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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A Sinus-y Fan Perspective on Stargate Continuum

I went camping on the Great Plains for a couple of weeks and my sinuses are paying the price. Apparently they can’t process the powerful powdered cow chips and prairie dog poop that give new meaning to the old poetic cum prosaic song lyrics, “Dust in the wind, everything is dust in the wind.” It was almost a different time-space continuum, with an arcane cultural slant, no electricity or running water.

It was a good place from which to return…

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I’ve wanted to see The Host from the first time I saw the trailer. I was finally able to get hold of it recently. Could it really live up to that kind of promise? I was kind of skeptical, because that trailer is awesome. This had to be an example of the ads being better that the movie. Right?
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Starting this week, I’d like to provide you with a review of the latest episode of Doctor Who to air in the US. Doctor Who is currently in it’s fourth season and airing in this country on the Scifi Channel Fridays at 9 PM. The British fans of the Doctor are several episodes ahead of us Americans. My goal is to remain spoiler free while still discussing an overview of the episodes.

I’ll begin with my review of last week’s episode “The Unicorn and the Wasp”. It is the seventh episode of the season. I realize that episode eight aired Friday night but I’m holding back that recap for a couple of reasons. First, “The Unicorn and the Wasp” was a wonderful episode and I can’t wait to tell you about it. Second, episode eight is a two-parter. I’d like to wait and cover both parts at once. Finally, with only five new episodes remaining in season four, I don’t want to miss a single one.
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Story

The town of Barrow Alaska goes without sunlight for 30 days every year. This natural phenomena is caused by living inside the arctic circle, a tough and unforgiving place. In an environment that harsh 30 days without sunlight is bad enough, but things are about to get worse.

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Warning: Disjointed Spoilers ahead!

It’s time for another fannish sci-fi movie review. We went to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull . It was part of my birthday celebration. We arrived in time for the late show on Saturday night. This was a deliberate move on our part, to have a better choice of seats. I am 6 feet tall with big hair (naturally big hair, no matter what I do…like Monica hair. No, not that Monica, sheesh, the Friends’ Monica). Read more