10/11: 1. Planes and Terrorism

Well, it seems a plane crashed into a building in Manhattan today. "Only" 2 dead, but still...

Scary.

I'm not really paying any attention to it - Tom Hannity has been talking about it. (I don't listen to talk programs as a rule, but my dad does. He's a big fan of Rush Limbaugh, Neal Boortz, and Hannity. And when I'm visiting when those guys are on, I perforce have to listen to them too)

As far as Rush Limbaugh...I don't like the guy. He says some good things, has some good ideas...(ditto Boortz and Hannity) but overall I just think he's a jerk. I don't like people who mispronounce other people's names in order to put them down. They think it's the height of wit, apparently, I think it just makes them look stupid. I don't like his 'faux' commmercials, or whatever the technical term for them is - the 'Club Gitmo' ware he sells. I don't like the fact that he calls feminists Feminazis, or refers to the 'feminization of America.' I dont like how he's always doing an imitation of Bill Clinton (Hannity does this too.) I'm like...stop making fun of the guy and just say what you're gonna say.

I don't like Bill Clinton - or his wife who should have divorced him a long time ag, but it just irks me to hear people imitate him. If he didn't have a southern accent they couldn't do it.

I could go on and on...but this is just a brief rant and I have to get back to work now.

10/10: 3. Tigers beat A's in first in series!

and I didn't get to watch it!

Tuesday night, Oct 10, 2006

Topics covered in my late night entry:

I’ve been working on my writing project for my client - and got it done, but don’t have time to do my normal notes.

1) Issue Notes
Completed my list of Contributors, and formatted a couple of book reviews from my new new reviewers.

2) Space/Ocean Headlines
Space
Rare Event: Mercury to Cross the Sun Nov. 8 – Space.com
Yahoo 'Time Capsule' to Launch from Mexican Pyramid – CIO
Expedition 14 Crew Takes Short Soyuz Trip Outside ISS – Space.com
NASA resuscitates Hubble's main camera – New Scientist

Ocean/Marine
Awesome skills of spitting archerfish revealed - NewScientist

10/10: 2. Legislating start times

Last year, there was some fuss in Connecticut. Lawmakers - politicians - were trying to put through a bill to make it a law that movie theaters would have to start their movies on the time advertised on the marquee, and not have trailers or ads before hand.

And I thought to myself at the time...with all the problems this country has to deal with, with all the problems the state of Connecticut has to deal with, why in the world are politicians getting involved in something as petty as when a movie is supposed to start?

I thought of this again tonight, when I turned on my TV at 8 pm expecting to see Tigers vs As, and of course there's 30 minutes of pre-game stuff that I have no interest in.

All right, I'll be honest. I wasn't expecting to see the game start promptly at 8. I haven't just fallen off the turnip truck, ya know. Most games - in any league, always start 15 minutes after the advertised time, so they can get in some advertisements and such.

And I don't like it. But I sure don't want Congress to get involved in it. They're incompetent in what they're doing already, so keep them out of Major League Sports! Let the viewers complain and agitate if they want to...or like me, just know not to turn on the TV til 30 minutes after the game is scheduled to start.

(And having said that, since anyone who goes to a theater regularly knows that there's 15 minutes of ads before the movie starts - there is *no* excuse for being late! And it's not like a play - which will always start on time! But unpunctuality really, really irks me...)

10/10: 1. Truth in the news

The two photos below have been making the rounds of various anti-Republican blogs. They're the ones that show that Fox News labeled Foley as a Democrat, rather than a Republican, which is what he is. And apparently this informatition was aired during The O'Reilly Factor. I don't watch O'Reilly, but I've always trusted him, and one wonders if he ever addressed this issue, or if Rush Limbaugh addressed it, etc.

I myself am a Republican, and I'm not going to abandon the party just because they let this idiot keep his position even though they knew, apparently for several years, that he was sending emails to pages. That would be the same as abandoning the American political system because 95% of the politicians are crooks.

Um...

Well, flawed as we've allowed our system of government to get by allowing these crooks into power, it's still better than anything else out there.

(Everytime I look at the lawlessness in Russia just after the Communists went under and Capitalism came to the fore, or the corrupt Mexican and various African governments, and people condemn this on somewhat racist grounds - I always think of our own Tweed Ring...and all the other corrupt political machines we've had. I guess the difference is the country was so stable that we could last through it...but politicians are the same everywhere.

10:9/ 3. Busy Busy Busy

Monday night, Oct 9, 2006

Topics covered in my late night entry:
1) Website
2) General
3) Radio
4) Reviews
5) Issue Notes
6) Space/Ocean Headlines

Website

daily.greencine.com

A great place to read about film. Highly recommended.

2) General
I’ve been so busy today that I spared only 15 minutes (well, actually probably nearer 30) watching the first quarter of Monday Night Football before I decided I simply did not have time to watch it.

In addition to writing and publishing The Thunder Child, I also do freelance writing. I signed up a couple of days ago at a new website job service, bid on a couple of jobs, and was awarded one today - writing website content for a certain website. The whole thing is turning out to be a swizz, but it’s my fault for not setting down my terms more properly than anything else. I won’t go into details but I woefully underbid the job because I assumed from what they’d written that all I’d need to do was re-write what already existed. Instead, I’m having to do the research and write, not rewrite, and there’s other things I won’t go into.

Oh, well, educational experience. Good to have the bad one out of the way, in which you learn all the lessons at once. I’ll be smarter in future.

3) Radio
Lots of good stuff at BBC Radio 7 beginning on Monday (which is available on line now until next Saturday.)

2001 - A Space Odyssey
Millions of years ago on Earth, a strange transparent slab appears. Episode 1 of 10.

Brave New World
Anton Lesser reads Aldous Huxley's nightmare vision of the future. Meet the man who battery farms humans. Episode 1 of 10.

4) Reviews
Haven’t had time to do anything along these lines. However, got two new reviewers who will be giving me book reviews, so that takes some of the burden off!

5) Issue Notes
I’ve been working on putting together a page for each of my contributors, with hot links to each of their articles, so they can use the page as a resume of their work. Finally got all the pages ready to go.

Haven’t had a chance to work on anything else...but it’s okay because with some new contributors the November issue should be chock full of stuff.


6) Space/Ocean Headlines
Space
Through Saturn's Atmosphere – Science Daily (Oct 9)
Oct 10
Rotten egg' gas puts mice in suspended animation - New Scientist
Astronomers See Early Stages of Star Explosions' – Space.com
Star Trek' Starship Fetches Over $500,000 in Auction – Space.com
Cosmic rays could power icy moon's plumes - Daily Scientist
Hubble Zeroes In On Nearest Known Exoplanet, Confirms That Planets Form From Disks Around Stars – ScienceDaily
Nearest Planet Beyond Solar System Might Be Photogenic – Dailyspace.com

Oceanography
Fisheries Linked To Decline In Galapagos Waved Albatross Population – Science Daily

Undone - BBC radio complete episode list

#1 Undone
Writer-performer Ben Moor stars with Sarah Solemani in a new sci-fi series, exposing a very different side to London. Episode 1 of 5.

#2 Undone
Unappreciated: Ben Moors new sci-fi series. Edna Turner meets a man, makes a friend and learns more about Undone. Episode 2 of 5.

#3 Undone
Unrivalled: Edna's friendship with Kate, and her loyalty to Tankerton, are both tested by her crush on the lovely Grant. Episode 3 of 5.

#4 Undone
Unfamiliar: Genuinely faceless bureaucrats threaten to take over London as Edna's mum comes to visit. Episode 4 of 5.

#5 Undone
Unravelled: London gets stranger and stranger as Edna, Tankerton, and both the Carlos arrive at the series finale. Episode 5 of 5.

10:9/ 2. This week's library books

It's been a couple of weeks since I've been to the library. Simply too much to do.

One project I'm working on is a complete chronological list of science fiction and fantasy books published in the US and England, and even Canada, if I can figure out how to get that info.

So I take my laptop to the library, and input in about 10 books a day into a database. (That's about all my attention span has time for.) Of course getting these titles is just the tip of the iceberg, as for every book of an author the library has, there's probably 5, 10 or more that the library doesn't have. So I'll be researching each individual author for their own works later on this process.

The time-consuming thing is of course that I want it in chronological order. I think it'll be interesting to see the trends of what was published in which decade, etc.

And I came away with 3 books which look pretty interesting and which based on the jacket flap I invite all sci fi fans to read also:

1) Gaudeamus by Jon Barnes
2) Lives of the Monster Dogs, by Kirsten Bakis
3) England, England, by Julian Barnes (not sure if this is going to be a fantasy or what. All of Britain's tourist attractions are rebuilt on a certain spot so tourists can go visit the England that was...supposed to be a comic novel.)

10/9: 1. More football thoughts

Yesterday I watched the Redskins get beat by the Giants, the Cowboys lose to the Eagles, and the Chargers beat the Steelers.

I was really annoyed with the Giants game in one sense. A few of the defensive players had apparently derived a new schtick for the game...whenever they made a 'good' play, they'd act like a basketball player and shoot a basket. And I'm thinking to myself, just play the game, you idiots.

But then, I think the majority of football players these days spend a lot of time devising their celebratory moves for every occassion...moves I won't even describe but look so silly...especially when the game's just started and there's nothing to celebrate, or near the end when they're down by a ton and still celebrating because they themselves have made a good stop, or something.

It's just pathetic. I want my entertainment to be watching the guys play football, not acting out little "look at me, ma, no class" skits afterwards.

Then there was Terrell Owens and the Cowboys. During the first half of the game, Bledsoe rarely looked Owens way. There were shots on the sidelines of Owens yelling at people, and even more amusing shots of him just sitting on the bench, looking lost. (Of course, I'm sure lots of receivers do this during a game, and it isn't shown, but TO demands the camera and the camera watches him all the time.)

And it would have been amusing if the Cowboys had managed to win without using TO, but unfortunately, Drew Bledsoe imploded on the last march down the field. Took a 22-yard long sack that any college player would have known not to take, let alone a 10-year veteran...and then threw an interception into the endzone. That's just unacceptable.

So frankly TO has a lot to beef about. And I won't be surprised if the rookie quarterback Romo starts for the Cowboys next week.

10/8: 2. Vikings Win

My MN Vikings won....just barely, against a rotten team, the Detroit Lions. So unfortunately I don't think they're going to do very well this year.

Anyway, I've been bopping around reading a few other people's blogs, and I've noticed that they report the same trend that I see - on the weekends readership drops off precipitously.

So...I think from now on I'll save info for my late night posts from Monday through Friday, and just post here on the weekends to maunder on about sports and stuff.

Although it does look as if I've got at least one more book reviewer lined up for The Thunder Child, which pleases me. I'm going to have to be very upfront with him that I will not tolerate him getting a book and refusing to review it, or getting a book and taking three months to review it. That way lies never getting another book to review again!

Right now The Thunder Child only averages about 5 book reviews an issue, and three of those are children's books, which doesn't really cut it. I want The Thunder Child to become a source for people who want to find out what books they should be reading...if I can get enough reviewers to do 50 reviews a month (of current and retro offerings, I'll be well pleased.)

Now, downstairs to watch the Phillies hopefully beat up on the Cowboys...

10/8:1. Football Sunday

Well, its Sunday and as my regular readers know, Sundays during football season are days spent practically in their entirety in front of the TV. Games don't start til 1 pm eastern time, so I've got a few hours to do things in.

Also, of course, the time isn't entirely wasted. I have my newspaper clippings to go through. Yes I talk about my newspaper clippings every Sunday...but I've got a lot of newspaper clippings. A lot is an understatement, frankly.

I usually save up the papers for Sunday and go through them all in a bunch. And if there is anything more depressing than reading horrible news on a daily basis, it's reading horrible news one after the other after the other in a single day. It never changes. Trusted people turn out to be pedophiles, girlfriends leave their baby with a boyfriend who kills it because it won't stop crying, incompetent construction work causes collapses that kill innocent motorists, gangs of young kids like to go around beating up on homeless people, etc. etc. Irag is heading toward Civil War, Iran defies the UN, North Korea defies Japan, nuclear weapons are proliferating...didn't any of these countries learn anything from what the US and Russia went through? Problem is, if you get the right sort of religious fanatic, they're going to let off a bomb even if it does destroy them along with the rest of the world for the rest of time. Yeah, you psychos, that's just what your god would have wanted. Nobody left to believe in him, whether he's the right god or not.

Well, that sounds a bit dark, doesn't it.

So cheer up by visiting The Thunder Child where the only thing you have to worry about is giant ants.

10/7: Website design is fun!

Friday night, Oct 7, 2006

Topics covered in my late night entry:
1) Website
2) General
3) Radio
4) Reviews
5) Issue Notes
6) Space/Ocean Headlines

1) Website

Here’s an oceanography website:

www.seaweb.org/home.php


2) General

Clive Francis emailed me today with a list of his theater work, so I’ve spent the day redesigning his website (I had created it a few years ago, when I was justs learning how to design webpages, and it needed some serious work. I'm not sure if I like what I've got now, but its 100% better thant the way it was. Much work still to be done). Now inputting his theater stuff.

Fun, fun, fun. He starred in his first play in 1966! You might think...what good does it do a fan to look at a list of his theater credits? It’s because, for any actor, if you know how he acts, you can picture him in your mind's eye in a particular role and just kind of see it. Of course half the plays he was in I’ve never seen with any actor, but that’s a mere bagatelle. If I ever have free time I can stop in a library, pick up a playscript (usually university libraries have these) and read it that way...

I’m looking forward to seeing the other stuff he’s going to be sending me. Very exciting!

3) Radio
Nothing’s changed since yesterday! Be sure to check out www.radiospirits.com for their Halloween lineup, and the ‘alternate universe’ comedy Undone is now available in totality at BBC7, but the Monday episode will drop off soon so make sure you listen to it.

4) Reviews
Haven’t had time to do anything in this regard.

5) Issue Notes
Worked on Moskowitz earlier today before I got Clive Francis’ email....and have spent the rest of the day doing Francis work and watching the Yanks get crushed by the Tigers! Yeah, baby! It’s not that I dislike the players on the Yanks per se, it’s just that Steinbrunner pays them too much money!

6) Space/Ocean Headlines
Space
New Bush Space Policy Unveiled, Stresses US Freedom of Action – Space.com

Ocean
Invading algae's sweet touch spells death for coral – New Scientist
NASA Data Captures El Niño's Return In The Pacific – Science Daily

10/6: 2. If a full moon shines in a sky obscured by clouds and rain...

is it really anything to brag about??

Friday night, Oct 6, 2006

Topics covered in my late night entry:
1) Website
2) General
3) Radio
4) Reviews
5) Issue Notes
6) Space/Ocean Headlines

1) Website
Ever heard of a British movie called Things To Come? Based on the book by HG Wells. This site is dedicated to it.

http://www.625.org.uk/ttc/index.htm

2) General
My Minnesota Twins baseball team certainly stank up the place today - as in the previous two games as well. Oh, well, there’s always next year.

Got an email from someone who told me The Thunder Child review of the Kreating Karloff doc was featured on a website called The Scoop:

scoop.diamondgalleries.com/
Log onto the site and then scroll down to the section labeled "Mondo Media." Seriously, this site is major, and seen by fans, dealers and producers all over the globe.

So that’s pretty cool. It’s a pity that the copyright info for the pics I used from the doc wasn’t carried over to the page they use, but you can’t have everything...

Funny about tonight’s Full Moon being 12 % bigger than normal. Here in York County, VA it’s been raining all day and there’s no moon to be seen!

3) Radio
Tuesday October 17 at Radio Spirits
Tuesday 10-17
Lights Out!
Cat Wife starring Boris Karloff
Original Air Date - 4/6/1938
Speaking of Radio
Arch Oboler and Chuck Schaden
Original Air Date - 8/5/1976

Both of these are must listen to! Lights Out is a horror program, produced by Arch Oboler - he’s the guy who did Chicken Heart.
The Thing on the Fourble Board will be aired on October 30. Another science fiction/horror story. This is from Quiet Please, which is a pretty good show.

October 31 will be Ghost Hunt on Suspense. This is purely a horror story, but it’s interesting because the actor is the guy most famous for his This Is Your Life program.

4) Reviews
I placed an ad for reviewers at a Writing Website and have gotten a few replies. This is good because I’m getting inundated with books to review, and I want to be able to review books I receive in the month I receive them. So we’ll see how these guys pan out.

5) Issue Notes
Been working on the Moskowitz article and index.

6) Space/Ocean Headlines
Space
Debris strike left hole in shuttle Atlantis – New Scientist
Moon to Hide Star Cluster Oct. 9-10 – Space.com
Showtime for Spaceship Builders – Space.com
Tonight's Full Moon 12 Percent Bigger – Space.com
Black Hole Belts Out Discordant Musical – Space.com
Scientists look to place a pro-science president – New Scientist
Nanotube network could spot wing weakening – New Scientist (might have applications for space flight)
Mars probes snap stunning images of giant crater – New Scientist
Red Planet Double Team: NASA Orbiter Spies Mars Rover at Victoria Crater – Space.com

Oceans
Manganese Can Keep Toxic Hydrogen Sulfide Zones In Check In Aquatic Systems – Science Daily

10/6: 1. Dropping Pennies

A couple of days ago I came across a man's blog. He writes about making money on the web, by writing content for websites, etc.

The blog itself has been very helpful, as he's provided links to a couple of excellent sites.

But, I haven't been impressed by the man's writing. In his introductory post he said he had a degree in creative writing, which shocked me because his prose was sooo bad.

Even if he's just writing a blog, I thought to myself, he should still take as much care with his prose as if he were writing someone's web content...because based on his blog prose I certainly wouldn't hire him to write for me.

And then it struck me. I do the same thing with my blog. It's just a blog, so I don't spend a great deal of time re-reading and polishing. I just do, in the main, stream-of-consciousness writing. And on the occasions when I have re-read my entries a couple of days later, I have noticed a few ungrammatical instances, or an unclear sentence, etc.

And this is, of course, bad. The whole purpose of this blog is to drive fascinated readers over to my webzine, The Thunder Child, and they're hardly likely to do that if they read a few paragraphs, think, "My goodness she doesn't write well for someone who wublishes a magazine." (Wublish, that's a word of my own coining. W- for web, and ublish, for publishing. Wublish - publishing on the web.)

And so I now vow to take a bit more care with my entries. Not another ungrammatical turn of phrase or murky piece of writing shall be found here!

10/5: 2. Space Headlines

Thursday night, Oct 5, 2006

No real notes today. Developed a headache a couple of hours ago and am going to bed early.

Check The Thunder Child to see great articles on science fiction!


Shadows and Silhouettes: Looking for Transits - Space.com
Origin of Strange 'Blue Straggler' Stars Pinned Down – Space.com
Distant planets orbit their stars every 10 hours – Reuters
Giant gas loops found rising above the Milky Way – New Scientist
NASA Completes Survey of Nearby Supermassive Black Holes – Space.com
New Planets Astound Astronomers in Speed and Distance – New York Times
Saturn glows like a Chinese lantern in new image – New Scientist
Black Holes Power the Brightest Cosmic Objects, Study Confirms – Space.com
Hubble managers to attempt camera fix – New Scientist
NASA: Atlantis Shuttle's Radiator Struck by Object in September Flight – Space.com

10/5: 1. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

I've been a fan of fencing since I was kid, and even dabbled in it for a while.

I've been collecting fencing scenes since I first got a VCR - the marvelous duels between Basil Rathbone and Errol Flynn, the duel between Rathbone and Power in Mark of Zorro, the duel in rhyme between Jose Ferrer's Cyrano and his victim...from television the fight in The Avengers episode The Correct Way to Kill, the duel between the Man in Black and Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride, etc. etc.

There's a lot of bad fight scenes out there, too, of course. The duel in the first Pirates of the Caribbean between Sparrow and Will Turner (Depp and Bloom) was great, the three-opponent duel in Dead Man's Treasure, in particular on top of the rolling water wheel, was just stupid.

Anyway, that brings me to The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005). It was worth seeing once, I suppose, but the only part I really liked was the battle scenes at the end with Tilda Swinton's White Witch coming after first Edmund andt then Peter.

I liked those scenes, and wish I could capture 'em for posterity, but my DVD screen grabber can't quite do it.

Anyway, one problem with fencing scenes is like the problem with dance scenes - the fighter's whole body should be shown, not just close ups of whirling swords, etc.

I will say that I did find Tilda's fight scene frustrating in one way more. At the very end, she sees Aslan coming, knows she's running out of time, and yet she still has to do the damn flourishes with her sword. She's got Peter on the ground at her mercy. First she pins one arm. Fine - kill him. But no, then she has to pin the other arm. Fine. Now kill him! But no, then she has to lift up her sword, do a couple of flourishes before bringing it down - and in that time Aslan jumps on her and saves the day!

10/4: 2. Sand Rock Sentinel Feb 1953 done!

Wednesday night, Oct 4, 2006

Wasn’t in the mood to do my normal stuff, for reasons which I commented on earlier.

I spent the evening working on the Feb 1953 issue of The Sand Rock Sentinel, my ‘web newspaper’ which tells of the history of each month, and also contains articles from 1950s sci fi movies as if they really happened. I’m ‘building up’ to things right now. Kay Lawrence has just moved to Brazil (in 1954 she’ll be meeting the Creature from the Black Lagoon), and John Putnam has just moved to Sand Rock. He’ll be seeing a meteor crash in just a few months.

Sand Rock Sentinel: Know the past. Be sure of the future.

Hopefully I’ll be in a better mood tomorrow.

Other than that, here are today's real news headlines:

Space
Details Of Solar Particles Penetrating The Earth's Environment Revealed – Science Daily
FTC Approves Creation of United Launch Alliance – Space.com
On Zippy New Planets, a Year is Just Hours Long – Space.com
'Cosmic ripples' echo across science – ABC Online
'Bulge' yields new planet class - BBC News
Spooky steps to a quantum network – New Scientist


Marine/Ocean
Sniffing Out Relatives, Bluegill Sunfish Use Self-referencing To Recognize Kin – Science Daily
Arctic Sea Ice Shrinks As Temperatures Rise – Science Daily

10/4: 1. Blah day today

It's 7 pm my time and I haven't accomplished much today. Spent the morning painting water-proof stuff on the fence of my parent's townhouse, then watched the Twins lose to Oakland. I hope they can at least salvage a game out of this series, but it was just sad. (For those not in to sports, Tori Hunter let a ball get by him for an inside the park homerun, just an inning after the Twins had managed to tie it up.)

My mom had a doctor's appointment today. She's got congestive heart failure already, and now apparently her bloodpressure is at 200 so she'll be going into the hospital for a day of observation sometime soon. So that was depressing news.

I've dipped a bit into Moskowitz, but frankly I just haven't been in the mood.

A blah day all along...

Oh, well, you've read this depressing entry, cheer yourself (and me) up by visiting:
The Thunder Child web magazine and reading every single page!

10/3: 2 The Sand Rock Sentinel will have a second issue!

Tuesday night, Oct 3, 2006

Topics covered in my late night entry:
1) Website
2) General
3) Radio
4) Reviews
5) Issue Notes
6) Space/Ocean Headlines
7) Quiz

1) Website

Perry Rhodan page

www.perry-rhodan-usa.com/posbiintro

2) General
I had emailed Joe Moe, Forry Ackerman’s assistant, a couple of days ago, and he finally got back to me. He’d been dealing with the flu, Forry had kidney stones, but they’re doing better now so hopefully something will happen with the interview.

My Twins lost. I spent two hours watching the game. They had a chance, but couldn’t execute with one man on 2nd and nobody out..and then the reliever Crain gave up a homerun to Frank Thomas five seconds after the announcers had said he hadn’t given up a run in 23 innings of pitching.

And on a personal note, this pitcher, Crain, had a stupid beard. No moustache. Beard running down the sides of his chin, and then a patch of about three inches sticking out like a truncated Assyrian beard. I noticed a couple of football players last Sunday had the same kind of thing going. It looks so stupid. But guys are just like girls...they go with the style trends.

Mark Foley is now saying he was “abused by a clergyman” when he was a teen. Apparently this is what turned him gay. But he “accepts full responsibility” for his salacious emails to a teen. This is such a crock. The man’s gay. This is *not* a problem. The problem is that the man is stupid. What is he doing sending salacious emails to a 16 year old kid? Especially after he’d been told not to do it anymore? Don’t these politicians realize that their free ride from the press is over? It used to be the press would hush up politician’s affairs, not anymore. Also by soliciting from a minor he’s opening himself up to blackmail if the kid is of a certain type. (Not a gay type, but a see a chance to blackmail an idiot and grab it type).

And I would assume it also gives the lie to “gaydar.” If gaydar worked, Foley would have known he was soliciting a kid who wasn’t gay and would have just left him alone.

3) Radio
www.bbc.co.uk/bbc7/listenagain/monday/
Monday’s offering
Undone
Writer-performer Ben Moor stars with Sarah Solemani in a new sci-fi series, exposing a very different side to London. Episode 1 of 5.

4) Reviews
Need to work on Doctor Who, The Aztecs and the Flash Gordon episodes.

5) Issue Notes
Bean reading Seekers of Tomorrow by Moskowitz all day. He’s written 3 non-fiction books about the history of sci fi fandom and sci fi writers, I’ll be writing an article about his writing.

I’ve also been working on the Feb 1953 issue of The Sand Rock Sentinel. That’s my ‘spoof ezine’ which “rips the headlines from 1950s sci fi movies.” It’s basically a way to try to teach history at the same time as providing 1950s sci fi entertainment.

6) Space/Ocean Headlines

Ocean Headlines
Salmon Farms Kill Wild Fish, Study Shows - Science Daily

Space Headlines
Big bang theorists scoop Nobel prize for physics – Daily Scientist
Mysterious Radio Hiss Blamed on Space Weather – Space.com
Huge 'launch ring' to fling satellites into orbit – New Scientist
Big Bang Researchers Snag Nobel Prize – Space.com
Space Tourism Survey Shows Cost, Access Key Selling Points – Space.com
New ISS Astronauts Settle in for Long Haul – Space.com
'Ancient light' takes Nobel Prize – BBC News (Big Bang Theory, see 1st headline)
Largest 3D map of nearby galaxies released – Daily Scientist

Thanks for reading this blog. For lots more great reading, be sure to visit

The Thunder Child Science Fiction web magazine and sourcebooks

10/3: 1. Steve Holland as Flash Gordon

Many months ago I picked up a $1.00 DVD at Walmart, Flash Gordon, the 1950s tv series filmed in post World War II Berlin, Germany, starring Steve Holland as Flash Gordon, Irene Champlin as Dale Arden and Joseph Nash as Dr. Zarkov.

I haven't actually watched them yet...but I intend to do so this month. There's 3 episodes on this DVD, 1. Deadline at Noon, 2. Flash Gordon and the Planet of Death, and 3. Flash Gordon and the Brain Machine.

All reviews I've read of 'em aren't very complementary, which is why I'm not in much of a hurry to watch them, but I've set my goal to watch them this month.

One thing I like to do when looking at a DVD is to check out the DVD's set up - their 'main page', and the design of all the other pages. The Flash Gordon dvd was put out by a company called DVD Video, or mebbe it's called DigiView Productions.

For a dollar DVD, it's got some nice menus.

10/2: 4. Moskowitz on Sci Fi Fandom

Monday night, Oct 2, 2006

Topics covered in my late night entry:
1) Website
2) General
3) Radio
4) Reviews
5) Issue Notes
6) Space/Ocean Headlines
7) Quiz


1) Website

The Dinosaur Interplanetary Gazette:

www.dinosaur.org/frontpage.html

2) General

Depressing news today about the copycat killer going into a school...

Haven’t accomplished much today...listened to The Cat Who Ate Danish Modern on cassette, kind of fun to listen to the narrator do all the different voices...the very first audio book I ever listened to was The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, narrated by Robin Bailey. I hadn’t started out to listen to him..but I had become a fan of Robin Bailey through the tv miniseries Charters and Caldicott, did a library search on him to see if they had any videos of him (this was 20 years ago), and saw that he’d done these audio books.

I thought he did a great job with The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, and checked out The Religious Body, by Catherine Aird, next. Also liked that one - because of Bailey’s masterful reading.

3) Radio

Saturday, Journey Into Space, Sunday, episode 2 of Doctor Who, The Sword of Orion.

4) Reviews

Although I have seen Creature from the Black Lagoon many times, I have never watched Revenge of the Creature or The Creature Walks Among Us. (I am so bummed, they are showing 3D versions of this at the Castro Theater in LA on October 14...damn, damn, damn!) Anyway, I've got the Legacy collection and will finally watch those two films and will have the Source Book ready for next issue.

5) Issue Notes
Back to reading The Immortal Storm, by Sam Moskowitz

6) Space/Ocean Headlines
Galactic Birth Control: Unknown Factor Prevents Star Formation – Space.com
Committee Warns NASA To Keep CEV on Track – Space.com
Stellar Birth Control In The Early Universe – Science Daily
Hubble's main camera hobbles back to life -- New Scientist
Mars Rover Opportunity's Victory at Victoria - Space.com