Category Archives: Fandom

Fandom

Eight Years Later

Many thanks to The Cowgirl Coder who reminded me that Thursday marked the eighth anniversary of the day The Moon was blasted out of its orbit.

The breakaway happened on September 13, 1999. That was a Sunday. The day before, I held a going away party for the moon. We watched “Breakaway,” the pilot episode of Space: 1999, and when the show got to the part where the explosions started, everyone spontaneously started waving goodbye. 🙂

I’ve been watching the show on DVD thanks to Netflix. The first season was pretty bad. (Koenig’s solution to everything was to either yell at it, or shoot it and then insist that humans weren’t barbarians.) The second season was better, but that’s not saying much. I hadn’t realized it, but Maya was saving the moon long before Wesley got started saving the Enterprise.

And so many questions remain. What happened to Paul and Victor? What ever happened to all of Main Mission? When did Computer become a proper noun? (It was never “the computer” it was always referred to as “Computer.”) Where did they get the new clothes for Season 2? And just how many times did Eagle 1 get blown up anyhow?

Production values, OK. Writing and continuity, ugh.

Fandom, Stories

The Littlest Browncoat

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I went to my parents’ house two weekends ago, partly to visit them, and partly to visit with my brother and his family who were also in town.
On Saturday, Mom and Dad took us to the local amusement park for the day. We were waiting for one of the rides when my sister-in-law drew my attention to the fact that without any prompting, my youngest niece had started singing. Then I noticed the tune, and then the words she was singing:

He stole from the rich and he gave to the poor.
Stood up to The Man and he gave him what for.

She was singing, The Hero of Canton! Just like her dad taught her.
So I did the only thing I could and joined in on the next verse.

Fandom, Silliness, Stories

There's More Than One Kind of Bunny

During past Shore Leave conventions, I’ve occasionally been asked to introduce one of the guests at the start of a Q&A session. I get a bit self-conscious in front of an audience, but I get by. (Shore Leave is one of the weekends every year when I pretend to be comfortable in that sort of situation.) This year, in addition to two introductions, I was also asked to present some of the thank you gifts.
At the end of Claudia Christian’s Q&A session, I walked onto the stage where she was standing. The first item I handed her was a plush Shore Leave bunny. She hugged the bunny to her chest while I explained that the convention is named for the Shore Leave episode of the original Star Trek. In that episode, one of the first things you see is The White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland and that’s become the convention’s mascot.
Like I said, I sometimes get a bit self-conscious in front of an audience. I don’t turn as red as a few years ago, but I undoubtedly changed colors when Claudia quipped, “I thought it was because I was in Playboy.”

Fandom, Silliness

Voldemort is a Sled!

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The new (notice I didn’t say “final”) Harry Potter book is coming out tonight at midnight. Just for the heck of it, I’ve decided to be one of the people who’s in line at the book store at one minute after midnight. The notion of seeing people lining up for a book instead of a video game console is just too good to pass up.
Of course, I already know what’s in this book: lots of pages!
As for plot points, you’ll have to decide for yourself whether these are genuine spoilers:

Fandom, Photos

Shore Leave Highlights

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This year was my first time as co-chair for Shore Leave (or any other convention). All in all, it was a great weekend with no major problems that I had to deal with. (There were a few minor glitches, but nothing huge.) This is also going to be my last time chairing a convention for the foreseeable future, but that’s more to do with setting some priorities for my time rather than any particular hassles.
One of the highlights of the weekend involved attending my first ever “Klingon Banquet.” Having no desire to dress up in any other sort of costume (let alone the incredibly warm and heavy Klingon garb), I opted to dress as my usual self. To my surprise, I wound up seated next to Gwynyth Walsh – the guest of honor – and during the course of the evening, several people somehow reached the conclusion that I was her spouse. I’m not entirely certain how that happened, though I didn’t particularly object. My only request was that they not tell her husband!
Blair and Gwynyth
Continue reading Shore Leave Highlights →

Fandom, Rants

Solving the SPAM problem

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One of the favorite tactics of spammers lately has been to take phrases from books, movies, or legitimate web sites and use them to disguise their messages. Part of the idea behind this is that if the phrasing is sensible (as opposed to random text) people will at least open the email. A second reason for using sensible phrases is that if the SPAM filters learn to recognize sensible phrases as SPAM, they’ll start to misdiagnose legitimate mail as SPAM with the result that people will stop using them, thus making it easier for the spammers to run their various scams.
One of today’s SPAM messages had this for the subject line:

And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans.

It’s been nearly 25 years since I first ran across The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It’s a wholly remarkable book, from MegaDodo publications, one of the great publishing houses of Ursa Minor. That particular entry talks about why so many humans (even the ones with digital watches) are unhappy and explains how nearly 2,000 years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be if everyone just started being nice to one another, a girl sitting on her own in a small café in Rickmansworth finally figured out a way to make it work. And then the Earth was destroyed to make way for a new hyperspace bypass.
That’s one of my favorite books and I’m appalled at this abuse of the text. The spammers have now officially gone too far. OK, they went too far a long time ago, but books like The Guide don’t come along very often.
I have a solution. It’s drastic, but it’ll definitely work and I don’t see any good alternatives.
From now on, anyone caught sending SPAM gets forced to listen to some old fashioned Vogon Poetry.

Fandom, Stories

A Sudden Intake of Breath

I was part of the Shore Leave contingent that attended Balticon over Memorial Day weekend. We weren’t expecting to sell many memberships – Balticon has more of a literary tilt versus Shore Leave’s leaning toward TV and Movies – but there is some crossover between the two sets of attendees plus the opportunity for networking.
Melissa brought along some old program books and other materials so people could get an idea of what the convention was like. She also brought some T-shirts from previous years as giveaways to anyone who registered that weekend.
By noon on Saturday although we hadn’t sold any memberships, we did talk to a number of people, at least a few of whom were considering attending. Somewhere along the line I borrowed an idea from a friend and started offering a free convention membership to anyone who would buy a T-shirt for $60. Nobody took me up on it, but it was a great ice-breaker and allowed me to get a little way out of my shell.
In the early afternoon, a small group was walking past our table when one of the guys stopped and pointed out to one of the girls that Dean Haglund (evidently one of her favorites) would be at Shore Leave. That definitely got her interest, but then she noticed who else was on the list.
*GASP!*
“OMIGOD! They have Claudia Christian!”
Heads were already turning when I jumped to my feet and cried, “That’s the reaction we’re looking for!”
It turned out Michelle had never been to Shore Leave before, so we quickly explained what the event was like and that it would be in the same hotel during the second weekend in July. In the end, she declared that she wanted to attend but had to wait until payday before registering.
In the meantime, she’d been eyeing the stack of old T-shirts and asked if she could have one of the shirts from a few years earlier when Bruce Boxleitner had been a guest. Without meaning to, she’d done a great job of drawing attention to our table; we couldn’t have planned anything better. Melissa and I quickly agreed that this was a no-brainer and helped her find one in her size.
As I handed her the shirt, I laughed and said, “Now you know, there’s a condition to this. You have to come back every hour and have that same reaction to our poster.”
An hour later, she came by and did it again!

Fandom, Stories, Video

A Browncoat is Born

Back in August I gave my brother a copy of the Firefly box set. He’d heard of the show, but having no great interest in it, promptly put the discs to one side with plans to watch them “someday.”
“Someday” arrived last weekend.
During a phone conversation on Saturday, Dave told me he and his wife had watched the first several episodes. After some thought he agreed that it made sense for a frontier planet to have horses instead of cars (after all, building new horses doesn’t require as much of a manufacturing base) but overall he was skeptical of the whole “spaghetti western” motif.
By Wednesday they had watched the first three discs and found themselves in agreement with those who feel that the Fox network executives who canceled the show deserve to be consigned to “the special hell.” (The one normally reserved for child molesters and people who talk at the theater.)
I got another email from him this evening. His daughters aren’t old enough to watch the show, but he’s taught them to sing “The Hero of Canton.”

Fandom, Mischief, Photos

Gunfight at the Farpoint Corral

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Say what you will about Peter David, but the man is anything but boring. My own choice of words usually includes things such as “entertaining” and “quick-witted.” I sincerely believe he’s one of those fortunate people who’ve managed to avoid growing up any more than absolutely necessary.
I had the fortune to be seated at the same table as Peter for the banquet at this year’s Farpoint convention. Peter was his usual self, entertaining us with such stories as his discovery that the Enterprise’s warp core is shaped like a coffee percolator (I don’t see it myself, but have no reason to doubt Peter when he says that Mike Okuda confirmed it).
Because this is the year 2007, the theme for this year’s banquet was 007, James Bond. The tables were decorated with a variety of James Bond themed knickknacks such as playing cards and poker chips (after all, James Bond does visit a lot of casinos). At one point Peter and Lew were exchanging stories of visits to various Star Trek sets (and I was wishing I had that kind of connections), when Peter looked up and realized there was a gun on the table. Continue reading Gunfight at the Farpoint Corral →

Fandom

TANSTAAFL

On one of the email lists I’m subscribed to, people have been chatting about one of this weekend’s science fiction conventions. A couple people started wondering aloud whether they needed to buy convention memberships since after all, they were only planning to attend a club meeting and maybe one or two other things that weren’t in the main ballroom. In short, did they need to pay even if they weren’t planning to see the guests?
That’s a tough one to answer.
On the one hand, convention memberships are what pay for everything. Not just the celebrity guests, but also the bills for the convention space. Generally speaking, the space rental for the weekend is one of a convention’s two largest expenses, and that’s all the space, not just the ballroom. (The convention has to pay for that “free” meeting space.) And obviously, if too many people routinely take advantage of the convention’s “free” resources without paying for memberships, eventually you won’t have a convention.
On the other hand, any convention that checks badges for every panel and every club meeting is going to end up hearing a lot of unpleasant feedback involving comparisons to the Third Reich, Soviet Russia and the like. And the sheer amount of manpower required to do all that checking is also a bit overwhelming too.
Sure a convention membership is going to cost you some money, but you get a lot in return. You don’t only get to attend whatever club meeting, you also get admission to “all-you-can-eat” of that days’ programming with panels, Q&A sessions, and frequently a costume show and Saturday evening dance. Plus you get the warm-fuzzies and/or good karma that come with the knowledge that you’re supporting local fandom.