Yes, as the natural world winds down to the deep sleep of winter, we humans ramp up plently of nerd friendly entertainments.  First, I am really excited for the Spiderman musical.  This is not to say I think it will be great, or possible even good, but roaring success, or catastrophic failure, I will be there to review it myself.  Apart from the seeming impossibility of putting almost any superhero on stage (yes, Toxic Avenger already got an off-broadway musical), Bono and U2 are doing the music.  And when I first moved to New York, Alan Cumming was going to play the Green Goblin.  Tragically, He has since left the show for other obligations, and considering it was supposed to start in Feburaury and is currently selling tickets for opening in November….who can blame him?  Since it looks like this is finally cast and snag-free, I look forward to trying to find an inexpensive, good seat…..hmmm, I may have to work a little harder on that.

Next, New York Comic Con is on its way in October.  I am going to try and go on my day off.  James Marsters and Kate Sarkoff, among many others will be present.  I keep checking for an updated event list, but that it must stil be under development, as I can’t find one.  I am sure many other great names will be there, but I should state here, that while I enjoy comic books I read mostly The Uncanny X-men in high school, and am sadly uninformed on most other comics and their related star writers and illustrators. 

Also, new television season brings with it the hope of another first season of Heroes….There is ABC’s offering of No Ordinary Family..Basically, family goes on vacation…freak accident…Fantastic Four…oh wait, copyright infringement…The Incredibles….Well anyways, family with superpowers, and everyday problems tries to continue living an ordinary life when they are anything but. 

NBC  has The Cape, about a cop and father who becomes his son’s favorite superhero, to fight the corruption he finds in his workplace and the city at large.

For you Zombie lovers out there, AMC is premiering a series called the Walking Dead.  Yes, an entire series about Zombies.  I wonder how they will create meaningful storyline or at least varying action sequences, but this network has held its own with Mad Men and Breaking Bad, so I will give them the benefit of the doubt.  And it is based on a popular comic, which gives AMC something to work from.

Stephen Speilberg’s Terrnova may have potential, but as a midseason replacement, with little info, it is hard to tell. The synopsis has to do with humans trying to go back in time to reverse the damage we did to the planet, which made it unlivable.

I know there are many more new shows  out there.  For example, I really look forward to Running Wilde, the new comedy starring Will Arnett from Arrested Development.  It may be too quirky to last long, but if it is anything like Arrested Development, I will enjoy the ride as long as it lasts. 

 Enjoy the fall and all it has to offer, and let me know what if I have left out anything of interest, for I would hate to miss something out of ignorance of its existence.

Hello out there all you Terry Pratchett fans!  Already I can hear some of you thinking…”Terry Who?” I know he is not a very well known author here in the states, but he is a terrific fantasy/satire writer.  He has written over 36 books in the discworld series, all of which satirize a few different themes found here on planet earth (rock and roll, religion, crime procedurals, the banking system, the postal system, etc). 

Yes, this is basically a convention for one author.  It takes up a whole convention space, and is filled with crazy people like myself that love Terry Pratchett and all the wonderful books he has brought into this world.  We watch movies, have masquarades, banquets, and seminars on that range in topics from Terry’s works to how to write your own book and get it published.  There is drinking and singing and dancing and board games and free food and great people from all over the world (I met a guy from Switzerland at the first convention). Again, all gathered in one place to celebrate one author.  But really, how many authors can claim to have written a truly funny and educational/thoughtful book about the banking system?  I mean it sounds like an oxymoron.  Or to be the most shoplifted author in 1996? (I have no current stats).  How about over 55 million copies sold in over 36 languages?  Also, Terry Pratchett has been knighted for his work in literature.

Knighted for work in fantasy literature! 

Too cool.    How did we not know about this guy in the states?

Sir Terry Pratchett, writer extradanoire!

His books are funny, thoughtful and have great, if sometimes meandering, plots (depends on which book you read) and though some of them are advertised as “young adult “, I assure you they know no age limits.  Nation and the Tiffany Aching Books are some of my favorite books of his, hands down.  The last Tiffany Aching book, I Shall Wear Midnight, is released Sept 28th, 2010.  Yes, I have already pre-ordered a signed UK first edition.

Also, if you are into audio books (another debate for another day), his readers (Stephen Briggs, Nigel Planer) are awesome.  I actually prefer to read the Tiffany Aching books on audio book, because of the accent and character inflection and sheer vitality added by reader Stephen Briggs. 

Everyone who works with Terry is a fan.  He only licenses people he trusts to work officially with his material and it pays off.  Paul Kidby’s art brings characters to life that look as you imagine them in the books and the Cunning Artificer does an awesome job with the stamps,(among many other unique items), created after Going Postal (Now a live action movie).  He even makes stamps that are intentionally screwed up which sell for thousands of dollars to collectors.  No Joke!

Each unique and with extraordinary detail

What else can I say?  I guess since I am currently reading all of his books in order, and since I went to the first North American Discworld Conference in Tempe AZ, you will know me for the obsessed fan that I am, (if this adoring post didn’t already give that away).  However, after reading only 5 of his books (5!), I decided to sign up, pay for, and attend my first geek convention in 2009.  That’s huge in my book.  Conventions always seemed too overwhelming and hardcore for me, and then I went and met such great people and had so much fun. I might make it a habit…..

The First North American Discworld Convention (NADWCON)

If you don’t know who Terry Pratchett is, if you haven’t read his books, then you need to!  And then you can join me in attending the second convention to be held here is the states (Madison, Wisconsin, here I come!), where you can meet and have a beer with Sir Terry himself, Stephen Briggs, Bernard and Isabel Pearson and all of the other people Terry’s inner circle.  In addition, there are all the other crazy awesome fans you will meet and make friends with, just by sharing a few quotes.  Yes, we are all crazy, but in a good way! Come join the fun.

“The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.”

“An education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on.”

“Build a man a fire, and he’ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.”

“Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one.”

“Time is a drug. Too much of it kills you.”

“If you have enough book space, I don’t want to talk to you.“

Best Chris Tucker performance ever...

A big little company called SpaceX (yes, that is their real name) has decided to privatize the space-race, and get this, the White House couldn’t be happier. They’ve already got a deal to use their crazy-ass rocket, the Falcon 9, and something called a Dragon capsule to transport supplies to the International Space Station…talk about some crazy futuristic stuff.  Oh yeah, and did I mention that this whole company is the brainchild of the same guy who made his billions with PayPal?  That’s right, the PayPal guy is now in the rocket business, and he’s gearing up to head a space-convoy; well, I believe the official terminology is “space taxi,” which brings to mind The Fifth Element or Total Recall or innumerable Philip K. Dick novels.  Next thing you know, we’ll be colonizing Mars.  If you wanna learn more, check it out at NPR.org.

Pissing Contest

Giant phallice in all its glory

Portia de Rossi

and

Neil Patrick Harris

Admittedly, these were the first two openly gay actors who came to my mind at first, and that kind of made me feel dirty inside. Why aren’t there more openly gay actors playing straight parts?

I don’t know. I wish I had an answer. Maybe part of the problem is casting. I wonder if casting directors look at openly gay actors and then fit them primarily into openly gay roles. For the sake of argument, it can be a little daunting searching for openly gay actors, even just on the internet. Lists are littered with gay celeb names like RuPaul or Perez Hilton. I cannot see Bobby Trendy ever winning a role which would be better suited to, say, Brad Pitt. Names alone could be part of the problem.

Maybe the issue is just that there are not a lot of actors or actresses who are out professionally who fit the physical types we Americans expect to see as leading men and ladies. Or what if Tom Cruise actually came out? Or Mel Gibson? What if Jennifer Aniston came out of the closet? I think it’s an interesting debate worth having.

Before you take a stand, I recommend checking out this clip from CNN Headline News, featuring Ramin Setoodeh, the author of the article, kickass openly gay sex columnist Dan Savage, and Amanda Bearse, better known as Marcy Darcy from Married…with Children.

Why do you think there aren’t more openly gay people playing the straight leads in movies?

Hooray for their attempts to get a handle on this situation (finally), but what really struck me as interesting was that we are using robots to fix a major problem caused by humans.  This might not seem like much, but there’s a lot of significance in the act.  When I imagine humanity’s future, I always see us freed from a lifetime of labor by the wonders of robotics; and now that we have all this talk about “the singularity,” which is like a perpetual motion machine for technological advancement, the future is looking more like the World of Tomorrow and less like Blade Runner (not that I’d mind a gritty noiristic future).  Of course, we won’t be here unless we all get synthetic organs, but we can still preach the new gospel of robotics by pointing out examples such as this oil spill…and Papero.

This guy was initially used to capture leaked oil

Papero is the domestic companion with eerie self-awareness

April is National Poetry Month, and to celebrate, here are a couple of spots to geek out online, poetically speaking:

Geek Haiku “Forgot your flashlight? / In the darkness you have been / Eaten by a Grue.”

Godzilla Haiku “King of All Monsters / Protector or Destroyer / Soothe my troubled heart.”

Amber Tamblyn You might know her as Joan of Arcadia. You might roll your eyes because she was in those Traveling Pants movies. But her book “Bang Ditto” was recognized as one of the most noteworthy of 2009.

It’s a great month to be a word nerd. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must go compose that love sonnet to my own personal Scott Pilgrim…

Well, they’ve outdone themselves again this year, announcing a new equipment rank system for WoW players and two mobile games that are sure to be hits.

Epic Storytelling

Two New Mobile games

As a writer, I am super excited for the announcement of the game Queen’s Quest for mobile platforms from Blizzard. The fact I can move through this story of “betrayal, love, action, drama, comedy, life, death, destiny, freedom, war, peace, hope, despair, and epic adventure” using just my words is groundbreaking for the industry! And do I even need to say it? Look at those graphics, and that dialogue. I think I’ll have to stop playing WoW for this one. I’ll be picking up these 17 floppy disks from the store as soon as it’s released, you can be sure of that.

(and my personal favorite announcement..)

My EPEEN is bigger than yours! You can't talk to me!

Equipment Potency EquivalencE Number (or, E.P.E.E.N.)

With the recent emphasis in game about gear score (for those of you that don’t play WoW, each item has an “item level” that indicates what tier of content an item is from. Gear score is all of these item levels added together, which is supposed to be an indication of a player’s level of gear.. and, obviously, skill), the good folks at Blizzard have taken it upon themselves to further streamline this process of weeding out poor players from the best. They’ll be releasing the E.P.E.E.N. system with Cataclysm, the next expansion, which will phase characters out based on their E.P.E.E.N. ranking, meaning only the best will be able to speak to someone with a very high E.P.E.E.N. score. I think Blizz said it best:

As your number grows, the game world will tailor itself to you in other subtle ways: as the pool of players you interact with becomes more and more exclusive, you’ll no longer need to stand still in prominent locations quite so often to allow others to inspect your gear; you’ll have fewer time-wasting calendar invitations to sift through; and your friends list will become increasingly more manageable, reducing needless scrolling time. Any negative repercussions of these changes will be offset by the satisfaction you’ll receive knowing your equipment is significantly more impressive than average.

As always, Blizz, I commend you on your industry-changing April First news releases.

What I most knew him for, though, was his writing for the wonderful show Homicide: Life on the Streets, which starred Andre Braugher and Yaphet Kotto back in the 1990′s. One of my favorite episodes was called “Bop Gun”, which he adapted from a book by college friend David Simon.

The last project he worked on, called Treme, which deals with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, is 12 days away from premiering on HBO. Let’s all, as fans of good television, give it a shot and let David Mills live a bit longer.

First off, George A. Romero’s new zombie film, Survival of the Dead, has a new red band trailer, exclusive to IGNhas been posted today and it looks quite fun to this gorehound. Remember though, this film isn’t as action packed as the trailer might show, but it’s still the master at work here. Plus, it has to be better than Diary of the Dead, right?

Next up on the Splatter Menu, we have Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead getting a 6 episode pick up for the fall season this year. October 2010 to be exact, which is exciting news. When hearing that AMC picked up the series, it worried a few people out there. How would the gore quotient be? Would AMC allow the grotesque and harsh violence that makes the comic book a fan favorite? Well, Shock Til You Drop spoke with KNB’s very own Greg Nicotero, where he mentions that KNB will be working on Frank Darabont’s The Walking Dead, which is already exciting for everyone out there. They are the premier special effects group around, not only for horror but for any film that has required special effects work.

KNB worked recently with Darabont on the greatly under-appreciated film The Mist, so in less than a year we’ll find out how much blood AMC allows in the series.

And finally, not necessarily horror news, but the G-Man himself will be coming back to theaters in 2012. Legendary Pictures officially announced today that they will be partnering with Warner Bros. and Toho to make a new Godzilla film. As long as Roland Emmerich is nowhere in sight of this, then we won’t have another abortion of sorts on the big screen. Godzilla was last seen in the film Final Wars, a fun little flick that even poked fun at the American Godzilla mess. I appreciate how bad they made the CGI for the new Godzilla look in the movie. Check out the clip below.

Let Paper Spaceships know if you like this idea for a new article. Being a huge horror nut, I will scour the internet for random news bits that you, the horror fan, would like to know about.

Awesome.

Nintendo, to me, has always appealed to a much wider audience than XBox 360 and PlayStation (which in my eyes makes them a more intelligent company).. neither Microsoft or Sony has really gotten a handle on the non-teenage/young adult-male gaming demographic, but Nintendo has. Yeah, Microsoft and Sony do that demographic VERY well, but what about the rest of us?

Just to illustrate how out of touch Sony is, I give you this quote: “Having been in the portable space for quite awhile, I think it’s an interesting move but one I’d like to see where they go from a demographic standpoint. Eight- and nine-year-olds playing 3D is a little bit of a stretch given where some of our research is right now.” (John Koller, SCEA director of hardware and marketing)

lolwut? Wow. He’s going to be regretting those words for a long time to come.

P.S. Look at how beautiful that logo is.