Kristyn and I did make it to PenguiCon 2008 this year, though we only made it for Saturday evening through Sunday early afternoon. It was a good time, all told (and before you ask, I was entirely oblivious to this controversial activity). I picked up a couple intriguing books (Where's My Jetpack by Daniel H. Wilson, and Discarded Science by John Grant), saw a number of I-seem-to-see-them-only-at-con friends, and generally had a fun time.

But by far, the coolest thing that went on at PenguiCon 2008 was this (as captured in this YouTube video):

The Singing Tesla Coils

(Note: this is the first of what looks like a series of videos chronicling the Tesla Coils at Penguicon, which had concerts on both Friday and Saturday evenings.)

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FBI wiretap cut off for unpaid bill

This is just like that time the CIA had to stop using waterboard torture because someone forgot to pay the water utility...

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I just learned this morning, from lemagia, that Terry Pratchett has been diagnosed with an early-onset form of Alzheimers. Which is not good news for anyone, though Terry's announcement handles it with optimism and warm wit.

I don't think I'm going to get into, just now, how much his books have affected me, or how I have in recent years read his books to see how it is he got so damn good at what he does. Like he says, he's 'not dead yet,' so no eulogies, please. (And the last line in the announcement is priceless, and pure Terry.) And well wishes shouldn't have anything to do with how many books he wrote (a lot), or how good they were (very very and very some more).

I met him at a science fiction convention held in Detroit a few years back (the first Penguicon, actually), and found him as kind, warm, witty and charming as anyone who's read his books could hope. So I'll just wish him my best in this, and hope that the end is still a long ways away.

I enjoyed this quote from this post in the abstractthought community way too much:

"Art is like Vaseline. When you put it on, it sticks to everything."

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Mystery Underwear Stymies Guantanamo Investigators

I bet it turns out the illicit undergarments were brought in by the same guys who bring in the waterboard and the car battery with the testicle clamps. 'Cause I'm sure none of the guys there thought they'd need a change of undies.

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Weekly World News to cease publication.

Yeah, I know, the WWN will continue online, but... damn.

I bet the alien telemarketers are behind this.

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Grindhouse stomps all over 300's bloated, slo-mo ass. Two surprises, though:

1. Robert Rodriguez delivered the better movie. Maybe it shouldn't have been such a surprise in retrospect, or maybe Death Proof just suffered in comparison from being shown after (instead of before) Planet Terror. But Planet Terror had the over-the-top action-cheese sick-in-da-head gooey-gross-out zombie-noshin' fun I was wantin' and then some, while Death Proof was... just not my genre, I guess. Though the car chase, when it was finally reached, was very entertaining.

2. Robert Rodriguez delivered the better soundtrack. I usually look forward to Tarantino's soundtracks, but aside from music from Village of the Giants, I can't remember a single selection. Whereas I had to run out and get the Planet Terror soundtrack as soon as the movie was over. Ya can't really dance to it, but it's a helluva driving soundtrack.

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Am I the only guy who thought that all the CGI-effects and fight-scene choreography in 300 were not enough to make up for how utterly tedious, bloated, and full-of-itself it was?

I've been editing up a storm in my campaign to Finally Finish The Fucking Novel And Mail It Out Already, which is the principal reason I've not been making posts to LJ of late. (Well, that and a very nasty stomach bug that had me laid up most of last weekend and then jumped over to my wife, who is just now recovering.) This period of me not posting to LJ (and not doing very much commenting on friends posts, though I do continue to read them) will likely continue until the glorious FFTFNAMIOA campaign has reached its conclusion (which also means that every other writing project I've got in mind, not to mention Rad #92, is On Hold until then).

So... there. I guess.

In fact, the only reason you're getting a post now is because some of you still may have not seen the movie Pan's Labyrinth, and some of that subset of you may still have it showing at some reasonably local theater ("reasonably" as in "somewhere in the state in which you live"). If you are a part of this select group... why the hell are you still reading this? Why are you not out driving, biking, running, or crawling in the direction of that theater like crazed sinners who have suddenly seen the horrifying errors of your non-seeing-Pan's-Labyrinth ways? WHYYYYYYYYY???

Seriously. You should.

In the meantime, I have a grindstone to get fresh with.

Sci Fi Grapples with Summer Wrestling Series

. . .

. . .

Here, let me be more emphatic:

. . .

They must be messing with our minds. This is a devious alien plot to mess with our minds. It must be.

I am in a cheerier mood of late, thanks to Planet Man. I have been listening to an MP3 cd collection of 76 episodes of this early fifties science fiction radio series (thru episode 28 so far), and I am in awe at its cheesy grandeur.

The packaging describes as being a cross between Superman and Flash Gordon, but would be more accurate to describe it as something a lot like Rocky Jones, with a hero that sounds sort of like Clayton Moore (though he isn't) and would probably dress, if it were a movie serial instead of a radio serial, like Prince of Space. It has all the requisite characters of this kind of space opera (the elderly professor, not one but two perky golly-gee-willikers kids (who have so far demonstrated the bravery of lions and the intelligence of lawn chairs), a sinister space villian forever berating his underlings for their incompetence, a heroic sidekick with a hayseed accent, and of course the morally upright crusading hero (who is smarter than your average lawn chair, but not by much)).

I need more of this kind of thing in my life.