Family. And a lot more, plus all the fanciful folks who populate the cons. Check my Flickr set for tons of pics and more details.

Weird Al continues his onslaught of song releases with "Ringtone," and a video made in collaboration with Current TV's "SuperNews":

Next Tuesday he'll be releasing "Internet Leaks," a downloadable mini-album of the five songs he's produced since his last album: his T.I. parody “Whatever You Like,” his Doors pastiche “Craigslist,” his Jungle Cruise homage “Skipper Dan,” his Charles Nelson Reilly tribute “CNR” and "Ringtone." Look for it at iTunes, Amazon, and the usual places. And they'll be on a physical CD when his next album comes out:

The songs on “Internet Leaks” will all show up again on my next full album release, whenever that is (I’m assuming next year sometime, but there’s no way to  be sure). Some people may say, “Why should I buy the ‘Internet Leaks’ tracks now when they’re going to be on your next album anyway?” Well, if all you’re interested in is the physical CD, and you don’t mind waiting a year or so… you probably SHOULDN’T buy the tracks now. Nobody’s forcing you to buy the songs twice – I just wanted to make the tracks available so everybody could enjoy them as early as possible.

By the way, if you DO purchase “Internet Leaks” now, you’ll be able to take advantage of iTunes’ “Complete My Album” function when the full album becomes available. You’ll be able to painlessly add the missing tracks, and the full purchase price of “Internet Leaks” will be deducted from the cost of the album.

Adam Levermore, my "Save Hiatus" partner and the creator of such excellent artwork as the "How to Spot a Cylon" poster, the Serenity travel posters, various Can't Stop the Serenity artwork, the Little Damn Heroes designs and many more, just had his hard drive freeze up. With, naturally, a lot of irreplaceable artwork and working files still on it.

From his increasingly frantic tweets:

It's a Maxtor drive, w/ both USB and FireWire inputs. It's making a sound like a ticking wristwatch (both in terms of rhythm and volume)

One possible issue: Power requirement is 12V / 3A, but the supply that's connected is 12V / 2.5A. Could this be a contributing factor?

The sound doesn't change at all, regardless of whether I'm using the USB or the FireWire, or if neither is plugged in.

Finally, it's not making any sort of winding-up, spinning or whooshing noises I usually associate with a working hard drive.

HALP?

He's tried most of the urban legend fixes — freezing, etc — but he could really use the help or extremely discounted services of an experienced data-retrieval techie. Any fans out there with suggestions? Contact him or me if you can help out. Thanks!

Kids Need to Read is auctioning off a rare set of Dr. Horrible figures. Only four sets exist, owned by Joss Whedon, Nathan Fillion, artist Jenny Wolf, and maybe you!

The figures are autographed by the artist and the Captain Hammer figure is autographed by Nathan.

You need these. Actually, wait, I need these. I changed my mind. Don't go bid.

Kids Need to Read is a 501(c)(3) organization that assists in making make books available to under funded schools and libraries to give all children the opportunity to enjoy the world of books and inspire imagination.  KTNR was founded by author PJ Haarsma and Nathan Fillion.  You can read more on their website.