Perfect Day

Gorgeous perfect weather in Chicago. Went to the Field Museum, and nerded out at all the dinos. Hard to believe these are the first skeletons I have ever seen in person. I walked back from the Museum along the marina. Just perfect. Listened to all the foreign couples argue in their languages. I went to a comics shop on Madison to pick up Buffy - because I do not let Buffy go for anything, not even a vacation - and overheard an employee there insist everyone preorder copies of The Plan, because she has it from Eddie Olmos himself that if they get 150,000 preorders, they'll make more movies. I asked her what sort of movies they might be - given how BSG is, you know, over - and she wasn't too sure.

Went to Quake Toys up in Lincoln Square, which is literally a vintage toy mecca. Jesus Christ, I literally had to pull the old jaw up off the floor. I walked down one side of the store, filled up my hands, and then put it all back when I got to the other:



It's kind of lonely, but it's very refreshing to be away from the machine of work. I'm clearing my head and doing lots of reading and thinking. Even a little writing. Tomorrow Northwestern.

Almost decided to go to the Cubs game tonight - glad I didn't. 4th inning and it's 12-1. Good grief...

Forever Ducky

RIP John Hughes.

I think this says everything.

Put Some Ice On It

The 5,000 mile wide impact zone from the comet that hit Jupiter on Sunday. The resulting explosion would have completely destroyed the surface of the Earth.

Space Is The Place

On the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, turns out something decided to reach out and touch Jupiter:

Ouch.

Just glad we don't get smacked as often as Jupiter does. Just goes to show you, space is the place.

POTF Quest: July

My year long quest to complete my vintage Star Wars collection with the very rare, and very expensive figures from 1985 continues. July's score: R2-D2 with pop up light saber! For $63, he's a huge steal. R2 is in amazing, having been in an attic since 1985 and out of daylight (sunlight/smoke will yellow all R2's). He is traditionally one of the more expensive figures in this run, and I expected to pay a $100 or more. I have yet to on any of these figures - in fact I have spent an average of $28 on the figures I've got so far.

Joss + Jo Chen = Online Buffy Love

A special treat for the holiday weekend: an online Buffy comic from Joss Whedon and cover wizard Jo Chen. It features probably the funniest thing in the Buffy-verse in the last year (years?) and is very much appreciated after a couple months of "meh" with the comic book. Speaking of which, the newest issue is out this week, and apparently is a return to form.

So The Same Guys That Wrote Star Trek...

This pretty much sums up my reaction to Transformers 2. I did think it was a better movie than the first one, and for around a half an hour or so, it actually told a story. But the 'twins' were insufferable and insulting, and the film makes no sense from the get go: what teenage guy is going to give up his super hot girlfriend and 2009 transforming robot Camaro to go to college?

NOBODY, that's who.

KHANNNNNNNN!!!!

I agree whole heartedly with this article at io9, which takes the stance that Khan in Star Trek 2.0's inevitable sequel is a bad idea. The impulse is understandable - it's the same one that led Chris Nolan to the Joker in The Dark Knight. Up the stakes, and go for the throat with the franchise's most recognizable villian. Khan is famous for many reasons, but the Khan everyone thinks of won't be the Khan we'd see. He'd be the one from the Original Series. And while that may be of interest, what Star Trek needs is to embrace its newness. Forget the old - don't warm over previous stories ala Ultimate Marvel style. At least not yet. Follow through on the amazing potential of the new movie. What comes of all those homeless Vulcans? What sense is there in logic when your entire civilization has been destroyed?

I look forward to what the writers do. If they go with Khan, I know it will be new and fresh, but will it be what the story needs?

Vintage Make

I've been meaning to update my monthly quest to complete my vintage Star Wars collection for a while now - so I've included the results from May and June here. My goal has been to buy one a month, holding out for the best condition and the best price. I've been stunned at the number of collections that are being unloaded right now, and the decline in price of almost all of these. The economy has really taken a toll on the market for these. People need money, so they're unloading them, but people don't have money, so their value suffers.

In May I got the Death Star Gunner. In June, I really made out: I nabbed Romba, Endor Luke and General Lando all for a $100 - my threshold for any one figure, and the typical price of any one figure. All are in excellent condition.



I still need:

R2 Pop Up Lightsaber
Stormtrooper Luke
A-Wing Pilot
Barada
Ev-9D9
Amanaman
Imperial Dignitary
Warok
Yakface

Brannigan's Law

All good things...

My Next Destination

Check out all the Jawa love!

Do All My Quantum Selves Like Land of the Lost?

Tour the multiverse.

Saw Land of the Lost today. It was better than I expected (my expectations were only to see Anna Friel on the fat Ultra Screen - check) and I recommend it. There is literally nothing at all to say about it other than it's fun.

Buffy - Joss = ?

More on Joss-less Buffy at io9. They make some good points - the Buffy comic isn't hitting the heights it was, currently Joss is hit or miss (Dollhouse, Serenity - yeah, I said it) and they try and make the case Buffy is bigger than Joss. Buffy is certainly strong enough to survive any medium - she has gone from movies, to TV, to comics - and the continunity may one day require a reboot, but Buffy isn't Star Trek or Batman with decades of dead weight. She's young and still vivid in the imaginations of her fans (would a Star Trek reboot with diferent actors have worked in 1979?).

I don't think this will get anywhere. The reaction seems fierce enough to rival Republican opposition to... well, everything. It seems crass, disrespectful, and short sighted. And it may be what it takes to get Joss on board with a Buffy movie.

The Worst Idea EVER

Click here to see how a movie company will initiate the apocalypse. This is a little stupefying. If the backlash doesn't kill it, the mobs with their torches and pitchforks and Angel puppet dolls will.

Killing Your Babies

I have a draft of what I have been calling The Big Damn Epic on this blog and another that is dated from 1998. I have proto-versions of it that date to 1995, and characters/concepts that go back to 1992, and probably earlier. This particular novel has been with me for so long, it's hard to remember a time without it. It has never worked. The seeds of a good story were planted before the ground was fertile enough for them, and I have spent over a decade waiting for the soil to mature. I can't say it has now, but fruit hanging too long on the vine goes rotten. Last year I started a last ditch effort to rescue the novel before it went bad; that attempt, like every annual one going back a decade, ultimately failed.

I work all day long in front of a computer, writing, and so when I get home my energy and fire is usually tapped. I had reached a very long dry spot before Elizabeth, and was afraid I had run completely dry. That kind of fear will keep you up at night, and it did. Elizabeth proved to me that I had still had the fire, still had something left in the well, but it didn't give me the direction I needed. Did I go forward with the idea for the sequel? Another novel? Or do I go back to the Big Damn Epic, and try and raise this thing from the dead one last time?

The last failed draft came out of that confusion. Before I even finished it, I knew it was wrong. "Wandering Star" - I can say the title now, because it is no longer the title - seemed to be an endless struggle for me. I wanted to finish it, to move on with my creative life and so I started fantasizing - as one might with a spouse one can no longer stand - about murdering my heroine. Sojourner occupies a place in my heart about as large as a first-love does. I have been with her longer than I have any one in a real relationship; but she had become stifiling. Suffocating.

(What follows I guess must be SPOILERS for future readers - yes, all two of you:)

I started to dream about killing her at the end of the novel - instantly disintegrating my grandiose plans for an epic trilogy, the second part already in the can - but divorcing myself from the long term committment of those books wasn't enough. I had to be rid of this novel, the unfinishable book. One day, it just occured to me: just kill her. Right in the middle of the book, right in the midst of the quest, right as she started to cement.

And it freed the novel. It freed me. It unlocked all the threads I could never weave - suddenly agendas and actions and themes came into relief. The entire architecture of the novel coalesced. Since then, that well has found new depth and I have a queue of novels waiting to be written. The reason for this long post is I've just finished the chapter in which she dies, and I am 212 pages into a novel I am finally excited to write for the first time in a decade. The thread of the book hasn't changed - it's remarkably similar to what it was in 1998 - but the details have evolved considerably, and in ways I never could have imagined.