Trailer for The Guild's new comicbook

I found out about Felicia Day from Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog. That's what pointed me toward her web series called The Guild, a funny look at MMORPGers. I've been hooked ever since, though I'm behind on the latest season (#3). Whether you've played an online game before or not, you might have fun watching the series. And now this week, their new comic book comes out. I plan to pick it up sometime this summer.

Check out the new trailer for the comic book. Then go watch some of the webseries. :D

Filk Friday: Hero of Canton from "Jaynestown"

It's been an odd week , so I haven't gotten around to mentioning my planned theme for the next few weeks. Since I spend most of my time on fantasy topics, I thought I'd spread some fan love to SF, since the SF stories I do enjoy, I enjoy as much as the fantasy ones; there's just fewer SF stories I can sink myself into.

One of the series that sucked me in is Firefly. (If you couldn't already tell by my gleeful choice in Wednesday's video) Characters, setting, everything about it felt fresh, or in this case, dust and engine fumes. It is a space western after all. The first episode I saw was "Train Heist." Even though I knew nothing about the actors, characters, setting, or themes, just the combination of an old fashioned train heist combined with space ships made me stop flipping channels and watch to the end. After that, I deliberately tuned in to find out what they'd do next.

One of the middle episodes, "Jaynestown," took the crew to an out of the way planet to deliver a bunch of cows. But when they got there, Jayne remembered that he'd been there before for a robbery that went bad, prior to joining the rest of them. Expecting trouble, they were all surprised to find a statue in Jayne's honor. He was the Hero of Canton with a song and everything. The townsfolk believed that the strewn money from the robbery had been him distributing it to them on purpose, a modern day sort of Robin Hood, even though it had been an accident. You should watch the episode for the contrasts between normal character traits and trying to live up to the hype of a different view. Jayne surprised himself the most.

Here is Adam Baldwin, who played Jayne on the show, singing "his" song: The Hero of Canton. He even wears Jayne's hat. You can really tell how much he enjoyed the character, especially when you see his grin at the end.

Castle's Costume

My son is sick today, so I thought I'd just post a little bit of video fun: a snippet from Castle, one of my favorite tv shows. This is one of the best Firefly references Nathan Fillion got to do, about 5 years after Firefly got canceled.

Filk Friday: It's a Fanboy Christmas II

It's a Fanboy Christmas II is rather strange, but it's got some clever parts (and a few groaners like the part about the Vorlans in the second half). Luke Ski is one weird dude. You'll hear references to Wonder Woman, Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Caribbean, It's a Wonderful Life, Star Trek, and more. Yes, he really managed to put so many diverse movies and shows into one long holiday parody medley. Freaky--but funny. See how many references you can recognize.

Filk Friday: Star Trekkin Across the Universe

I'd wanted to find an SF song that somehow related to alien life. Something that would go well with what Juliette talked about on Wednesday. But, I had a terrible day with my writing yesterday. The character I was going to use to drive the conflict for the middle third of the book is the completely wrong personality for what I want him to do. By the end of the day I finally decided to quit trying to figure out how to mash the square peg in the round hole and just save him for a later story. So, I'm creating a new character from scratch.

But this means I'm now a full day behind on my NaNo story plus the bit I hadn't finished making up from last week. So, instead of getting a perfect song, you're getting a fun song. Here is Star Trekkin Across the Universe. I first heard it on the Dr. Demento: Songs From Outer Space compilation CD my husband bought a couple years ago. Enjoy!

Filk Friday: This Summer (The R2D2 Song)

Quick reminder: last day to turn in your dragon poems. So far I've received three entries. That's only three party favors going out. Come on. Give it a try. This is no uber serious contest. Just have fun. I'll be reposting all poems on Monday along with the winner.

For today's filk I give you This Summer (The R2D2 Song). I actually meant to share this last week when I discovered it, but the video kept locking up halfway through. Since it is playing fine now, I'm posting it. Mia has a great voice for her age (I'm guessing 8 or 9), and her tiny Leia buns are adorable. Her whole performance was adorable, actually. The working R2D2 gave it a nice touch. In the video notes, Claire Mix posted the lyrics and said that if anyone wants to perform the song, they just have to ask and she'll send the music. (It's her song.)

Filk Friday: ROFLMAO!

This is a fun ditty of a parody based on The Muppets song "Mahna Mahna." The lyrics the undead dude is singing are leet-speak words from World of Warcraft. I'll translate below the video. The song itself ends around 2:31; the rest is just the credits and rambly vocals in the background.



ROFLMAO-Rolling on floor laughing my a** off. (most people should know this by now)
PWN-Leet-spelling for "Own" as in "I totally owned that dude." A statement of superiority right after easily beating their opponent in battle.
n00b-New player, usually being derided for some clueless action or question.
UBER L33T HAX-Extremely good elite hack/cheat code. (yes, a double positive, for emphasis)
Pr0n-(I had to look this one up.) A deliberate misspelling of "porn" to get around language filters, sometimes for legitimate purposes in message groups, not just to be perverse.
WTG-Way to go. A standard commendation.
FTW-For the win. Congratulatory or boasting comment.
ROXORZ BOXORZ-(sorry, can't tell you, never seen it before this song)
OMG-Oh my God/gosh (depending on your upbringing)
HAX-A hack or cheat code for something.
L33T HAX WTG-"Super elite cheat code, way to go!"
PWN NOOBS FTW- Dominate new/inexperienced players for the win.
G2G-Good to go (off to the dungeon, to the raid, to kill horde/alliance in their own city)
C U L8TR-See you later.
LFG BRD-Looking for group to Blackrock Depths (a dungeon)
UBRS-Upper Blackrock Spire (raid level dungeon)
DM-Dire Maul (dungeon)
ZG-Zul Gurub (dungeon)
MC-Molton Core (raid dungeon)

Science Feature: Space and Vacuum

Part two of what sf/f means to me will be next week. Today will be a science feature, thanks to Emily who pestered me for more of my SF novel (been focused on my fantasies for the past few months). I didn't get much added to it yet, but I did read through what I had. Since the plan is to leave this open enough to make a possible series, I made some notes on what I plan to accomplish in this book and the gist of what is to happen in later books.

Since this story is predominantly set in space with spaceships, space stations, and ship yards, I did some research on space and its effects on living tissue. No falling back on what I've seen done in other sf stories. Good thing since some of that is wrong. For instance, there is no near-instant freezing of the body. Survival of unprotected exposure to space is in terms of minutes rather than seconds. Granted, you won't have consciousness for more than about 10 seconds, but that is because of oxygen deprivation, rather than freezing.

Here are some of the links I've collected so far. Some of the information is duplicated in various articles, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. And some of the links can lead you to additional questions you may think up.

From NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center: How an unprotected body would be affected by space

From About.com: a similar question with a different movie reference

From Geoffrey A. Landis, an SF writer and NASA scientist (as of 2000): Explosive decompression and vacuum exposure

From D*** Interesting (that's me asterisking the word, by the way, the article is too interesting not to share just because of the site name): Outer Space Exposure

The third and fourth ones are my favorites. Have fun researching!

Filk Friday: Wrocking with Harry Potter

I admit it. I love Harry Potter. The series, that is.

Now I didn't jump in when it first came out. By the time I heard about HP, it was already a teen craze. I tend to avoid crazes. They're often just overhyped emptiness. But I caught my mom reading it, shortly after book two came out. A surprise since she's not much into crazes either.

She'd picked it up out of self-defense in order to know what all the kids were talking about when she subbed in their classrooms. Turned out she liked it. Since by this time I openly admitted to having a similar taste in books, I decided to give the Harry Potter series a try. I've been a fan ever since. Yes, I was one of those crazy people in line for the midnight releases for books 6 and 7. And I had to debate with my hubby who was going to read them first. (He ended up getting them first.)

The Harry Potter universe is the source of much ridicule as well as fan-produced hilarity. (And drivel, but I'm not going there.) Entire sites of fanfiction are devoted to HP. There is even a subdivision of filk music called Wizard Rock. I doubt that Wrockers consider themselves as filkers, but they are. The groups I listen to most are The Moaning Myrtles, Gred and Forge, Draco and the Malfoys, and The Parselmouths, but there are many more. Some of them do shows. If you get a chance to see them perform, go check them out. If you can't, look them up on iTunes.

Wizard Rock is my guilty pleasure, because some of it gets a bit raunchy ("Prefects Are Hot" and "And Then I Died") or not nice ("My Dad Is Rich," "Potions Yesterday," and "What Kind of Name Is Hermione"). But oh, I love them anyway. Some of these songs are very well done, musically speaking. Clever lyrics, too.

Anyway, here are a few I don't mind sharing more directly. I hope you enjoy them.

99 Death Eaters


Save the Quibbler


This last song isn't Wizard Rock, even though it's still about Harry Potter. Robert Lund pokes fun at the series and its fandom. But if you haven't read the books, you'll only get about half the references and jibes. Even though I do actually enjoy the Harry Potter series, this song cracks me up. It's one of my favorites with some of the best quotable lines. ("You put the 'emo' in Voldemort.") The man is a wizard with lyrics. Check out this parody of "Rockstar."

You've Got Hogwarts

Filk Friday: ST Episodes Guide Song

Continuing in the Star Trek theme, I went browsing for videos and discovered this guy doing the Next Gen episode titles in song with screen captures. He has an amazingly glib tongue. I'd never make it through the first verse, and he speeds up until season 7 when he drops back down for dramatic effect. I'm not sure if he borrowed the melody for the verses, but it is reminiscent of Ton Lehrer's "I Got It From Agnes." The chorus melody is from the Next Gen theme music.



I never realized how many of those I'd seen. Fast as they were going past, I think I recognized at least 3 quarters of the episodes. I have to give this guy major kudos for putting this together. It would have taken a long time to gather the appropriate screen caps and to practice the song until he could do it without tripping.

First Filk Friday: Coming soon!

I love filk music. Those of you who've been reading pretty much since I started this in October have already picked up this tidbit about me. For those who haven't heard me gush yet about filk or know what the heck I'm talking about, essentially, filk is the music version of spec fic, plus a bit. I got sucked into it during college thanks to one of my roomies and her friends.

There are songs from the cultures in spec fic stories (songs that characters would hear and/or sing), such as "Sun and Shadow" from Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series. There are songs about the events of spec fic stories, such as "The Captive" from the Freedom, Flight, and Fantasy CD. There are the stand-alones, not from any particular story, such as a couple alternate versions of "Grandfather's Clock." One is a sort of "what really happened when the old man died," and the other is a Doctor Who spoof. I can't forget the ones on science themes, such as "Cosmos" in an SF version of "There's a hole in the bottom of the sea," and science related current events, such as a tribute to the Challenger disaster entitled "Pillar of Hell."

And that doesn't cover everything.

I suggest you head over to Filk.com for more about this fabulous subset of music. From there you can listen to filk on Live365, read about filksings, and browse the database of submitted lyrics. (Check out the ones on "Schroedinger the Cat" and "The Chivalry Went For Pizza" I just found.) Even though you'll find some that are not prime examples of good song-writing, you're sure to find something to amuse.

Borrowing an idea from fellow bloggers Lydia and Joe Sharp and their Tuesday Tunes, I'm going to pick a day to share more about this musical category: Filk Fridays--starting next week. There won't always be music, but I will try to have something neat to share about filk. Come hang out and bring your friends. The dragons will roast hotdogs and marshmallows for everyone. All you need to bring is your beverage of choice.

How to Tame Your Dragon (the movie)

Sunday was a good day of geekdom for me. I helped my son roll up his first D&D character (human fighter, for those of you who are curious). Then my husband and I took him for his first movie theater experience: How to Tame Your Dragon. Watching the theater seat try to eat our child started my giggles. His knees bumped his chin. Luckily, he had his daddy to tame the seat monster as mommy was no help at all.

This was my first experience with the new 3D technology. (Yes, I missed Avatar.) The last time I saw something in 3D, I had to use those paper specs with the red and blue film. These new glasses are so cool. They dimmed the light a bit, but otherwise looked clear and normal. Other than making a child look adorable, of course. They were huge on his face. When the 3D part started during the previews, I couldn't resist flipping the glasses up and down to see the difference. Technology is truly amazing.

I. Loved. This. Movie.

Okay, now that I got that out of the way, I like a good underdog story. Hiccup is the Viking runt of the Island of Berk. Nobody will let him try out any of his big ideas to help fight off the dragons. Against orders, he takes his prize contraption into an attack and hits the fabled Night Fury. But nobody sees his success, only the destruction left behind from the dragons going for one pint-sized would-be Viking hero.

When he finds the entrapped dragon the next day, he can't bring himself to kill it, even though the act would bring him instant fame and his father's respect. He cuts the beast free. The Night Fury could have slaughtered him right there. Instead, he has enough intelligence to make the connection that the boy spared his life. So, he merely roars in Hiccup's face and dashes away.

Over several visits, Hiccup gradually wins the Night Fury's trust and names him "Toothless." Through the budding friendship, Hiccup learns surprising information about dealing with dragons that enables him to subdue them without needing to kill. Before long, Hiccup is faced with obeying his father and killing a dragon in front of his whole town or defending the dragons and getting the townsfolk to understand the reason behind all the raids. And that is not even the climax. Tension just takes off into the sky from there. Hiccup and his peers have to rally together to save the dragons and their fellow Vikings.

The special effects had me as enchanted as my son, but it was more than a Cool Effects movie. It wasn't even just a Cool Effects and Humorous Dialogue movie. (I was giggling most of the movie.) It was a Good Story. There are several plot and character points I want to comment on that I think made this an enjoyable movie for both adults and children. Yes, my writer's hat was still on my head, simply pushed askew by fancy 3D specs.

But doing so would require a fair number of spoilers. I'd hate to ruin it for anyone who hasn't seen it yet. If you haven't, go now. Run--do not walk to your nearest/favorite theater. I'll be here munching some popcorn, waiting for you to get back, so we can chat about all the cool stuff in effects and story.