Of T-Shirts, Podcasts, Conventions, and the new Prime Minister

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First, I found a way to combine my love of "Heroes" and nostalgia for Mario into one geekgasm of a t-shirt. It, like all the new summer fashions they've helped me forge, can be found at Offworld Designs! They'll also be at the upcoming Origins and Inconjunction! I whipped up a design for Incon's "Heroes, Villains and Sidekicks" theme... and it can be viewed here!

And it looks like I'll be making an appearance at Origins for Saturday at the least, signing away on the new books and ps283 #24! And speaking of new books, the "Truth, Justin & The American Way" collection is on sale now at ThinkGeek!

Doctor Who had a few interesting callbacks this last episode. For one, I'd swear the time vortex we saw was about to form into the shape of Tom Bakers head for a credit sequence. Also, a speech given by the episode's villain (I hear tell some don't know who it is yet. Evil grin) that began "people of Earth, please attend carefully" was similar to one given in a 1981 episode where we first saw Peter Davison. When I heard them spoken, I thought "hey, I remember that!" And then I realized to my horror, "hey, I remember that!" My brain must be the memory equivalent of a post-apocalyptic landscape where the war was fought by dropping sci-fi/comic cons on every available acre. Anyway, 'twas a very nice episode which left me willing to exchange my collection of Star Trek: Generations french fry boxes if I could have the final ep in my grubby little hands. A question again to the Whovians: Correct me if I'm wrong, but is 100 years really as devastating as all that to a Time Lord? I thought, for example, that Tom Baker was supposedly The Doctor for about 400 years or more?

Oh, and an addendum. "The New Prime Minister" in the blog title refers to Mr. Saxon (in the Whoniverse), not Mr. Brown (in the Realiverse). :)

More? More. How about ps238 #22? How's them apples? I just got my shipment (or rather, I found it among a lot of mail we accumulated while we were away at a convention. Whoops) so into the store it goes!

Podcasting! You've seen or heard about it. You might even know someone who has dabbled in this dark art. I do. His name is Mike Stackpole, and he's putting his novel, "Fortress Draconis" out on the web as a podcast, a chapter a week, read by hisself... for free. And it's driving me up a wall, 'cuz I wanna know what happens NEXT week, so what am I supposed to do? Buy the book? It's almost like he's trying to get me to do that on purpose! I'll have to have a word with him about that. But seriously, it's very good, and Mike's got a great reading voice. Throw it on your iTunes queue; you won't regret it.

This also brings me to my own bit o' news: I'm going to try to put together some form of podcast. At first, at least, it's going to be a fiction of sorts, a kind of "radio play," I guess. All that's holding me up is a guy on eBay who owes me one amplifier for the mic I bought, so as soon as that arrives, I'll be trying out my "radio voice" which I haven't used in years (KFAL/KKCA represent, yo!).

Lastly, don't forget the bonus FFN at IESB.net! The guys take on the movie industry yet again...

Linking, linking, linking, keep them dogies linking...

- Games galore! Here's one that requires you to keep track of where your cursor is so you can click and break some plates. Did I mention your cursor is invisible? I just dig the sound of glass breaking.
- And this one, Bloxxorz, is a challenging puzzle-game. Get your block to flip, roll, and eventually fall into the exit hole. It gets much more difficult to figure out as the game progresses!
- Okay, I guess there WAS a point to watching Yu-Gi-Oh. Check out this demo for how the Playstation 3 is going to change CCGs forever. It's in Japanese, but the visuals get the point across. The magic really starts about 1:25 into the movie. Speaking of "Magic," I'm going to have to re-buy all of my cards now. :(
- Back to the games! It's Ring Pass Not, where you build a magic circle to protect yourself from dragon fire. Match colors and symbols to complete the ring. Kinda like "Tetris" meets "Alchemy."
- Many college students have, at one time or another, stolen a newspaper vending machine. Here's how to build one that displays actual news. It even explains how to buy one legally. :)
- And last week's "dramatic chipmunk/prairie dog/mammal" meme has been categorized and its evolution explained. Possibly NSFW due to audio effects and bunny-lovin'.