Once upon a time, Chattacon was held at the Read House in Chattanooga, Tennessee. It was a good-sized regional convention with attendance in the 1500 range.  I don’ t know what their numbers were this year, but it seemed sparse.  Chattacon now makes its home in the Chattanooga Choo Choo Holiday Inn.

Chattanooga Choo Choo Locomotive

The Choo Choo is a converted railway station on 24 acres, with a decommissioned wood-burning locomotive on display.  (I’m told the train was built in 1880, and last used by the Smoky Mountain Railroad in 1940s)  There are passenger cars that have been converted into sleeping rooms.  The accommodations are spread out, but the staff is helpful and cheery.  We were in “Hotel III”, and aside from having a wait for the bell cart and attendant, it was a painless check-in.

We had a mutual brain TILT moment when we first entered the hallway of Hotel III.   The long, narrow corridor was brightly decorated, and strangely reminiscent of The Shining.  Fortunately for us, there were no Twins in that corridor.  They only appeared in our imagination, and our fingers remained mute and still.  The secure wireless connection sucked wind, but other unsecured connections were available. Read more

The vampire book, and movie, that’s causing a sensation throughout the country. I decided to read the entire series before writing a review. I wanted to make sure that I had all the info I needed to form a solid opinion of the books. Now there is only one question to ask.

Is Twilight sensational or does it just bite?

Read on to find out what I think.

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Story

Jaime Waterman was part of the first mission to Mars. During his exploration of the barren surface he found signs of life, structures built for some unknown purpose. Thanks to a celestial claims law, and Jaime’s Native American heritage, the Navaho Nation is in charge of Mars.
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The third season of Heroes started off with some surprising twists last night. Several are going to take a lot of explaining. While others may only need to be viewed from a different angle for their secrets to be laid bare.

I’m going to take a little time and look at a few of the questions that were raised, at least in my mind, by the 2 episodes last night. I’ll try to go into what I think of it now, and where I think it might lead. I doubt I’ll come up with anything on par with the Kensei Prediction, but we can have a little bit of fun talking about what might happen. Let’s get started.
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I’m looking forward to Monday nights in front of the TV. Two of my favorite shows are coming back tonight. Both Heroes and The Big Bang Theory are making their season premiers tonight. Even better, it looks like they might not be on at the same time, at least after tonight. Heroes has a Lost-type checklist show starting at 8pm, the same time that Big Bang Theory is on. As long as the shows don’t change time slots, and the Heroes pre-game show isn’t a regular event, then my Monday night TV schedule is conflict free.

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Dragon*Con is an extravaganza of sci-fi fandom held annually over Labor Day Weekend in downtown Atlanta, Georgia.  As of 2008, it spans four hotels and boasts an attendance of more than 30,000 fans.  Rumor has it that when the numbers swell with day pass folks, the count can go as high as 50,000.  It can be a little overwhelming to attend a convention with 30-50,000 of your, er, um, closest friends.  This year, the addition of the Sheraton, and the completed Marriott renovation, made the long Labor Day weekend a much more pleasurable experience than in the recent past.

What To See…Beats Me!

With a cacophony of choices in a wide variety of fandoms, you can’t see everything.  Lines for many popular media based events are long, and give you no guarantee of entry even after you’ve waited for frakking ever.  For me, the choice is simple.  I don’t try.  That has it’s own pitfalls, though.  If I had tried to get into the Firefly panel with Nathan Fillion and supporting cast members, I would have been able to get in.  Instead I watched it on Dragon*Con TV .

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