Mud's Friends

I successfully completed a 30-mile uni ride yesterday. An added highlight of the ride was also finding three caches- all of which I had looked for in the past, but failed to find (oddly, I found them all easily yesterday). Other highlights include having a vehicle slow down so the passenger (a teenage kid) could take a picture of me, a few bicyclist groups waved at me as I rode along, taking a picture with my unicycle by a "Share the Road" sign (with bike iconography), and oddly running into another geocacher (not at a cache- he recognized me as he was driving along the road).

This does motivate me and give me a bit of hope about doing the century ride in the (hopefully) not-too-distant future. I'm still planning it with an indefinite timeline, but it at least seems a bit more feasible. I can at least start thinking about different routes. I had jokingly suggested with my mom today the idea about unicycling on a track. I actually did give that some thought, as well as using the city's multi-use (bike) path.

Running track: Pros- confined space, so I can easily encourage supporters to cheer me on or provide assistance (not to mention I wouldn't need to carry stuff around), safer (no traffic, stop signs/lights, and cycling at dark wouldn't be a problem), and it can be measured easily. Cons - very repetitive (100 miles on a unicycle might take as much as 16 hours with breaks- going around in a circle for that long would be insane), and I could lose track of how many times I've gone through (so, measuring how far I've gone becomes difficult- compared to traveling on a road where I can use Google Earth to find the distance between starting and stopping).

Multi-use path: Less repetitive, but I'd still be covering the same area ~20-25 times. It's also hilly, and I'd have to deal with two traffic lights (otherwise, no other traffic problems).

More than likely, I'll come up with a route on the highway. I'd prefer doing a non-loop route (going to place x and back) so I can avoid backtrack. I think it also sounds more impressive to say I went to "100x" (a place 100 miles away) rather than "50x and back" (50 miles away, but riding back to where I started). It's the same distance, sure, but the perspective seems different and more grand in some way. Plus, I wouldn't have to deal with, "Oh, I saw that on the way up" from going back over the same area I already rode through. It might also add in a bit of extra encouragement in keeping up the cycling for so long- I'm not sure which would be more encouraging, to have an ultimate destination so far away... or to get back home.

Aside from thinking about possible routes, I still have quite a few more rides I want to go on. This will probably include a few more 30-ish mile rides, and a 60-70 mile ride (maybe two). If I can do the latter, I figure I'll probably be able to do the full 100 with good ol' fashioned motivation and determination. *gulp* Maybe. Maybe I'm also insane.

Ugggghhhh. We're hoping that our household has been infected with only the 24-hour variety of "you might want to carry a bucket" virus. Thankfully, we've been able to endure via unconsciousness most of the day. We think we caught it from a wayward nephew, whose school informs us it's most likely something that'll keep us down for a day or so. In the meantime, I've discovered that I may need to invest in more comfy couches at some point. :)

But neither sickness nor sleet nor ion storm will keep me from my appointed blogging(eventually), so let's start off with Wil Wheaton sneaking into JJ Abrams' "Star Trek" movie. He did some voiceover work for one of the Romulans, which can be heard in this clip. I was also a little late to finding out about his role in "The Big Bang Theory," where one of the show's characters challenges him to and then plays against him in a Magic-like game.

Both TV series starting with "S" pleased me this week. "Supernatural" pulled out the tongue-in-cheek, trapping Winchester brothers in "TV Land." This could have been a disaster, but the actors and writers managed to make it quite fun. There was even an appearance of "Smeat," the Spam/Treet product that has made quite a number of appearances in other productions. The commercial for a "flare up" remedy was also a scream. In "Stargate: Universe," the show took an immediate up-tic the second someone claimed their name was "Philip Fry." Whoever is writing Eli's dialogue is doing a bang-up job. I'm not so sure about how the episode concluded (it seemed a little pat), but what concerns me is that the next episode appears to deal with time travel, which is almost always a bad sign.

"Flashforward" may have gotten to something the novel pointed out regarding the visions. Maybe. We'll see.

And the film "2012" is apparently going to continue on TV. This could be a solution to the "sequel problem" a lot of franchise seem to have. I mean, nothing's deader than being canceled on TV, right?

Lastly, we're coming up on the KC Game Fair, where not only will I be in attendance, I'll be selling off some of the geeky items I've collected over the years that are now taking up valuable person-space in our house. A lot of them are Star Trek: The Next Generation toys, including the shuttlecraft Goddard and the Transporter playset, among other things.

So while I go see if I can face a bowl of chicken broth, here's some items of potential interest:

- Because I love how MST3K will usually have someone call out "and we have a title" whenever a character in a movie says the name of the movie, I really dig this compilation of title utterances in films.
- Reminding me of all those old Sears toy catalogs from days of yore, here's a list of the most popular Christmas toys since 1960 to the present.
- "Red Storm" is a mech game along the lines of "Smash TV," with upgrades and explosions a-plenty.
- I wish this thing had been invented when I was working in an office with a community fridge.
- Will Smith and Columbia pictures are making a Risk movie. What could go wrong?
- Anyone out there writing a ghost story? Here are 10 consistent story elements to tales of the ectoplasmic.
- Activision hired a private investigator to take down a thief selling hot copies of 'Mondern Warfare 2' along with one of the buyers who wanted to make illegal copies for sale. Hmm... sounds like the plot of a video game, maybe? :)
- This game has a marvelously "hand made" look to it: How My Grandfather Won The War. Navigate your plane past obstacles, or "splat" them with paint to render them harmless.
- Lastly, a preview of Prep & Landing, one of the first new holiday specials I've seen since I wore footy-pajamas.

A quick note to everyone having trouble getting to my main site: I've got a trouble ticket in with one of the tech support dudes and he's taking a look at what the trouble could be. Hopefully it'll clear up soon, if it hasn't already. Thanks for your patience!

V was rebooted on Tuesday. While a decent update with some cool moments, it had some odd decisions, mostly in the early going. Like having pointless action (Tyler riding his motorcycle, dodging heavy traffic) while interesting stuff is already going on (like a freakin' spaceship flying over the city). They also used water as one of the reasons the Visitors came to Earth. There's abundant water in the solar system that isn't in a gravity well. I'm also not sure what mineral would be available on Earth that couldn't be found in the asteroid belt (though I could easily be mistaken). And true, it's a ruse, but you'd want a ruse that wouldn't raise alarm bells among scientists. What I didn't like outright was the first scene of someone spraypainting a red "V" was on a YouTube video of some pro-Visitor youths tagging a wall in support of "the V's." And the show lacked a creep-tastic theme like the first mini, though sacrificing theme tunes for more commercial time is the trend these days. Also, that original tune didn't survive the transition to a series, and an appropriately 80's-esque version was composed.

Mostly, though, the structure of the first program seemed designed to "hurry up and get to the bit where the resistance starts," which is where it got really interesting. If the show gets more coherent and less scattered after this, I'll probably enjoy it more. We're going to get four episodes at least, and if the ratings work out, we'll get more "V" in March.

Oh, and a "location 4400" was mentioned, a nice hat-tip to previous work by scriptwriter Scott Peters... who is now no longer helming the show and has been replaced with a producer from "Chuck."

Now a video game item that even non-video gamers might find intriguing: apparently, a game was released in Japan for the Wii, and it had a dismal opening, garnering only 100 sales in its first week. I predict that will change soon, as it's a game so off the wall, I think it will be purchased out of morbid curiosity. From what I can gather, you're a cat trying to pass initiation into a company run by another cat. This is what the trailer looks like, and there are several videos of gameplay which border on mind-boggling. I think we might be seeing the beginning of a legendary title, though perhaps not in the way intended by the creators.

"North 40" continues to do well among critics, scoring an "unequivocally one of the best horror comics in years" from Comixtreme dot com, and the guys from Tales from the Parents Basement were kind enough to let me yammer about it and other things over the phone at them. On the topic of horror writing, it looks like Stephen King is continuing to spend his retirement from writing as a writer, putting out a book called "Under the Dome." It even has a teaser trailer. Is it me, or do you think he got the idea after seeing "The Simpsons Movie?

There are worse places to get inspiration, I suppose, like:

- An interesting experiment in childhood culture: Four children list what they think the names of various Lego pieces are (scroll down for the chart). I just called most of them "that darn piece I can't find."
- I didn't realize that Scientology celebrated the winter holidays or that they had a gift catalog. Someone found it put it online for our shopping needs. I'm not sure I can think of a book set of any sort I'd plunk down 2 grand for, goatskin covers or no...
- After recently posting about the world's largest rubber band ball, I felt I had to offer equal time to the world's largest meatball.
- What with "Ghost Hunters" and other paranormal offerings becoming more common, the webcomic Wondermark gives us the proper plurals for most supernatural entities.
- Here's a cute puzzle game where you explore via clicking and dragging to give a bunny what it desires: Full Moon. To get started, click repeatedly on the rabbit.
- This is either awesome or disgusting, depending on the ingredients: Leftover Halloween Candy Pie.
- Most of these, however, are just plain awesome: New design concepts for teapots. I think Captain Picard's ready room would look spiffy with several of these.
- Here's a clip from the upcoming Doctor Who animated special, Dreamland. I sure hope the writing is good, because the animation looks very low-quality. I think I prefer the previous technique to this "Shrek on the cheap" look. This anime version ain't too shabby, either.
- Weird Al has written a tribute to 'The Trashmen,' the group that gave us the 1964 hit, "Surfin' Bird."
- I don't think I've ever posted a flash-based pinball game before, so here's Power Pinball. It gains extra cred from me because you can use the flippers to "hold" the ball, just like in real pinball.

It looks like we might be in for a remake of 'Dune' hitting our theaters sometime in the near future. Frank Herbert's novel has, I think, helped bring together the "big idea" sci-fi crowd with the "epic hero" aficionados, both in the Lynch film and the Sci-Fi/SighFie mini series. While I wouldn't put the David Lynch film forth as perfect by any means, I still prefer it to the miniseries for several reasons:

1. The movie's cast was better: From the Shaddam IV to the Shadout Mapes, the movie has the miniseries beat hands down. Sting is always going to be the greatest Feyd Rautha, and Dean Stockwell is a hard Dr. Yueh to top. You can't beat Patrick Stewart as Gurney Halleck, and any movie with Max Von Sydow in it automatically gets several awesome points from the get-go. Even the comparatively unknown Kyle MacLachlan's Paul Atreides bests Alec Newman's performance, who came off as "whiny" to me.
2. The movie's soundtrack was really good: I still can't believe the band that wrote Rosanna came up with the soundtrack which included Take My Hand, which played over the closing credits. And don't think we didn't notice the attempts at replicating the electric guitar riffs in your own prodution, miniseries...
3. The movie's sets and costumes were amazing: The Harkonnens were geniunely scary. You could almost smell the Baron. The nobles looked like decadent royalty (a look used to good effect by the Centauri in "Babylon-5"). The Spacing Guild Navigator was scary and fascinating to behold, and his retinue were pretty creepy as well. The miniseries, however, put Feyd in a toga with a triangle on a stick coming up out of his collar. Princess Irulan had that weird butterfly dress in the first episode, and the Baron looked like he came from a production of "Something Funny Happened on the way to the Forum."
4. The movie was often more true to the novel: Sure, they had to cut stuff, and the Weirding Way probably had to change from a martial art to a kind of zap-gun because they couldn't pull off Matrix-y "wire fu" to demonstrate a nigh-unbeatable fighting technique. In the mini, they had hours to play with, and they still either re-wrote stuff or cut key things out. It's been a long time since I suffered through the mini, but didn't Princess Irulan and Paul meet in the first episode (which doesn't happen until the end of the novel), followed by her exit with her Sardaukar bodyguards? For those who haven't read the novel, Sardaukar are basically intergalactic survivors of an "Escape From New York" type planet who are then turned into soldiers that you drop on planets inhabited by people you think are breathing too much and not bleeding enough. Having them guard a princess is probably about as wise as having my gaming buddies guard a pizza.

The mini also had lackluster effects at times that would have made Doctor Who producers blush (I think every scene involving the underside and loading ramp on any flying vehicle had the actors casting shadows on the "sky" behind them) and it didn't compel me to give it a second viewing like the film does. That's not to say the film doesn't have flaws. The movie has dated special effects (lots of bluescreen work is in evidence) and the bits it had to edit out from the novel can make it very confusing for those who haven't read the book. The original opening dialogue from Princess Irulan starts out well but flushes any sense of gravitas down the sandworm when she utters her "I forgot to tell you" line. A different opening was created for the extended version, but while it's a more complete look at the Dune-iverse, it probably confuses more people than it draws in. It also has illustrations that are a bit campy (though they remind me of science fiction novel dustjackets of yore).

So we're possibly going to get a third crack at the first novel. On a technical level, they should be able to make it look like a solid, huge universe, but I believe casting is going to be even more important. Believable performances by good thespians would make or break the effort, I think. And I really wouldn't mind if they went back and used H.R. Giger's original concept art for the '84 film (click the titles for larger versions) that was largely passed over.

Turning to other movies, a trailer for an upcoming game in the Alien vs. Predator (vs. Space Marines) franchise looks pretty durn fun. I got a taste of the last version of this first-person shooter the last go-round, but only enough to realize that (1) I stank at it and (2) I needed a computer that didn't make so much smoke and fire when I tried to run games on it. I'd love for there to be a "story" mode in it, but even if there isn't, it'll probably be more enjoyable (or at least make more sense) than the last few films. That's gotta hurt a few Hollywood egos, given the usual result when video games go to film. :)

Speaking of film franchises, Joss Whedon is allegedly offering a whole ten grand for the "Terminator" franchise. This should happen for a number of reasons:

1. It can't possibly get any worse.
2. Joss in charge most likely means more Summer Glau as a cybernetic killing machine, which I approve of.
3. Ah-nold, were he to return, might get some better dialogue (or, in the case of "Terminator 3," at least some new material that isn't a callback to every previous film in the series).
4. The resistance would have snappy conversations with each other as they fight in a cowardly valiant sort of way.
5. And finally, after all the monkeying with the timeline, John Connor will be erased from history, and the true savior of humanity will arise: Mal Reynolds, great-great-grandfather and namesake of a certain starship captain, who will use the machines' technology to begin the great migration off of Earth and into the 'verse. Shiny...*

* this is the closest I want to come to writing fanfic... though technically, if I do get work writing for established comic book characters, I would be doing fanfic, but for money, which makes it okay, right?

And now, a comic book follow-up: "Planetary" recently finished its 27-issue run, and for fans of the book, it was a long, long time coming. The blog, "The Post Game Show" has compiled a list of all of the things that have happened or started during "Planetary"'s rather irregular installments. Not that it's wasn't worth it, and I hope for more.

I think I've more than run off at the keyboard in an overly-geeky way, so I figure it's time to bring on the traditional dumping of the links:

- We start with some Halloween leftovers: A kid in an amazing Jareth costume, an idea for next year that could blow the minds of your targets, and if you want to mess with the minds of those coming to your house for candy, #6 on this list sounds like a winner.
- Here's a game I think those smarter than me will enjoy: Exploit. "Hack" into fictional computer systems using a puzzling array of packet routing/bending/stopping icons representing security obstacles.
- Black and WTF is a collection of odd black-and-white photos that make you wonder what their origins were. Nothing appeared to be a workplace hazard, but if anyone runs across anything unsavory, give us a shout.
- Reason #44586 why I love the internet: Big Ben's Twitter feed.
- So you think you know your fonts? Give Typewar a try and test your desktop publishing mettle.
- I'll give this the title I saw when I found it: 2 people, 1 guitar.
- This needs to be a screensaver: JavaScript Tetris on autopilot.
- From the "so evil it's cute" files, we bring you The Adventures of Little C'thulhu. Gather the kids around the computer; it's time they learned of the Elder Gods by way of "Hello Kitty."
- We close with mindless blowy-uppiness: Pyroblossom is a good ol' top-down scrolling shoot-em-up. Pilot your 'chopper with the arrow keys, blast everything, and get powerups.

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) starts today. As I was searching for the novel I started writing in 2005, I came across other attempts (2007 and 2008). Neither was longer than about two pages. I'm just horrible starting. I'm going to push myself this year to do this. I'm motivated-ish right now, but I also don't really have anything in particular to write about. I'm going to start thinking about topics to write as I play a game of Civ. Correction: That will be this morning. After having a delicious salmon at my parents' house, my afternoon will be dedicated to writing. From a post I wrote years ago, I figured that in order to get the 175-page novel (or 50,000 words) written, I'd have to write an average of 5.8 pages (or 1666.7 words) a day.

My goal today is to pick out a basic storyline and write 8 pages. I've been looking at older attempts to get some ideas. Sadly, I couldn't find my first (2005) attempt. All I know about it is that it took place in the future, skipped time frequently, and likely didn't make any sense. Another one of my attempts starts out by talking about yogurt. At the very least, if I can't think of a good strong storyline that would work in novel form, I can always do a Douglas Adams thing by conjoining several seemingly unrelated stories (this is especially true of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, which is concerned with the "fundamental interconnectedness of all things"). The good news about that method is that even I would be surprised at how it ends (which, if the story falls apart, I could also sort to something found in Mel Brooks movie).

A Marvel Comics version of "Thor" is headed to our silver screens, but... Brian Blessed won't be Odin as some had hoped. I've got nothing against Anthony Hopkins, but how could they assume he'd make a better Norse deity than the man who played Vultan? They still appear to be assembling the cast, as a supposed casting call has surfaced for tall, non-bodybuilders who are comfortable wearing prosthetics. I think I just heard the employment rate among hard-core LARPers drop... :)

"Stargate: Universe" hit a bit of a stumbling block for me this week, in that the plot structure was very similar to that in the episode "Air." Something was needed, the ship got them to a planet that had it, but not without risk, etc. It may have furthered what could be an alien life form "character," if we see it again, but if not... well, I hope they get some more interesting stories out in coming installments.

"Supernatural" did a decent job with a non-apocalypse storyline, and I give them bonus points for not using the show's monster to "fix" a major character. Next week's installment looks to be another "goofy" installment, but as long as the writing stays snappy, I'll goof off with it while waiting for the devil and his minions to come back into the picture.

I'm still tossing some short story ideas at Marvel and seeing what sticks. They want them to be "evergreen" tales, ones outside of current continuity, which is kind of harder than it sounds. I've talked with a lot of other writers, and quite a few of them could give a rodent's nethers about continuity to a certain degree. M'self, I kind of dig that stuff, when a callback or an event is revisited. I see it as rewarding the reader for having been with the character for some time and it makes the previous story as well as the one I'm reading more "solid." Naturally, I'd want to avoid making the more recent tale depend on having read the previous one, but it's nice to drop in a detail or two ("Still smarting from when I dropped that whale on your death ray, villain?"). Anyway, if any fruit is borne, I'll post about it when I'm given the all-clear, and, if they let me, I might see if I can't put up some of the "rejected" ideas at some point.

In other comic news, the final pages of the first six-issue "North 40" arc have been inked and lettered; We're still keeping our tentacles crossed that there will be more, though with incredible reviews from places like 'Fangoria,' I'd say the chances are looking pretty good. :)

In honor of horrific fun, we start with some Halloween-themed items:

- You know those pop art pieces that look like blown up comic panels? Someone decided to turn that 'look' into a costume with striking results!
- A while back we linked to the new "Blood Energy Potion," made to look like an IV unit of blood. "Nerd Approved" did a taste test.
- There probably isn't enough time for this next project, unless you live in a warm climate, but making your own concrete tombstones could be a year-round hobby, right?
- I'm still pondering my much-delayed model train project, but I'm pretty sure it won't be nearly as insane as this ultra-tiny working model train layout that was built for a window display in another model train set! Scroll to the bottom of the page for the video of it in action.
- I've not tried "Google Wave," though I understand it's a combination of social media, chat, blog, forum, e-mail, and kitchen sink. Anyway, it's apparently useful for playing Dungeons & Dragons.
- I thought I'd seen all of the "funny" that could be created with the game "Grand Theft Auto IV," but someone had to come along and make a believable opening credits sequence for the game as if it were from 'Police Squad' or 'The Naked Gun,' though the airport part drags a little bit. A warning: It's not gory, though the police car does "thump" several people.
- A man has created the world's largest rubber-band ball. I only mention this because it reminded me of an epic Weird Al ballad.
- Here's a tricky puzzle game: Growbox. Click and drag the box over the gold dots to consume them and grow, but don't grow so large you can't get to every dot in the level.
- Here's a growing Flickr set entitled Stormtroopers 365. It'll eventually be a year's worth of amusing Stormtrooper snaps, and it started in April of this year.
- One of the proposed sequels to "TRON" was called "Rise of the Virals." A preliminary soundtrack (along with a little history of "TRON" as it headed towards sequel-dom) can be had here. Of special note is an interesting remix of Journey's "Any Way You Want It."
- We close with CCCPirates. Click and drag to point and power your cannon, then blast the treasure chests into the water to collect them. But don't let any canisters of toxic waste hit the water! Okay, you'd think most pirates wouldn't be so environmentally conscious, but a gaming theme only goes so far...

I'm going to attempt another NaNoWriMo this year. National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo- I think I just sprained my shifting pinky) is held every Novemeber. The goal is to write a novel in a month. It's not supposed to be good (I'm sure this is quite rare that one is good); It's just supposed to be finished. The whole point is that anyone can write a novel, even with a chaotic life. It just takes planning (writing daily) and determination (keep writing no matter what- even if the whole novel is worse than 1950's science-fiction). Oh, and don't edit. You can edit once the novel's done, of course. You can't do any editing while the novel's in progress (hence, 50,000 words can't be wrong... or at least they have to be "right" enough to get through to the end while making some kind of sense [Actually, nevermind. No one ever said a novel has to make sense]).

I know I attempted this in 05, since I found a "NaNoWriMo 05 Participant" image someplace recently. I think I had started, but gave up after a few days because I either didn't like the story so far or just ran out of ideas. Hopefully this year will turn out better- I'll just keep writing, even if I've lost any sort of originality, plot, or sanity. This can only end well, right? I suppose as long as I don't go off fighting windmills, I can call this whole thing a success if I come up with a novel.

I bought my first game via "Steam" last week, as I wanted a more hands-on subject for my "Backwards Compatible" strip instead of poking fun at the industry in general. I got "Torchlight," which was the top release for the 27th of October, and for only 20 bucks it wasn't bad... for a Diablo clone. Admittedly, the devs are former Diablo developers, so it's no surprise. In a way, I'd call it a "re-imagining" of Diablo, with enough of the original's gameplay to make veterans happy but with the (and I love this term) Hanime-Barbera cartooniness that a lot of "the kids" like in games these days (and I include myself in that, sometimes). You can also go fishing, which seems to be a requirement in adventure games as of late. There's also going to be an MMO out in about a year and a half based on this game, though I'm not sure what's going to distinguish it from current offerings that would pull people away from other fantasy games.

But speaking of things that remind others of other things, i09.com thinks it might have spied where the inspiration for the movie "Avatar" might have come from. Leaving aside whether or not Cameron borrowed from this novel, the core idea isn't a new one anyway, and I'm thinking we're going to see even more of this as sci-fi movies become more mainstream. Much in the same way that large swaths of romantic movies are similar, I'm betting that we're going to see a lot more "classic" ideas on the silver screen that a lot of us have seen or read elsewhere. Science Fiction took on racism, religion, war, philosophy, and countless other topics that were considered box office poison, too expensive to film, or both. Now that CGI lets filmmakers do nearly anything, and with larger audiences ready to go see media featuring spaceships and lasers, they're going to mine just about every trope that's been done from pulp novels to "Star Trek: The Next Generation" umpteen times over. I don't completely begrudge them that, as I do appreciate when an old idea is done again, but better than the last time. Though I do hope they'll occasionally try something new; authors haven't been writing about the future for nothing, you know. :)

And the topic of authors brings me to Terry Pratchett's latest: Unseen Academicals. If you like Discworld, you'll like this novel. It's not completely new territory for Pratchett (covering the usual follies of racism, the journey of self-discovery, how people behave, etc.), though we do get to see wizards play football. That's this sort of football, not the one with the helmets (and before anyone says I'm being unkind to the NFL, I don't watch either version). Though as much as I enjoyed this latest installment, it was a reminder that we only have Mr. Pratchett for a limited time, and I thank him for the amounts he devotes to us.

Back to sci-fi for a second. If you haven't seen it yet, you might want to hunt down the movie, "Moon." The less said about it the better, and going in blind might make it more enjoyable, as it's hard to describe the plot without giving away major spoilers. I liked it, and I think it's worth checking out.

Until then, check these out:

- Because it so reminds me of what my mornings are like, here's 60 seconds of confused cats.
- Anyone out there in med school? I bet they haven't covered practicing medicine in a comic book universe, have they?
- "College Humor" is getting better at making original funnies, as evidenced in this send-up of Batman's habit of 'vanishing', or at least trying to...
- What's 'Babylon-5' scribe J. Michael Straczynski up to? Penning a script for Jerry Bruckheimer based on a 2005 video game called "Shattered Union" in which Washington DC gets nuked and the rest of the states fall into civil war.
- A game for the wordy typists: Clockwords has you typing words (any you like) to be fired at invading clockwork spiders, out to steal your invention ideas.
- Here's an interesting Hierarchy of Movie Monsters, with accompanying explanations of the rankings they receive.
- Rumor has it that Spider-Man 4 will have a returning character become a classic villain, to which I'd say it's about time.
- From the creator of the "Red Remover" puzzle game comes the holiday-themed Pumpkin Remover.
- Khan couldn't take Nimoy out of "Star Trek," but Nimoy himself might be removing himself from 'Fringe'.
- And finally, a little real-time strategy resource fun with Eridani. Colonize planets, build ships, defend your stuff!