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Things to do: Cons and Movies

This is a weekend with something for everybody in the theaters. Astro Boy goes into wide release this Friday for the younger crowd (although a few of us older types might just sneak in and say we didn’t). Stan Helsing, the Parody is also out, with a lot of raunchy humor in a creature feature for the teenage crowd. The serious (you can’t really say Adult when the protagonist hasn’t made his 20s yet) movie of the weekend is Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant, fresh from the Film Fest circuit.

The London MCM Expo happens the 24th and 25th, and if you like to cosplay in Europe it looks like the party to make. MCM stands for Movies, Comics, Media, and they cover them all. A few of the Media Guests include Terry Farrell, Nicole De Boer, Kandyse McClure, Masahiko Minami, and Ron D Moore. I’m not even going to try to list the Writers and Artists Guests, you’ll have to see the list yourself to believe it.

In the US my personal choice for this weekend is SteamCon in Seattle, with Author GoH Tim Powers, Artist GoH Paul Guinan , and Musical GoH Abney Park. Being a SteamPunk addict myself, I am reading their tweets and wishing I was on that coast this week. So I’m throwing an Abney Park video in at the end of this post, just to show you what you might have missed.

the biggest con this weekend is probably Mile High Con 41 in Denver, CO. It started life as a ReaderCon, and still hosts around 80 authors at various events, but now covers all aspects of fandom. Hot on its heels comes Icon 34 in Iowa City, IA, another ReaderCon that grew. Geek.Kon is a Sci-Fi, Anime, and Gaming convention in Madison, Wisconsin, also this weekend.

In Kansas City Motaku takes place on the 24th and 25th, and if you couldn’t tell by the name it is an Anime con. Necronomicon in St Petersburg, FL, is a media/reader con; if you are there you will get to hear physicist/author/singer Catherine Asaro’s Friday Night Concert!

From tomorrow through Sunday is the Ohio Valley Filk Festival in Dublin, Ohio. This is the event where they hand out the Pegasus Award for Excellence in Filking, and if you want to sing along with such classics as the Superman Sex Life Boogie or The Return of the King, Uh-huh or even A Reconsideration of Anatomical Docking Maneuvers in Zero-Gravity Environment you might want to pick up the Pegasus Award Winners Songbook. If you are wondering what Filk is, you can read the FAQ or listen to some:

And the promised Abney Park video: Enjoy!

Steampunk Month at TOR, Sagan Trance

TOR has set up their very own Steampunk Month. October is a great month for it, since the SteamCon happens towards the end of it on the left coast, while the Steampunk Fashion and Design Event happens on the other. There are already a lot of great Steampunk links, articles, and stories on the TOR site, and this is only the second day of the month! Then there is this wonderful tribute to Carl Sagan and Steven Hawking…

Persieds, SteamCon, and a silly grin…

I spent a little time watching the Perseids Meteorite Shower this morning, or as much as I could see through the overcast and light pollution. I am obviously not the only one, as my tweet box is full of such links to pictures. SteamCon is coming in October, and it looks like a lot of fun. Author GoH is Tim Powers, Music GoH Abney Park is my favorite Steampunk band, and Artist GoH Paul Guinan is well known for his Victorian Robots web site, although his Heartbreakers Graphics Novel series (created in conjunction with his wife, who does the plot/dialog/story segment of the process) are Steampunk Webcomics that have been nominated for the Eisner Award. Finally, I was not impressed by much in the G.I. Joe movie beyond the special effects, which even I had to admit were at least somewhat competent (sad when somewhat competent impresses you compared to the other aspects of the presentation). But I did enjoy this little twist, which reminded me of Firefly’s The Hero of Canton to the point I had to include it for comparison… and then a counter-argument.

Steampunk: the Spark Museum

Visit the Spark Museum for some Steampunk vintage radio/electronics fun. It includes a picture on one page of a device I actually own, bought for 5 dollars at an estate sale from people who didn’t have a clue what the weird stuff in the back of their grandfather’s attic was. I figured it was a prize for the brass rotary voltage adjuster in the oak box, the ingenious wiring harness that allowed it to add another battery for each step you turned it up, and the full set of original 1924 RCA batteries (none leaking, and a few that could still hold a charge). It wasn’t until I got it home and did some research that I discovered what it was actually supposed to be. A word of caution if you find one of your own; it can get slightly painful if you crank it up beyond eight batteries in the circuit (You didn’t think I skipped the refurb and test part of the process, did you? What fun would that be? One should always get the full experience).