Category: Entertainment

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Spent a good chunk of last night looking at travel websites. Accomplished 2 things:

  • Arranged for a hotel to stay in San Francisco next month.
  • Arranged for a back-up hotel for San Diego Comic Con, just in case we can’t get a room through the convention desk.

Hotel rooms during Comic-Con have become a scarce commodity over the last few years, as attendance has shot up by thousands (it actually sold out before the doors opened last year!) but only a few hundred new hotel rooms have been added to Downtown San Diego. Rooms in the convention blocks have been selling out in a matter of hours. The con website has crumbled under the stress, and the phone lines have caved. Last year it took me over an hour just to get through. This year, they haven’t even published a list of which hotels are involved, and it looks like they’ve dropped fax from their options. And booking downtown hotels directly isn’t an option: either they’re sold out, or they want $350/night-plus.

So, just in case I can’t get a room downtown when they go on sale next week, we can at least stay someplace near a trolley station. And if I can get a closer room, even if they charge me $25 to cancel the first reservation, it’s worth the peace of mind.

(Originally posted at LiveJournal. Brought over here to fit with the rest of my convention posts, and as a snapshot of the days when you could get a backup hotel. Not downtown, but in…it might’ve been Old Town? In any case, I cancelled the room once we got our confirmation from the convention block hotel sale.)

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Oddly, the usual deluge of election propaganda hasn’t materialized yet, and the election is less than a week away. While looking through the scanty haul, most of which is focused on a quartet of propositions on Indian gaming, Katie found an intriguing statement:

Why PORAC Supports Propositions 94, 95, 96 & 97

Wait… pubic services? Whoa! And here I thought gambling on tribal lands was hot. This could blow it away… or alternatively, screw everyone over.

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Babylon 5: The Scripts of J. Michael Straczynski
Hard to believe, but J. Michael Straczynski’s Babylon 5 Script Books are almost done. Volume 13 of 14 just shipped (my copy arrived today by UPS), and it’s time to talk about the bonus volume 15, only available to people who’ve bought a complete set.

This is the book that has alternate versions of several episodes, the series writer’s bible…and a complete outline of the original arc with Sinclair all the way through. The site has a description of the contents [archive.org], but how to get it is a bit out of date. Vol.13 shipped with a notice that they’ve changed the procedure.

Instead of waiting until you receive all 14 volumes, then filling out a proof of purchase form, you need to fill out a form before ordering #14, and they’ll ship #14 and #15 together. The form collects your name, address, and the order numbers for the other 14 books. If you ordered them all through the same CafePress account, it’s easy: Log onto CafePress, look at your order history, and then copy and paste the numbers into the form.

Admittedly, “easy” depends entirely on how much other stuff you’ve made through CafePress. Unfortunately they only list order numbers on the history page, so you have to click through each number to see what was actually ordered. This makes it a perfect job for middle-clicking the links on Firefox (open in background tab): I just went down the list, clicking away, and then I had each order in a tab. Click, copy, click, paste. Repeat.

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1. Fountains of Wayne‘s song, “No Better Place,” popped up on the iPod today. There’s a great line that made us both laugh when we heard them at a concert several years ago, opening for some band that one or the other of us wanted to see:

It may be the whiskey talking
But the whiskey says “I miss you” everyday.

2. The “dream control” sequence from Queensryche’s “Silent Lucidity” sounds really weird in headphones.

3. Heard a cover of Aerosmith’s “Dream On” in Red Robin a few nights ago. Sounded like sort of like Amy Lee (Evanescence) if she were a soprano. Googling suggests that it might be Kelly Sweet. (Edit: After grabbing her version of the song—99¢ is a great price for impulse buying—I’m almost certain this was the one we heard.) She was accompanied by our waitress—but not when she was at out table.

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A movie theater tried to cram a few too many titles into this space.

Atonement Water & P.S. I Love Horse

Whoever that is in the last line must really like basketball. Alternatively, feel free to insert your favorite Catherine the Great joke here.

And “Atonement Water”—is that anything like holy water? Or perhaps like Aquamantra‘s “I am Lucky”/”I am Loved”/etc. water?

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WatchmenDC Comics has posted a list of 30 Essential Graphic Novels (that are published by DC or one of their imprints).

I’ve read:

  • Watchmen
  • The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen vol. 1 & 2
  • V for Vendetta
  • Sandman vol. 1: Preludes & Nocturnes
  • Sandman: Endless Nights
  • Fables vol.1: Legends in Exile
  • Batman: Arkham Asylum
  • Batman: The Long Halloween
  • Batman: Dark Victory
  • Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
  • Batman: The Dark Knight Strikes Again
  • Kingdom Come
  • Identity Crisis
  • JLA vol.1: New World Order
  • Crisis on Infinite Earths
  • Transmetropolitan vol.1: Back on the Street

I haven’t read:

  • Superman for All Seasons
  • Superman: Birthright (but it’s on my to-read list)
  • Superman/Batman: Public Enemies
  • Batman: Year One
  • Batman: Hush vol.1 & vol.2
  • Green Lantern: Rebirth
  • The Quitter
  • Hellblazer: Original Sins
  • Y: The Last Man vol.1: Unmanned
  • Kamikaze Kaito Jeanne
  • Sword of the Dark Ones
  • Ex Machina vol.1: The First Hundred Days

The list is a bit heavy on Batman at a full 25% of the titles. And since it’s roughly 50/50 super-hero stuff and, well, other stuff, that means half their “essential” super-hero books are Batman. Come on, DC, show people a few more facets of your line!

On the plus side, they’ve chosen just one volume each for series like Transmetropolitan, Fables, etc.—so they can recommend as many different series as possible—and it’s the first volume. Unlike the well-known super-hero books, where the average potential reader probably knows enough to hit the ground running, it helps to start at the beginning, with a book that’s specifically designed to introduce each concept. And many of them are big, long stories. You wouldn’t recommend starting Lord of the Rings with The Two Towers, you’d tell someone to start with Fellowship of the Ring or get a combined edition.

Personally, I’d drop The Dark Knight Strikes Again (does anyone really consider it a “must read?”) and possibly the second volume of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Maybe even Endless Nights, though I suppose it represents the overall tone of Sandman better than the first book does. Maybe Dark Victory, since it’s essentially a continuation of The Long Halloween. With the Justice League, I might replace New World Order with Rock of Ages.

I’d add the first Astro City book, no questions asked. For the other space(s), I’d plug in something less well-known, but highly regarded. Maybe some more WildStorm, like Planetary
or The Authority Or how about a another DC hero, like Wonder Woman, Starman, or the Flash?

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