This Is Not Out of the Blue

Sometimes, You Want to Go

2008-04-22T17:30:16Z

...and sometimes, you don't. :/

Given that the bulk of responses to my last entry came from the United States as opposed to Winnipeg, and with some welcome perspective on the matter from xandersgirl, it looks like I can't get the band back together after all.

I hope the true return of the übergroup will happen at some point in the future, but if there can be only one option, I'd still like to have people over to give some Immortals the MST3K treatment.

On that note, please let me know if and when you'd be interested in Highlander: The Snark, and we'll take it from there...

Wouldn’t You Like to Get Away?

2008-04-13T22:24:37Z

From 1998 to 2005, I would periodically invite some of my friends (and sometimes their friends, and even their friends) out to see some new franchise movie in a group, since I thought they'd get more out of that sort of experience if they shared it with a bunch of like-minded people. I'd arrange for all the tickets and coordinate everything by email, we'd check out the movie, then go out for food and/or drinks and analyse the hell out of it.

It all started with Star Trek: Insurrection, and I really didn't think at that point that it would turn into a habit...but every year, there'd be some film candidates that fit the bill, whether it was as highly anticipated as The Phantom Menace or The Matrix Reloaded, or as schlocky as Freddy vs Jason.

Each outing of the übergroup, as it came to be called, had its own surprises. Sometimes it could be fun in spite of the movie itself (Highlander: Endgame), or lacklustre in spite of some choice opportunities for mockery (Alien vs Predator). The response could be overwhelming (Attack of the Clones, still a record with 38 people, even though it turned into something of a fiasco) or tepid (The Fellowship of the Ring, oddly enough, which is why I didn't attempt an übergroup outing with the other two films in that trilogy).

It was cool, and often unpredictable, and I enjoyed organising it.

By 2005, though, it seemed like that franchise era was fading. A lot of the trilogies and other series were winding down, and other franchises weren't coming in quickly enough to take their place. When I invited people out to Serenity, and announced that the übergroup might be having its last hurrah, I wrote the following:

If they release a Star Trek XI, or a Highlander 5, or if that fourth Indiana Jones movie ever gets made, I might revisit this, but at this point, the übergroup will go on an indefinite hiatus after the release of Serenity.

Well, all of those things have now come to pass. Highlander: The Source isn't that relevant, since it went direct-to-video...though it is supposed to be a real stinker, and I recently got a copy as a gift, so I'm considering having some people over to throw some snark at it (if I can drum up the interest, but I'm getting to that). Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is less than six weeks away (!), and Star Trek is growing on the horizon. There are other movies, like The X-Files 2 and even The Clone Wars, that might also benefit from the übergroup treatment--provided there is anyone left who'll respond to that treatment.

I've pondered and agonised over this, going back and forth constantly, but when it comes to Indiana Jones, I'm basically out of time. I would've already sent out the invitation by this point, back when I was doing this on a regular basis...

Is there enough interest to justify trying for a return of the übergroup? Can I really get the band back together again?

Read Us Any Rule, We'll Break It

2008-04-01T11:46:16Z

Governo's Law of Online Social Stimulus (GLOSS)

"The amount of response to something you post online is inversely proportional to the amount of time and thought you put into posting it."

Sample Sentence:

That squee thread was a classic example of GLOSS if I've ever seen one.

This is the reason why your thoroughly researched, exquisitely well-articulated treatise on the nature of existence, posted only after countless hours of careful consideration and planning, barely attracts any notice; while your hastily scribbled, grammatically catastrophic rant on the nature of mayonnaise, posted out of the blue at three in the morning after an ill-fated Miracle Whip purchase, elicits dozens of comments almost instantaneously.

Jokes and Pokes and Folks to Keep You Happy

2008-03-17T18:42:30Z

In honour of the holiday, I thought I would offer up a challenge for anyone reading this...

Comment here with a topic, and I will write a limerick about it for you. Please keep it to one topic per comment, though you can comment more than once.

I know I can be notoriously slow at replying to comments, but I'll do my best to be prompt on this.

No Two Days Are Quite the Same

2008-02-29T08:05:23Z

Since I don't get many chances to do this, I'd like to wish my mom a Happy 14th Birthday! :)

In somewhat less celebratory news, my brother-in-law has just been deployed to Afghanistan for (at least) the next six months. While I was already intellectually aware of Canada's role in Afghanistan (and now Prince Harry's, apparently), I'm also aware of the price Canada has paid in fulfilling that role.

I've never been this closely connected to anyone in a war zone, so the possibilities (understandably) give me pause. I'm honestly not sure how I'd react if the worst were to happen.

I Don't Care, I'm Still Free

2008-02-06T09:12:02Z

While most people, especially in the States, have been wrapped up with Super Tuesday (I Grok Barack, if you're curious), I noticed something else happening online...but first, I should probably provide a bit of background.

After the release of Serenity, Pocket Books had a contract to publish original tie-in novels based on the franchise. (They had already published the novelisation of the film.) A bunch of established authors eagerly submitted outlines, but they all required approval by Joss Whedon, which wasn't forthcoming, and Pocket eventually cancelled the contract as a result.

Despite this, Steven Brust (skzbrust) went ahead and wrote his novel anyway, and (after some excerpt readings at conventions) he has now posted the entire novel, My Own Kind of Freedom, online.

I'm probably not going to read this novel, to be honest, but the legal questions surrounding its posting are very interesting to me--especially in light of what I last wrote about here, and the tension I sense between fan fiction and media tie-in fiction--because Brust released the novel under a Creative Commons licence. The thing is...well, he doesn't own the rights to either Firefly or Serenity.

Does Brust have the legal right to dictate the licencing terms of this work, given that he doesn't own the overarching intellectual property? And if not, does his licence really mean anything?

Everybody’s Got a Special Kind of Story

2008-01-21T07:30:32Z

I've been meaning to post my thoughts on the Organization for Transformative Works ever since first hearing about it at jack_pride's delightful Christmas shindig, and then doing an embarrassing amount of my own research over the holidays.

Whenever that comes, it'll be a very long and (in all likelihood) very legalistic entry--which may bore some or all of you to tears.

In the meantime, though, I emailed Julie Hilden, one of the FindLaw columnists I read regularly, suggesting that she might want to write about the OTW in a future column, since the issues surrounding it (free speech, copyright and fair use, etc.) seem right up her alley.

Much to my surprise, she actually took my suggestion, as you can see by her latest column: "The Organization for Transformative Works and Its Bid to Protect Fan Fiction: Are Its Proposed Changes to Copyright Law, Creating Immunity for Suits Against FanFic, a Good Idea?"

Feel free to take a look, if you're actually interested in such issues, and stay tuned for my own take on the matter...

Beyond the Earth, Beyond the Skies

2007-12-25T01:46:28Z

Although I wouldn't consider myself an especially religious person, one of my favourite Christmas moments has to be the television broadcast made by the crew of Apollo 8 (Lunar Module Pilot William Anders, Command Module Pilot James Lovell, and Commander Frank Borman), reading from the King James Version of the Book of Genesis as they orbited the Moon on December 24, 1968:

Happy Holidays to all of you on the good Earth.

It's Been a Long Time

2007-11-21T20:04:03Z

...but I finally received my contributor copies of Strange New Worlds 10 last week. :)

As I mentioned in my last entry, I'd allowed for a lot of mailing wackiness to ensue, since that's been known to happen randomly with cross-border shipments. Once I was past the ninety-day point, though, it seemed prudent to get in touch with Pocket Books to see what might be going on. The original order could not be tracked down, but thankfully, the books were ordered again, and this package managed to make it to Winnipeg without incident.

I can only hope the original order enjoys its life out in the postal ether...

Three of those copies were already spoken for by various members of my extended family, but the remaining seven will stick around until someone expresses an interest--or until I decide to give someone a really self-centred present. :P

If you've evolved beyond these primitive physical books, however, you'll be happy to know that SNW 10 is now also available as an Amazon Kindle Book. Feel free to enjoy it in whatever format makes you happiest.

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #288 799 in Books (#16 726 in Kindle Store)
Amazon.ca Sales Rank: #122 383 in Books

They're Not Gonna Hold Me Down

2007-09-21T01:18:35Z

Yet another healthy chunk of time has gone by without a proper update from me, so this is going to have a mix of both the latest regarding Strange New Worlds 10 and some random stuff which has been going on lately.

(I will be blogging a proper con report about Shore Leave, I swear, but this is not that entry...)

First, on a somewhat frustrating note, I still haven't gotten my copies of SNW 10. :/ I didn't worry about it too much before Shore Leave, because no one else seemed to have gotten them either...and then, I allowed for a bunch of extra time to clear any customs hurdles, since I believe I was the only Canadian in this volume...but there's still been no sign of them at all. *sigh*

On a more amusing note, though, Amazon.ca sent me an email a while back with recommendations based on my Amazon Wish List--and SNW 10 was at the very top. :} I guess my tastes are easy enough to figure out...

Speaking of Amazon, the first review finally showed up on Amazon.com last week. I disagreed with many of the reviewer's thoughts (he dissed some of the stories I really liked, for one), and he has a very strange rating system, but for what it's worth, "You Are Not In Space" received a brief and middle-of-the-road assessment as a "good story, but a little predictable in it's [sic] ending."

More important to me was the review which appeared in Issue #7 of Star Trek Magazine, on newsstands now:

John Freeman's review included the following, which made me very happy:

Paul C. Tseng's story A Dish Served Cold...is a gem, as are Time Line by Jerry M. Wolfe...the Vic Fontaine story So a Horse Walks into a Bar... by Brian Seidman and the Hoshi Sato-centered You Are Not in Space by Edgar Governo.

Lest I fail to give a shout-out to the other writers just mentioned, Paul C. Tseng is exculpatory around these parts, and Brian Seidman has his own website as well. Unfortunately, I can't find any online presence for Jerry M. Wolfe. :/

Also unfortunate is the fact that I waited so long to mention that the official Star Trek website is hosting a "Strange New Worlds 10 for 10" Book Giveaway, where you can actually win a free copy of SNW 10. Why is this unfortunate? Well, for one, the contest is only open to US residents to begin with; and for another, the deadline is tomorrow afternoon, so I'm not really leaving you with a lot of time to enter--but there is time, my American friends!

I'd love to follow all this up by talking about the various stories I need to mail off before the impending deadline for Strange New Worlds 11 on October 1...but as I've mentioned before, such a volume will not be happening. *sigh* Various reviews and posts online have lamented the end of the series, and I doubt I can add anything new to those, other than to say that I'm as sad as everyone else. Alas, I shall never earn a Wardy.

In that case, you may be asking, what have I been up to?

The usual fandom activities and a lot of birthday shopping, for the most part.

I was very surprised last Monday to discover an autographed photo of Christopher Lee in the mail...a photo, I can only presume, intended as a donation item for the charity auction I held last year, in response to the letter I wrote him just under two years ago. I should be getting that letter from Ringo Starr any day now...

I've been talking about Doctor Who to anyone who will listen lately, so I thought it was awesome a couple of days later to spot a "DR WHO" licence plate on a Mini Cooper going down Osborne Street. I've been told that "TARDIS" is already taken in Manitoba as well, but I have yet to see one on the streets of Winnipeg.

I also thought it was awesome that "Dick in a Box" won an Emmy last weekend. :) I can honestly say there was no more deserving entry in its category.

Shopping for birthday presents turned out to be easier than I expected in some ways and harder in others. (September and October have a concentration of birthdays for people I'm close to, including my own. The only other period with so many birthdays coming at me at once is mid-March.) For one, I had a hell of a time this past Friday trying to find a copy of Babylon 5: The Lost Tales for my friend Bradley, but I had a much easier time finding Serenity: Collector's Edition for him, after having the reverse be true a few weeks ago when I considered getting a copy of the latter for myself. (At this point, I'm leaving it as a very obvious birthday suggestion for other people. ;))

On the bright side, there was a Browncoat at the HMV where I bought Serenity, who was smart enough to ask if I'd already bought Firefly since it was currently on sale. We had a nice little bonding moment where she expressed some excitement that this Collector's Edition exists in the first place. :)

Despite a few hours of searching that day, mostly around Polo Park, I didn't encounter anything else I was looking for, birthday-wise (for Bradley or anyone else), and then ran out of time and had to head to The Forks for some pool with xandersgirl (one of the birthday people in question), jack_pride, and my brother Tony, followed by a trip to Cinema City for a second-run viewing of Ocean's Thirteen. A definite highlight of the evening was putting together our list of five celebrities of each gender for our respective laminated cards (Friends-style) over dinner before the movie, which was both enlightening and a lot of fun. I wasn't so thrilled with my guy list (a couple of them could be switched out very easily), but I'm quite happy with my girl list, as I feel it represents a great lineup of very attractive women. ;)

Also worth mentioning was Tony's Consumer Rage gene kicking in at the cinema after a snafu over our movie tickets, which is a rare event in itself. (For anyone who hasn't met my brother, he's generally a very quiet person, so seeing him get his hackles up for any reason at all is akin to a J. D. Salinger sighting.)

Saturday was a similar story as far as shopping went--a mix of finds and frustration--but St Vital worked out somewhat better than Polo Park had. I didn't have time to head downtown that day, but their Chapters had more of the things I wanted, and I managed to find the B5 DVD at their HMV location.

Since I was there anyway, I checked the Science Fiction section to see what was stocked, and sadly, no copy of SNW 10 remains there...but for some strange reason, they had fifty copies of The Klingon Dictionary sitting on their shelves, far more than anything else related to Star Trek in the entire store. Don't get me wrong--it's a great book, and I do own a copy, but it's a fifteen-year-old Star Trek reference work, and such works are often said not to sell well compared to original ST fiction. What's up with that?

At any rate, I wasn't there for that, but I did pick up Those Left Behind and Firefly: The Official Companion (Volume One) there to round out Bradley's birthday package. I debated over whether to try and find Volume Two before handing the gifts over, but (as xandersgirl correctly pointed out) I automatically have something to give him for Christmas this way...

Looking for birthday cards is at least as hard for me as what I just described. When it comes to my personal card-buying philosophy, I try to avoid rhymes, bad jokes, and (to a certain extent) glitter, while leaning towards cards that are witty and/or literary. Even if a card meets all of these criteria, I still have to do the obvious and make sure it reflects how I feel about both the person and the occasion, with plenty of space for me to write my own sentiments. (I'm one of those verbose fill-up-all-the-space-available guys...have you noticed yet? ;)) All of this knocks out so many potential candidates that, in an ironic twist, I tend to buy a lot of cards when I'm in a card store, since I'll grab anything that I think will fit the bill at some point, e.g. birthday cards for friends whose birthdays are months away.

My most recent card-shopping trips have proven no different from this pattern.

For now, at least, I seem to be caught up on all birthday-related matters, but I'm sure there are still more gifts to be bought...

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Recordatio Redux

2007-09-12T06:55:03Z

I recounted my memories of 9/11 and gave my opinion on what's happened to the world since then at this time last year, so I'll just direct any of you who are interested to that entry (especially if you've added me to your friendslist since then).

As I said at the time, feel free to comment there with your thoughts if you wish.

Getting from There to Here

2007-07-11T19:03:38Z

Strange New Worlds 10 is out...

...and my inbox has the flood to prove it. :}

Jim Johnson (ineti), one of the other writers in the collection, sent out a batch email to those of us who're going to be at Shore Leave this weekend, leading to a back-and-forth of twenty-seven messages (at last count) waiting to be read.

There've been lots of things going on lately in relation to the book beyond those emails, though, and I've been eager to post about them as they happened...so naturally, my computer has been on the fritz for the past week and a half. :/

This is the first extended period I've spent online since the beginning of the month as a result, and I'm still making sure everything is all right. (In fact, if you sent any email to my home address around Canada Day weekend, you might want to resend it, just in case...) Ironically, the main hardware problem I had was the hard drive I wasn't using, so with luck, there won't be any serious problems now.

I have a lot to do today, but I'll quickly try to hit the highlights.

Since I'm still worried about making a good impression at Shore Leave, I've been doing a bunch of clothes-shopping, starting around the end of June. Thanks to some expert sartorial advice, I think I'm in good shape, after quite a bit of experimentation...

(I'm not sure there'll be Outfit of the Day posts in my future, though...sorry, guys.)

I was also looking to pick up a new set of glasses (a long time coming, really), so I headed over to my optician the day after I first hunted for wardrobe. The focus was on a new set of frames (insert your own "focus" joke here), so I didn't really care if they just used my existing prescription, but they insisted that it was too old. Annoyed, I asked them why I couldn't just get the frames if I was wearing that prescription right now, especially since I'd tried to make an optometrist's appointment and they had "nothing available" before mid-August. The two offices are affiliated, so they looked into it--and oh, all of a sudden, I can get an appointment the next week after all. Funny how (figuratively) waving a wad of bills in front of them has that effect.

At any rate, "the next week" was a week ago today, and I paid seventy dollars to discover that...I still have the exact same prescription as I had before. *sigh* At least they sold me the glasses this time.

The day I failed to get the glasses wasn't all bad, though, as I managed to pick up the issue of Star Trek Magazine I mentioned previously (Issue #6, still on newsstands ;)). The article ended up being more of a sidebar amidst other news about upcoming Star Trek publications, with a tiny little paragraph per story in the anthology. All told, one sentence of my interview showed up in that sidebar, but it's all good--I still had something to show prettydark when I ran into her later that afternoon. :)

The flight to Baltimore and the hotel room are all taken of now, too. The flight ended up costing somewhat less than I expected, which was a pleasant surprise, but I ended up having to go with one of the alternate hotels as opposed to the Hunt Valley Inn, where the con is actually taking place. (The phone number they gave to be placed on a waiting list never even called me back. :/)

Late last week, I received my first Royalty Statement in the mail from Simon & Schuster...but with the book not out yet, there wasn't exactly a lot on it. :} Having said that, I noticed the same day that both North American Amazon sites were now listing the book as In Stock, so I started getting excited...

...which brings us to Saturday.

I headed out to search for more clothing and brought along some rather old Chapters Gift Cards (despite what I said about how staying out of that store was good for my wallet), since the store "reserves the right to expire" their value and I wanted to make the most of them while I could. Although the main goal was picking up some additional outfits, along with assorted household items for The New Place, I was hoping to get Firefly: The Official Companion (which I felt bad about not owning already, given how long it's been out) and some of the Trek books I wanted to catch up on. I knew SNW 10 was supposed to come out soon, too...but imagine my surprise when I saw three copies of it sitting on the shelf. :D

Keep in mind that I haven't received my copies from the publisher yet, so this was my first contact with the real, physical book, story and all. It was a great moment...

...and needless to say, part of my purchase was now a sure thing. ;)

That copy ultimately isn't for me, but since it's the copy I have right now, I've been working my way through it anyway. I've looked at all the bios and skimmed through my own story, quickly noting that they didn't go along with most of my copyediting feedback--but I've also already noticed one glaring typo (in one of the bios, where it's really easy to notice :/), so I'm not sure what's going on there.

Beyond that, I've only read one other story in the anthology so far, but I'll give some more thorough thoughts once I've gotten through the whole collection (i.e. after my trip). I'll also get an annotation page up for the story as soon as I have the chance to put it together.

In the meantime, however, there is much to be done before tomorrow...

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That's Okay, I'm Gonna Rock Your Body Anyway

2007-07-01T19:43:57Z

In honour of the holiday, I thought I'd post a music video from one of our national treasures:

Everybody loves the mall...

You Knew Who You Were Then

2007-06-21T10:38:08Z

It's bad enough that the CBC has waited this long to start airing the third series of Doctor Who in Canada, and haven't even bothered to start airing Torchwood (despite the fact they co-produce both shows), but this was the actual, verbatim description of "Smith and Jones" in Winnipeg's local TV listings on Monday:

Kudos to writers of the season-two finale for not making the new companion a substitute for Rose. This episode marks the beginning of the third season as well as the involuntary entrance of med student Martha (Freema Agyeman). The first - and very brief - time viewers met her was when she appeared in her wedding gown on TARDIS, much to the Doctor's horrified amazement.

Seriously, how many seconds of research would it have taken this anonymous copywriter to learn that these are two separate people?

And really, "on TARDIS?" (The listing's italics, not mine.) Did this person even watch the episode? Or the show? Ever?

I haven't had a chance to watch "Smith and Jones" yet (plans are to do so with xandersgirl later this week), and I'm still relatively spoiler-free, but I didn't get that confused. Of course, it doesn't help that the CBC also aired "The Runaway Bride" and "Smith and Jones" in reverse order...

I've decided to cleanse my fannish palate with John Barrowman's rendition of the opening music. Feel free to do the same. :)

He Is Brave and Gentle and Wise

2007-06-17T03:28:49Z

With Bob Barker now gone as host of The Price of Right, and my certainty that he can never be adequately be replaced (no matter who they pick, the alchemy just won't be the same), I can only offer this soulful yodel as a tribute to his work.

It's Been a Long Road

2007-06-08T17:09:42Z

With barely a month to go before its official publication date, and with a number of you asking me what's going on with it, I should really let everyone know how things with Strange New Worlds 10 have been...

For one thing, I got paid. ;) The advance was fairly modest in the grand scheme of things (though the anthology has a pretty good per-word rate by most short-story market standards), but it was the first time I've ever been paid for something I've written. As someone who has self-identified as a writer for a long time, that was a very significant moment for me.

Also significant was an email I received at the beginning of March from Jeff Ayers (author of Voyages of Imagination: The Star Trek Fiction Companion), asking me some interview questions for eventual inclusion in an article for Star Trek Magazine (published by Titan Magazines) on SNW 10 and the history of the anthology as a whole. Jeff's email was my first encounter (beyond the obvious approval implied in getting published) with feedback on the story from someone who isn't close to me, and (fortunately) he had nothing but kind words to say about "You Are Not In Space," so I was reassured. :)

More recently, the back cover text for the collection was released a few weeks ago, which you can read (along with an excerpted story) on Simon & Schuster's website. It's always cool to see one's name in print, even if neither the descriptions on the back cover nor the excerpt relate to my specific story...

Craziest and most surreal of all, however, is the fact that I'm going to be an official con guest for the first time. I was offered a free membership and guest status at Shore Leave 29 in Baltimore, and I even have my own listing page on their site now...which is, yes, a rather plain listing page at this point. The Writers' Liaison has asked for a bio and photo a few times, but (despite this being all about writing) I haven't really been able to come up with anything. :/ Any suggestions on how I should describe myself, and/or what type of photo I should use, would be most appreciated.

I'm thinking of it mostly as a "business trip" (especially since right now, it looks like I'll be going alone, which I know will be much more boring than the alternative *sigh*), but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't excited by the idea of being at a signing table, or sharing a panel with other Star Trek authors and editors, or having people ask me questions about my story. Since all of those experiences are very new to me, I'll be doing my best to appreciate the adventure of it all.

Making it to Shore Leave might also prove to be an interesting adventure, as I'll have to budget carefully to make sure everything works out. (Oh, who am I kidding? Keeping me out of Chapters, Future Shop, HMV, and McNally Robinson for a few months should be enough to do the trick...)

Since I really want good things to come of this trip, and I know that there are several networking events (like a Meet-the-Pros Party and a "no-host writer breakfast") over the course of the con, I've been very nervous about the fact that I don't feel "prepared" enough for it--which goes beyond the fact that I haven't booked a flight or hotel room yet. It's just that there'll be so many guests there, and I haven't done any sort of catching up on current Star Trek releases. :( Originally, I'd hoped to go back and read the previous SNW anthologies, along with some of the more popular books from the past few years, but at this point, I'll be lucky if I manage to get through Voyages of the Imagination itself (even though Jeff Ayers indicated he wouldn't be there) so I can feel like I have a clue what I'm talking about when it comes to the wide world of Trek literature.

Looking at the list of writers in attendance, there are a few things I could do to "cram." Keith R.A. DeCandido (kradical) will be there, so I should at least finish Articles of the Federation, his well-received 2005 novel described as "The West Wing meets Star Trek;" and I've been meaning to pick up the two Mirror Universe collections which came out earlier this year (Glass Empires and Obsidian Alliances) regardless. That's a start, I suppose. Perhaps I won't seem too much like I'm living in the media tie-in publishing world of ten years ago...

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Take Me Out to the Black

2007-06-06T13:57:58Z

I'm happy to report that the grand opening of the Browncoat Saloon was a resounding success...

A lot of people at Keycon seemed really happy to see a Firefly-themed consuite in Winnipeg for the first time, if the constant traffic and questions like, "Is there a way to vote for this as best consuite?" are any indication. ;) All of the work put in by the crew I listed in my last post really paid off--the aesthetics of the suite totally came together as envisioned, with just the right mix of cultural influences and Browncoat-specific references.

Just a few days after the con ended, dontmentionlove posted the first pics straight from the Saloon on the LiveJournal community, for those who are interested in having a look. That's also where I'll most likely be posting my own photos, once I have things organised and connected enough around here to get those online. I do know that I was constantly getting shots throughout the weekend, and (unless I'm completely misinterpreting my camera's readout), I should have around two hundred pics to choose from.

The future of the Saloon remains to be seen. No matter what's decided, however, browncoatsaloon remains the best source for information, so keep checking back there for further developments.

There has already been some talk of putting the suite on again at Manitoba Comic Con this October, though we (or maybe just I) are (am?) somewhat more reluctant to remount it at next year's Keycon, because of...the person running the con then, who has a very negative (though well-deserved, some would say) reputation. (I'd rather not get more specific than that, lest the person in question find my post during a round of ego-surfing, but they have been the target of online bad-mouthing before, including elsewhere on LiveJournal.)

At any rate, when this first came up--and I had my doubts about even attending Keycon next year--I jokingly suggested that I should offer up some counterprogramming that weekend in my own apartment, which has already been described as "ginormous" and so (by this logic) could actually hold an entire convention inside. The joke kept recurring, and then something weird happened...the idea started sounding a little plausible.

Thus, the notion of NonCon 2008 was born. If there's a more elaborate way to avoid one person, I don't know what it is, but there are worse concepts out there. :} The New Place will be properly set up by then (though at the rate I'm going right now, you never know :P), I can definitely show videos here, I'm sure I could put together some panels and even a gaming room, if need be...and after all, I have the necessary equipment here to put a consuite together. ;)

Anyone interested in a supporting membership?

Take Me Where I Cannot Stand

2007-05-18T11:29:27Z

Although I haven't mentioned it lately, work on the browncoatsaloon has been proceeding...and it's yet another reason why I haven't been posting much.

Having said that, it's a very worthwhile reason. :)

Since the Browncoat Saloon is just about to make its debut here in Winnipeg, this seemed like the right time for some more details, even if I have to provide them in the middle of the night.

Many of the usual suspects have been involved with this project--chavvah and her Tamed Mechanic, casanovacoconut and dontmentionlove, imperfectmedium, and of course, xandersgirl, who originated the concept.

One of the more important steps we all took in making this happen was taking a weekend trip at the end of April to the area near Piney (a town in southeastern Manitoba) where imperfectmedium's parents live. Their home is not so much a log cabin as a log mansion, and they (thankfully) had all the materials and equipment we needed to build our set pieces. If you're curious, the LiveJournal community has a public post with pictures from that weekend...

Beyond that, the past few weeks have entailed a lot of shopping for necessary consuite items...plenty of thrifting, visits to Chinatown, and many a stop in seemingly random stores here and there to pick up this and that. It would probably seem disconnected to an outsider, but I have to say that the sum total of our efforts is an excellent mix of Eastern and Western elements that will serve the Saloon well.

I did insist on a couple of Eastern elements I hadn't originally anticipated. Rewatching Firefly left me with the impression that we should really have a Buddha statue for the Eastern/Companion half of the suite, so I managed to track down a relatively inexpensive one. Before that, though, my main shopping trip to Chinatown with xandersgirl and dontmentionlove led to my grabbing some spirit money...which seemed all the more appropriate as decor because it is made from Joss paper. ;)

(I am aware of the cultural overtones of spirit money, if anyone reading this is worried, and anyone reading this who isn't aware of them is encouraged to read up on the basics. I do plan to tell people not to take the money as a souvenir, since keeping it is generally associated with a death wish...)

I know that some of you who are in Winnipeg are already planning to go to Keycon...but if not, I would encourage you to check it out. Actually, I'd encourage you to check out the Browncoat Saloon, which necessitates going to the con, though the con itself often leaves much to be desired. :/

There'll be food, drinks, music (including a sing-along, complete with a book of lyrics :)), prizes to be won, games to be played (darts, poker, Red Dead Revolver, and more), screenings to be watched (Firefly and Serenity, as you'd expect, but also the fan-made documentary Done the Impossible and even the fan film Mosquito, thanks to its producers :)), fun to be had, and some of the prettiest Browncoats you'll ever meet. ;)

The LiveJournal community linked above is probably your best source for ongoing information about all this, but you can also keep checking out the Browncoat Saloon on MySpace...

This weekend will be the first appearance of the Saloon, but somehow, I get the feeling it won't be the last. ;)

On that note, I really need to get back to work...

Your Dreams Were Your Ticket Out

2007-04-21T18:44:38Z

As if to underscore my point about having previously lived in a ghetto neighbourhood, my former city councillor had his apartment declared insanitary and unfit for human habitation, while a thirteen-year-old in the same area was arrested for possession of a modified semi-automatic rifle.

Perhaps the two of them can find a nice flophouse together.

Maybe Tomorrow, I'll Want to Settle Down

2007-04-15T21:29:33Z

I haven't really talked about this on here, but I'm in the process of moving to a new apartment, and that has been dominating my time and attention for the past several weeks...

Since I don't have a lot of the knowledge required to fix up a place like this from scratch (where to get good furniture, how to paint properly, what an apartment is), I've relied a lot on help and advice from a number of people--chavvah and her Tamed Mechanic, casanovacoconut and dontmentionlove, and especially, especially xandersgirl, who's been a full boatload of awesome with her tireless efforts on my behalf.

Despite all of this expert assistance, though, the apartment is far from being finished. I'm currently writing this whilst sitting cross-legged on the floor of what will eventually be my office, with a half-finished corner desk directly to my right (mostly because I have yet to orient it to, you know, the actual corner). At least this implies that I'm wired--I do have my priorities, after all. ;) The MTS Bundle has been hooked up here for little while, so even if my computer, television, and phone are all on the floor at the moment, I still have them at my disposal, which has gone a long way towards normalising the experience of being here.

I'm also happy about the new neighbourhood. I've gone from the West End to South Osborne (a phrase which, admittedly, will mean nothing to those of you who aren't from Winnipeg :}), so it's good to know I'll be living in a nicer (and, frankly, less ghetto) part of town.

Minor details about my life are going to be different, of course (my Member of Parliament is now from the Liberal Party as opposed to from the NDP, for example), but it's still not clear how much my life will truly change because of this move, especially since I'm not actually going to a different city. My own personal homepage (which is now outdated on so many levels) had its tenth anniversary on Friday, so I've been reflecting a lot on my online home(s), how they've changed over time, and whether that means anything vis-à-vis my changing physical home.

I have no answers there.

With all of the money that's gone into the apartment recently, I'm going to have to be Mister Boring for a while (I mean, even more so than I already am ;)) to pay off my new debts and save up again, especially if I go ahead with a planned trip to the States in July. (More on that later.) That'll probably (nay, hopefully) lead to my spending copious amounts of time online, since The Move has left me extremely behind in all of my online activities...

...so I apologise if you find me commenting on old entries of yours, or commenting on entries out of chronological order. I haven't given LiveJournal (or any other site) much more than a hearty skim lately, but I'll be going over everything much more thoroughly once I'm (literally) in a less awkward position to do so.

On that note, I'm getting up off this cold floor and heading back to some painting.

Everybody Can Succeed, All You Need Is to Believe

2007-02-28T14:04:31Z

Now, I'm a Degrassi fan from way back (I was already hanging out on Degrassi Street when most people had thumbed a ride to West Beverly), but I have to be honest and say that Degrassi: The Next Generation has fallen off the rails...

Unfortunately, I think Degrassi may have become a victim of its own success.

It breaks my heart to say that, because I've always wanted the franchise to be as successful as possible, and I'm sympathetic to the idea that it's a slippery slope. On the one hand, there are some high-profile publicity stunts that work--Kevin Smith, a longtime fan who was right there with me (figuratively speaking) during the interregnum, was a perfect choice to play a recurring role on the show, even if he was basically appearing as a Mary Sue version of himself. (Kudos to dontmentionlove for that very apt description.) On the other hand...Taking Back Sunday? Really?

I'm not sure I could peg an exact jump-the-shark moment when things started taking a turn for the worse, but it was probably somewhere in 2005, around the time the current series began to really break through in the US. You'd think this would be great from a fan's perspective--at last, validation south of the border!--but if I'd known that the show would become a glossy shadow of its former self, I would've rather had it stick to its Canadian roots.

With The N seemingly rerunning episodes around the clock, the cast started doing more and more personal appearances in the States...and then, all of a sudden, those castmembers were sporting fake tans. The somewhat goofy Degrassi Minis started showing up online. In a strange (and frustrating) twist, new episodes premiered in the States before they aired in Canada, where Degrassi: The Next Generation is filmed (under CanCon guidelines, no less). And worst of all, the show's main storylines started playing out in the style of The OC instead of that patented (if melodramatic) homegrown style we've come to know and love. The series now seemed more beholden to its American sponsor than to its Canadian producers.

Nowhere is this tonal shift more clear to me than in the way the series has treated the death of regular character J.T. Yorke thus far. Degrassi isn't slavishly devoted to realism, by any stretch (its depiction of Toronto weather during the school year, to use just one example, can't exactly be described as accurate), but its hallmarks have always been a devotion to continuity and plausible character development. When Degrassi "goes there," it tries to show how people would honestly react to a serious situation, and it depicts the idea of ongoing consequences to those situations. All of us who had to watch Claude Tanner's suicide in Health class are well aware of this, and even the current series has shown itself capable of this in the past--Jimmy didn't have one of those miracle TV operations to cure him of his paralysis after being shot (for which I am forever grateful), and things like Marco's coming-out process have been depicted as the continuing processes that they are.

Did we get a mature look at the nature of random acts of violence, though, or senseless deaths of the young, or (perhaps most importantly) the impact on teenagers of losing a friend, when J.T. was written off his mortal coil? No, we got a sort of posthumous love triangle involving Liberty and relative newcomer Mia fighting over things like who gets to open his locker and whose video gets to be shown at his memorial service--which came off like an afterthought by comparison. The result was just...cheesy, and not worthy of such an unprecedented Degrassi event.

(In fairness to the show, this is a fairly recent event, and I'd really like it if my concerns were proven moot with regards to this particular storyline. However, my overall concerns go beyond this development to the series as a whole.)

Why am I even inspired to post a longwinded rant about this now? Well, I've been considering whether or not to put together a Degrassi Timeline, which would mean getting fairly involved in that world's internal history for a while. As I was mulling over this question, I discovered that someone on Wikipedia posted a timeline, but it's rather weak, and I'm not interested in improving their work. Still, I hadn't decided on posting one myself, since I needed to know if I liked that world enough to do so...and right now, I don't know that I do.

So, here I sit, waiting for the rest of the season to air and not even knowing when new episodes will return to CTV, Degrassi's primary producer. Degrassi mastermind Linda Schuyler recently revealed that this season and next will cover a single school year, making me feel like Degrassi: The Next Generation is trying to milk that cash cow just a little longer. All in all, the franchise seems to have cheapened itself over the past couple of years...

...but in the end, I suppose I'll have to come to terms with it. Whatever it takes, I know I can make it through.

Doctor, Doctor, Mister M.D.

2007-02-20T19:48:40Z

There are a lot of timeline requests on my site, despite the number of existing links out there. Some requests come from visitors to the site, some of them are the result of my sitting around one day and thinking, "It would be nice if there were a timeline for [Media Property X], but there just doesn't seem to be one," and some are timelines that I truly wish were out there (and often, ones that I'm shocked aren't out there already).

For me, the newly discovered House, M.D. Timeline falls into that last category. :)

You Can Tell Everybody This Is Your Song

2007-02-15T02:29:25Z

For xandersgirl, who'll understand the significance... ;)

This is Hugh Laurie performing his original song "Mystery" during his appearance on Inside the Actors Studio:

(You can also watch the original version of this song from A Bit of Fry and Laurie.)

I Can Reach Any Star

2007-02-14T08:10:29Z

The contracts have been signed (in quadruplicate, no less) and the tax forms filled out for Strange New Worlds 10, so it looks like this thing is really happening. ;)

First off, thanks to everyone who commented or emailed or phoned after I broke the news...I know I've already thanked some of you personally, but it never hurts to reiterate my gratitude.

I received the copyedited version of "You Are Not In Space" on the 1st for my own corrections, and it was due today, but I was able to do my part and courier the corrected pages back to New York by the end of last week. :) It was interesting to do a page-by-page comparison between my original submission and the copy they sent me; I'm not sure if the story was retyped at some point or if they merely played around with the Word file I emailed to Pocket Books editor Margaret Clark (also the person who first phoned me with the news, by the way :)), but in a weird twist, some of the "corrections" on the new copy actually matched back to what I'd had in the original submission to begin with. Go figure.

Other than that, there wasn't a lot to change (and I wasn't allowed to make more than minor changes anyway), and on a few points, I called stet and offered my take where I differed with their call on something like punctuation. In one case, I realised I'd missed an utterly, utterly wrong pronoun in a sentence (but then, so had the copyeditor ;)), and in another, it turned out that a particular piece of Star Trek minutiae was incorrect in both my version and their correction. :/

And now, more waiting ensues...

While I wait, though, Dean Wesley Smith (the main editor for the Strange New Worlds anthology series, and thus, someone to whom I owe a lot) has posted an early version of the cover for the collection:

This, of course, shows the saucer section of the Enterprise-D crashing to the surface of Veridian III--one of the more memorable scenes in Star Trek: Generations, but not exactly an image that fills me with confidence for the future of this anthology. Smith himself, on the other hand, really likes it, saying on his forum that he "thought the cover was perfect for the last one...[a] real signal that this phase of this is over for now," since Strange New Worlds 10 has been announced as the end of the series. *sigh*

I hope I can keep his positive perspective.

I also hope I can make it to Shore Leave in Baltimore this July, since SNW writers (along with various other Star Trek authors and editors) traditionally go to that con en masse, which makes it seem like an excellent place for me to network. (The attentive link-follower will notice that Dean Haglund is scheduled to be at Shore Leave, too. If he and I both make it, that'll be the third con in less than a year where I've seen him appear...and not one of these cons is in the home province we share.)

That should bring everyone up to speed...

Any entries, starting with this one, that have the Strange New Worlds tag on them will end with a tally of how SNW 10 is doing on the two North American Amazon sites, following in the tradition of pages like the Firefly Amazon Ranking Tracker, as well as serving that selfish competitive streak of mine which you've come to know and love. ;)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #532 269 in Books
Amazon.ca Sales Rank: #293 397 in Books

Now, Here Is What Separates Heroes

2007-02-04T00:34:39Z

As some of you know already (especially if you're involved as well :)), I'm currently involved in setting up a Firefly/Serenity-themed consuite at Keycon here in Winnipeg, and I thought I would enlist the help of any talented Browncoats who might be reading this...

If any of you have any advice to offer on how to successfully pull off this sort of suite at a con, feel free to join the browncoatsaloon community here on LiveJournal and/or the Browncoat Saloon on MySpace.

(I'm particularly looking in your direction, jenskijen, nonoluna, and sweetgrrl1972. ;))

The con is Victoria Day weekend (i.e. May 18-20 this year), so there is still some time to prepare, but it seemed best to get some assistance before things go down to the wire. A few of us also came across a rather disappointing Serenity suite at Valleycon in Fargo this past October, so I'd like to avoid the sort of underwhelming minimalism we saw there. :/

In particular, we're looking for help in replicating costumes from both the series and film (e.g. Inara's costumes from Serenity), so it would be great if someone could point us in the right direction(s) for more information on that.

There's a meeting for those of us already involved shortly, and I'll be posting the minutes from that in the community afterwards. That might give you more of an idea of what we're working on--and hopefully, it'll get you thinking, too. ;)

Thanks in advance...I appreciate any and all help you have to offer, and I know we can all make sure this goes off well. :)

On a side note, I head off to this meeting a little disappointed, as I discovered today that Joss Whedon won't be making Wonder Woman after all...