Sci-fi geeks unite!

scottsax · Post by **scottsax** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 9:34 am

OK, so how many of you have celebrated your love of sci-fi in public? Last year I went to the 40th Anniversary Star Trek Convention at the Sci-Fi Museum (formerly the cool Funk Blast ride at the EMP). Got to meet Nichelle Nichols, have my picture taken on the transporter, and watched some BRAND-NEW episodes of the original Star Trek series! Produced for the web, made with love by fans. And with a cameo by Walter Koenig, for god's sake!

Let me tell you-it wasn't just the many many drinks I had before going, it was a lot of fun.... Not sure I'd do it again, but it was totally worth the price of admission.

TCWestby · Post by **TCWestby** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 9:36 am

I kept meaning to get to it but never did. Kind of like I keep meaning to hit the aquarium to see the new wall.

Grateful Diver · Post by **Grateful Diver** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 10:59 am

scottsax wrote:OK, so how many of you have celebrated your love of sci-fi in public?

Well, I had a friend who was married to a wookie ... doesn't get much more public than that ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Penopolypants · Post by **Penopolypants** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 11:21 am

No, but if I still lived in Atlanta I would have gone to this, just for the giggle factor.

(and for the record, I am neither a furry nor a klingon.)

scottsax · Post by **scottsax** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 11:24 am

Penopolypants wrote:No, but if I still lived in Atlanta I would have gone to this, just for the giggle factor.

(and for the record, I am neither a furry nor a klingon.)

Holy hell! That's awesome! :rr:

Pez7378 · Post by **Pez7378** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 11:49 am

That scares the hell out of me. Before I would have thought it harmless fun to dress up as a chipmunk or something but...............

I think it was CSI where they had the episode of the people that dress up in furry critter costumes and have these parties, and well, you know..........do stuff? That is by far the wierdest fetish I have heard about to date. The episode was funny though. Some guy sees a GIANT "coyote" crossing the road in rural LasVegas, and shoots him. Seems the "coyote" was cheating at the party with a racoon, had a fight with his GF in the car coming home from the party and she kicks him out and runs him over. So hes on his hands and knees trying to get out of the road. And gets shot. So the big mystery is 1) what killed him, the gunshot or getting ran over 2) why was he wearing a big furry animal costume 3) who's perfume was on the fur of the costume 4) who ran him over and why didnt they stop.

(even if the details aren't quite right, you get the idea)

Now those big furry animals make me suspicious. The Klingons I can tolerate.

scottsax · Post by **scottsax** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 11:57 am

Pez7378 wrote:That scares the hell out of me. Before I would have thought it harmless fun to dress up as a chipmunk or something but...............

I think it was CSI where they had the episode of the people that dress up in furry critter costumes and have these parties, and well, you know..........do stuff?

Awesome episode....

A buddy of mine used to play in the local rock band The Squirrels ("20 years of critically acclaimed failure!") At their 20th anniversary show, a guy nobody in the band knew drove all the way from Olympia to Seattle in a big furry squirrel costume, complete with a 5-foot tall bushy tail, and spent all night in this hot sweaty club, drinking and dancing. Weirdest thing I'd ever seen.

Seth T. · Post by **Seth T.** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 12:15 pm

Grateful Diver wrote:
Well, I had a friend who was married to a wookie ... doesn't get much more public than that ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Sweet, a good friend of mine is a wookie. We went to college together and he would literally clog the shower drain EVERY TIME with this body hair. It was remarkable. Shockingly, he's still single...

sparky · Post by **sparky** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 6:57 pm

Ender's Game ?
If this is the Book I am thinking of Ender is Taken from his familey at a early age because his parents have 3 kids and they are only suposed to have 2

Ender is sent to an acadmy for government to become some kind of super fighter for the government

read this book years a go good book but yea the rest got realy out there after the second or third book

did they make that in to a movie if not tthey should would be a kick ass flick if done right

Sparky

lamont · Post by **lamont** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 9:06 pm

Pez7378 wrote: I think it was CSI where they had the episode of the people that dress up in furry critter costumes and have these parties, and well, you know..........do stuff?

i'm totally desensitized to all the blood and gore and killing and sex and everything on tv, but that episode really creeped me out...

cardiver · Post by **cardiver** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 9:18 pm

They also did an episode of, "Entourage" with them that was funny as hell!

Grateful Diver · Post by **Grateful Diver** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 7:00 am

lamont wrote:
i'm totally desensitized to all the blood and gore and killing and sex and everything on tv...

That there's one of the reasons I turned my TV off about a decade ago and rarely turn it on again ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

BbbleMkr · Post by **BbbleMkr** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 10:37 am

I didn't have a chance when it comes to SciFi and Fantasy. My dad has been reading it forever (I found his Gor Chronicles by John Norman/Dr. Lange that he had stashed and read every one of them. I won't tell you how that has affected my girl to teen to woman psyche, but I'm sending him my therapy bills.) He was also a huge Niven and Pournelle fan. I read all of those plus Heinlein until I could no longer stomach the anti-female sentiment. (In many of those books, the females are non-sentient breeders while the males run around marauding, maiming and making war.) Despite that, I have fond memories of a lot of those books. We named our daughter Teela Lorelei which is an aggregate of Teela Brown from Ringworld and one of the twins Lorelei Lee from a Heinlein book I'm not remembering now. (Thankfully, I didn't have twins, because they would have been named Lapis Lazuli and Lorelei Lee.)

When I met Ryan, he gave me Neuromancer as an explanation as to "who he was" and I was hooked on the Cyberpunk movement. Neil Stephenson, Vernor Vinge and I became pretty close.

My only-books-I-can-take-to-a-deserted-island, faves are Connie Willis (Doomsday Book, To Say Nothing of the Dog) and Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake. And when I'm down, sad and miserable, the entire McCaffrey's Dragon series is my wooby. Nothing like fantasizing about impressing dragons to get one's spirits up!

TV, meh. Give me a book any day.

dd

lamont · Post by **lamont** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 1:44 pm

BbbleMkr wrote: I read all of those plus Heinlein until I could no longer stomach the anti-female sentiment. (In many of those books, the females are non-sentient breeders while the males run around marauding, maiming and making war.)

And what's wrong with that?!?!?!

...

Actually, that's a major flaw with most hard sci-fi... The problem is that I really like the hard stuff, but the character development and politics and female characters are typically so bad that I've kind of stopped reading sci-fi much anymore... Occassionally a book comes along that I like, but most of the better 'literature' is a little too soft for me..

kwbyron · Post by **kwbyron** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 3:08 pm

I like the cheesy early 90's si-fi/action films:
Total Recall
Judge Dred
Demolition Man

Abyss is my fav though, I was stoked to find it in the $5 bin at walmart!
MST3K...i miss it. Austin has a theater called the Allamo Draught House, does Mr. Sinus Theater every other friday and saturday night....it's awsome I've seen them do Flash Dance and Die Hard.

Grateful Diver · Post by **Grateful Diver** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 3:26 pm

BbbleMkr wrote:I read all of those plus Heinlein until I could no longer stomach the anti-female sentiment. (In many of those books, the females are non-sentient breeders while the males run around marauding, maiming and making war.)

dd

You need to read "Glory Season" by David Brin ... it's a completely different take on gender roles.

BTW - I'd add all of Brin's "Uplift" books to my favorites list ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Seth T. · Post by **Seth T.** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 8:20 pm

Grateful Diver wrote:
lamont wrote:
i'm totally desensitized to all the blood and gore and killing and sex and everything on tv...
That there's one of the reasons I turned my TV off about a decade ago and rarely turn it on again ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Yep, well said. We have never had a tv in our house.

Joshua Smith · Post by **Joshua Smith** » Sat Nov 03, 2007 10:46 pm

Grateful Diver wrote:
lamont wrote:
i'm totally desensitized to all the blood and gore and killing and sex and everything on tv...
That there's one of the reasons I turned my TV off about a decade ago and rarely turn it on again ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[Simpsons quote] "Lisa, if you don't watch the violence, you won't get desensitized to it!"

TCWestby · Post by **TCWestby** » Mon Nov 05, 2007 6:07 am

Well let us not forget the eternal favorites

Mork & Mindy and ALF.

I kill me....

BbbleMkr · Post by **BbbleMkr** » Mon Nov 05, 2007 10:23 am

Amazon says "Glory Season" by David Brin is on its way!

Thank you for the recommendation.

dd

scottsax · Post by **scottsax** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 1:51 pm

I was reminded yesterday by a coworker of a TV series that I adored: Red Dwarf!

First time I had vindaloo, I ordered it because it was Lister's favorite food....

scottsax · Post by **scottsax** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 1:59 pm

lamont wrote:i'm totally desensitized to all the blood and gore and killing and sex and everything on tv

NO! You can't say that stuff out loud, it just gives fuel to the anti-tv folks! Of course, my dad was a cop for 35 years. I'm desensitized because I saw my first autopsy video when I was 10, and my first (real) crime scene videos in middle school (including one particularly gruesome car bomb scene.) I'm sure I wasn't supposed to watch that stuff, but it was fascinating. Hollyweird can't throw anything at me more violent than the real stuff I've seen. That said, I do enjoy CSI and CSI: Miami. But mostly I like cartoonish, sci-fi violence. And kung-fu movies. And the most violent shows of all time-Looney Tunes!

$\:D/$

Grateful Diver · Post by **Grateful Diver** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 2:08 pm

scottsax wrote:
And the most violent shows of all time-Looney Tunes!

$\:D/$

Some seriously violent shit ... but no matter how many times Wile E. Coyote blew himself up, he always ended up back together again.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

scottsax · Post by **scottsax** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 2:16 pm

Grateful Diver wrote:no matter how many times Wile E. Coyote blew himself up, he always ended up back together again.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

And if I remember correctly, there were protests against Looney Tunes, saying that it made kids think they'd be indestructible like Wile E.
But seriously, every time to this day I see Elmer Fudd blasts Daffy's beak around to the back of his head, I laugh so hard I think I'm going to suffocate.

kwbyron · Post by **kwbyron** » Tue Nov 06, 2007 3:48 pm

I wish they still made cartoons like that.....
I watched Armageddon this weekend:
Steve Buscemi: no wait, I saw this one, this is where the coyote straps himself to a rocket and sits in the sling shot right? 'cause I remember it didn't work out too well for the coyote.
NASA: we have better rockets.