Michael and Evo: Wingin’ It!

What’s on this week:

• This show is dedicated to responding to our many voicemails! It’s also chock full of good beer, which may pose a dilemma…
• Jack Mangan is in studio to suggest a new awards ceremony for best characters in literature
• What is the worst scifi movie ever?
• Scifi Poetry Slam!: TV Life by Robert G. Parent
• TD0013: A Different Point of View: Who Blew up Alderaan?
• Mike has a beer thief, and puts out the call for help in finding the bands who supplied music for the Dragon Page’s first year
• Voice of the Republic: the Trade Federation was played
• The fun of the con suite at Dragon*Con
• Mur Lafferty (Geek Fu Action Grip): Geek Fashion
• Mark From Memphis checks in
• A Kick-Ass Mystic Ninjas update

Plus Chris is in studio, and all can experience a real-time listen to what happens when too much beer is consumed during a show, kinda like that one episode of WKRP in Cincinnati

 

 Dragon Page Wingin' It #25: Responding to Voicemails [1:17:33m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (207)

This is so freaking cool! In an article at Space.com, laser cannons are being developed with very ambitious goals.

Not stuff of Scifi, but real working weapons.

“DARPA’s HELLADS (High Energy Liquid Laser Area Defense System) will be light enough to fit on a fighter jet or drone aircraft, and yet powerful enough to fire a 150 kilowatt beam of energy. Star Wars laser cannon may be closer than you think.”

So the next question is: Where are the space fighter-craft to mount them on?

There are excerpts online from Keith R.A. DeCandido’s novelization of the movie Serenity.

Chapter 1 can be found here, and another excerpt can be found here.

Warning: while the Chapter 1 excerpt only contains info that was seen in the Battle of Serenity Valley sequence from the series, the other one can be considered a movie spoiler. Avoid it if you want to go into the movie spoiler-free.

On a recent episode of Wingin’ It!, I discussed a story idea that came to me. As I’m a non-fic writer and not a writer of fiction, I gave the idea up in the hopes that someone might pickup up the ball and run with it.

I’ve received a few replys so far and am trying to figure out how to get them posted. Daniel Emmery from Brief Glimpses took the bull by the proverbial horns and posted his extension of this idea on his blog. No, it’s not exactly what I envisioned, but I like how he’s dove-tailed my idea into something… larger.

Days ago, Jack Managan of DotF fame sent me the following email. But because I don’t have any minions in Cottonwood to do my work for me, I spaced it until now.

Hey Evo, Mike, and the KAMN,

My e-book, “Spherical Tomi”, released today at
Fictionwise!

The response to my giveaway offer has been great. I
want to thank everyone for their nice comments…

Lost love, powerful warlords, deep-space samurai,
combat programmers, godlike renegade AIs, acts of
terrible vengeance, $4.95 — it’s a blast. And there
will be a sequel.

Get Spherical!

What’s on this week:

• Today, we are completely out of good beer, so Mike compensates by reading spam
• TD0013: A Different Point of View: Who’s Oppressed, again?
• Voice of the Republic: Counterpoint from the Alliance
• Scifi Poetry Slam!: Dare to Dream by Robert G. Parent
• Viking ships of Popsicle sticks, Virgin Galactic’s scale composites approved, and new expeditions to Mars
• Mur Lafferty (Geek Fu Action Grip): Please Don’t Tell Me about Your Character
• Michael and Evo talk about Dragon*Con plans
• Mark From Memphis checks in
• A Kick-Ass Mystic Ninjas update

Plus non-interchangeable gender-based derogatory names based on genitalia… we need more good beer, people!

 

 Dragon Page Wingin' It #24: NO BEER? [47:52m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (176)

Stop whatever you’re doing, go get your local paper, and find out what time The 40-Year-Old-Virgin is playing at your local theater. Then go see it. I’m not fracking around.

I don’t care if the movie sounds stupid to you. Don’t care if it’s not “your kind” of movie. Don’t care that it’s not scifi, and I’m posting this on the Dragon Page.

This is one of the funniest movies I have ever seen in my life. Not exaggerating. Steve Carell is going to be considered a comedy superstar after this.

After you see it, thank me in the comments section.

BRAIN DEAD PERSON: “Say Evo. How come you like going to the local CopperCon SF/F convention in Phoenix each year?”

YODA-ESQ EVO: “You mean other than the live body painting?”

I rest my case.

CopperCon 25
Sept 9 - 11, 2005
Featuring award-winning novelists Robert J. Sawyer and Greg Keyes. Plus a kick-ass art show, stimulating conversations and panels. Outrageous room parties. And live body painting.

I was born and raised in Virginia, not West Virginia as Evo likes to believe, but just Virginia. The real Virginia. The state-where-everything-started Virginia. And while people from the Deep South like to say “You in Yankee Territory…”, I hold my tongue to remind them that I was born and raised in Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy.

I liked living in Richmond. To a point. A lot of people have asked me, after noting the history, the beauty, and the “big city with that small town feel” in its people and its manners, why I never went home after graduating from college.

One of my reasons just hit national news this week…

iBook sale creates chaos

Chaos erupted yesterday morning at Richmond International Raceway as people stampeded through the gates in a rush to buy used iBook laptops for $50 each. Mothers clutched their children for protection, people screamed as they were knocked to the ground, a stroller was demolished, cars inched through the crowd.

“I can’t believe people are so barbaric,” said Grace Wang, a rising senior at Henrico County’s Godwin High School.

Anyone want to imagine what the scene would have been if they had been selling used iPods for $10?

For all the Windows users out there who grow weary of me telling you how much your podcatcher sucks and that mine can kick your’s ass… Digg is reporting a Windows version of iPodderX is now in Beta!

Do not wait. Do not think about it. Just get it. Yes, this is a command to all Terranaries. And a strong suggestion to the rest of you.