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You have until Sunday or September 4th (or possibly both, if you own a working Tardis) to enter the SF Signal Shatner/Nemoy giveaway. They are handing out 2 digital copies of Mind Meld – Secrets Behind the Voyage of a Lifetime, the 2001 presentation in which Shatner and Nimoy talk about the series, and how it changed everything for them. The title obviously refers to the famous Vulcan mind meld, a phrase that is used for everything from interviews with Nimoy to selling programming language extensions. It has been used to good effect in SF Signals own Mind Meld series, where they put a question to some of the best speculative fiction writers, editors, and thinkers on the planet and compile the responses into a coherent article. Now that I have digressed sufficiently, go enter the contest before time (however much of it is left) runs out.

They are up to chapter 10 in the podcast reading of book one in the Edgar Rice Burroughs series John Carter of Mars, titled A Princess of Mars. If you don’t already know the story line, this will get you up to speed in time for the movie release.

This is the unedited reading of the original text, which was a bit sexist and racist, so hearing some of it jumps between being embarrassing and being painful. Burroughs managed to create several of the most amazing adventure series of all time even so. While Tarzan of the Apes may be his best known work, and a contemporary of Sherlock Holmes, a number of his other stories changed Sci-Fi forever. First and foremost of that group was John Carter of Mars, about to become a major motion picture.

And then there is a video you might enjoy, called GUMMS, built by an independent film producer named Anton Bogaty. Some choices you just have to go for!

The second season of True Blood, and the show has gotten downright intense! There are only two episodes left, and I don’t know how they can crank it up any harder. If you have missed it, no problem; the entire season is available through Video On Demand or download-able from ITunes. If you are a fan of J-Rock, one of the best sources I have found is Japanator Radio. The podcast has over 100 episodes so far, and covers a range of artists including High and Mighty Color and Base Ball Bear; the site also runs concert reviews and covers all things Otaku (anime, gaming, cosplay, etc.). Another good J-Rock site (leaning a little heavier on the Rock is ZB’s A to Z of JMusic.

A millionaire murdered at a New York convention turns out to have delusions of being Batman, right down to owning a fully working Batmobile and 4 warehouses full of other Batman devices and memorabilia. His wife (who set him up to be robbed of a million dollars in 2002) and his stepdaughter are fighting over the estate, while the police have not yet named a suspect. Meanwhile, Wired has come out with its list of the Top 10 Science Fiction Languages, and yes, Klingon got the number one spot. While Sindarin, which also made the list, is almost as fully realized, you can’t search google in it; only in Klingon. This one had me rolling on the floor; IJustine with a little bit of Nerdcore…

Once more they are making Wolfman into a movie (not to be confused with Werewolf Women of the SS). This time around the director is Joe Johnston (another project of his is The First Avenger: Captain America, due out in 2011), and Benicio Del Toro gets to grow fang-first into the fur. Since the trailer is now out, it seemed an appropriate time to mention it. And Seth Green knows what happened to Jazz at the end of Transformers II…