The Trace View

Real Life Sucks

2007-09-12T14:09:00.000+10:00

Yep real life does suck! The world is conspiring to keep me offline (and surprisingly it's not my natural inclination for procrastination) but I hopefully see an end to the malevolent machinations in sight.

I will return... sometime soon... maybe...

MON 13 - Another great Sanctuary Webisode

2007-08-13T20:17:00.000+10:00

OK here is your first and final warning - here be spoilers, if you're allergic to them then bye bye.

I had a lazy day at home today, I woke up late and eventually got out of bed around 10am, booted up my computer and downloaded the next Sanctuary webisode and then got some brekky while it was downloading. I definitely liked today's webisode, more character insights into Helen and Ashley and a setup for a big showdown with the Keepers of the Dead next webisode.

I like the twists in the story that they take, sometimes showing the audience a believable red herring and then turning around and presenting something different. So now The Morrigan aren't really the bad guys, I like that.

So what happened in the webisode? Well it picks up in the lab with the three sisters causing mayhem for Will and Bigfoot, then they are surrounded by a blue electrical type field and drop to the ground. Ouch, that was a long drop! Then we see Helen wielding a great big gun which obviously she used to stun them with, hmmm I wish I had her bag of tricks, lots of neat gadgets she's got in good ole Sanctuary :-)

Will puts his foot in it with Helen by implying that she is letting her personal situation colour her dealing with the women. Will still doesn't believe that they could possibly be The Morrigan whilst Helen is open to the idea. Helen proceeds to enlighten Will on what her perspective really is :

"Life without end is not a gift, it's a curse. It means loneliness, isolation. It means being less human." Ouch, I guess Will hit a sore spot.

Will eventually goes on to piss off Ashley too and she yanks his chain by channeling her father a touch whilst describing what she feels when hunting ghouls. Now both RoX and I think that she was having him on because he doesn't know when to backoff on the "you should talk" bit. I'm sure RoX will update me later on what the word on the forums is about this aspect.

And finally we have Helen figure out that The Morrigan were turned from their true purpose by Merlin just in time for the Keepers of the Dead to scale the walls storm Sanctuary!! Now we have to wait another fortnight to see the conclusion of the pilot and the battle for Sanctuary. I'm looking forward to it!!!

Catch ya later,
Trace

SUN 12 - The Annual City To Surf

2007-08-12T19:52:00.000+10:00

Well I finally entered the City To Surf!!

Walking though :-) A few of my cousins and I decided we'd walk the race with the Back Of The Pack and we personally raised $600 for charity. According to the official website they have raised so far in total $865,973 and that figure is still climbing.

It was a nice day, pleasant but not too hot and we finished in 2hrs 14mins. Not a speed record but not too shabby for 14kms up and down hills. All I can say is that Heartbreak Hill is aptly named and I am sooooooooooo glad that I wasn't running (as if!!).

We organised the rest of the clan to meet us at the end and we spent a couple of pleasant hours at the beach. It sure was a fun day but next year I'm going to train a lot earlier as my body is starting to let me know what it thinks of me. A nice hot bath before bed should fix that though.

I'm too tired to do the geek bit today, luckily I have tomorrow off so I'll probably get to download Sanctuary early this week. We're up to Webisode 7 already YAY!!! Then we have to wait a couple of months till they go back to shooting again. I'm not sure when they start but they'll probably have to wait until Amanda finishes shooting Atlantis. Good news is that they have already sat down for a least a week to start planning out the next 40 webisodes!! Colour me happy :-)

Catch ya later,
Trace

FRI 10 - Gadget Geek - Military Toys

2007-08-10T23:23:00.000+10:00

W00t!! New Sanctuary webisode on Monday :-)

The geek in me came across a few interesting things recently :

Army tests Mule - this 'bot has a long name - Multifunction Utility Logistics and Equipment. Check it out at DangerRoom
British Marines unveil their stealth boat. Check it out at DailyMail
Laser guided bullets, what will they think of next? Check it out at DangerRoom
Shotgun Taser. Check it out at GizModo
U.S to Deploy an Entire Squadron of Unmanned Aerial Drones in Iraqistan. Check it out at GizModo

Catch ya later,
Trace

WED 08 - Space

2007-08-08T22:28:00.000+10:00

The space shuttle Endeavour is getting ready for another lift off in about 11 hours. Great! It's at a civilised hour for me to watch :-)

They may get to extend the mission a few days if the new Station-Shuttle Power Transfer System works. It looks like they'll be doing a bit of everything this trip; assembly on the space station, repairs, resupply and Barbara Morgan finally gets to go into space. After being a backup for Christa McAuliffe 22 years ago Barbarbara kept contacts with the space program and was invited back in 1998 to become a full-fledged astronaut. Now as part of The Educator Astronaut Project she not only has the regular duties of the crew but she also will take part in several education-related activities.

As the space shuttle program draws to a close the Constellation Program is ramping up. The new Ares launch vehicles will actually use some of the shuttle technology and facilities. The Orion crew exploration vehicle is a similar shape to the old Apollo ones but much bigger. Here's some info on Orion stolen directly from a NASA page:

"Orion will be capable of carrying crew and cargo to the space station. It will be able to rendezvous with a lunar landing module and an Earth departure stage in low-Earth orbit to carry crews to the moon and, one day, to Mars-bound vehicles assembled in low-Earth orbit. Orion will be the Earth entry vehicle for lunar and Mars returns. Orion’s design will borrow its shape from the capsules of the past, but takes advantage of 21st century technology in computers, electronics, life support, propulsion and heat protection systems."

In just a couple of years we will see the Ares/Orion combo take over the resupply of the Space Station.

Also on the space front, last Saturday saw the launch of The Phoenix Mars lander which is due to arrive at Mars next year around May 25

Today's geek photos are

The Phoenix launch
The Orion crew vehicle
A cool drawing of HD 98800 which consists of two pairs of double stars

Catch ya later,
Trace

MON 06 - Afterworld appears - guess where!

2007-08-06T22:22:00.000+10:00

Well here I am at a friends place watching the SciFi Channel on Foxtel (Australia) and guess what they announce is next up?? You got it! The world premiere of Afterworld!! So I just rewatched the first episode with my friend and it looked pretty good on a big screen TV. Unfortunately I don't have Foxtel anymore so I'm working on getting my friend to record them for me but he is incredibly unreliable. Hmmmmm maybe I need to start searching through friends and acquaintances for another Foxtel source.

I wonder when the rest of the world will be getting it released to them and through what medium???? Hang on!! I just remembered that I signed up at Afterworld.tv for info on it's release, so it looks like the bozos still haven't got their act together yet.

On the Sanctuary front, the new preview is out but I haven't seen it yet. I'll have to wait until I get home to watch it as my friend only has limited internet usage :-( I must introduce him to broadband and the notion of unlimited bandwidth! I'll update the preview vids tomorrow when I get home.

The geek in me came across a few interesting things recently :

A cute but useless USB dohickey - I want one! Check it out at Popgadget
Those Dick Tracy watches are getting closer every day. Check it out at ThinkGeek
Where's RoX?? Here's another cool boatcar. Check it out at GizModo

Catch ya later,
Trace

Fri 03 - I love Wexford!!

2007-08-03T13:17:00.000+10:00

I watched Sanctuary webisodes 5 & 6 yesterday and I continue to be impressed with this show as they move into the second story of the pilot. Will seems to be settling in a bit, Helen continues to be mysterious but we're getting little tidbits about her history via flashbacks, Ashley continues to be a handful and be thoroughly entertaining at the same time and the guest characters continue to be impressive!

Wexford I loved him! Paul MGillion did a marvelous job with the character and there is much potential there to have the character as a recurring one but he should be used sparingly to help out with the necessary exposition. I'm curious as to what the cruel irony that his life is centred around. Are those things on his face gills or something like that? Hmmm I'm not sure but he does say that he needs moisture to survive and it looked like he picked a bug off a leaf and ate it, so maybe he is some type of amphibian hybrid???? This is one of the things that I do like about Sanctuary, they don't tell you everything, they throw intelligent hints out to the audience. I very much prefer this style of show where you are required to engage your brain a bit, way too many so called sci-fi shows have been dumbed down lately much to my disgust.

Whilst catching up on things on the net yesterday I found this couple of intriguing ladies who are also Sanctuary fans who have a blog called Two Idiots Do Sanctuary. They are totally off the wall and appeal to my warped sense of humour and they have recorded commentaries for the Sanctuary webisodes. I spent an amusing hour yesterday watching the first half of the Sanctuary pilot in a totally different light!!

Don't forget to vote for Sanctuary at The 2007 SyFy Portal Genre Awards. I noticed that RoX gave a pretty detailed breakdown of her choices a few posts back, but for me it's a simple choice. Vote for SANCTUARY, it simply blows the other candidates out of the water!!

The geek in me came across a few interesting things recently :

Dreamate Sleep Inducer - this would be great for me when work gets to that frantic stage occasionally, I wonder if it really works? Maybe I should read up on those accupressure points. Check it out at ThinkGeek
I certainly could use this power strip in my studio. Check it out at PopGadget
NASA's Chandra Sees Brightest Supernova Ever. Check it out at NASA

Catch ya later,
Trace

THU 02 - I'm back

2007-08-02T10:49:00.000+10:00

Thanks RoX for filling in for me, I like what you did whilst I was away. I am now the pround owner of a totally rebuilt computer which I did myself after the moron from the local shop failed to actually do what he was contracted to do. Sheesh! I freely admit that my computer expertise is in the mainframe domain but I'm no dummy and know all systems have the
same basic constructs just different variations on the same theme. So I eventually told this so called PC expert he was full of bull and triple checked his so called technical expertise and came to the conclusion that I actually knew more than he did therefore I'd have my computer back as he still hadn't fixed it. So with some research and a hefty learning curve at this stage I have a spiffy new computer with only the case, fans and power supply still the same :-)

I've got the day off so now that I have my computer up and running I'm off to download the new Sanctuary webisode.

Catch ya later,
Trace

SUN 29 - Star Trek vs Battlestar Galactica vs Sanctuary

2007-07-30T00:57:00.000+10:00

RoX here.

The 2007 SyFy Portal Genre Awards are on again and this year there is a category for Best Web Production. The four finalists are :

Episode 1, "Sanctuary"
To Serve All My Days, "Star Trek: New Voyages"
Webisode 9, "Battlestar Galactica"
Webisode 10, "Battlestar Galactica"

Now being a fan of Star Trek, Battlestar and Sanctuary I decided to take an in depth look at all four to determine how I was going to vote. At first glance it is difficult to judge them as they are all different productions aimed at different audiences.

Star Trek: New Voyages is a fan production and aims to continue the original voyages of the Enterprise that were curtailed way back in the 60's. It is still aimed at a traditional TV audience even though it utilises the web to distribute the episodes.

The Resistance was a set of short webisodes to fill the long break between seasons of Battlestar Galactica and was designed to give short glimpses and insights into the resistance movement on New Caprica as a precursor to the opening of Season 3 when 4 months had passed from the Cylon occupation at the end of Season 2.

Sanctuary is the only show that is designed for the web without links to the "normal" world of TV production. A two hour pilot was shot and it has been broken up into eight webisodes, each webisode telling part of a story and flowing into the next. It is the only show that is in an "establishing" phase and by that I mean We don't know what the Sanctuary story is yet, unlike the other two shows which already had established storylines and characters. So to me the only thing they have in common is that they were distributed on the web, so it is a tad difficult to compare them because they are essentially different in purpose.

Star Trek: New Voyages is styled as a continuation of the original Trek series and is a full length episode as we have become used to on TV. The storyline is decent, for a fan production. The visual effects are decent, for a fan production. The acting needs work as the actor performances are lopsided. On one hand you have several actors doing quite a decent job and then you have two of the lead characters, Kirk and Bones, being over acted. This disparity in performances definitely comes across as a fan production in the acting stakes. I'm ruling "To Serve All My Days" out because it simply is not of the same calibre (on any level) of the other two shows and therefore knocks itself out of the Best Web Production category.

I have no idea why Webisode 9 of The Resistance got nominated, absolutely nothing vital happens and it is extremely short. Jammer is released from detention and Duck grieves for his wife. It was definitely well acted, filmed and presented, a high class production but it has no real substance as a single episode.

Again Webisode 10 of The Resistance was definitely well acted, filmed and presented, and of the same high class as Webisode 9 but it too falls short as a single episode. I think the intention of this episode was to firmly establish Tigh's willingness to do anything and sacrifice anyone for the cause as well as establish why Jammer and Duck ended up in the NCP. It was not so much a story by itself but rather a background filler for some key emotions in the new Season of Battlestar.

Sanctuary is the first glimpse we have of a new series and it too is well acted, filmed and presented, definitely a high class production. It is comparable to the teaser and first act of a show we are used to seeing on TV. Sanctuary establishes a little history for two of the main characters and introduces two other guest characters and culminates in Dr Magnus making her first contact with Dr Zimmerman as a precursor to recruiting him (though we do not know that last part at the time). With some basic character groundwork established, Sanctuary piques your curiousity about where the story is going and what exactly is Sanctuary. It leaves the viewer anxiously awaiting the next webisode to continue the story.

My choice is definitely down to The Resistance Webisode 10 and Sanctuary Webisode 1. If The Resistance Webisodes had more substance to the story, it would really make the choice difficult because both The Resistance and Sanctuary are high class productions. I'd defintely choose say the equivalent teaser and first act of episode 1 of Season 3 Battlestar Galactica over Sanctuary Webisode 1 but Webisode 10 of The Resistance just doesn't quite measure up to that standard.

So it looks like it's a vote for Sanctuary for Best Web Production because it has all the elements of very good visuals and sound, presentation, acting and storyline whilst the other contenders fell short on one or more of those elements. That is not to say I liked Sanctuary better than the others because I didn't, I liked them all. They all appealed to me on different levels.

If anyone would like to cast their votes in the awards then please go to The 2007 SyFy Portal Genre Awards

I'll maybe see you again tomorrow as Trace was hoping to get all her computer problems resolved this weekend, though I haven't heard from her yet so that might not be a good sign.

SAT 28 - Gadget Geek - "Different" vehicles

2007-07-28T18:48:00.000+10:00

RoX here.

Tonight's dinner is casserole, nice blade steak and chunky veges, definitely the go for a cold winter's night (but not as good as last night's pizza!).

Photos and con reports are starting to trickle through now from Comic Con 2007 and i'll see if I can roundup links to a bunch of stuff tomorrow.

In the mean time here's a few things that I came across whilst trawling through Gizmodo. (Yes I'm a lazy sod, one visit to Gizmodo and I have days of stuff to post :-) )

Handsfree transporter. I'd seen a Segway before and this is similar but the designer is a performance artist and you HAVE to check out some of the stuff he has done at his website click on Performance once you are on the website for the vids.

A stingray sub - one of the vehicles in the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Competition held recently.

Magic Wheel - a different kind of scooter. I'll let you make up your own minds after checking out the vid.

Jet Kayak - Mate! This thing moves!

Definitely a different style of golf cart, I wonder how it handles?

Jetpacks that are commercially available now. Great stuff but they still only fly for about 30 seconds :-(

I've heard of high altitude jumps before but this one takes the cake. Who needs a spaceship?

Everglide - I'm not sure that this ugly bike will catch on.

A lithium ion electric motorcycle, you be the judge.

Proposed dual blade helicopter expected to break speed records

Gotta go, Doctor Who starts soon! See you all tomorrow.

FRI 27 - Comic Con San Diego 2007

2007-07-27T18:11:00.000+10:00

RoX here.

Tonight's star menu attraction is pizza, home made pizza! That means I get to put on it whatever I like :-) I've got a few friends coming over for movie night so there are lots of pizza toppings and pizza bases all ready just waiting for my guests and I to throw them together and into the oven. First up for me is double pepperoni with lashings of cheese!

Comic Con - Well, the first full day of Comic Con has passed and con reports and photos are beginning to surface on the net. On the Star Trek front those rumours have been confirmed by JJ Abrams himself. Zachary Quinto of "Heroes" has been cast as the new younger Mr. Spock for the 11th Star Trek film.

I've been glancing through all the photos of the Con that have been posted on Flickr so far and gee I wish I could go to a huge con like that. I love comics, sci-fi and model building and that would be so right up my alley. I did run across an LJ entry for some Sanctuary related stuff at the Con, there are pictures of Damian and the Sanctuary booth. Tomorrow (Friday in the US) there are the two Stargate panels so I expect more con reports to start appearing tomorrow night. If I had have been attending I know I would have been totally torn about which panels to sit in on as the Con program had lots of panels I would have dearly loved to attend. However the call of the booth halls would have been calling too. I simply love comics and model building so I'd be soooooo happy to run myself ragged checking out each and every booth and chatting to the people you run into. I'm generally shy when meeting new people but put a camera in my hand and a topic I love to talk about and suddenly it's "Who's shy?".

Gadget Geek - when I went searching through Gizmodo the other day for vehicles I found a whole bunch of environment saving "green" ones, so here are a few to go check out.

Eco One sports car races at 150Kmh and made from salad ;) Go and check out the naturally grown substances like potatoes and cashews that they made this car out of and it uses biofuel too. They say that they have some motor racing people interested in the design.

Greenbox turns Carbon Dioxide into Biodiesel

Tesla Electric Sports Car, apparently they are not sold out yet for this year

Fuelvapour Technologies car "ale" pulls 1.7g turns and reduces CO2 emissions by 30%

Steampunk does Batman. Not so much "green" rather steam and definitely in the alternate fuel category. Batman eat ya heart out ;)

Prototype electric engine for Sonex Sports Aircraft

OK, gotta go for now. I have a pizza with my name on it :-)

THU 26 - Sanctuary moving to one price policy

2007-07-26T18:21:00.000+10:00

Rox here, I think I've started a trend here, pop dinner into the oven and then go blogging! On the menu tonight is baked chicken pieces in a spicy marinade, YUMMY. Oh and I've done some redecorating :-) I've moved the Sanctuary vids to their own pages with just a link on the sidebar because it was getting a wee bit crowded in here, I'll leave the current preview up on the front page though.

Sanctuary - Today Damian has update his blog with news on the contentious pricing policy. As of Webisode 6 everyone will pay the one flat price, no more of the regionalised pricing rip off models!! Thank you to everyone at Stage 3 Media for paying attention to the fans and hopefully (I'm sure going to do my fair share of pimping the webisodes) you'll get a lot more customers now with a fair price for all.

Both Trace and I are opposed to the regional market ripoffs that many companies persist in applying. Living in Australia we often get charged 40% to 50% more on books, DVDs and CD's just because we live in the fair land of Aus. It could be worse, I suppose, we could live in the UK where they are often hit with prices double of that seen in the US. Thanks again to the Sanctuary people for listening to the fans and doing something about it, especially when it meant a major revamp of their pricing methodology which is extremely difficult with a new venture like this.

Also Damian had some news about a new update for Sanctuaryforall.com :
"We are about to test a new version of Sanctuaryforall.com, designed to bring you some new and exciting ways to experience the world of Sanctuary. We are evolving the site to do some things you've asked us for in your feedback and suggestions, and also to pave the way for some of the many features we are working on. This is just the 'pilot' of Sanctuary after all, there are many great things to come."

I'm looking forward to it!!

Oh and here is the video with Amanda that I mentioned yesterday

Farscape - New info on those webisodes that they are planning has been posted on Slice of SciFi. The episodes will be 3 to 6 minutes long but no word yet on who will be starring in them. Hints have been made that John & Aeryn's son will be in it and Ben Browder is talking to Henson so keep tuned for more details.

Gadget Geek - There's been some advances made in prosthesis technology recently and these two items are a stand out.

an amazing mechanical ankle

iLimb bionic hand and for video of it in action see here

See you all tomorrow.

Sanctuary - View the Webisode Previews

2007-07-26T12:44:00.000+10:00

Here are the previews for the Sanctuary webisodes. Please visit the SanctuaryForAll website to be the owner of these wonderful webisodes for a small fee.

Webisode 5 Preview

While investigating an ancient crypt on a remote island, Magnus and her team encounter deadly creatures and three women with a mysterious past. Ashley decides to address the issues of her father's existence head-on.

Webisode 6 Preview

The investigation into the three women found in the crypt continues, confirming Magnus's theory that they are much more than they appear. Ashley's hunt for contraband creatures yields mixed results.

Webisode 7 Preview

Will falls victim to the three women's growing powers, while Magnus seeks proof of their true identities via a former resident of the Sanctuary. Ashley's luck in her monster hunt begins to run out...

Sanctuary - See the Free Webisodes

2007-07-26T12:28:00.000+10:00

You can get the high quality versions of these Webisodes and others from the SanctuaryForAll website for a small low fee. I think it is well worth the money for quality entertainment.

Webisode 1

While tracking a young boy with dangerous powers, Dr. Helen Magnus (Amanda Tapping) encounters Will Zimmerman (Robin Dunne), a psychiatric resident who may have what it takes to become her new protege

Webisode 2

Will Zimmerman is drawn further into Magnus' mysterious world and finds himself confronting his oldest fear. Elsewhere, forces converge on the target of their hunt - including someone from Magnus' distant past.

Webisode 3

The origins of the mysterious mutant boy are revealed, as is the relationship between Magnus and her old flame, John Druitt. Meanwhile Ashley Magnus (Emilie Ullerup) seeks out Ernie Watts (Peter Deluise) a weapons dealer and fellow monster hunter - only to find herself in mortal danger.

Webisode 4

Magnus and Will confront John Druitt with deadly results for a member of the Sanctuary team. Ultimately, Will is forced to choose between his old life and the strange world of Dr. Helen Magnus!

WED 25 - Gadget Geek - Cool & Unusual Vehicles

2007-07-25T18:22:00.000+10:00

Rox here, OK so I've got the lasagna in the oven for dinner so that means I've got about 40 mins to whack together today's blog. Ummmmmmmm

Sanctuary - Yes folks they will be at the San Diego Comic Con and their booth is apparently in some prime real estate just across from the SciFi booth so they should get a lot of people going past. Of course they'll all stop to get autographs from Amanda Tapping, Martin Wood and Robin Dunne and get the lowdown on Sanctuary. Damian Kindler will be there as well. To find out the details simply hop across to Sanctuaryfans.
Update : While you are at Sanctuaryfans check out the new video Amanda & The Fan :-)

Following on with something Trace started, I hit one of the gadget sites (yeah just one site I'm lazy!) and looked around for some cool vehicles and this is what I found.

A more environmentally friendly green plane. Find out more about it at Gizmodo

Got a function that you need to make an impression at? How about turning up in a Tank Limo! No seriously, this service is actually available in the UK and it will seat 8 people. Find out more about it at Gizmodo

Any Halo 3 fans out there? Check out the full size working Wathog they've put together in New Zealand. Find out more about it at Gizmodo

The M200G is a cool hover car that hovers 10 feet off the ground and cruises at a speed of 50mph. Go and see a demo video of it in action. You might also want to visit the Moller website and check out the M400, another way cool craft. Find out more about it at Gizmodo

The concept of a boatcar has been around for quite a while and the US Navy is wanting in on the action. Find out more about it at Gizmodo

OK well there goes the oven timer so my lasagna is ready. See you all tomorrow!

TUE 24 - I'm taking over!!

2007-07-24T07:18:00.000+10:00

RoX here. Trace is having EXTREME technical difficulties at the moment, the Universe is indeed evil and is picking on her! As a consequence I'll be filling in for her for a little while (bwaaaaaahahaha).

OK a quick roundup of things over the past couple of weeks :

Sanctuary - is still AWESOME!! I really loved Webisode 5, I really liked the longer time (21 mins) and the new story line. Had to laugh at the hand signals - "I'm cutting off your allowance"!!! I'm looking forward to more on the Helen/Ashley front in regards to Druitt as there are lots of feelings there to be resolved.

The preview for Webisode 6 is up and it looks like we'll get to see a little of how Helen was introduced to Sanctuary by her father and lots of action (well I hope we do).

X-Files - The script for the second movie is done!! I can't wait to hear what it is about. I like that the second movie is a Monster of the Week style as I am a fan of both the Mythology eps and the MOTW eps. I'm keeping my ears tuned for any more details.

Babylon 5 - The 31st and The Lost Tales are almost here!! I think it's time that the distributors get over the freaking Region release BS - if it is going straight to DVD then bloody well release it everywhere at the same time!! I'm going to have to get my first look at this by downloading it - I wouldn't have to if you'd damn well let the rest of the world in on it's release!!

Comic-Con - In San Diego starts on Wednesday night with Preview Night and then there's 4 day's packed with lots of stuff. Stargate has 2 panels on Friday and I'm not sure if Damian Kindler managed to get anything organised for Sanctuary like he was hoping to. I really wish I could go to something like this, I love comics and sci-fi but unfortunately living in Australia means I don't get the opportunity to attend things on a scale like this. Oh well, it looks like I'll be living vicariously through my friends who kindly post pictures and accounts of their trips to various conventions.

Farscape - scifi.com has ordered a 10 part web series for Farscape. Few details have been released yet so we'll have to wait and see what they have planned.

Battlestar Galactica - I'm looking forward to the "Razor" movie premiering in the US on November 24. It will be good to see the battles that Battlestar Pegasus went through at the beginning of the Cylon attack and what pushed Admiral Cain into the stance that she took. There will also be an 8 part webisode series in the leadup to the premiere that was filmed at the same time as the movie. I thoroughly enjoyed the previous webisode series that Galactica did so I'm sure this series will be good too.

OK roundup is over, now I'm not sure what I'll have left over to talk about tomorrow :(

Hmmmm, I guess I'll just make it up as I go along.

RoX

FRI 06 - The Evil, EVIL Universe

2007-07-06T12:19:00.000+10:00

Hi all. Yes, I am still alive and will be blogging again regularly once the evil universe has stopped conspiring to keep me off the internet!

First there was floods, then there was work and more work and more work AND then a power spike fried half my computer :-( Salvaging attempts are still ongoing with 1 hard drive recovered and one more to go. I should have a new videocard next week and I think I can repair the old soundcard. Well, that's 3 strikes so maybe the bad luck will go away for a while.

In the meantime Webisode 4 of Sanctuary was fantastic! I can't wait for the next episode to see the new story they come up with and if/how the Sanctuary crew deal with the emotional impact of the last webisode.

On a sad note :-( the next webisode has been delayed a week while Damian & the production crew move offices.

On a bright note when I looked in My Library of my Sanctuary account all the webisodes had the US pricing. Does this mean we will now all pay the one same price worldwide? Let's seriously hope so, I am an advocate against the BS pricing policy of the entertainment industry as a whole and the stupid region distributing BS as well. In today's world why should the majority of the world be penalised for not being an American?

If you haven't seen Sanctuary Webisode 4 yet I urge you to go ahead and do so, it is definitely worth it. I put my 4 weps onto DVD (before the Evuil Universe last attacked me) and watched an incredible 60 plus minutes of pure entertainment!

Catcha later,
Trace

Fri 22 - Sydney's drought broken??

2007-06-22T19:50:00.000+10:00

Hi there! No, I didn't fall off the earth or anything, I've been out in the country helping some family get back on their feet after their place got flooded. Boo for floods, my aunt and uncle thought their hobby farm was sufficiently far enough away from the river to not have to worry about floods but apparently they are not. Yay for hopefully the end of Sydney's 7 year drought, we've had 4 times the average rainfall this month and our dams have risen from 37% to 50% in just 3 weeks. We need some more as we usually get the most rain from January through June and then go leaner for the remaining months, but please God not all at once!

I got back earlier this afternoon and spent a totally delightful and relaxing 1.5 hours in my spa bath. Mmmmmmmmmmmmm no more freezing cold and being wet and muddy in the wind while we demolish half destroyed sheds, salvage what we can out the house, strip down and clean machinery, rebuild the barn, fix some of the fences and did I mention THE MUD!!!! We have the rels all set up in a caravan with generators and clean water while we wait for the old house to be demolished. Luckily it was a really old wooden house that they intended to demolish and rebuild next year so they just have to bring it forward a bit, though Uncle John is heading into town next week to get the plans changed to a raised dwelling. Last I heard he was rubbing his hands together about all the additional space they would have under the house; and my aunt was shooting down all his plans for a mini brewery and games room and workshop :-D

So once the plans are approved I guess I'll be spending a fair few weekends up there helping rebuild. Luckily one of my cousins is a builder so Uncle John can quite easily go the owner/builder route without much hassle and has quite an array of semi adept helpers. Yay for family!!

OH WOW! I checked out the preview for Sanctuary next Monday and it looks like it's going to be a great showdown!! Looking forward to seeing what happens. I'll see if I can knock together the synopsis for the last webisode over the weekend but I have heaps of housework to do so it's a definite maybe ;-)

Catcha ya later,
Trace

TUE 12 - Sanctuary Webisode 3 Review

2007-06-12T19:00:00.000+10:00

Here be spoilers, if you haven't seen it yet then bye bye!!

WooHoo! Sanctuary Rocks!
Yes, I was thoroughly impressed with the 3rd webisode of Sanctuary. We got to see more of what makes Helen and Ashley tick. We got to find out how John Druitt's power works, we got to know and see the little boy Alexei some more AND we have been set up for a major confrontation in the next webisode!!!

I have one tiny niggly thing though, I saw my first bug with the green screen stuff. When Sasquatch and Will were in the room with Alexei and Sasquatch goes to leave, check out his right leg. You can see the chair leg and the join of the floor & wall through his leg. Oooops. No worries though because I continue to be impressed by other stuff like all those fantastic exterior shots of Sanctuary and Helen's cool ~~toys~~ ah work equipment down in the labs.

Last review I said I wanted to know more of why Helen chose Will to be her next protege and we were shown another occasion where he is able to get through to a person (Alexei) when other people cannot. Helen left Will to do his stuff while she continued her research but she kept tabs on his progress remotely and obviously by her "Magnificent" comment she thinks he will fit in nicely. By the way, so do I.

I loved the flashback to Victorian England to see Helen and John together before John's problems interfered with their relationship. Amanda Tapping said in an interview about Helen that she "is massively in love with him, they're desperately in love" so I'm expecting major emotional fallout from any confrontation they have in the present. Especially with a closing line from Helen of "Each of us has our worst fears to confront Dr Zimmerman. John Druitt is mine".

It was great to see a touch of the mother / daughter relationship with Helen and Ashley and I wonder how Ashley will react with her mother when the full ramifications of her parentage hit home. Speaking of parentage, Christopher Heyerdahl put in another brilliant and chilling performance as John Druitt. From his appearance at the arms exchange, through the fight and to the final chilling reveal that Ashley is his daughter was just rivetting. Emilie Ullerup was fantastic with her bravado and spunk with a touch of fear and confusion as Ashley is held captive by Druitt. I can't wait to see what John Druitt has in mind for when Helen arrives on the scene.

It was also great to see Peter DeLuise in front of the camera again with his cameo performance as Ernie the arms dealer. I didn't see him getting taken out like that, nor his semi recovery to raise the alarm. I want to know what was in that epi pen!

So 51 minutes into the pilot and I'm still loving it! I'm expecting the next webisode to be a real kicker, with emotional fireworks and a possible showdown. Rollon the 25th of June!!

Catch ya later,
Trace

THU 07 - Back to Space again

2007-06-07T21:02:00.000+10:00

OK, bar any more problems and the shuttle should be taking off late this Friday in America. Which is good for me because it means it will be about 9.30am Saturday here and I won't have to get up at some godawful hour to watch it. Yes, I still watch launches live!! I don't think I'll ever get over the thrill of watching a launch, I mean these guys actually get to go into Space!!

This time around it's another retract and deploy of solar panels for the Space Station and another truss segment so there's going to be lots of work to be done but hopefully they've learnt a lot from past missions to help streamline the process.

Space, I'd love to go but I know I won't realistically ever get into space but maybe if I win the big lottery I can at least get a suborbital flight under my belt (assuming Virgin Galactic actually get going in the next couple of years). I mean it's technically space and 4 or 5 minutes of weightlessness is worth it right? Oh yeah and don't forget the spectacular view ;-)

The geek in me came across a few interesting things recently :

If you are into recycling then here's a handy helper especially if you are hard up for kitchen space. Check it out at BookOfJoe
The world's slimmest laptop is a fashion accessory? Ugly mate but the specs are relatively nice. Check it out at PopGadget
Tight on space or maybe you like making secret passages? Go and check out the bookshelf doors. Check it out at GizModo

Catch ya later,
Trace

WED 06 - Sanctuary Webisode 2 Review

2007-06-06T15:52:00.000+10:00

Ta Da! Here it is at last! A week or so late but here nonetheless. One thing to keep in mind is that we both had a little trouble getting into a review frame of mind because of the format. Both RealmOfX (RoX) and I are used to reviewing complete episodes of approximately 45 minutes with the occasional 2 or 3 parter thrown in and they have a certain format or style. We haven't quite come to grips with Sanctuary's format yet, it isn't episodic TV as we are used to nor is it truely serialised so we decided to treat it as a 2 hour movie that has been broken into 8 parts. It may not mean anything to people reading this but we had to establish a frame of mind to review this.

Here be spoilers, so if you haven't seen it yet (WHY NOT??) and don't want to be spoiled, adios amigos.

This webisode has a touch of many things, sinister plottings, a drawn out death, fear and discovery, humour, puzzles, danger and scones! Oh yes, and Ashley got to speak!

Ashley speaks! and what an attitude! That is one little spitfire and I can see many things possible for the young lady. She is definitely kick butt, however she is cocky and incautious and I see a lot of learning life lessons in a difficult manner in her future. Ashley's relationship with her mother shall prove to be interesting and I hope complex as things develop. It was obvious that Helen has high standards and holds herself and her daughter to them and we saw an understandable clash when Ashley was tired and cranky after they captured Alexei. She certainly gave her mother a mouthful and I look forward to more sparkage on this front.

One thing I want to know about Ashley is how did she move so quietly dropping down right behind the guards and not be heard? She also made a comment to Helen "Tall dude, moves faster than me, if that's possible". Implying that she is very fast,so does Ashley have special powers, is she an Abnormal? or is she just extremely fit and is supremely confident / over confident in her skills? Time will tell I suppose.

Dr Zimmerman's introduction to Sanctuary began with a humorous faint in the shower, though I must admit I cringed at the double clunk of the bathtub when he hit bottom. His second attack of the vapours was not so funny but his awakening chat with Helen was quite humorous. Now whilst I do enjoy humour and this webisode was quite humorous in a nice low key manner. Here's hoping that they keep it light as a touch of humour can do wonders for a dark subject but as humour is very subjective it can, if overused, lead to turning off huge sections of fans.

I wasn't overly sold on Will's introduction to Sanctuary though. I can see that we are being introduced to Sanctuary through the newcomer Will but maybe a bit more on reasoning as to why he was chosen as her new protege would have been more beneficial. I got that she saw something in him in his interview of Tolson and she deliberately tweaked his interest to see how he would react but I think there was something missing between the parlour scene and Helen and Will turning up at the crime scene in the rail tunnel. Mainly what was missing is a bloody good reason why Will went straight from scepticism to going out on a hunt with Helen. Why? Because of Helen's impassioned speech? I just thought it needed something a little more as the jump was too abrupt, though that scene change with the river view of the city was impressive.

Also, why was Sasquatch sent to Will's apartment? Was Helen with him? Did Helen plan it that way, to first approach him after his interview with Tolson and liking what she saw of his reactions then followup quickly with a visit by Sasquatch? Again to judge his reaction. Maybe.

I'm totally impressed with how Amanda Tapping and Christopher Heyerdahl are bringing their characters to light. Both are obviously complex characters so I'm hesitant to comment too much on them so early in the piece except that I am looking forward to seeing so much more from the pair of them. John Druitt totally creeps me out and I loved the whole "I love the dark" bit with Alexei. Helen is more of an enigma at this stage and we will obviously get snippets from her long life as things progress but what impresses me the most is not once have I thought "Oh this is Amanda playing a new character", it's always been "Hey here's this new character Helen and I want to know more about her". I've always been impressed by Amanda's acting, she is always so totally in character and it's impressive. Her non vocal acting always conveys feelings, her facial expressions, body posture etc. AND most of it is so subtle that you don't consciously notice it, she simply becomes the character. If you want to know what I'm talking about just go watch a Season 1 episode of Stargate: SG-1 and then one in the later Seasons and compare it to this webisode, also try viewing with the sound off. You'll see how totally into the character she is and how she constantly adapts the character over time, truely impressive.

Now on to some of the more physical aspects of the show, the sound track continued on with it's great form from the first webisode but there were a couple of spots with the visuals that jarred. On the whole I think the show is absolutely amazing in it's audio and visual presentation but two things did jar me out of my watching the story unfold. They were as the car entered through the gates, whats with the fake slow bouncing? Why not just move forward and continue with the motion established on approach to the gates? The other was in the tunnel with Helen and the torch (flashlight), they managed to transform Helen into a one dimensional shadow and that totally distracted me.

Actually Rox and I were discussing if they had deliberately lightened the show after some complaints of it being too dark, and that this might account for some of the effects being more noticeable? Mostly I don't even notice that the majority of the background is green screened and that is a major plus. Keep up the good work!

So 33 minutes into the pilot and I'm loving it, this webisode was very good even with a couple of niggly problems and I am eagerly awaiting the next installment.

Catch ya later,
Trace

SAT 02 - I know !! I'm slack!!

2007-06-02T17:38:00.000+10:00

So much for my posting 5 times a week!!

My excuse this time is - it's all Trace's fault! Yeah the other one, she's quite sick this week and hasn't really been up to, now how did she phrase it, "stringing two coherent sentences together let alone let alone dealing with your disjointed stream of consciousness". Hmmmph, so what if I have to review my work 5 times before it remotely resembles structured English, you knew this before we started this project luv!! Anyways, get better soon hon, pneumonia is no joke, even if it is a mild case.

Alrighty now!! The Webisode 3 preview of Sanctuary is just out and it is totally kick arse!! The best preview so far. Now I don't know if I think it's the best because I'm totally hooked or because we're going to get more background on John Druitt or maybe because it looks like Ashley gets to kick some real arse! Anyways, take a gander and make your own mind up!

Catch ya later,
Trace

WED 30 - Sanctuary Webisode 2 Synopsis

2007-05-30T23:06:00.000+10:00

OK, this is a joint project by Trace & the other Trace (who is really sick at the moment, get well soon hon). We aim to get both a synopsis and a review done for each webisode, however my tendency towards procrastination may derail that plan ;-)

Here be spoilers, if you haven't seen it yet then now is the time to leave...

This webisode opens with Ashley still trailing Alexei, the Tentacle Boy, through the train tunnel where John Druitt leans down from a station platform to talk to the boy. Meanwhile a train comes along causing Ashley to have to move and consequently loses sight of her quarry.

We cross to Will's apartment where he is having a shower with his lousy water system. Someone flushes his toilet and gives him a super hot shower. This causes Will to get snarky and yell "OK, who the hell just used my can?" Cue faint one - A big hairy hand opens the shower curtain and Will gives a little girly yelp and faints!

S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S

A car pulls up to the Sanctuary gates and a hairy hand emerges to punch in the security code and then drives in when the gate opens.

S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S

A station guard walks down some steps to a train platform, he is filling in a form on a clipboard. He spots Druitt leaning on a support post and tells him the station is closed and "what the hell is going on". The guard approaches Druitt and as he does so he spots Alexei standing behind the post and says "You know what? I don't want to know".

The guard turns around and heads back to the stairs puling out his radio and starts to put a call in about the incident. Close up on the guard and we see a flash of light and Druitt stabs him in the neck (I think) with his cane sword.

S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S

Pan across a dingy street in the Old City looking uphill to a church like structure, part of Sanctuary. Cut to Will startling awake in bed and saying "I'm so sick of it". He doesn't recognise where he is and gets out of bed (only wearing boxers) and looks about the room. He picks up several photos of Helen from earlier years. One on the Crimean Peninsula and one with boxer Joe Louis.

Helen enters the room and says "Good you're awake" but Will doesn't think that he is awake and goes back to bed. Helen assures him that he is awake and while Will is explaining why he can't possibly be awake, Sasquatch enters with a tea tray and Will faints again.

S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S

The train guard is chained to a post with his feet off the ground and he can't speak, he is making choking sounds. Druitt is making friends with Alexei,he encourages him to fulfill his desires but that Alexei must help him find an "old friend". Alexei then kills the guard.

S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S

Meanwhile back with Will, he again startles awake in bed. This time Helen is sitting nearby drinking a cup of tea and remarks to him upon his awakening "My manservant seems to have a profound impact on you".

Helen explains that Sasquatch chose to stay with her after she remove several bullets from him and she added him to her staff. Will is having a difficult time adjusting to the fact that Sasquatch is real and demands his clothes back so that he can leave. Helen responds "As you wish, but outside that door are creatures that make my butler seem like a house cat by comparison. Sanctuary For All is not an empty motto." and then offers him a scone.

S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S

In a dark rail tunnel two train guards walk the tracks with their torches (flashlights) trying to raise the missing guard on the radio. As they talk, Ashley drops down silently from above with the guards none the wiser. She moves to the side to hide and observe. The guards then spot the body of the other guard just ahead, laying on the tracks.

S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S

Next we find Will and Helen descending in a huge old elevator. Will asks Helen what kind of a doctor is she. Helen evades with "It depends on the patient of course".

The elevator stops and Helen and Will exit with Helen telling Will "I specialise in teratology among other things" and "Combined with healthy doses of cryptozoology and xenobiology as well. When the need arises". They walk along in an old laboratory, a strange mix of old and new. Will is looking all around as he continues to question Helen.

They arrive in a very large circular room with many rooms/cages running off from it. Will approaches one of the enclosures which is fill with water and has a mermaid residing in it. There are other monsters there as well, including a two faced man (one in front and one in back).

Will seems to be having a difficult time coming to terms with the existence of the creatures. Will asks Helen if any of the creatures are running about free to which Helen replies "Don’t be ridiculous" and then adds with a smile "Exercise time isn’t for another two hours".

S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S

Helen and Will enter a parlour with Helen explaining that Sanctuary was established to find and help the unfortunate creatures of this world and that she thinks that Will could play a vital role there.

Helen expands a little more about Sanctuary trying to convince Will to join with her. She says she his potential when he was talking to Tolson at the hospital.

She ends with an impassioned plea for Will to "Open your eyes! Good doctors come and go. But the really great ones have always seen beyond the boundaries of science. Beyond the known. The great ones dare to believe in the unbelievable."

The scene fades out with With a scene of the river separating Old City from the New city. It's a dark and moody setting with partial moonlight from a stormy sky.

S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S

Back in the rail tunnel there are flares and a marked off crime scene around the body of the train guard. From the side, in the dark, Helen and Will observe the scene. Helen says that her quarry must be close.

S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S

Cut to another tunnel, which Helen and Will enter through a hatch.

Will wants to know how Helen knew to come to the Old City and not uptown. Helen gives an evasive "I have my sources" which seems to annoy Will as he sarcastically requests Helen to please be more cryptic because he was starting to feel in the loop here and they wouldn't want that.

Helen explains that the subject is unused to human contact and would seek solitude in the catacombs. She pauses and then adds "plus I have a Police scanner".

Helen stops as she sees a playbill and picks it up. It is from Drury Lane for a performance of Twelfth Night, a limited engagement by order of Queen Victoria. Helen turns the leaflet over and finds "A5 S1" written there.

Will asks how Helen knew that the victim was the work of her subject. Ashley then walks in and answers because she had been tracking him all night. Helen quips "With very little success I'm afraid". Ashley replies that it was because someone else was down there. Someone tall who moved faster than her, which she didn't think was possible.

Helen reacts sharply to this and asks what he looked like. As they are talking Will spots some movement and moves away from them. As Ashley is explaining what the man looked like, Will discovers Alexei and calls out to Helen and Ashley and then tries to talk to Alexei.

Alexei lashes out at Will with his tentacle and Ashley shoves Will out of the way and rolls back to her feet and draws her pistol on Alexei. Helen shouts out to stop because they need him alive. They all approach Alexei with Helen trying to talk to him.

Alexei lashes out at Ashley which she dodges and will yells out to Alexei and moves off to the side trying to distract him. Helen then shoots Alexei with a tranquilliser dart.

Will asks Ashley if she is OK to which she replies I'm fine. Helen cutts in with "Far from it. This chaos was completely avoidable". Ashley then quite testily tells Helen to give her a break, she's been in the dark tunnels all night avoiding cops and ghouls and whatever and she doesn't need a lecture.

Will at this stage breaks in with a comment about the two of them knowing each other. Where upon Helen formally introduces Ashley to Will as her daughter.

S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S~S

The End

Catch ya later,
Trace

MON 28 - Sanctuary continues to Impress

2007-05-29T13:55:00.000+10:00

(Yes, I know it's Tuesday and I'm late but it's all the other Trace's fault!! Next webisode day, we'll just plan this post for Tuesday not Monday)

I've just discovered my new Monday night relaxation, watching Sanctuary :-) Monday is the day of the week I hate, yep, me and Garfield. It's the day that rudely curtails my weekend and lately is also a very, very long work day.

I now have my schedule set, I don't care what happens at work, the latest I'm staying is 6pm, barring a huge traffic jam I should be home by 7.15pm. Get home, boot up the computer, put the kettle on, log in to the Sanctuary site and download my next webisode then go and make some dinner.

By the time dinner is ready so is my next webisode. Plonk myself down on the lounge with dinner and watch Sanctuary. Ahhhhhhh a great way to wind down!

I've changed my mind, I'll post this now and wait for RealmOfX to drag herself out of her sickbed to help finish our collaborative webisode synopsis. Gee RoX, just because you're busy transcribing and sick is Noooooooo reason you can't get your wheezey a*** online to help me :D (waits for retaliatory IM).

Anyway RoX and I have decided to collaborate to get a few writing endeavours completed and posted, it seems we are both incapable of doing it by ourselves! Luckily we have a similar writing style and we put this method to great use way back in our X-Files days. So stay tuned for more on Sanctuary and hope that my procrastination does not jinx the intentions.

Catch ya later,
Trace

FRI 25 - Sanctuary heads to London MCM Expo

2007-05-25T21:16:00.000+10:00

Well the weekend is here and that means that it is only a couple of days to the next Sanctuary webisode. Yippee!! The folks at Sanctuary have released a small preview which I have posted above, I can't wait for Monday!

The London Movie Comic Media Expo is on this weekend and Amanda Tapping and Damian Kindler will be there representing Sanctuary. They'll be available for autographs and discussions about Sanctuary. Apparently the Expo attendees will also get to see Webisode 2 of Sanctuary, lucky buggers. Slice of SciFi have an article about the Expo and Sanctuary.

I wish I could go but unfortunately it's just a tad too far for a weekend jaunt for me. There is also going to be a small contingent of Sanctuary fans attending so we should be getting various reports and pictures posted on the net sometime next week.

It's been a long week and so I'm gonna crash early tonight. Weeee party hard Friday - NOT. Then tomorrow I hope to catch up with the next episodes of Afterworld, even though I'm still peeved at their lousy distribution philosophy.

Catch ya later,
Trace

THU 24 - Afterworld, where'd you go??

2007-05-25T00:44:00.000+10:00

OK, I understand when doing something new that sometimes problems occur but seriously a little info to the people you are trying to build into an audience would be helpful!

I think the folks making Afterworld could be shooting themselves in the foot. First they gradually release the first 10 episodes of their new animation project catching quite a few people's attention. Then they promise starting May 14 they will deliver the remaining episodes one a day. They never turned up and no word was heard for quite a while.

Now we have an update saying that there were problems but now they are solved and go to their website to get the eps (previously they had a group at YouTube). I get to the website and it's only available to the US!! Well that sucks majorly. Don't tell me that they are going to follow the outdated and unnecessary model of restrictive distribution. If so, matey's you can shove it!

A little bit of helpful information would go a very long way in helping people understand this sudden reversal of access. Hey, I live in Australia and according to the website we will be next on the release. In AUGUST!!! I signed up for the email notification and did not even receive an acknowledgement of being put on the list. Dudes, this ain't the way to succeed! I'm not the only one a tad peeved, I noticed a few unfriendly blog entries when I was searching for info on what was happening. I managed to find the next 10 episodes on Bud.TV but I haven't had time to watch them yet. I'm not sure if I'm going to bother at this stage if I can't get confirmation that they will be continuing distribution to the WHOLE internet in the next few weeks.

It's about time that people realised that Aussies, Kiwis, Brits and Europeans are sick to death of not being able to see things at the same time as the US. AND we are ready to revolt over being charged up to double for the privilege of waiting. We've had a gutful of your restrictive trade practices. Be progressive and move to a new system or suffer the consequences and be left behind.

One peeved Trace, signing off.

WED 23 - Gadget Geek - Comfy chairs... or Not

2007-05-24T01:36:00.000+10:00

Ooops, I just remembered that I was going to check out the new episodes of Afterworld. I'll put a sticky note on my monitor for tomorrow!!

The geek in me came across a few interesting things recently :

The Trey Gaming chair, multiple configurations are great if you are limited for space. Check it out at Gearlog
Solar System Chair - uh, no thanks. Check it out at GizModo
Ergonomics to the extreme. Check it out at Aving.net

Catch ya later,
Trace

TUE 22 - Another Sanctuary convert

2007-05-22T23:55:00.000+10:00

I had one of my nieces over after university today and she watched Sanctuary and loved it! I think we have another Aussie customer, she was going home to check out the download limits of her ISP. I didn't watch it with her but I was listening to it as I finished off some paperwork and I found that I really enjoyed the sound track, both the music and the sound effects. I think that Ian Browne did a wonderful job on the music and Title Theme, very moody and fit well with the visuals.

Is it Monday yet? No? Rats!

I came across another article on Sanctuary at Softimage and they have some good shots of some graphics that I hadn't seen before, just click on the photos to enlarge. They also have a link, down at the bottom of the article, to a video interview of Ron Martin (Visual Effects Director) which I haven't seen before. It's about 7 minutes long and well worth viewing.

The geek in me came across a few interesting things recently :

Shades of Fantastic Voyage! A new form of diode propulsion that could allow microrobots to explore human bodies has been discovered. Check it out at NewScientistTech
Plasma shield may stun and disorientate enemies. Check it out at NewScientistTech
Lease an Exoskeleton. Check it out at MedGadget

Catch ya later,
Trace

MON 21 - Another week to go

2007-05-21T14:25:00.000+10:00

Saturday I logged into the chat that the good folks at SanctuaryFans.com had set up with several people from Sanctuary. When I heard that they had 5 guests I wasn't sure if it would be any good due to the limitations of structured chats. It turns out that my concerns were totally unwarranted as I had a bloody great time for 2 hours!!

The guests were Damian Kindler (creator & Executive Producer), Martin Wood (director & Executive Producer), Robin Dunne (plays Will Zimmerman), Emilie Ullerup (plays Ashley) and Ron Martin (Visual Effects Producer). Wow, this crew is a zany bunch and very entertaining. The hour chat was stretched into 2 hours and zipped along, often with 3 or more conversations going at the same time. I'm not sure about the okra references but I'm sure RoX will be able to bring me up to speed on that. I expect to see websites dedicated to Robin and Emilie really soon, and I'm interested to learn more about them as actors and their characters.

There have been lots of articles and blog entries about Sanctuary recently but here are two that I really enjoyed. Over at Sanctuaryfans.com they have an interview with Ron Martin that is heavy on the tech talk (which I love) and is definitely worth checking out here. You can listen to it or read the transcript.

Then over at VFXworld they have a feature article on Sanctuary and include some great video footage of comparisons between green screen shooting and the final product (just click on the pictures). Definitely worth checking out the article.

So, another week to wait for the next installment. I'm not sure what their intentions are for the future but I do understand why they are spreading out the first 2 hour pilot. They are really just feeling their way and testing what the audience is, what they want and what the consensus is on the so called "net attention span". It's all new ground but the people at Sanctuary are proving to be very responsive to the fans.

I'm really looking forward to the next webisode!!

Catch ya later,
Trace

FRI 18 - Gadget Geek - USB Fun

2007-05-18T19:56:00.000+10:00

The geek in me came across a few interesting things recently :

So it's not really fun but rather practical a USB flash drive that is also a dual hub. Comes in a range of memory sizes 128MB, 256MB, 512MB , 1GB, 2GB, and 4GB. Check it out at RealTechNews
A Rollup USB Drum Kit? Check it out at MobileMag
A plug 'n play microscope, this digital microscope has a 200X magnification. Check it out at ThinkGeek

Catch ya later,
Trace

Who is Helen Magnus?

2007-05-17T17:21:00.000+10:00

It looks like the Sanctuary people have got the bugs ironed out and people have their accounts fixed and their customer service is swinging into action. Good work people, it seems that as a problem arises someone is tasked with fixing it and it happens ASAP. Yesterday I made a comment on their customer service and today I had word that they are indeed contacting people with problems and solving them. Again good work.

Also they have released a better quality free version of Webisode 1 which I have linked to at the top of my blog. This is a definite improvement over the darker original one but I still recommend that you purchase the HD version to enjoy it to the fullest.

Sanctuary has caught my interest on many levels so I think I'll just work my way through them one by one.

Firstly, may I say that 17 minutes is not long enough! :-) I can however deal with it when I know there are more webisodes coming, unlike my cohort RealmOfX. RoX isn't the most patient of people and is having difficulty with the waiting. LOL Sunshine, off you go and start practising your patience, AGAIN and stop picking on my lousy grammar ;-)

So who is Helen Magnus? What makes her tick?

We were treated to a few glimpses of her in the first webisode of Sanctuary, which give us a few clues but many more questions. We first see Helen Magnus, as she confronts John Druitt in Victorian England in 1888.

It is obvious that she knows that Druitt is killing people and that she knows about his mysterious power. She is confident with a gun and confident in confronting him. She cares and she wants to help, emotions cross her face as she tries to talk him down but she is not deterred in her mission to stop him. Helen appears to accept John's seeming capitulation and relaxes minutely but as he kills Molly, Helen does not hesitate and shoots at him.

At this point in time, I think, Helen is in her late 30's, she is very confident, a doctor and can handle a gun. How long has she been involved with Sanctuary by now? She doesn't seem at all fazed by Druitt's apparent transdimensional jumping (that's what I'm calling it for now). I'm thinking that Helen must have been a fairly confident woman to actually become a doctor in those times but I am curious to see how her environment has shaped her and what basic qualities she has.

We next see Helen in the present day, hiding in an alley and watching while the police attend to a disturbance in an apartment block. When the shots and screams from the apartment are heard, we see Helen flinch and show her concern and agitation but she doesn't move out of the alley to help. Why? Because she knows she would not be able to help? Or because she wants to stay below the Police's radar? Is this her long years of experience with Sanctuary showing? Why was she there in the first place? Did she know there was trouble or was she tracking down rumours of a new "monster" and stumbled across the trouble?

Next time we seen Helen Magnus we jump to a brief hospital scene and we see Helen and a nurse observing from another room as Dr Will Zimmerman is talking to the suspected killer Larry Tolson. Helen and the nurse are quite at ease both with each other and with observing the questioning of a suspected killer. Helen Magnus is wearing a lab coat, is she a doctor at the hospital? She is obviously known to the nurse and has the authority to be there or they would not be observing and talking so easily together.

Helen enters the hospital morgue and the doctor there knows it is her without looking up, suggesting that they are extremely familiar with each other. They do not see the need to stop and talk but continue working while organising lunch together for the following week. Helen was obviously expected but is she a hospital employee or is she a consultant for special cases? And why is Helen working on the body with very little light and no mask / protective gear?

On to the final scene, Helen's first contact with Will. It is great to see the subtle nuances here as Helen gently prods Will to think in other directions and consider other possibilities. A ittle intellectual pushing and prodding with a touch of mystery and Helen leaves Will. I'm assuming she is hoping to get him to a point where he would be a candidate to introduce to Sanctuary.

So at the end of the first webisode we do not know who Helen Magnus is but we have been given some intriguing clues and many questions that I want answered. I am seriously looking forward to the next installment!!

Catch ya later,
Trace

WED 16 - Sanctuary Webisode 1, great debut

2007-05-16T21:17:00.000+10:00

Whew, I barely had time to download the HD webisode and watch it, work hit another crisis and I've hardly had time to myself the last three days.

I loved the acting, I loved the characters, Victorian London was great, a surprise power for "Jack", overall a nice little setup piece that has whet my appetite for more. Much, much more. We didn't get to see much of Ashley but that will come soon. We had a good introduction to the normal world of Will Zimmerman and I can't wait to see how he is drawn into the world of Sanctuary. We saw little pieces of Helen in different environments and I can't wait to see how this complex character is unveiled. I was seriously impressed with Christopher Heyerdahl as John Druitt and can't wait to see him interact with both Helen and Ashley. I can't wait seems to be a continuing theme here :-)

Kudos to the director Martin Wood, I really do admire your work. Wonderful and interesting camera angles and your vision of Sanctuary has me enthralled. You also have all the actors working well together.

Kudos to the whole Sanctuary crew, from Damian on down. I was most impressed with Webisode 1 and I really was worried that I had built my expectations too high but that worry soon faded. Now my next date to anxiously await is May 28 and Webisode 2.

I sat down and compared the free YouTube version, at Sanctuaryfans.com, to the HD one and as RoX would say - chalk 'n cheese. If you can afford it, I say go for the paid version as it is well worth it. There were some problems with the site as they got hit with lots of people downloading and they had a few problems to iron out with servers and the shopping cart. Lucky for me I had no trouble getting my download but for some people like RoX, they bought the bundle of 4 webisodes and then there was nothing to download. I hear that they have fixed the problem but some people still do not have their accounts fixed yet but they have been given access to download.

Here's a big tip for the Sanctuary webmaster - get your website customer service sorted out real quickly or it will cost you customers. You need to have an easily found support service for your Shopping Cart and even if you cannot fix the problem immediately, you do need to at least acknowledge receipt of the problem. Common courtesy goes a very long way.

Overall, only minor teething problems for an otherwise excellent debut of my new favourite show. I'm looking forward to lots more in the ever expanding world of Sanctuary, my new reality.

Catch ya later,
Trace

SUN 13 - One more sleep!!

2007-05-13T21:05:00.000+10:00

I feel like a little kid, are we there yet? Nope, it's tomorrow, just one more sleep to go :-)

Just to whet your appetite (as if anything more was needed) the folks over at Sanctuaryfans.com have a preview snippet of David Hewlett's character Larry and Will. It is just a small section of dialogue but it does seem that we will be getting to see some great stuff from David in a very different role from that which we have previously seen him.

So far I have been very impressed with the glimpses that we have seen from the Sanctuary folks. I hope I haven't got my hopes set too high, I don't think I have but we'll just have to wait a little while longer to see.

The geek in me came across a few interesting things recently :

Caffeine overload, just what I need to get me through those long nights when everything goes wrong at work. A D cell battery like container filled with Chocolate Espresso Beans, Chargers indeed! Check it out at ThinkGeek
Need a late Mother's Day present? Try these LED roses. Check it out at UberReview
The "Red Rectangle" Nebula from the Hubble Telescope. Check it out at NASA

Catch ya later,
Trace

SAT 12 - The New Reality approaches

2007-05-12T18:20:00.000+10:00

I can't believe it, we're almost there!! Sanctuary premieres this Monday - W00t!!!! Yep, I'm a happy little vegemite.

Damian Kindler was interviewed on SciFi Talk in a podcast by Tony Tellado. The interview was quite long, 30 minutes, and very interesting as both Tony and Damian are very enthusiastic about all aspects of this new show. There are a few very slight spoilers but it is definitely worth listening to. For those of you with limited bandwidth there is a transcript of the interview at the Sanctuary thread on Gateworld forums or you can find it at the official fansite Sanctuaryfans.com.

I'm wondering how the Sanctuary bods are going to set up the pricing and downloading from the official site? I know quite a few people that do not have credit cards but do have PayPal accounts. Hopefully they will have a broad spectrum of payment possibilities to enable people all over the world to purchase the show. I'm also wondering which sites they will be distributing the free versions for distribution - YouTube and what others? It will be interesting to see the accompanying hit counters too.

I wonder if they'll have any "ratings" type info collected on their viewers to maybe help them target their audience? At least how many downloads per webisode per country type stuff. Enquiring minds would like to know :-)

Anyway starting at 00:01 Monday Vancouver time I'll be haunting their website and impatiently refreshing my screen, credit card in hand, until the first webisode makes an appearance. I hope their servers are set up to handle the traffic.

I'm doing a lot of wondering aren't I? and of course, waiting, waiting, waiting...

Catch ya later,
Trace

THU 10 - Gadget Geek - Enviroment Friendly

2007-05-10T21:22:00.000+10:00

The geek in me came across a few interesting things recently :

A house spins to face the sun. Check it out at GizModo
One wind turbine can provide power for 4,000 homes. Check it out at TreeHugger
Soda can home solar heater. Check it out at GizModo

Catch ya later,
Trace

WED 09 - Gadget Geek - Water Sports

2007-05-09T13:40:00.000+10:00

OK, I'm getting slack with my blogging so I'm going to aim to post 5 days a week. On days that I don't have a commentary on something then I'll just post a themed geek list.

Hmmmm, I wonder how long this will last until procrastination sets in again?

The geek in me came across a few interesting things recently :

For the serious swimmers amongst us, The Lap Track. It stores best lap time, average lap time, average speed, total distance and total calories burned. Check it out at UberGizmo
Anyone for Poolside Golf? Practice your chipping in the pool. Hmmmm I wonder what happens on a windy day? A moving target?. Check it out at OhGizmo
I want one! The SkiBob is like a miniature jet ski that can pull you along on the surface or under water at a brisk 12.5mph. Check it out at GizModo

Catch ya later,
Trace

TUE 08 - Bits and Pieces

2007-05-08T18:26:00.000+10:00

On the Sanctuary front -

Amanda Tapping has recorded a very brief message for fans over at the official Sanctuary fans site SanctuaryFans.com
Only 6 days to go to the Sanctuary premiere!!

Spiderman 3 smashes box office records (yes that's plural). It will be interesting to see how Spidey continues to sell with Pirates of the Caribbean: Deadman's Chest coming a close second with an opening weekend of $135,634,554. So, when is Shrek 3 coming out???

Figures obtained from Box Office Mojo
ALL TIME: Worldwide Openings $381,660,892
ALL TIME: Opening Weekends $151,116,516
ALL TIME: Past Weekend Records $151,116,516
ALL TIME: 3-day Openings $151,116,516
ALL TIME: Foreign Openings $230,544,376

Any Lost fans out there? I must admit that I'm a sort of fan. I never got into the first season while it was on TV but I have found that if I wait till they bring it out on DVD then I'll watch it straight through over 2 or 3 days and enjoy it quite well. Since I started my Quickflix membership (DVD rental through the mail) I have started watching a few series this way - Smallville, Bones, 4400 and 24, and I'm enjoying them without the dumb interruptions of commercial TV and logos that block the action.

Lost producers have announced the end of Lost in 2010. Over the next three seasons all questions will be answered with each season being a shortened length of 16 episodes each. Each new shortened season is slated to be shown in one continous block in the US from February through May. The end is in sight!!

Catch ya later,
Trace

MON 07 - Afterworld

2007-05-07T18:26:00.000+10:00

I ran across this web series Afterworld the other day on YouTube and it caught my eye. Starting on May 14 a new episode will be released daily, each running approximately 2.5 minutes and apparently there are 130 in all.

"AFTERWORLD - A new web series about a man who wakes to find all technology dead and the human race missing.....

Follow Russell Shoemaker's harrowing 3000-mile journey home to Seattle from New York in hopes of finding his wife and daughter still alive. His journey is one of survival as he encounters a society rebuilding itself in this post-apocalyptic world. Russell Shoemaker becomes a symbol of hope, a reluctant hero in search of what matters most. This is one man's odyssey of self-reliance, innovation and optimism."

What really caught my eye was the style of the show, very reminiscent of the 1960's show The Marvel Superheroes where there was limited animation. It was great to my young eyes back in the day, it brought to life the comic books I'd borrow from my uncle to read (mainly because they used the artwork from the comics). Afterworld, however, is done with a lot more style and slightly more animation and way better sound and much better graphics. So far they are up to episode 10 and I think I'll go give it another viewing to see if I really like it or not. AfterWorld caught my attention now let's see if it can keep it.

Hey everyone! It is just one more week until Sanctuary debuts on the internet. I can't wait!

The geek in me came across a few interesting things recently :

A look at Europe's first commercially operating power station using solar power and steam. Check it out at BBC News
eek! It's a giant spider. No, it's a rescue Bot!! Check it out at Electro Plankton
A great gift idea - a digital photo keychain. It has a 1.4" LCD, 8MB of memory and can store up to 56 photos. Check it out at SkyMall

Catch ya later,
Trace

FRI 04 - Sanctuary Roundup

2007-05-04T17:23:00.000+10:00

News of Sanctuary is popping up all over the net as the premiere date draws closer. Most recently on Slice of SciFi Podcast #107 and AintItCoolNews. Apparently it also got a mention in an interview with Joseph Mallozzi (Stargate Exec) but i haven't had a chance to snag that interview yet (I may have to con RealmOfX into doing a transcript for me).

RoX did a transcript of the Slice of SciFi Sanctuary news item and it can be found over at Sanctuaryfans.com, but I do recommend checking out the complete podcast if you are into scifi. I really like Slice of SciFi as they cover a broad range of things in the scifi and entertainment area and produce a great weekly show comprising news items, what's coming in the near future and a 15 minute interview with the guest of the week. The show is always entertaining and I do highly recommend it.

RoX and I were discussing how we were going to watch Sanctuary. RoX has her TV hooked up to her LAN and has chosen to watch in wide screen comfort with surround sound. Whilst I have a pretty decent setup at my computer and may just watch it there, 21 inch screen, 5.1 speaker system and very comfy chair. Though I may wait to get all parts of the pilot and join them together and then watch it on my 76cm widescreen TV. I hear other people have been downloading to their iPods and playing it back on their TV's. I'm sure that whatever choice people make for viewing Sanctuary that we are all in for a real treat!

Roll on May 14 :-)

The geek in me came across a few interesting things recently :

The 6th season of Angel is to continue in comic book form from Dark Horse. Check it out at Slice of SciFi
DocuPen scanner, a breakthrough in portable scanning devices. I sure could have used one of these at University. Check it out at PopGadget
Desktop arcade machine, definitely fits my nostalgia mood. Check it out at Gizmodo

Catch ya later,
Trace

TUE 01 - Very Impressed

2007-05-01T22:12:00.000+10:00

The Sanctuary preview is great! I'm even more looking forward to the premiere now. So far most of the green screen elements have been excellent but I must admit there were two things that screamed "game" to me and that was the mermaid type creature and one of the cars (the dark one), every thing else was quite believable. Now I'm not saying that they were bad, far from it, just that they had a different "look" to them. Of course I must mention that I'm used to picking things apart visually as I digitally restore photos and comics in my spare time and I look at things in minute detail.

So apart from those two very minor things, everything else was great. I really liked visually the bit on the old London street, excellent graphics and the lighting / mood was terrific. The opening scene was tops too in the old part of town with Helen and Will, the rain and the background visuals were excellent.

And speaking of excellent - Amanda Tapping!!! WOW! I am soooooooo looking forward to seeing how Damian and Amanda bring the character of Helen Magnus to life. I think we are in for a real treat here with a very multi layer character. Amanda was incredible with the few scenes we saw her in, a new look, a new accent and a new character with lots of potential to demonstrate just how good an actress she really is.

At the moment I'm thinking "bugger!". The webisodes are only around 15 minutes long and will come out every few weeks. How on earth are we going to manage to wait!!

In this day and age of instant gratification I think some people will find it hard to adjust to the delivery style whilst others are going to be kicked back to the dim dark days of the old time serials where each episode is highly anticipated and then treasured once viewed.

Roll on May 14!

The preview can be found at the Sanctuary website and also check out the Welcome message from Amanda Tapping. For those of you with limited web access or slow computers you can view the lower quality YouTube preview right here.

Catch ya later,
Trace

MON 30 - Sneak preview of Sanctuary

2007-04-30T14:33:00.000+10:00

Well today is Monday and today we get the new 5 minute sneak preview of Sanctuary. I can't wait!!! And now it's only two short weeks until Sanctuary premieres!!

Damian has updated his blog again with lots of info for us, so head on over there for the big update. Of particular note is making the website SanctuaryFans.com the official fan site.

"Sanctuaryforall.com is all about the experience and immersing yourself in the world of Sanctuary. With that in mind, the consensus was nobody can service the fandom like a bunch of fans. And so, in order to make sure our fans get everything they want and deserve, we’ve brought www.sanctuaryfans.com on board to act as a direct conduit to you. Sanctuaryfans.com will provide you all with the latest news, interviews, episode guides, images, videos, chats, blogs, quotes and so on and so forth. They are our voice in the online community and we’re proud to be working with them."

Also in the update was the news that the first four webisodes that are free will be released via You Tube and Google Video (among others) while the HD versions will be available for purchase from the official website. No word of price yet but you can buy Sanctuary by the webisode, or in blocks of webisodes, or the whole eight webisodes of the pilot.

Oh and on the trivia side of things Stargate: SG-1 isn't the longest running scifi series in history. Doctor Who has that record and it even has the longest consecutive record too, though it appears the GBWR got that wrong and won't supply the criteria it used either. Doesn't matter which way you cut it Doctor Who ran for 26 years straight before the small break in production.

Here's a mini rant on the subject provided by RealmOfX :

So how do they explain away that Doctor Who showed every year from 1963 to 1989 for 26 years? That is a continuous run is it not? 159 stories with 695 parts averaging 25 minutes each. A total of 17,375 minutes.

Whereas SG-1 showed every year from 1997 to 2007 for 10 years with 214 episodes averaging 42 minutes. A total of 8,988 minutes.

Doctor Who runs every year for 26 years with 17,375 minutes.
Stargate: SG-1 runs every year for 10 years with 8,988 minutes. NOT EVEN CLOSE!!

LOL RoX can get a bit hot under the collar :-)

The geek in me came across a few interesting things recently :

An interesting concept of computers in the future, adds a whole new dimension to the old dilema of "Where'd I leave my pen?". Check it out at Slice of SciFi
Not in my pool, nuh uh, no way. Check it out at The Green Head
A flexible plastic battery? Yes Japanese scientists have made a polymer based rechargeable battery! Check it out at Gizmag

Catch ya later,
Trace

SAT 28 - In Countdown Mode

2007-04-28T10:28:00.000+10:00

The Sanctuary premiere is getting closer all the time, next Monday it will be two short weeks away!! Also do not forget that next Monday the 5 minute preview is released and will be available to view or download from the Sanctuary website.

I am really looking forward to this, I can't wait to see Amanda Tapping in a new role. I'm dying to see in more detail how good the visual effects are. I can't wait to see what kind of story Damian Kindler has started to weave in his new playground. Gee, I feel like a little kid with Christmas fast approaching!!

I picked up my copy of Happy Feet Thursday night and spent all day on Friday sacked out on the couch watching movies. I'm a sucker for animated movies and Happy Feet is one of the few that I actually have bought on DVD. Those baby penguins were just so damn cute! I loved the music and I thought that the movie was wasted on kids, definitely a lot of adult jokes in there.

Being an Aussie I loved having familiar voices turn up, not only Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman who I knew were in it but the delightful Miss Viola was performed by Magda Szubanski who I immediately recognised! And then there were the ocker Elephant Seals (Trev, Nev, Kev & Barry ) with Trev being performed by the late Steve Irwin.

One of my favourite parts is Mumbles being chased by the hungry seal. Lots of tense moments and then right at the end with the jump back onto the ice we go from super serious to super wise cracking with The Amigos lead by Ramon and the wonderful talent of Robin Williams. Hmmm it's another rainy day and I'm still not feeling well so I might just put Happy Feet on again!!

The geek in me came across a few interesting things recently :

Here's a waterproof digital wrist camera for the adventurers amongst us. Check it out at ThinkGeek
Bionic arms should be available by 2009 with the early delivery of a ground breaking prototype from the Johns Hopkins international team. Check it out at MedGadget
Here's a cool photo of Saturn from the Hubble Telescope. Check it out at NASA

Catch ya later,
Trace

WED 25 - Babylon 5: The Lost Tales Release Announced

2007-04-25T19:12:00.000+10:00

31st July, 2007 is the day people. YAY! Now all I want to know is the release dates for Region 4! Check out the release information here. I've been really wanting to see this for a long time, I hope I haven't got my expectations raised too high.

Some more news on the Sanctuary front. There will be a 5 minute sneak preview released on 30th April and will contain exclusive scenes from webisode 1 and 2. So everyone head on over to the Sanctuary website next Monday for the preview. Then it will be a short two weeks to the premiere! Oh yeah, they've tweaked their website a bit and you no longer need to login to view the site, it is only required for the forum now.

Also Damian Kindler posted on his blog with the above news that the webisodes will be released every few weeks and after each release then a new area of the website will be opened up for fans to play in. They are using actual 3-D rendered environments from the show itself. That sounds so cool!

The geek in me came across a few interesting things recently :

An hour glass watch? This is something different, I wonder if they'll ever get it into production? Check it out at Coolest Gadgets
NASA Glenn Research Center is to Test Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle Check it out at NASA and Orion Crew Vehicle
I WANT ONE!! Hey look, it's a mini R2D2 with a lightsabre remote! Check it out at ThinkGeek

Catch ya later,
Trace

TUE 24 - X-Files Movie in Development

2007-04-24T14:38:00.000+10:00

YAY after more rumours several weeks ago, it's been confirmed by Frank Spotnitz on his blog that a script is in development. Let's hope that the project gets a go ahead, I miss Mulder & Scully.

Before I got shipped off to hospital I actually got around to going to the cinema to see 300. All I can say is WOW and turn the bloody sound down!!!! What is it these days with movies and sound levels? In certain patches of the movie the speech was quiet and so the kids that run the theatres these days seemed to have the sound level set high so people could hear these quiet passages. Unfortunately that left the majority of the movie way too loud and I came out with my ears ringing (though I must admit I was under the weather at the time).

OK whinge over, so apart from the sound, the movie was just great visually. Though I will admit there were one or two gory bits that I closed my eyes for (yeah, yeah I know I'm a wimp. I just can't stand graphic violence as I have a very vivid imagination and the nightmares aren't worth it. Horror movies are just sooooo NOT on my viewing list). I really loved how the movie was shot, the whole thing had a very graphic novel kind of look to it (I love my comic books). Actually my nephew has the comic they made and said it is very close to the movie so I think I'll have to borrow it off him and have a squiz at it.

The geek in me came across a few interesting things recently :

Holodecks here we come! OK, so not anywhere in the near future but they are developing some extremely good free floating 3D images. Check it out at Slice of SciFi
A graphic equalizer on your t-shirt? What will they think of next? Check it out at PopGadget
Another way cool hybrid concept car but this one might actually make it into production. Check it out at Gizmodo

Catch ya later,
Trace

MON 23 - Sanctuary Premiere

2007-04-23T23:28:00.000+10:00

G'day, I'm back in the land of the living - well sort of. What I thought was just a bad chest cold just kept getting worse until I finally went to the doctor and he put me in hospital. It was pneumonia! I escaped today but my breathing is still shot and I'm confined to home for at least a week.

Now on with the Sanctuary news.

W00T !! Sanctuary starts on 14th MAY! I can't wait!
Sanctuary is on the convention trail. Amanda Tapping, Damian Kindler and Paul McGillion will be appearing at the London Expo May 26-27.
Damian Kindler continues with his introduction of the stars of Sanctuary on his blog. This time we get to learn more about Chris Heyerdahl
The Sliceof SciFi podcast #105 had a great interview with Martin Wood about Sanctuary. RealmOfX did a transcript for the interview and you can find it on GateWorld or at Sanctuaryfans.com, but if you have the time then go and listen to the entire podcast because I have become a fan of theirs and listen every week, it's well worth the time.
Sanctuaryfans.com also had an exclusive chat with Marc Aubanel, director of Stage 3 Media, about Sanctuary
Leah Cairns was interviewed recently by The SciFi World and they cover a little bit about her role in the Sanctuary pilot and future episodes.

Catch ya later,
Trace

FRI 06 - Easter is here again

2007-04-06T20:04:00.000+10:00

Long time, no write :-) I had a lot of work to catch up on from my time off with my back and simply didn't have time to even look at my computer!!

Well Easter is here again and this year we decided to forgo the bought chocolate easter egg route and make our own sweets. So today was spent in the kitchen with Mum, my sisters and a couple of my nieces while we went through a tonne of sugar and chocolate. We made little chocolate easter eggs filled with marshmallow, chocolates (some filled, some not), chocolate crackles, peanut brittle, nougat and honeycomb. NO! We aren't gutses! There will be about 25 of us at the Sunday Easter family gathering!

My absolute favourite is a chocolate made with dark chocolate (72%) and filled with a craisin (dried cranberry) surrounded by a lush apricot brandy fondant. MMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmm. Closely followed by a milk chocolate filled with a hazelnut surrounded by coffee fondant. We had an absolute ball in the kitchen, we haven't gotten together like this to cook in absolutely ages. It's a lot more fun (and cheaper) than buying eggs for the family.

On the TV front, whilst I was out of action with my back I watched a lot of DVD's (I'm a member of QuickFlix) and I got around to watching the first season of Bones and found that I really liked it. I guess I'll have to keep my eye out for when it's on TV now.

I also started rewatching my Stargate SG-1 DVD's and I'm near the end of S4. I'll see if I can fit some more eps in this weekend as I love the early stuff. My DVD collection ends at S8 though as I don't consider S9 & S10 worth forking money out for - pfffft!!

No word yet on how filming went in the Arctic for the Stargate crew for the second movie but I'm sure we'll get some tidbits sooner or later.

On the space front, the International Space Station (ISS) is due for a crew change with some members of Expedition 15 launching on April 7. It will be a Russian launch this time and if I can make myself wake up in the early AM then I'll watch the launch on NASA TV. Yes, I still watch launches when I have the chance. I've never gotten over the kid like excitement and hope I never will.

The geek in me came across a few interesting things recently :

Today we have three images from the NASA Image of the day.

Catch ya later,
Trace

FRI 30 - The Return of The X-Files??

2007-03-30T23:13:00.000+10:00

Yes indeedy, rumours of a second X-Files movie have surfaced yet again following an interview with David Duchovny, you can read it here. If true we may hear something more in the next two weeks. I certainly would welcome a second movie as I loved everything about the X-Files up until the first movie, you could label me a hard core fan up until then. Afterwards things seemed to slip a bit and while I did remain a fan till the end, I wasn't totally into it like I was in the early years. It may be time to break out my complete set of DVD's and have myself a little marathon.

Back on the Sanctuary front :-)
I really liked the new trailer. The music is catchy and I liked how we got glimpses of characters, Sanctuary itself, the old city with the new city on the horizon, flashes to the past and a build up to the action sequences. Stunningly topped off with "it's all up to you" and "Make your choice!". We have enough hints now so that I KNOW I WANT TO SEE THIS as soon as possible!! Damian & Co you have done a great job so far, keep up the good work.

The geek in me came across a few interesting things recently :

This little experiment during the week on the International Space Station caught my attention a few years back. Some SciFi books and shows have had little droids or bots floating around space stations or undersea research vessels/bases doing all kinds of amazing things and it is experiments like this that will be the forerunners of the little buggers of the future. Check it out at NASA
Another fascinating concept vehicle. This time a hydrofoil for ultra fast transport on inland/coastal waters. I wouldn't mind getting my hands on one of these if it ever gets built. Check it out at Sureda
Things are looking good for SpaceX to begin it's operational phase in September, launching a satellite for the US Navy. The second test flight of Falcon 1 did have some problems but it is considered about a 95% successful test flight. Commercial space operations are a step closer. See the updated report at SpaceX

Catch ya later,
Trace

WED 28 - New Sanctuary website is LIVE !!

2007-03-28T10:51:00.000+10:00

OK people for those of you hanging out for the new Sanctuary trailer RUN NOW over to http://www.sanctuaryforall.com/ and say WOW with me :-)

You'll need to log in.

Well I'm online again and all I can say is Thank God for Mum's, my mother decided she didn't like the way I sounded when she talked to me last Thursday so she wandered over to my place to check on me. Thank you Mum!! I was in a bad way with my back, so she just moved in with me for a few days until I got over the whole muscle spasming bit. I can't believe how incapacitating it is to pull one lousy muscle in your back!!

All rightey then, I'm off to play with the Sanctuary site for a while, I'll be back later.

THU 22 - Laid up

2007-03-22T19:37:00.000+11:00

Doh! I pulled a muscle in my back and I won't be posting again till I get the muscle spasming under control. Painkillers and muscle relaxants make for one not so coherent Trace :-(

On the Sanctuary front, I hear that things are delayed but they have started beta testing. Hey!! Some of the people that were told they were beta testers weren't included. Lucky I'm laid up or I could have been majorly bummed out about that. No worries, they're making a lot of progress and I'm real happy they are including the fans along the way.

Did you hear that Amanda Tapping, Richard Dean Anderson and Ben Browder are heading up north to the APLIS station for 6 days filming for the second Stargate movie Continuum? That close to the north pole they have be real careful of the temperature and polar bears!!!! Good luck people, have a good shoot and come back safe and sound with lots of stories and photos to share!!

Catch ya later,
Trace

MON 19 - Still waiting for new Sanctuary trailer

2007-03-19T20:17:00.000+11:00

I'm still impatiently waiting for the new Sanctuary trailer.

Meanwhile, off on a tangent, have you seen this cool new bike? Trike? Vehicle?
Check out the new Can-Am Spyder

Catch ya later,
Trace

SUN 18 - Waiting, Waiting, Waiting for the new trailer

2007-03-18T20:33:00.000+11:00

Not much today I'm afraid, though I am checking the Sanctuary site hourly (pathetic, I know) to see if the new trailer is available yet.

Waiting, Waiting, Waiting ....

I updated the Sanctuary summary with a couple of things we learned this week from various sources. I think I'll keep it updated until one of the official sites gets something up and running. See the blog entry for 10th March.

Check out Gizmodo's RIAA Boycott, I'll be interested to see if they get anywhere with it. The RIAA and their bully tactics seem to be cruising for a bruising. There's got to be a better way than this stupid DRM approach, one that is fair to all parties. Yeah, I'm a bit of a dreamer at times!!

The geek in me came across a few interesting things recently :

Squirrels getting into your birdfeeder? Then you need Twirl-a-Squirrel !! Check it out at Gizmodo
Cassini Spacecraft Images Seas on Saturn's Moon Titan. Check it out at NASA
This is worth it for just the Tardis plans :-) Though having spent my teen years in the 70's playing various games starting with Pong I do appreciate the MAME console and games. Check it out at Asciimation
Sadly, I do remember a time when there was no such thing as computer games.

Catch ya later,
Trace

Fri 16 - What a Sanctuary Week!!

2007-03-16T16:42:00.000+11:00

As you all may have guessed, this show has me hooked and it hasn't even premiered yet!

I woke up this morning to find that Sanctuaryfans.com had a new interview with Damian Kindler with more info about Sanctuary. Damian also updated his blog and let us know that the new trailer has been delayed a couple of days till this weekend sometime. He also gave us an intro to Emilie Ullerup who plays Ashley Magnus.

I always boot up my computer first thing in the morning and download the news headlines into my eBookman to read later in the day. So I just downloaded the MP3 of Damian's interview as well and listened to it over lunch.

The more I hear from different people associated with the Sanctuary project, the more I feel that I'm going to like it. I'm a self confessed geek and I love special effects but I am not so enamoured of visual effects that I will forgive a lack of substance behind it. So far the impression that I'm getting is that we'll have wizz bang effects and ground breaking new tech BUT we will have solid characters with many layers and interesting plots. Yeah, I know I can be a tad demanding - great characters, great plots and great effects!!

As for the actors bringing us the characters, of the main ones, the only one that I'm familiar with is Amanda Tapping and I'm a huge fan of hers. What I love about Amanda is she is always in character whether she is the focus of a scene or not. She becomes the character. Amanda is also brilliant at non verbal communication. Each portrayal of a different character on Stargate had something different visually. You can pretty much tell just by looking at her when she is playing a different character - like an alternate reality Sam, or the entity, or Jolinar or that wonderful wonderful character RepliCarter!! Each character presented by Amanda has their own voice, facial expressions and body movements. A totally real delivery of another person / character and usually it is subtle but can be over the top when required. I just sooooo totally loved the geek version of Sam in Moebius in Season 8 of Stargate! OK end of fangurl moment.

I think I may have made a few Sanctuary converts today at work. At lunch time I was listening to Damian's interview and working on this blog when a friend walked in and asked me what I was doing (me at my desk at lunch time is a rarity). I got a raised eyebrow when I said I was listening to an interview and I explained about this really interesting new project Sanctuary. I could see the eyes glazing over as I rambled on, so I dragged my laptop out and played the teaser and the Daily Planet segment and my friend just went WOW. Of course by this time a few more people wandered into my office wondering what all the excitement was about so now we have another 5 people who are going to check out the premiere of Sanctuary!!

So this week's Sanctuary roundup :

Keep an eye out this weekend for the new Sanctuary trailer
The behind the scenes segment from Daily Planet (Check Wednesday's blog entry for the vid)
The Slice of SciFi podcast with N. John Smith or catch the transcript of it at Sanctuaryfans.com
Damian's interview with the people at Sanctuaryfans.com
The Sanctuary blog has been updated with an introduction to Emilie Ullerup
Gateworld interview of Damian Kindler

The geek in me came across a few interesting things recently :

I saw this tryke car and immediately went TRON!! A new hybrid car (maybe for midgets. Check it out at Fly the Road
KIBO has arrived at NASA. The Japanese module for the International Space Station can now begin preparations for launch in three parts. The first part is due to fly into orbit aboard shuttle mission STS-123. Check it out at NASA
Flying wings. They've been talking about these for years and it seems that Boeing have a prototype ready for testing. Check it out at CNNMoney

Catch ya later,
Trace

WED 14 - Behind the Scenes of Sanctuary

2007-03-14T22:17:00.000+11:00

Want to get a closer look at the cool stuff they are doing to produce the new internet sci fi series Sanctuary? Last night in Canada on the Daily Planet show they did a six minute segment on Sanctuary. Here it is - go watch it!

They used some really cool sequences from the show which I think may be a part of the new two minute trailer that is due out sometime this week. We got a good look at the cameras and computers and got to see them shooting some scenes. This is WAY COOL!!

So we have a new trailer to look forward to this week and I'm wondering how soon the beta testing starts because I'm one of the lucky people!!!!! Then in May we actually get to see this show - I really can't wait!

On another front the long running show Stargate: SG-1 aired it's final episode in England last night. I wasn't going to watch it, having become seriously disillusioned with the puerile garbage churned out in season 9, but then I thought maybe they would do something special for a change. Yeah right!! I want those 42 minutes back! If I can manage to stay calm and polite then I may, in the future, write about How to Kill a Successful Show.

Even MORE SANCTUARY news - the Slice of SciFi podcast just went up so I'm off to listen to it. I'll have more details for you tomorrow.

The geek in me came across a few interesting things recently :

Automatic satellite docking, repair and resupply. Orbital Express was launched last Thursday into space on a three month testing mission. Check it out at NASA and NewScientistSpace
Hey guys how about you start simple and just make an eBook reader?? That screen definitely makes my Franklin eBookMan screen pale in comparison. Check it out at Positron project blueChute
A hunter/killer robot. See what Israel has been developing. Check it out at Yahoo! News

Catch ya later,
Trace

MON 12 - Sanctuary Executive Producer, N. John Smith, interview

2007-03-12T23:33:00.000+11:00

Today's blog entry is brought to you by RealmOfX (the OTHER Trace).

N. John Smith gives Slice of SciFi a behind the scenes look at Sanctuary. On this week’s podcast Slice of SciFi will be interviewing N. John Smith for Slice of SciFi Show #100.

The crew at Slice of SciFi will follow up their interview of Sanctuary Executive Producers Amanda Tapping and Damian Kindler with an interview of N. John Smith. According to SoSF "John will talk about all the pitfalls, fun moments and excitement of shooting this kind of high-intensity serial for the internet".

You can check out the all the details of the upcoming podcast here and don't forget to tune in on Wednesday for the show.

RoX

Catch ya later,
Trace

SUN 11 - Babylon 5: The Lost Tales

2007-03-11T19:56:00.000+11:00

Want some info on the making of The Lost Tales? Then head on over to the CG Society for a series of feature articles on the the newest addition to the Babylon 5 story. Some great behind the scenes stuff here, is it July yet??

Now on a totally different subject but still out in space - New Mexico has tabled a House Joint Memorial declaring Pluto a planet and declaring March 13, 2007 "Pluto Planet Day" at the legislature. Go have a squiz at it here

The geek in me came across a few interesting things recently :

1 A real Tricorder?? Check it out at Gizmodo
2 A slim CRT - YAY this brings hope for people like me that get a headache if I watch LCD screen too long. Now I have an 80cm widescreen TV made about 8 years ago and it takes 3 people to lift it!! Check it out at CrunchGear
3 Intel to Sample Phase Change Memory This Year. Check it out at DailyTech

Catch ya later,
Trace

SAT 10 - Sanctuary Summary

2007-03-10T12:21:00.000+11:00

A couple of people I know have been asking me what Sanctuary is all about, so I combed through all the info from various sources and compiled a bit of a list to summarise what I know so far. Let’s start with the summary from the production company site, Stage 3 Media.

There are monsters loose in the world. And they are the key to the future of our race.

Each webisode of Sanctuary follows the exploits of Dr. Helen Magnus as she seeks out all manner of terrifying and monstrous creatures. She is aided in her quest by her reluctant protégé Will Zimmerman and her intrepid, if somewhat reckless, daughter Ashley. Together they will be drawn into a frightening and mysterious world populated by beings that defy explanation.

And from the show’s creator, Damian Kindler :

The basic pitch would say that it's almost "The League of Extraordinary Gentleman" meets X-Files. It's a show set in an undefined, somewhat Gotham City world with a foot in historical Victorian-era London.

Followed by info I have gathered, now if anyone has any more info or has corrections to what I have, then please leave a comment so I can update the list.

Sanctuary

Sanctuary was started by Helen’s father, he collected creatures from around the world which were reviled by society and created a safe haven for them, a sanctuary, and studied them.
Sanctuary itself is an abandoned church and beneath it is a huge laboratory, it's absolutely massive, many stories high.
Is set in an undefined, somewhat Gotham City world with a foot in historical Victorian-era London

Helen Magnus

Is 157 years old and acquired her longevity through working with the creatures of Sanctuary. She's not immortal.
She's a doctor and she was one of the first female doctors in the Royal College in Victorian England.
She was engaged to Jack the Ripper and has a daughter, Ashley, by him.
She basically took over her father's practice. Wherein he btings these disparate abnormal creatures from around the world which are reviled by society and creates a sanctuary for them and studies them and creates a safe haven for them.
Studies the creatures for scientific reasons believing that they are in fact the evolution of our species.

Ashley Magnus

Helps her mother with Sanctuary. She's pretty cool, she kick ass.
Ashley is a deadly fighter, trained from an early age to handle herself in dangerous situations. She’s a weapons expert, a tracker, a chase ‘em, stun ‘em, toss ‘em in the van type who acts on instinct rather than logic (which is her mother’s department).
Damian Kindler comments on Emilie Ullerup - "Emilie’s portrayal of Ashely’s dark nature, how she wrestles with her many demons, will absolutely make you all fans of Ms. Ullerup -- The Actor. Oh, and you’ll also dig her high wire stunts, cool martial arts scraps, double-Glock gunfire moves, and the odd underwater action sequence."

Will Zimmerman

Is a reluctant psychiatrist who Helen hires to help her. He is to be Helen's next protege and is at first a tad reluctant. Unfortunately it's a dangerous job and some protege's die in pretty strange ways.

The Show

A two hour pilot has been made which will be released as eight webisodes that are approximately 15 minutes each and the first of those webisodea is set to go live sometime in May.
It's entirely green screen and the actors have renderings to look at before hand so they have a pretty clear idea of what things look like.
They use 3D computer imaging for pre vis which is tied directly to the head of the cameras so that you can go behind a monitor and see the camera moving with actors on it with the partially rendered backgrounds already in place and moving in 3D real time.
The show is shot on High Definition direct to hard drive. HD tape is sometimes used as well for backups.
A massive amount of pre vis is done, a lot of what would normally be done in post production.
Once the show goes live you'll be able to interact with it on the website (probably walk through the virtual world).
Other interactivity is planned for the future, they will pay attention to what the fans want.
A short teaser is currently available on the official website.
A two minute trailer showing more of the series will be available in mid March.
Volunteers for beta testing were drawn from interested fans in February and is now closed. A date for commencement of testing has not been established but is expected within the next few weeks.
A selection of high quality photos, art work, MP3 files has been released to the fans through various means. More to come. They want audience participation and are giving us some cool things to play with :)
They're hoping to go back into full time production as soon as possible, hopefully this summer, in order to get more webisodes out there hard on the heels of the first eight.

Roll on May!! I am so excited about this project! Can't wait to see it!

Last updated Sun 18 March

THU 08 - Slice of SciFi #99 podcast

2007-03-08T19:40:00.000+11:00

The Slice of SciFi #99 podcast was great, on top of the normally good stuff they have each week there was the interview with Amanda Tapping and Damian Kindler about the new internet scifi series Sanctuary (yeah I'm really excited about this project so get used to hearing about it :) ). For those of you just interested in the Sanctuary part it starts at around the 31 minute mark of the show or you can read the transcript that my partner in crime (Trace aka RealmOfX) put together at Gateworld or at Sanctuary Fans Online.

It was good to get a little more insight into the new show. I really like how they are involving the online community in the buildup to the premiere and how that involvement will continue into the future. It looks like it will be a great show and I'm dying to see what Amanda Tapping is going to do with her new character Helen Magnus.

Don't forget the new trailer for Sanctuary will be out later next week and we should get a bit of a feel for the show from that. Only a short entry today cos I've got MORE bloody paperwork to get through before tomorrow.

The geek in me came across a few interesting things recently :

Camping on the Moon. Check it out at NASA
A mind reading machine? Nah! But this machine is helping to understand more about how our brains work particularly in regards to intentions. Check it out at Lycos News
BTW The space shuttle Atlantis is back in the Vehicle Assembly Building so that they can do a thorough inspection to determine the extent of the hail damage from the storm on Feb 26.

Catch ya later,
Trace

WED 07 - More on Sanctuary

2007-03-07T14:26:00.000+11:00

After two and a half infuriating days at work when nothing went right and people with IQs in excess of 120 were all acting like simpletons, we finally have things back on track to meet our major project milestone on Monday. Now all I have to do is the project paperwork I should have been doing in the first place. Luckily the GM sent me home at lunch today to give me a break (or maybe to protect my team?), and tomorrow I get to work from home so hopefully I'll be all caught up and ready to jump into meetings, bloody meetings on Friday. I'm in my 40's is that too early to retire???

Meanwhile, back at the more important stuff, more news on the Sanctuary front! Sanctuary creator, Damian Kindler gave an interview to Gateworld and a two minute trailer, with great special effects, will be released next week so keep an eye out for it. The interview can be found here at Gateworld, with lots of interesting tidbits.

In an earlier interview, Martin Wood said that it would have a Batman feel to it and now Damian tells us -
"The basic pitch would almost be 'The League of Extraordinary Gentleman' meets X-Files," Kindler tells us. "It's a show set in an undefined, somewhat Gotham City world with a foot in historical Victorian-era London.". This is sounding more and more like a series for me. I loved The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (TLOEG), The X-Files and Batman so if the show has the essence of those I'll be very happy indeed.

I seemed to be the only one of my friends that did like TLOEG, I even bought the DVD. There was just something about being set in Victorian times and having a diverse group of people with extraordinary talents banding together to defeat a foe. The good guys weren't all actually "good", lots of flawed characters which I really liked. Sean Connery was an added bonus!!

Damian has also updated his blog with more interesting info on the series so go check it out. The link is in the right hand column with the other Sanctuary links. It is only the beginning of March and the official Sanctuary site has had 1.7 million unique hits, so obviously the word is spreading quite well.

Before I go, here's a reminder to check out the Slice of SciFi podcast today as Amanda Tapping and Damian Kindler will be interviewed as well as the other cool stuff normally in the podcast.

The geek in me came across a few interesting things recently :

Multi monitor heaven! Five screen panorama, the Zenview Powerscape Ultra HD. Check it out at Digitaltigers
How cool is this!! Remote control Daleks - I want one! and they come in different colours too. Check it out at Thinkgeek
This would be great for camping. Cold drinks in 60 seconds and powered by AA batteries. Check it out at Cybercandy

Catch ya later,
Trace

TUE 06 - Aaaaaaarggghhhhhh !!

2007-03-06T23:01:00.000+11:00

A two day Monday??? Life is sooooooooo unfair. If things don't improve tomorrow I'll start to thin out the workforce of supposedly intelligent people at my place of employment.

Today's blog has been cancelled due to stupidity running rampant. May tomorrow be a better day.

The geek in me came across a few interesting things recently :

Is this the birth of a star similar to our Sun? Check it out at Space.com
Assistance dogs go high tech! In the UK these dogs are being trained to assist their owners with ATM's. Check it out at Metro.co.uk
Phooey on the kids! I wanna play! As a long time Lego constructor (yes I still have my original Lego blocks from when I was a kid) I am intrigued about a Lego MMO. Oh boy, Lego Heaven, just think of it, as many blocks of whatever type you need!! Check it out at Kotaku

Catch ya later,
Trace

MON 05 - I Hate Mondays

2007-03-05T19:42:00.000+11:00

Yup the orange cat has it figured out right. Hide under a blanket till Monday has passed into Tuesday!! Actually I really do not like Mondays because I just get decompressed from the previous week and then it's back to the Rat Race. Methinks I should look at either early retirement (I wish) or find a less stressing job or find a miraculous way to dispose of days like today when NOTHING goes right.

Oh and to top it all off I get home and find out that the forums have imploded in certain areas over the latest character to be snuffed out. BAH!! I really don't like how it appears to be the "in thing" to kill off characters. Realism or not. If I want realism there is always the daily World News. It's a good thing I'm not really in to Battlestar Galactica but I do watch it and occasionallly think it's great then it'll go off in a new direction and I'll go Meh!

Do you like my new Sanctuary banner that Trace (NO the OTHER Trace) made for me? I figured that I'd be talking about it a lot, because it definitely has caught my interest, so I might as well have a banner on my blog. Hey, I'm running out of shows to watch which is another reason I'm looking forward to the premier of Sanctuary soon. I stopped watching Stargate SG-1 mid season 9 because of the childish dribble they are producing these days. Yeah, go on throw your own canon out the window and destroy your viewership and then blame everyone except yourselves for changing the show! I hope the taint doesn't cross over to Atlantis now.

Atlantis, yikes another show that kills off characters for pretty much no reason. Maybe Season 4 will be better with new show runners. Then again maybe not with the duo showrunning being responsible for some real stinker episodes in the last two years. Though I will give them a chance, it's their first time show running and apparently they actually had a script walk through and are planning to have carry through ideas if not arcs through the season. Good if they do it right.

I prefer complex stories and characters that are quite lengthy so I really enjoy shows like Babylon 5 but I figure it would be more appealing to a wider audience if you have arc episodes and standalones as well. More of a middle ground. I absolutely detest shows that hit the reset button after every episode!!

Maybe Atlantis will lose the reset button, I hope so because it needs something because it never seemed to fill the promise of the first season. They seemed to lose their direction in season 2 and started adding a little more character wise in season 3. Overall though after three seasons their characters aren't really fleshed out and that is a sad indictment on the writers. Oh well, let's hope the cast shake up and the "start over" does wonders for the show otherwise season 4 will be the last.

Let's hope that they learnt from their mistakes with Stargate SG-1. Stuntcasting does nothing if you have weak characters and weak plots. Do not sacrifice your characters for stupid plot points. It's just cheap and nasty writing.

Yep, not in a good mood today. Oh well, I may as well go get some dinner and then watch Battlestar. It sure can't make my mood any worse!

The geek in me came across a few interesting things recently :

A blast from the past. First Launch from Cape Canaveral. Check it out at NASA
A cool underwater boat - a personal dry submersible operates to 50 metres. Check it out at U-boatWorx
Fill in interesting item when you stumble across it

Catch ya later,
Trace

SUN 04 - Amanda Tapping & Damian Kindler

2007-03-04T14:51:00.000+11:00

I was going to take Sunday off BUT I just saw that the scheduled interview of Amanda Tapping on the Slice of SciFi Show is now #099 and will be on this week. Amanda & Damian Kindler will be talking about my new anxiously awaited web show - Sanctuary. YAY!!

Check out the details of the coming Sanctuary interview at Slice of SciFi and tune in later in the week for the podcast.

Oh and while I was visiting Slice of SciFi I found out that Joss Whedon is releasing a Comic Book for Buffy The Vampire Slayer that picks up a few months after the end of the series. If you love comics and Joss Whedon (me, me, me!) then it could be worth checking it out at Slice of SciFi
**Update** The preview link in that article doesn't work so go straight to the DarkHorse website and see the preview online

The geek in me came across a few interesting things recently :

I've seen images from ASTER before but this one I must have missed. Grand Canyon in 3-D. Check it out at NASA
Fill in interesting item when you stumble across it
Fill in interesting item when you stumble across it

Catch ya later,
Trace

SAT 03 - The Return of Babylon 5

2007-03-03T10:47:00.000+11:00

Another thing I'm impatiently waiting for this year is Babylon 5: The Lost Tales — Voices in the Dark. When Warner Bros again approached J. Michael Straczynski (JMS) to do a feature film in the B5 universe, JMS said no but he did put up another suggestion that eventually lead to an agreement for an anthology released direct to DVD. Anyway it is due out in July so all I'm waiting for is an indication that it will be a simultaneous multi region release, otherwise I ain't gonna be happy!

Babylon 5 is one of my all time favourite shows. A five year story with complex plots and complex characters. I originally collected this series on video tape but alas tape doesn't hold up well against time and repeated viewings. I ended up selling the tapes and investing in DVD's - now I'm a happy chappy :D

I do enjoy JMS's style so I will be interested to see what he comes up with in the "short story" style. Of course I'd LOVE a feature film but until JMS can wrap his brain around how to handle the absence of the now sadly departed Andreas Katsulas and Richard Biggs, he's never going to even think about a big production.

OK, now I have three things I'm looking forward to this year, maybe I should start a list or something. Happy Feet, Sanctuary and Babylon 5.

Can anyone tell me why we have the region system still in force for DVD's? To me it is just another sign of an industry that is out of step with consumer demand. I know I'm over simplifying it here but doesn't it make more sense to release something worldwide and get a return on your investment even faster? Hopefully the entertainment industry will eventually come up with a more flexible way of working because the current big business approach is killing creativity. I guess it harkens back to what I said a few days ago about balance and how it's not good to run a business with an "accountant mentality" only.

Oooooh that reminds me, It's March now. Wasn't there some campaign against RIAA bully tactics this month? Off I go to search ... Yep, here it is - at Gizmodo

I'll be keeping an eye on how it goes. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for people being reimbursed for their work. It's just when the big boys restrict what you can and can't have and tell you how and when, then people will find ways to circumvent it. How about you stop being greedy and trying to control everything - I have found most people are actually honest and are willing to be fair. Just think about how much money they could save by ditching the high priced lawyers ;) RIAA, MPAA, DRM all initials that to me speak of outdated ideas and restrictive trading. They really need to work on finding a balance because to paraphrase a famous princess "The more you tighten your grip, the more they will slip through your fingers".

That's one of the many reasons why I'm interested in Sanctuary (gee I worked it into the convo again) they're trying something different and trying to be responsive to what consumers would like. By the way, have you seen the cool teaser the production people have on their site? It's worth a visit and has a choice of resolutions or you can watch the YouTube version here (me, I prefer the hi-res ones from the official site).

The geek in me came across a few interesting things recently :

The NASA New horizons spacecraft did it's fly by of Jupiter recently on it's way to the outer reaches of our solar system. Read the news release and then onto the web page for some photos. Check it out at NASA
I want one!! Star Trek original series phaser universal remote control. Check it out at Phone Phun
Phooey on the gamers! If this headset actually does what they claim then it could be a boon for the disabled. I'd love to see the demo at the Game Developer's Conference. Check it out at Project Epoc 1 and Project Epoc 2

Catch ya later,
Trace

FRI 02 - Sanctuary, why I'm willing to pay

2007-03-02T08:02:00.000+11:00

Yesterday I said I'd go into why I would pay to see a ... a ... - OK what do we call them now? Can't call 'em TV series any more can we? Web series? Serial entertainment?

Meanwhile back at my original thought - why I'm willing to pay to see Sanctuary. Technically we pay to see TV anyway it just isn't obvious, it is paid for with higher prices for merchandise. The advertising costs are just added into what we pay for our purchases. In the case of Sanctuary or any other direct entertainment series we are forking out what would have gone to the advertisers (actually probably a lot less) and it goes directly to the marketers. In the case of Sanctuary it would be the Executive Directors / Investors rather than several nameless corporations.

The people that are doing the work bringing us the entertainment are being paid directly. I can live with that as it sounds quite fair to me. Now we do not know actually how much it will cost but I read somewhere in my travels that it would be competitively priced. Now the only thing that I know of that would come within shouting distance of that is what they charged for SG-1 / Battlestar Galactica on iTunes which if I recall correctly was US$1.99 per episode or US$34.99 BSG S3 and US$37.99 for SG-1 S10. Now take into account these series are 20 episodes (damn they get shorter and shorter as the years go by) averaging 43 minutes so that's about 14 hrs 20 mins. The producers have said they would like to do around 40 webisodes averaging around 15 minutes each so that's about 10 hours which is about 70% of the running time of the other shows.

So a quick conversion into Aussie dollars, with the reduced percentage, and I'm looking at around AU$31.15 to AU$33.82 for a season pass. A DVD boxset will cost me anywhere from $50 to $90 and a single new release movie will cost around $35 so I'm thinking "looking good".

Other reasons I am willing to pay are - I already have a cable internet connection with a vast amount of unused capacity per month so my costs are not going to increase in that respect. I no longer have cable TV because I hardly watch any of the programmes anymore. I also see this as an alternative to buying DVD's, no need to wait for years for release in Region 4 and I get immediate delivery with a high quality copy which I can port to my favourite medium. What more could a girl want??

Oh yeah - did I mention I was a huge Amanda Tapping fan? Reason enough I'd say but if you add in the production people (many of whose work I admire from Stargate) and the new tech and the instant delivery and the flexibility, so long as the show isn't a dog (WHICH I HIGHLY DOUBT) then I'm laughing. It's money well spent!

Did I mention that the first four webisodes are free?

Here's an interview Amanda Tapping did on Urban Rush, they talk mainly about Sanctuary but there is also some about Stargate.

The geek in me came across a few interesting things recently :

Flexible Lighting? As a camper this one has me intrigued. Check it out at Gizmag
WOW! This definitely comes under the heading of what will they think of next. The Flipping Ship. Check it out at Fogonazos
Portable DVD players, dockable iPod with DivX and MPEG 4 support. It is getting to a stage that these things may start to interest me if my old laptop bites the dust. Check it out at the iLounge

Catch ya later,
Trace

THU 01 - I've moved to blogger.com

2007-03-01T19:56:00.000+11:00

Gee, I've been blogging for a couple of days and I've moved already!!

I hope the new digs here work out better than the last place. I've copied my whole three entries over :)

Catch ya later,
Trace

Sanctuary - A new Sci Fi series

2007-03-01T19:54:00.002+11:00

There's a bit of a buzz building online about a new show called Sanctuary.

What's so special about Sanctuary? Well after hearing talk for the last few years about new mediums of entertainment, someone has actually bitten the bullet and aims to produce a "TV" show direct to the internet. A definite gutsy move and I shall be following it's progress closely with interest.

First off, what is Sanctuary? Sanctuary is the first high-end dramatic series produced and designed specifically for Internet distribution and immersive viewer interactivity. OK, so I stole that from the production company but what is it really? Well, the following is my understanding of the show and I'll provide links to various sites where you can get more information. The show itself is about the exploits of Helen Magnus, a 157 year old doctor from Victorian times, as she seeks out all manner of terrifying and monstrous creatures. Sanctuary is something that her father set up where he gathers disparate creatures like werewolves and such but at this stage we do not know exactly what it is. Helen is aided by her protege, Will Zimmerman, and her daughter Ashley. Helen was engaged to Jack the Ripper and apparently he is Ashley's father! I must admit that I'm not into horror but if it is kept at the level of say Buffy The Vampire Slayer then I can deal with it :) So that is a short but not very descriptive idea of what Sanctuary is about story wise though if you check out the Stage 3 Media site you'll get a better idea of it.

Now for the good stuff! Who is involved with Sanctuary and how do we get to view it?

Sanctuary was created by Damian Kindler. Do you recognise the name? If not, then think Stargate. Now keep on thinking Stargate as I mention more names : Amanda Tapping, Martin Wood, N. John Smith and from the gaming world Marc Aubanel. Sanctuary is produced by the Stage 3 Media corporation comprised of Damian Kindler, Marc Aubanel and Martin Palacios. The Executive producers are Damian Kindler, Amanda Tapping, N. John Smith and director Martin Wood. Amanda Tapping stars as Dr Helen Magnus (SQEEEEE!! Ooops, sorry. Fangurl moment there!), Robin Dunne (Dawson’s Creek, The Big Hit, Species 3) and Emilie Ullerup (Battlestar Galactica). The crew used for the pilot were from the most excellent crews of Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis and the computer and Vis FX from people like Marc Aubanel (FIFA Soccer, Need for Speed, Marvel Nemesis), online designer John Kalangis, and computer graphics designer Ron Martin).

The first eight webisodes have been shot (approx. 2 hrs) and the majority of it was green screen. Yep, the backgrounds are virtual!! Cool huh? It's shot in High definition digital media (tapeless), a first I think for a show (as opposed to feature film). From information I've picked up from around the traps the first 4 webisodes are free and the rest will be competitively priced (I'm thinking comparative to ITunes). Cost wise I could live with that but I'll explain why at a later date. There's been no real word on the exact type of interactivity but new information comes to light each week so I'll keep updating on it. As for the delivery system although the exact method has not been revealed it has been said that they wish to stay away from proprietory stuff like ITunes and have the viewer be able to port things to their chosen medium, again more on that later as details come to light. The important things being no streaming (YAY) and no proprietory stuff (double YAY). They are also considering making the series available to DVD and Television in the near future (recognising that not everyone has the capacity to watch via the net.

So what are some of the good points about being an internet series? For me, it's worldwide delivery, no more of this waiting a year or two or more to get a series shown in my country. For the creative team, it's more control over their creation. No studio bosses interfering with their outdated success formulas to adhere to, which will hopefully provide a better quality SF show for us the viewer. It allows creative endeavours to be produced outside of the existing studio system which can be restrictive as to getting a project off the ground as well a stifling creativity. Actually the Executive producers have funded the initial endeavour themselves. In an interview recently with Martin Wood he said that because they aren't tied to the studio formula then they are free to shoot according to the story and not a fixed X minutes structured around ad breaks. I'm imagining director cut webisodes.

So far for advertising they have made a press release, a teaser video clip, Amanda Tapping has done an interview on Urban Rush and has other interviews lined up (one on internet radio I think), they've set up a website, Damian has started a blog, they are talking to the fans via blogs and forums, they have sought beta testers from the fans (now closed I believe) and they are releasing artwork and other goodies to the fans as they become available. So word is spreading and quite a few people have been known to say "Is it Spring yet?". The pilot is expected to debut sometime in May.

This lot are being brave and good on them I say. They are obviously breaking new ground here and are still ironing out details but they have a vision and a commitment to succeeding. They've put up their own money and amassed a lot of talent from various fields. I for one am very interested in how this project progresses and I wish them all success!!

Want more info? Then check out these sites :

The official Sanctuary site http://www.sanctuaryforall.com/
Stage 3 Media site (Check out the presskit too) http://www.stage3media.com/Productions.html
Damien Kindler's Blog (both Damian and Marc have posted interesting stuff here) http://sanctuaryforall.blogspot.com/
Amanda Tapping's Urban Rush interview (a must see) on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCOytcEz4ME

If you are into fandom then check out these fan sites :
Sanctuary Forum http://forum.sanctuaryfans.com/
Sanctuary Fans Online http://www.sanctuaryfans.com/
Gateworld Sanctuary thread http://forum.gateworld.net/showthread.php?t=40175
The Official Amanda Tapping Website http://www.amandatapping.com/
The Amanda Tapping Club http://www.theamandatappingclub.net/

My thanks go out to my friend RealmOfX who convinced me to get off my butt and finally start a blog. I have yet to dream up a suitable retaliation. She also is my beta reader, devil's advocate and fellow SF nut who put me onto this exciting new show Sanctuary. I intend to keep track of this most interesting new show and will keep all of you posted.

Catch ya later,
Trace

March 01 8:52 AM

Surprise!! Behind Schedule DOH!

2007-03-01T19:54:00.001+11:00

I am actually planning on writing about a brave new show but time got away from me today so I'll delay that until tomorrow. In the meantime has anyone seen Happy Feet? I just saw it for the second time and I absolutely adore the dancing and the music! So far this year it is the only DVD that is on my 'must get as soon as released' list.

The geek in me came across a few interesting things recently :

They roll the space shuttle out onto the launch pad and what happens? A hail storm! Oooops, well that's gonna delay the next launch. Check it out at NASA
All Delorian jokes aside, this sounds promising. Clean garbage disposal that creates possible fuel!! Check it out at Plasma Converter
How cool is this? Make submarines go faster (obviously chucking stealth for speed)!! Check it out at Underwater Express Submarine

Catch ya later,
Trace

February 28 11:19 PM

G'Day

2007-03-01T19:50:00.000+11:00

Well I finally did it!! I got myself a blog, now all I need to do is figure out what I'm going to use it for

I suppose I should stick to what I'm interested in. I don't watch much TV these days but I am very into some TV series and movies in general. Oh yeah, I'm a gadget geek (actually I'm just an all round geek) so I suppose the odd new invention or whatever has caught my eclectic roaming attention may turn up here eventually.

There's some new things happening on the entertainment front so I probably could go off and compose something deep and meaningful and post it here. Now there's a thought!!

Catch ya later,
Trace

February 27 8:04 PM