*the works is a beating so intense you'll pray for death

Am I ill-informed, I ask myself?

Yes, I answer.

If you ask me when Jenny was cloned from the

10th Doctor in the Doctor Who episode "The Doctor's Daughter", I'd answer "Why, 6012, of course!" (Except I probably won't even have that same information available later on. I feel like even the useless sci-fi trivia I've jammed my mind with is fading faster all the time.)

But ask me real-world questions like when are Georgia Moffat & David Tennant to be wed, I haven't the slightest clue.

Thank goodness for Conan O'Brien! He's a talk-show host on TBS with fierce red hair and beard, a quick wit, and freakishly long legs he's fated to lose in the war of 2012.

In my early twenties I watched his show because I didn't sleep as much or as early. Enough so that I tended to see (or dream) hot sauce commercials where cowboys lasso big ol' floatin' heads.

But I've lost my thread here... CONAN! Yes, Conan's show on NBC was great fun but I lost touch over the years, and I'm glad to have rediscovered him in time to have seen him rendered by Warner Bros.' Bruce Timm as "official" DC superhero 'The Flaming C' (that's him below there, out- bearding Aquaman and looking all outlandish with his loafers, fishnets, jai alai glove and eternally-smoking oven mitt.)

You never quite know what to expect from Conan, and that's a rare commodity. Talking like a turn-of-the last century radio pitchman, prancing about in women's jeggings, or chasing Gary Busey with his name-emblazoned zeppelin, Conan O'Brien dances on my fun zone till I can't walk. Or something less filthy-sounding.

Thanks also to PVR, a device allowing me, a guy who sleeps at 9 PM, to watch Conan's comedy antics at my leisure. Often while choking over my dinner. With laughter! And with my lady wife. (She, granted, is better at setting the PVR and at all forms of technology, really.)

Thanks to Andy Richter as well, O'Brien's loveable compatriot (lovely picture on right). He's a swell actor and his TV shows get cancelled too fast. I like him SO much, he should probably have top billing over an inanimate device like my PVR. Too late!

Actually, I think all Conan's guests so far this year have been American, so the 'keeping me informed about UK celebrity gossip paradigm' off the top was pointless, really. And how 'real world' IS celebrity gossip anyway?

Don't care. If my argument was going to be that Conan was keeping me grounded and informed, I guess it's partly true. It's more important to me that I be edutained than educated anyway.

Plus I learned the Minty the Candy Cane song. (He briefly fell on the ground.)

And I got this fine image cap for my computer wallpaper:

What is truth, anyhoo? Is there in truthiness no beauty?

The Conan show is a succulent, juicy burger with the works.*

My Favourite Characters: Bad & Bookish

It's a shame my cursory research reveals today's favourite character just wasn't around that much. But she doesn't wear that much, so... wey-hey!

Jennifer Maloy (Ace name 'Wraith') is a super-powered librarian sneak thief created by John J. Miller for the Wild Cards series of mosaic novels edited by the famous George R. R. Martin.

A certain librarian buddy of mine (doesn't dress like this) gave me the first twelve Wild Cards novels for my most recent birthday, and I've just finished book four.

The story continues to unfold for me of an Earth forever altered by the Takis-A xenovirus, an engineered plague from space that killed tens of thousands when it appeared in the 1940's, mutated thousands into hideous 'jokers', and bestowed unfathomable superpowers on lucky hundreds.

Such as Jennifer Maloy, a mild-mannered librarian whose intangibility power (like X-Men's Kitty Pryde or the Justice League's Martian Manhunter & his 'niece') allows her to pass through solid objects like... a wraith. The catch is, she can't be intangible AND carry stolen items AND support much in the way of clothing. It's either booty or boo-tay! Tee-hee!

She's a thief for thrills and a good cause: she steals from the corrupt and gives to battered women and homeless kitties.

Many of the "superheroes" in the Wild Card stories are only vaguely heroic, with many dragging MASSIVE feet of clay. I appreciate Wraith for her titillation factor, but also because she's genuinely kind and good in a primarily grim-and-gritty universe.

(I like the robotic Modular Man & the rotund telekinetic Turtle, too, but they don't make as pleasing a picture in their bikinis.)

The Hugos: The Fountains of Paradise

Is it gauche to suggest that only a gay guy could invent the space elevator?

Not that a classic tiny, thrusting rocket isn't a little obvious, too, but when it comes to erecting the Earth a mighty, turgid structure, a real MAN'S apparatus, there's nothing like a big, black carbon nano-tube phallus that reaches 1/15th of the way to the moon, pally!

That's the main character of Arthur Clarke's 'The Fountains of Paradise': an elevator 3 times the diameter of the Earth, designed to make 22nd century space travel safer and more economical. Especially if they get to... I mean HAVE to... knock down some monk-covered mountain in Asia.

An engineering feat for the ages.

A machine from atop which to scoff at the gods.

Take that, Zeus! Mine's bigger!

Ahem. Sorry.

I only gave 1980's Hugo-winning novel 2 stars out of 5.

When I reviewed Clarke's 1973 winner here, I was lukewarm but I used the word 'fun' a time or two.

Not so much this time out.

It has all the hot, engineering action and all the cool eastern philosophy you could ever want... certainly more than I did.

Maybe if it was about a nice, tight, wormhole... with boobs...

TV REVIEW: The Cape

I've been languishing in vile illness all week and what didn't make me feel better was the pilot for NBC's 'The Cape'.

I cannot recall a superhero pilot I hated SO much, SO fast. Mindless drivel. Really dumb. It moves so slowly that 2 hours felt like 9. Keep in mind I still watch 'Smallville'(!)

First, I don't like most hundred-year old pulp heroes anyway: from the era when having super-powers meant owning a GUN! And a MASK!

Our brave hero has the powers of 2 carnys and a cape that can do 37 things. (Get caught in a revolving door, get caught in a jet engine... the list probably goes on.)

The performances were fine, slightly over the top but that's for the best. Because the writing was dog vomit. (SPOILERS.)

The terrorist villain Chess frames our hero Vince 'the only good cop in Palm City' by tightly affixing the Chess mask to his head and sending him out to be framed and exploded on camera. Clever move, right? All blame deflected forever... so WHY does the villain continue to dress as Chess? Wouldn't that ruin the whole point of the frame-up?

And why are we meant to trust the carny folk Vince falls in with so quickly? They go from literally threatening to CUT HIS HEAD OFF and dump him in the desert to training him in the Carny Arts in about 20 seconds. The hell?

Finally, and no offense to Cameron the Terminator/River Tam, but the computer genius girl Oracle (sorry, ORWELL) looks pretty foolish fighting the French poisoner Cain.

Not physically, I'm sure the point of the scene was to show us how bad-ass Orwell is: it's that she shouldn't have been goaded into the kitchen to fight this knob in the first place!

Sigh.

2011 will see the end of 'Stargate Universe', but I have a feeling crap like 'The Cape' will run for 10 years.

In the words of Edna Mode: NO CAPES!

Binge on Fringe- Season 2

It's a follow-up post!

I NEVER really do this!

Looking over my tag list for ideas I realized I need a follow-up to 'Binge on Fringe- Season 1', now that I've recently finished Fringe Season 2.

Thanks, as ever, to Ron for providing me with these things to watch.

Yes, I'm still hooked. No, I still don't like anybody. The stiff, dead-inside FBI gal, the unshaven jerk and his appalling father- or IS he?

Spoilers abound in EVERYTHING I might say here, so I don't know how to go about this, but I can tell you I enjoyed the episodes called August, Peter, Jacksonville, White Tulip, Brown Betty, and Over There the most this season.

And there's more specifically 'sci-fi stuff' by volume. More plentiful special effects, too. (Never enough for me. Not ever. You'd need a dump truck full of sci-fi with sci-fi sprinkles on it to make me buy this series.)

But I am forced to admit the writing and performances are TOP-NOTCH. I feel fans of ordinary mysteries and horrors who can suspend their disbelief slightly would be more pleased than I am.

Do you know, I didn't realize the guy who plays Walter Bishop (John Noble) played Denethor in the Lord of the Rings movies until today? He's different kinds of horrible madmen in both, fascinating to watch, like some cobra in human form.

One of my favourite bits was opening credits redone for a 1985 episode.

I'll be watching the remainder of season 3 as it airs.

You got me, Ron! Like it or not.

You should check outside for flying pigs as well: I'm giving the V-make another chance tonight, too.

(Maybe that tooth I lost was my wisdom tooth?)

My Favourite Characters: The Mighty One

With the dress sense of James Dean, the hair of Conan O'Brien, named for Phil Hartman and a battered potato wedge, I present a favourite character from a beloved cartoon program:

Philip J. Fry, star of the decade-young animated sci-fi comedy series Futurama, is an old friend, dear to my heart. Created by Matt Groenig, David X. Cohen and company, voiced by the inestimable Billy West, Fry is a reluctant hero in a confusing time.

Frozen from 1999 to 2999 while attempting to deliver a pizza, Fry finds himself... in the Future!

The year 3000 is equal parts utopia and dystopia, with everything everyone could ever want at every moment, and a suicide booth in every food court.

Surrounded by oddball characters and faced with bizarre challenges, Fry confronts his brave new world with a minimum of brains, charm, and skill, yet armed with a maximum of incurable optimism. He's literally not clever enough to be miserable for long.

When he pays attention, he can be counted on to help his chums to the best of his admittedly meager ability.

"I had it all. A low-paying job, several friends, and a bed in a robot's closet. I envied no man!"

Clueless, hapless, but never hopeless, the good-hearted delivery boy with the cobbled-together brainwaves has made Futurama a delight to re-visit since 2000.

Not least the latest DVD package (which my dearest wife gave me this Xmas).

I love that lady like Fry loves Leela. I'm gonna get her SO MANY lizards!

Thrill again and again to the exploits of the Planet Express crew, I say!

To the FUTURE!

The Hugos: Dreamsnake

I celebrate the birth of a new year with the last Hugo winning novel of the 1970's.

Praise be to Heinlein, now I can FINALLY start complaining about the 1980's Hugos!

Sigh.  It's true.  I have NO idea what they were thinking in the seventies. With three exceptions I don't have a lot of praise for this decade in terms of Hugo awards.  And while the eighties has my LEAST favourite winner so far, it's not too awful otherwise.

Nor is 'Dreamsnake' AWFUL.  Two stars out of five is something I considered O.K.  The COVER is DREADFUL!  But the story's o.k.

I REALLY got the impression this was for girls instead of me.  But the emphasis on snakes in the story itself means I won't ask my wife to read it and tell me.  She HATES SNAKES, Jacque.  HATES 'EM!

In a post-nuclear world, a noble desert woman with brains, guts, control over her body's autonomic functions, and a bag full of medicinal pet snakes takes on all comers.  Sadly, not sexily.

The whole thing would probably have seemed better if I'd had a medicinal snake to fill with LSD and inject myself.  In fact, I think it should be sold with packets of acid and a snake-training manual.  Couldn't hoit! 

(It would hoit.)

Author Vonda Neel McIntyre, I gotta say, is pretty cool.  She wrote some of the first Star Trek novels I ever read (ripping good adaptations of the 2, 3, & 4th movies) as well as an original Star Trek novel which I quite enjoyed:

'Enterprise: The First Adventure', if I may be so bold, was a much better read by far than 'Dreamsnake'.  Further fuel for the fire in my belly that Hugos aren't ever handed out to franchised or shared world novels.  A pox upon you for trying to be fair and unbiased, Hugo awards!

Grateful I am, beat out a book by C.J. Cherryh, this did. 

Yes.  Talk like Yoda, I do.