Fannish Ramblings

If you tried accessing the convention list in the wee hours of May 1, you might have noticed a few minor hiccups in the site’s URL (and a few very brief configuration errors) as Fanboy’s Convention List moved to it’s new home.

The convention list has been around for something in the neighborhood of 11 years. First as a print-only publication appearing in Starfleet’s Communique, and a few months later on my previous personal web sites. For the past eight years, the list has appeared on dactylmanor.org, and for several years was mirrored on Starfleet’s web site. Although Starfleet no longer carries the list, a number of their subsidiary organizations still syndicate it on their own web sites and in their newsletters.

So it’s probably high time that Fanboy’s Convention List had its own web site.

Please come back and visit as often as you like!

1. The Thing – Scientists in the Antarctic are confronted by a shape-shifting alien.
2. The Empire Strikes Back – Rebels living on an ice planet fight the galactic empire.
3. Ice Station Zebra – A submarine crew rescues a team of scientists on the Arctic ice pack.
4. The Day After Tomorrow – New York (and the entire Northern Hemisphere) enters a new ice age.
5. Eight Below – A dog team is stranded in Antarctica and their trainer works to rescue them.
6. Snow Dogs – A man from Florida inherits an Alaskan sled dog team.
7. Balto – A heroic dog risks his life to bring medicine to Nome.
8. The Ice Pirates – Interstellar pirates, in search of ice!
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – The Kingdom of Narnia is locked in an eternal winter.
10. Ice Age – A mammoth, a sabertooth tiger, and a sloth find a human child and set out to return him to his tribe. (Best to watch with the sequels The Meltdown and Dawn of the Dinosaurs.)

I managed to slip off to a con recently and ran into one of those “impossible to get” guests, but with a twist — this one wants to come to cons, for the fun of it as much as anything else.

The guest in question, and I was more than a little surprised to run into him (even more so that he wanted to talk to me!) was Lorne Greene. He wasn’t on the con’s official guest list, instead, he was there as an attendee. From talking to him, he’s interested in getting onto the convention circuit but first wanted to check out the scene in-person. (He went full-out on it too, going so far as to show up with a reasonable facsimile of his “padded-robe” uniform from the original BSG.) He’d like to start coming to cons this year and gave me a card with all the appropriate contact information.

Talking to a friend about this encounter a short time later, we agreed that it was pretty cool someone of his stature actually wants to go to cons — so many of the well-known stars price themselves out of range. I was particularly surprised though since I thought he’d passed away about 20-25 years ago.

And that’s when I woke up.

Sure, booking Lorne Greene presents a few more challenges than most guests, but the good news is that he wants to be there.

Now if I could just remember that phone number….

Oh crap. This news story is from my neck of the woods….

When there’s no room in hell, the dead will walk downtown

If you can’t find me, it’s because I’m hiding somewhere with a baseball bat. (What little brains I have, I’m keeping!!)

Today be Talk Like a Pirate Day, I hope ye be celebratin’ accordingly.

I was rather surprised to learn today that the Walt Disney Company is buying Marvel Entertainment for a whopping 4 billion dollars. (If that link doesn’t work at first, try it again and then click your browser’s refresh button.)

It’s certainly not a merger I would have expected, the images I have of the two companies’ products are just too wildly different. (Princesses on the one hand, Mutants on the other? Then again….)

One plus side I definitely see however is that Peter and Mary Jane Parker can finally take Aunt May on a trip to Disney World without anybody’s licensing department getting bent out of shape.

Update 9/2/2009: Thanks to Gavroche for pointing out the first of no doubt many Disney/Marvel cross-overs.

And sure enough, The Joy of Tech crossed over too!

At long last, Netflix has delivered season 3 of Torchwood. I just watched episode 4 last night and I’m completely blown away.

I wish the season was more than 5 episodes, but the story arc is fantastic. They’re definitely able to do a much richer, more complex storyline this way.

*** Note — Possible Spoilers ***
(more…)

Well this is certainly good news. After decades of reported UFO sightings, Amazon.com is now selling a battery powered UFO detector. The device purportedly works by detecting the magnetic and electrical disturbances associated with UFOs. Seems like just the device for anyone wishing to make first contact or possibly avoid being abducted. Be sure to check out the customer reviews.

Also available from the same seller is the upgraded UFO-02 detector.

Neither product includes a battery, nor a tin foil hat. Regrettably, Free Super Saver Shipping is also not available.

I’m personally not really into the Horror genre, but somehow I keep posting about zombies. This evening I stumbled across a fun/interesting question: Will Your Local Police Warn You When Zombies Attack?

The answer seems to depend on where you live.

And once the attack is over, be sure to properly dispose of the zombies.

The Metro Clothing Company store in Seattle hosted a “Zombie Crawl” on Friday with folks show up at the store dressed as Zombies. There was a contest involved with the three best costumes winning passes to this weekend’s Crypticon.

Evidently the guy who won first place was a little too authentic. Someone who didn’t know what was going on called 911 and the police arrested the zombie. (They released him once the misunderstanding became clear.)

(A tip of the hat to Jim Romensko for noticing this story.)