Scientists Claim Discovery of Trans-Plutonian Planet

Where are we going? Planet Ten!

Astronomers believe they have discovered a new planet a staggering 96 AU (9 Billion miles) from the sun. The new planet was probably not discovered before now because it's about 45 degrees off the elliptical plane that the other planets orbit the sun in. It is larger than Pluto, but not terribly large, so there will likely be some dispute as to whether or not it constitutes a "real" planet. [article]

At Lunch Today...

I had a waitress named Tinuviel (although I think she spelled it slightly differently). That is so awesome. And yes, she is named after that Tinuviel.

Vanity Domains at Shutterfly

Shutterfly has a new feature where you can create online albums that you can share with other people. You can even let other people add pictures and comments, which I haven't seen before. Also novel, you get your own domain with shutterfly. Each shutterfly account gets two domains. I've registered mine already. The public one is here. Haven't put anything there yet.

Wallace and Grommit Trailer Page Up

The trailer for Curse of the Wererabbit is up here. Looks pretty funny.

Doom Movie Site Up

The makers of the Doom movie have a web site up here. Among other things they have a trailer and video coverage of the Q/A at the Comic-Con 2005 panel for the movie. That was pretty fast.

Dammitall

Why is my nose itchy? And my head congested? This sucks. Cranky.

OMG, the Cheese!

I think we may have a successor to Torque for Cheesiest Movie Ev-er. I saw the trailer for this gem tonight and it looks like it has real promise. Check out the trailer. It's priceless.

Comic-Con Pix Posted

(Why yes, that is J. Michael Stracyznski!)

So here's my cheesy homage to Comic-Con 2005.

The towering figure of Bruce Campbell.



Mmm, Grace Park. And those other people.

Ms Mandalorian.
Giant Killer Robots. They're in a band.


Ok, I lied. I did take some pictures the last day. Or, more technically, the last night.

The whole rotten set can be found here.

Russian Spammer Found Dead

Russia's biggest spammer was found beaten to death in his apartment Sunday. Vardan Kushnir evidently sent spam for his English Learning Center to every Russian who appeared to have an e-mail address. I guess someone acted on the impulses I'm sure we've all had at one time or another. [article]

The Sounds of Saturn

Saw this article referenced on /. today. NASA has posted the sounds Saturn emits on the radio frequency as captured by the Casini space probe. It's super freaky. Think Forbidden Planet. My cats seem unnerved by it. [article]

Who turned on the heat?

So, I'm sitting in my house, thinking that it's the house warming up that's making me run the AC and fans. Then I pop outside around six and get hit by that wave of heat that I haven't really experienced in a while. Didn't see that one coming. Forecast is around 90 for tomorrow. Not sure if that's warmer or cooler than today.

Yeah, I Feel Like This Some Days

Not every day, but some days.

[Me at work] Warning: if you think Happy Tree Friends is too gross, this might not be for you.

Army Readies Ray Gun to Use on Rioters

The army is prepping a new microwave "ray gun" device that is a "less lethal" weapon than conventional weapons (less lethal is the term they've started using instead of non-lethal). They plan to use it on rioters in Iraq starting in 2006. Greaaaaat. That's a sure way to win hearts and minds. [article]

The Word Is Given: James Doohan Dead at 85

James Doohan, best known for playing Scotty on Star Trek has passed away at his home in Washington state at the age of 85. Doohan was injured during the assault on Normandy in the D-Day invasion. After the war he took up acting and was in more than 4000 radio shows and 400 live television programs. [article]

Crap

My guitar teacher went and got a full time job. So Friday is my last lesson with him. :-/

Ah, Tachikomas, How I Have Missed You

While at the con last week I picked up the final GITS:SAC box set at the Bandai booth, which came in a spiffy metal case. I finally got a chance to watch the last three episodes. Ahhhhh, that's nice. And in a few months the second GIG (season) should be available. Just for old times sake I put the original Ghost in the Shell in the DVD player. It's remarkable how good the animation is, especially after nine years.

Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince

Solid. A few surprises. Not much to say right now.

Comic-Con 2005: Day 5 (No pictures, no pictures!)

Whew, getting a bit bushed here. It was not as long a day today as some of the others, but it's now the fifth and final day of the con, so I'm a bit run down. Feet are muy tired.

First panel of the day was Universal's Doom panel for the movie based on the video game of the same name. They had the head guy from id Software there, as well as Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, and Karl Urban, who both acted in the film. They showed a brand new trailer and a clip featuring a cinematographic technique I've never seen in a movie before. They filmed in Prague and principle shooting is done. I believe that one is coming out in October. Looks watchable. The Rock is a lot more eloquent in person than I would have expected.

The next panel (and the final one I went to while at the con) was the Narnia panel. They showed the trailer and a special compilation clip made specially for Comic-Con. A couple guys from Weta were there as well as the guy who bought the rights and organized the project (executive producer?), the main effects guy, and the guy who made a bunch of the costumes. Their project sounds really ambitious and the clip the Weta people brought of concept art and maquettes was really, really cool. I have high hopes for this movie which should be in theaters just before Christmas.

After the Narnia panel broke up, I basically spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the main floor looking at people's offerings. Luckily my cash flow was pretty low, so I didn't go super crazy buying stuff, although some places took credit cards, so I did not quite escape the valley of the shadow unscathed. I went through Artist Alley looking at the art and happened upon a couple artists that I dug. Unfortunately they don't have websites, so I can't offer a link to them.

Round about five the con ended, there was an audible shout of joy (from the vendors, I believe), and I made my way back to the hotel. Two good cons in a row. Got lots of cool stuff. Saw lots of cool things. I am tired, but happy. Now I just need to figure out how to cram all this swag into my luggage. And then get back to comics. And the new Harry Potter book. And maybe work on some of those pictures I took over the past week. Didn't take any today. I was pretty spent, so I just couldn't be bothered. Maybe next year. ;-) Anyway, I should have pictures online Real Soon Now.

Comic-Con 2005: Day 4

Started out at Hall H again, this time for the Aeon Flux panel. Got in a little late, but the lines were not (at that time) terribly hellacious. Charlize Theron was there, looking like Charlize. The clip looked less confusing than the actual cartoon, so I think it has some promise of being decent.

The next panel was the unique Kevin Smith who showed up evidently because he heard that Kong was here this year. He entertained questions from various parties about various topics (including the guy who kept shouting about how "Jesus died for your sins.") and was generally entertaining. There were a lot of cock jokes. At the very end, Richard Kelley showed up to show a short animated clip about his new project Southland Stories (I think that was the name of it). The clip featured a couple of SUVs, um, "having relations." So I am not really sure what that was all about.

After that, I decided to split and made my way through the insanely long line that had formed for Serenity, the Firefly movie. It looked nearly as bad as yesterday for the WB panel. The line I mean. I didn't see the panel.

Wandered around the floor for a while, which was challenging, since Saturday is when the bulk of the con-goers show up. It was crazy busy on the floor.

I eventually made my way up to the J Michael Straczynski, who was answering questions about Babylon 5, writing, following your passion, and that sort of thing. He's a great speaker and I would recommend him to anyone who has the opportunity. After his talk, I snuck out to the autograph signing place where he was doing a signing and got him to sign my copy of Midnight Nation and got a couple pictures with him. W00t! Immediately after that, I saw that both Lani Tupu (Captain Crais/voice of Pilot) and David Franklin (Captain Braca) from Farscape were there and got pictures and autographs from both of them.

Rounded out the day by going to the Emily the Strange panel. I don't think they've done a panel before, because it was incredibly disorganized and they weren't so good with fielding questions. I did win a packet of stickers in the trivia contest and got a couple sketches after the panel, so that was cool. They seemed very friendly one on one, so I think it's just inexperience conducting panels that made it, um, well, strange.

Because some ass clown scheduled Emily and Tenacious D at the same time, I missed the awesome power of the D, which makes me sad. Another time, perhaps.

Comic-Con 2005: Day 3

Whew, that was a long day! Started out by getting off the shuttle bus into The World's Longest Line. It started at nearly the end of the convention center, went down to the other end of the convention center, past the convention center, switched back a couple times, wound around an outdoor courtyard area and finally reentered the convention center. All in all, it took me 30-40 minutes to get into Hall H, where Warner Brothers were having their panel, so I missed over half an hour of it. And the clip for V is for Vendetta evidently. :-( Saw Natalie Portman (who is in the film) who had shaved her head for the movie and is stick thin. After that they brought out a couple of folks from The Corpse Bride, which is coming this fall, I think. It's a new stop motion film from Tim Burton a la Nightmare Before Christmas, with less singing. Looked potentially entertaining from the clip. There was a brief super-trailer for the Harry Potter film. They wound up with Darren Aronoffsky and Rachel Weisz coming out to plug their new movie The Fountain. The Fountain (from what I could gather from the clip) is a love story that takes place during 1500AD, 2000AD, and 2500AD. Rachel Weisz and Hugh Jackman appear during all these times, not necessarily as the same character. Since the first part of the movie involves Jackman's character searching for the Fountain of Youth (hence the title), presumably there's something about immortality going on. Looks like a really interesting movie.

After that I went over to the Vertigo new releases panel. Jill Thompson is doing a cute manga style cartoon called (I think) Dead Boy Detectives that takes as protagonists the two ghosts from the Sandman series, "A Season of MIsts." Other new comics include DMZ (about a guy acting as a journalist in the war zone of Manhatten), American Virgin, and a retelling of fables called (I think) 1001 Fables. Darren Aronoffsky stopped by to talk about the graphic novel version of The Fountain which is actually not quite the same as the movie version. They had a lot of other titles that they talked about, but I don't remember much about them.

Next up, the Battlestar Galactica panel. Line was long, but not as long as the WB panel, so I got in before the panel started. Woot. They had a bunch of the cast there and a couple of the writers. It was a pretty fun panel. Learned about an upcoming plot twist that will allow the humans to bring the battle back to the cylons. Sadly, I learned that Grace Park is already married. Oh well.

Went to the JJ Sedelman panel next. He's the dude responsible for a lot of the cartoons you saw on Saturday Night Live, such as The Ambiguously Gay Duo and The Ex-Presidents. He mostly talked about process and how his company does work. Missed the film reel. :-p

Caught a bit of the end of the Boondocks panel, where I learned that on October 2 they're going to start a new series on Adult Swim based on the show. It looks savagely funny and potentially very offensive. My kind of stuff. They showed a clip from an episode called "The Trial of R Kelly." One of the guys from Reno 911 is doing some of the voice work.

The last panel of the day that I went to was the 50th Anniversary of the Jim Henson Company. They showed some old archive clips as well as a new clip from the movie Mirrormask. They said they were going to show more, but they let fan Q/A get in the way. Interesting news tidbits, they're doing Dark Crystal II, with modern puppet technology. They have plans to do a movie version of Neverwhere (YAYYYYYYYYYY!), although it sounds like they haven't gotten very far with production. They are also working on some unspecified project with Neil Gaiman and TNT, as well as another unspecified project with Dave McKean. They said they could have released Mirrormask earlier, but they did not want to compete with the summer movies. Oh, and for the Fraggle Rock people, they will be releasing a Fraggle Rock DVD (Season 1?) later this year.

Had dinner with some friends, caught the season premiere of Battlestar, and then trudged back to the hotel to get some Zzzz.

Comic-Con 2005: Days 1 and 2

The first night of the con was relatively uneventful. Got my badge with no real difficulties and waited around an hour to get in for Preview Night. I think I covered more than half the floor before it was time to go. Quite a lot of stuff for people to buy. I did a pretty good job not getting stuff, compared to last year. Went back and hung with Noelle and her crew over at the Westin (which does not have wireless, never mind free wireless, hee hee!), where she made lunches for us. She's so thoughtful. Getting food is kind of a pain in the ass at the con. The lines are long, the quality tends to be sketchy, and the cost is absurd. Unless you're used to eating at ball games. Then it's perfectly reasonable.

I am pretty happy with my hotel: I got a wireless adapter which works better than the built in card, so I am writing this from the hotel room's patio while looking out at downtown San Diego. It's kinda foggy, but I like it.

The next day I got up and slowly made my way to the con. I didn't end up getting there until after noon, because there weren't any panels I was super interested in before then and I crashed pretty hard the previous night.

A Scanner Darkly: This is an animated movie version of perhaps my favorite Phillip K Dick novel. The animation style is a newer version of the rotoscoping process used in Waking Life. Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, Robert Downey, and Woody Harrelson are some of the actors in it. They also have an animatronic Phillip, K Dick robot, whom I guess they will use in the movie somehow. This movie is supposedly about 65-70% done and made for a miniscule $8 Million. They talked about how it was hard to convince the studio to do an R-rated animated feature. They showed a clip which featured a really strong performance from Robert Downey, which was surprising to me. They also had the animatronic PKD answer some questions. After a halting start, he went off on a tear, talking a mile a minute for a couple minutes. I believe he was talking about Blade Runner, but it was hard to tell.

Later that afternoon I went back to Hall 6CD to see Bruce Campbell speak. He was mostly there to flog his new movie, The Man With the Screaming Brain, his new video game Army of Darkness sequel, and his book Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way. He is a remarkably funny and intelligent speaker in person. I never know what to expect with actors. Campbell was quick on his feet and very plainspoken, which makes me like him even more than I did before. The last question the audience asked him was what his most frustrating experience in the business was, to which he made a five minute reply about how he was frustrated with the creative bankruptcy of Hollywood. How he gets accused of making B pictures when the biggest blockbusters are movies based on comic books. And how people under 30 don't realize how cheated they are because Hollywood just keeps going back and recycling old movies and televisions shows: Stepford Wives, Bewitched, Batman, Herbie the Love Bug ("They've done so many Herbie movies, I've done a Herbie movie!), etc, etc. Oh, btw, there are no plans to do Freddy vs Jason vs Ash. The producers of Freddie vs Jason did call him, but the deal did not make sense, so he said no.

David Cronenberg Panel: David Cronenberg was there to talk about his new movie A History of Violence starring Viggo Mortensen as a small town restauranteur who is mistaken(?) for someone else after he foils a robbery. The clip they showed was very intense, so I have high hopes for this film.

The last panel of the day was a reprise of last year's Adult Swim Pitch Panel. They mostly talked about what you should and shouldn't do to pitch a show to the guy at Adult Swim who handles new shows. They also featured a few clips for some shows that are in production: Minoriteam - superheroes who use ethnic stereotypes to do battle against The Man; looked insanely controversial but also very funny. Moral Orel is a cartoon in the style of Davy and Goliath but in the spirit of South Park. (Orel just wants to be good!) Finally they showed a clip from Lucy: Daughter of Satan which I've been waiting for since last year. Looks pretty funny.

Well, gots to get ready for Day 3 of the Con. I'll have pictures up when I get a chance.

Frickin' Sweet!!

The hotel has wireless internet (although I had to walk down to the other end of the hall to get the 'puter to see the access point)! And through some miracle, I flew several hundred miles south and the temperatures are 10-15 degrees cooler! Sweet! This bodes well for the con.

Off to the Con!

Back next week. Notes as time permits.

Fun Photography Site

Found this site while nosing around around at dpreview.com. It's kind of a fun little introduction to photography concepts in general and SLR cameras in particular.

I'm A Consumer Whore! (And How!)

So I went with Carl and Noelle to the Photo Fair on Saturday and wandered around there for a couple hours. Got a used 35-105mm Canon zoom lens for mid range shots. I also got a 500mm no name telephoto lens (literally, I have no idea who manufactured this thing) that I had to go hunting around for an adapter for. Actually, it looks like a telephoto with a teleconverter tube glommed onto it.

After I got the adapter ring for the telephoto I went up the road to Stevens Creek Blvd in Cuptertino because I foolishly forgot where that exit dumped out on SCB. Stopped at guitar center and ordered a portable effects box/amp for traveling which I am assured will be in by Tuesday. It was complete pandemonium. I have never been at a store so loud.

Wrapped up Saturday by taking a long walk at Almaden Lake Park in a desperate attempt to kickstart some physical activity. I compensated by not actually leaving the house on Sunday (mmm, video games). Hmm, I still seem to have a few things to get done before i leave Wednesday. *sigh* Well, off to bed.

Another Bit of Pop Culture Brilliance

Peter (the father on Family Guy) tries to cheer up his friend with a song that kept him "going through a lot of troubles." Hee! I need to learn how to play this.

Edit: The site doesn't seem to like hot linking to the song, although it seems to work fine on Safari if the song's already in the cache which is why I didn't catch it earlier. Now linking to the Song part of this site. See "Rock Lobster"

Dark Water

I'm a little... disappointed. The acting in the movie was fine (there are actually a lot of quality actors featured) and the cinematography was nice. But it wasn't really scary.

Photo Fair

There's a kind of a photography swap meet called Photo Fair this weekend in San Jose. I've heard it's kinda fun and it looks interesting so I think I'm going to check it out. Maybe they'll have a used EF telephoto lens. :-)

Another Fine Day For Humanity

By now I'm sure everyone's aware of the latest bombing, this time in London. The British seem to be taking things in stride, as one might expect from a country that has had to deal with IRA bombings and World War II. Given their support (or I should say, their government's support) for our national adventure in the Middle East, I think it was kind of inevitable that this sort of thing would happen. From reading various news services, it looks like a lot of their politicians feel the same way. It's still despicable, of course. I wish certain people might have enough of a sense of irony to see that they are opposing oppression and violence they feel the West inflicts on their people by bringing violence to other men, women, and children.

A million years since we learned to walk upright and this is the best we can come up with? *Sigh*

Vaya Con Dios, Iguana's?

My favorite taqueria, Iguana's is closing down for "an indefinite period of time" due to some kind of landlord dispute, so I went down for potentially my last burrito there (super mini carne asada, no guac). Yesterday was their last day open for business. <sniff> Hope they get things settled.

Good Day

This was a good day. I started out with a productive guitar lesson (rhythm stuff). Work was so-so, but happily brief. Then drinks and dinner with friends. Then jammed with Aki for a while. Went home and played even more guitar. Now to sleep, perchance to dream.

Tired but otherwise happy

Ugh, what a long day. Started off on a bad foot by having a nine AM meeting at work. But on the plus side I finally got to see my friend David's recording studio in action. That was cool. Now I have to do some laundry and practice guitar. <yawn> Well, at least there's a long weekend coming up.