San Diego, Babylon 5, The Simpsons, and crass commercialism.

§ August 1st, 2007 § Filed under Uncategorized Comments Off on San Diego, Babylon 5, The Simpsons, and crass commercialism.

  • You know, I didn’t even go to the San Diego Comic Con, and I feel worn out from it anyway. If you need to know more about what happened there, Tom’s got the links you need.

    Pal Dorian and I are thinking about attending the next Los Angeles Wizard World convention, since neither of us made it to San Diego. Not quite the same, I know, but should make for some good ‘blogging, at the very least. If you happen to be going to that same convention, keep an eye out for us…Dor will be dressed as a Borgified Han Solo, and I’ll be wearing my Red Sonja costume.

    Some of my faithful minions did bring me back some ill-gotten gains from the wilds of the Con, which I haven’t really had time to finish going through, yet. I did get lots of new buttons, oh yes, and a cute promo booklet for the Sci-Fi Channel show Eureka, done up like a little catalog for the crazy inventions that appear on the program. There was also a set of Mighty Morphin’ Power Ranger headphones for use with your transistor radios or your portable cassette players, and you have my permission to punch me if you see me wearing them.

    More reports on the San Diego freebies once I finish…processing them.

  • Apparently, if you buy the new Babylon 5: The Lost Tales DVD at Best Buy, it comes packaged with an “exclusive” B5 comic book. Now, I figured it was just going to be a small-sized reprint of one of the several DC Comics-produced B5 funnybooks, but it is in fact a brand new short story (six pages), written by B5 creator J. Michael Straczynski and illustrated by Kaare Andrews and Shannon Blanchard. It explains where B5 regulars G’Kar and Dr. Franklin are during the course of the stories presented on this DVD…and it functions as a nice tribute as well, since the actors who portrayed those characters (Andreas Katsulas and Richard Biggs) had both unfortunately passed away since the original B5 series wrapped.


    As for the actual DVD movie itself…it is split into two parts: the first half involves a straight-faced, sci-fi take on demonic possession. I know how that sounds, but it’s pretty good and includes some nice bits of business about the impact of mankind’s departure into space upon the Earthbound religions. The second story, which, alas, I haven’t finished watching yet (I’m writing this, instead!) has President Sheridan directly confronting that old philosophical problem of whether you would kill Hitler as a baby if you know it would save lives later. Soon as I post this, I’ll finish watching it and find out how it ends. Entertaining so far, though…Galen the Technomage from Crusade is in this story, and he’s always fun to have around.

  • The Simpsons Movie, as you might have heard, has done shockingly well over its opening weekend, taking in over $74,000,000 domestically. There’s life in those old Simpsons yet, apparently. The movie itself is a hoot, and surprisingly doesn’t go too overboard with its freedom from broadcast TV restrictions (there’s only one gag that couldn’t be done on regular television, no way, no how, and the only non-family hour vulgarity uttered in the film…at least, that I recall…comes from the last person you’d expect). Solid laughs, and some actual touching moments, throughout, with only the scenes with “President Schwarzenegger” falling mostly flat.
  • Speaking of The Simpsons…as I first noted on this site back in November, Alan Moore (along with other comic book luminaries Art Spiegelman and Dan Clowes) will be appearing on the October 7th episode. Another comic book store opens in Springfield (run by a character voiced by Jack Black), much to the chagrin of local shop owner Comic Book Guy. “NERDIEST…EPISODE…EVER,” if I may dare to say so.
  • I’ve added a couple new thingies to the sidebar…one is an Amazon.com affiliate link, which I’ve been meaning to do for, like, forever. If you buy stuff through that link, I get a small piece of the action, which will help keep me in Diet Coke and sausages. There’s also a small PayPal button there, too, because while I’m too proud to beg, I’m not too proud to keep an internet payment service from doing it for me.

    And it’s been there for a while, but clicking on the “Hosted by 1&1” link and buying some product and/or service from them gets me a little something, too. I’ve been using 1&1 as my hosting service for the nearly four years I’ve been running this site of mine, and I’ve been very happy with them. Maybe you will be, too.

    As far as I know, the banner ad for The Rack doesn’t pay me anything, unless those guys are sittin’ on my money. You know they’ve got the phat cash.

    Sigh. Sorry for the commercial, pals. Just trying to get a little ahead, just like everyone else on the planet.

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