Holly and the Doubters plus even more Star Wars

I got a phone call from Holly last night, and she was feeling a little down because she happened to mention to some people the work she had done on John's movie Twilight of the Dogs (which was later released as New Genesis by a "distributing company" who shall remain nameless, but who were obviously a covert branch of the CIA, and felt that they should keep any videos they were "making available" a deep dark secret).

The reason mentioning it to some people was making her sad was that they didn't believe her!

So, for all you doubting Thomases out there, here's official notification. Holly did, indeed work on Twilight! Holly did some voice work as one of the children who were dancing and singing near the end of the movie, and she did some rotoscoping of special effects wherever Gage fired her alien pistol.

That's Gage above, with her alien pistol, and the fabulous costume that Nancy Handwork made for her to wear in the movie.

If that's not enough proof for you, you can check out John's blog about his current project, Steve Canyon on DVD. Check the sidebar to talk to him on iChat (or AIM) or leave a comment, and he'll get back to you. If you like Steve Canyon, check the blog anyway, because he put up a new post fairly recently. And, just so you doubters know, I did the art for the covers for the DVDs. And the last one will be coming up soon!

I love the Steve Canyon blog, but I think that John should put up his own blog, because the Steve Canyon blog only covers one of the incredible things that he's doing! And I've been sworn to secrecy because there are several things in the works that are still in negotiations and haven't been settled, but I think I can say with confidence that there are big, exciting things that will be happening for him soon. I've already offered to help him in any way I can because it sounds like this is going to be a fun ride! And when did I ever turn down a fun ride?

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Just when I thought I was through with Star Wars as a subject for my blog, Tim Davis put more photos up on Facebook! So, here I am with more photos and stories.

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away. . .

There was an electronic genius named Tim Pace. Tim enjoyed science fiction and Star Wars, and he made a little 'droid named R2D2

That's Tim Pace on your left, and Tim Davis on your right, and, of course, R2D2 in the middle.

And the little 'droid went on a trip to Washington, DC, and had his photo taken on the mall.

That's Bruce Rauscher on the right, posing as Luke Skywalker, and I'm afraid I don't know the princess who was with him and R2.

He got there in the wonderful, amazing, science fiction van that Tim also built!

Left to right: That's Tim Pace, Bruce Rauscher, R2D2, and the incognito princess.

Here's R2D2 and Tim Davis, also out on the mall.

And, finally, R2 all on his own.

That R2 unit could roll around all on his own (with a little help from radio control) and make beeps and all the other appropriate sound effects!

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As mentioned before, it's no longer sweeps month, and consequently there's nothing on TV tonight!

That's right, really nothing!

Tomorrow night, The Vampire Diaries will be followed by Moonlight on the CW, both reruns, but better than the nothing that's on tonight! That will be followed on CBS by The Mentalist (also a rerun).

All that will be followed by Burn Notice and Royal Pains (both new) and White Collar (rerun) on USA. For once, the stations have spaced things out so that you can watch each of those shows live and in the order I've listed them. I know Royal Pains and White Collar aren't SF, or even spyfi, but they're good and worth watching.

It's the middle of the week! I hope you're having fun with this week! I am!

More Star Wars!

I know I just did a Star Wars post the other day, but I have some photos for you, thanks to my friend, Tim Davis.

The first one leans a little more toward Star Trek than Star Wars. My friend , Tim Pace (who is a very interesting character in his own rite) used to own a van that was very science fictioney. It had "Klaatu Barada Nikto"" inscribed on the side (from The Day the Earth Stood Still), but was modeled more on the Enterprise on the inside. The dashboard was an array of switches and controls that certainly was more complicated than the space ship. The controls turned on sound effects, lights and other miscellaneous effects, and many fen enjoyed it at various SF cons.

Here it is parked on M Street in Georgetown.

This van was featured in a TV show about the Star Trek phenomenon that was done by BJo Trimble, which showed Tim Pace and Jan Cox in the van, with Tim giving orders and Jan flipping switches and turning on and off sound effects.

Here we see Tim Pace himself (seated toward the back of the photo) with the copy of R2D2 that he built.

R2 was wonderful because he was remote controlled, and could travel around on his own. It was really fun watching him "walk" around a con with a group of people. I was at one con, where some of us were helping Tim pack up everything at the end of the con. Tim walked R2 out to the parking garage, where people were arriving for a wedding celebration, and the non-science fiction people would walk up to R2 and start talking to him, and posing for photos with him while we were loading stuff into Tim's Star Trek van!

Here's a photo of Tim Davis with Bruce Rauscher.

Bruce was a science fiction con regular back at that time, and later was in John Ellis' movies Invader and Twilight of the Dogs.

Tim Pace is an interesting person. He used to own (and possibly still does) a stage lighting company called Light Works, and his equipment cases list his address as "Planet Earth." I've seen some of his home movies, and they're amazing. There are movies of The Rolling Stones, and most other large bands of the time taken from back stage! He also did lighting for science fiction conventions and Invader and Twilight of the Dogs, and stage lighting for The Bayou in DC.

Tim Davis did special effects makeup for the same two movies, and many others. When we were working on Twilight, I pointed my camera at him and told him to look mean. He pasted a mean expression on his face, and pointed a spray bottle of fake blood at me!

He's currently working on his movie, Nudist Camp Zombie Massacre, which, incidentally, stars Bruce!

Have a marvelous Monday!

Star Wars Revisited

Last weekend, Spike showed all the Star Wars Movies. Although I've seen all of them, I'd never seen then all in order right straight through, so I recorded them and watched the first three on Monday, and the second trilogy on Tuesday.

This took me down memory lane to just before the first Star Wars movie came out. I can't ever remember Star Wars without thinking about my friend, John. You can see a picture of him here on the tall ship that we went on with the whole WSFA crew.

I met John at the first August Party I ever went to. We were introduced by Jackie Lichtenberg, and at the end of the con, he asked me out.

August Party was a long-running Star Trek convention. Each year that the original Star Trek was filmed, they'd finish filming and have a wrap party in August, and that's where the con got it's name. That, and it was in early August each year.

By the time World Con came along that year, John was definitely my boyfriend, and he had been invited to World Con as a guest (all expenses paid). I, however, didn't have the money to go along, and couldn't have gotten a ticket at that late date, anyway.

So, John went off to World Con, and came back with lots of stories about all the fabulous things that happened to him there.

One of them was about how the person who was supposed to be MC for the con was sick or something and couldn't do it. So John was the master of ceremonies for the World Con that year because they couldn't find anyone else who was willing to get up in front of 3,000 people and speak.

One of the people he met because of this was a guy about his age, with blond hair like his, blue eyes like his, and a lot of the same interests. They both liked comic books, stage fighting, acting, and many other things in common. Also, his new friend, Mark Hamill, had been filming a movie, and the studio had sent him to World Con to do some advance publicity for the first Star Wars movie. They had also sent many, many heavy costumes, including ones for storm troopers, Darth Vader, Chewbacca, etc. They also sent a truck and driver, but the driver was only intended to drive, and the costumes were heavy, and Mark couldn't move everything from one presentation to the next without help, so John helped him. And they went to lunch together, and did a bunch of fun stuff at the con.

He came back all excited about Star Wars! This is how John and I came to do some advance publicity for the first Star Wars movie at some science fiction cons. Mostly, John did the publicity and I went along and helped.

While we were doing this, John wanted some drawings of characters from the movies, and he asked me to do some. I did a number of drawings, including the ones here. I had planned to put more  drawings into this post, but my scanner wasn't doing them justice, and there was a lot of PhotoShop clean-up work to do, and it wound up being more time consuming than I had expected. So there are only a few of the many drawings I did at that time. They're just pen-and-ink sketches.

First, I'm sure you'll recognize these Jawas.

Here's Chewie with Han and Luke, who are posing as storm troopers.

Princess Leia

And one more drawing that has a very odd story attached to it.

I did a sketch of Luke and Leia, and I was very annoyed that I didn't make Luke look like Mark. So, I mashed up the drawing and did it again. And it still looked like the first one. So I tossed that one, too, and did another, which came out looking like the other two. After a few tries, I was totally annoyed and frustrated. Just then, John came home and had an interesting story.

He had been trying to contact Mark through the studio for a few days, and wasn't able to get through to him. That particular day, the person he spoke to at the studio told him that he wasn't there because he was visiting his grandmother in Florida. John told the guy that he really was a friend of Mark's and that he knew the guy wasn't telling the truth because his mother in Florida was dead! He also told they guy enough about Mark that they guy finally believed that he knew Mark, and told him the truth.

Mark had signed a contract to be on a show, which I think was Eight is Enough, but I couldn't swear to it. He did the pilot for the show, and then found out what a huge success Star Wars was turning out to be, and wanted to get out of the contract for the show. After an argument about it, Mark went home. But he was angry, and speeding, and went off the road, and smashed his car and himself.

John couldn't talk to him because he was in the hospital. My understanding of all this was that he needed extensive surgery to put him back together. Part of the damage was to his face. I have to say that the plastic surgeon did a great job on his face, but if you look at him in the first and second movies, his face, particularly his upper lip is slightly different.

John said to hold onto the last drawing I did, which I was ready to wad up and throw in the trash.

Eventually, we got to see him on TV, after he was recovered, and found out that I hadn't been drawing him the way he looked in the first movie, but the way he looked after the accident!

I really do strange things sometimes.

Anyway, here's the sketch I did of Luke and Leia.

I hope you're having a wonderful weekend!

Comcast Really HATES it's Customers!

Well, I planned to spend the three days of this weekend doing nothing buy spinning, knitting and watching TV.

Spike is showing the entire Star Wars saga, from beginning to end. In spite of doing advance publicity for the original Star Wars movie along with John Ellis, and watching all of the episodes multiple times, I realized that I've never seen them in order back-to-back with no interruptions before, and I thought that would be a fun thing to do today.

Comcast is obviously against me doing that. It's been off the air, and completely disconnected twice today. No TV, no internet.

For at least 20 minutes each time!

One more time you're off the air, and I'm seriously thinking about canceling getting TV from you!

Thanks for trying so hard to ruin my weekend!

I hope everyone out there is having more fun than Comcast is charging me for!

Happy Memorial Day and Towel Day!

Happy Memorial Day!

I wanted to make that headline red, white and blue, but the white wouldn't have shown up and I had to settle for red and blue.

In honor of the day, I have some clippings from the Maple Shade Progress that I just scanned this morning about me. They fit right in with the Memorial Day theme. If you click on them, you can see them large enough to actually read the text.

The first one was published around the end of October, or the beginning of November in 1962.

The second one was probably published in December of the same year.

If you notice, the second one has a credit for the photo--the photographer asked me to be in the photo partly because I was the only woman in the Aero Club at the time, and partly because he wanted to meet me. We later got married, so I guess it was a good way to meet me. 

Flying was one of the most fun things I've ever done!

Check out John's Steve Canyon blog, because he said he's going to write a Memorial Day post, and going to put my photos in it! That's a generic link to the blog because he hasn't gotten the post up yet. I can't wait to see it!

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Holly and I went out yesterday and visited Michaels, where I got a really nice, tiny vacuum cleaner made especially to pick up spilled beads and other small craft parts, and JoAnn Fabrics where I got a plastic container to replace the broken pencil case I've been using for holding small knitting stuff.

We also stopped at WalMart for a while and I bought a copy of the book with the story of the new Star Trek movie. I had been thinking about going to the movies to see it again (it's soooo good!), but the book was a little cheaper, and it was written by a friend of mine, Alan Dean Foster. John and I met him at MonCon in West Virginia in late Winter or early Spring right before the very first Star Wars movie came out. 

He and John and I were doing advance publicity for the movie. He, however, had been out to the studio where they were finishing it, and he got to talk to a lot of people that were involved that John and I hadn't gotten to meet. The thing that seemed to tickle him most was that the banthas were actually "elephants in drag." That's the way he expressed it. They told him that the elephants seemed to really enjoy dressing up!

One of the best things about meeting him was meeting his wife, JoAnn. She and I got along well.

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Here's where I had gotten to on my shawl two days ago. I was inspired to take the photo because it's about one quarter done in the photo. Yesterday, I did the 8 pattern rows that put 42 flower designs across in one row. I'm a real Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy fan, and couldn't resist noticing that.

Today is also Towel Day, by the way. Fans of Douglas Adams traditionally carry a towel with them all day on the 25th of May, and you may remember that I knitted a towel in the Towel Day KAL last year.


As is usual with lace, it looks like something that was wadded up and left in the trash for a week. The true beauty of lace doesn't emerge until it's blocked, so the photo is mainly to show how big it is at the moment. In the photo above, it was sixteen inches, measured along the front edge, and stretched to approximate the stretching that will happen during blocking. 

As of last night when I measured it, it was over 18 inches, and I've done some more knitting on it today. Considering that it averages six more stitches for each right side row, it goes pretty fast in the beginning, and slows significantly as progress is made.

It's intended to be about thirty six inches long measured along the front edge after blocking, so you would think that eighteen inches would be half way, but the halfway point is really at about twenty four inches as measured by yarn usage. The rule with these things is that a section that has a certain measurement uses enough yarn to knit the next section to half of the previous section's length. 

I'm into the second of four balls of yarn that have about 44o yards in each ball. And I'm more than 1/4 of the way through, so I think I'll have enough yarn, with just a little over to make it comfortable instead of close. I'm not so sure about having enough beads, though. I just used 1/4 of the beads that I bought, but I plan to use a pattern for the border that's more heavily beaded, so I may (or may not) need more beads. We'll just have to see.

After two days of perfect, fabulous weather, I woke up to rain today! And the forecast says that it'll be raining for the rest of the week! I'm glad Holly and I got to go out yesterday instead of today.

 

I hope the weather where you are is better than it is here! Happy Memorial Day! And don't forget your towel!

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Addition:

I just read a tweet by Neil Gaiman, and he said something about a show on Sundance tonight called Dreams with Sharp Teeth, and mentioned Harlan Ellison. Read more about it here.

Oooops!

First of all, let me say that I'm OK.

Yesterday, I scored a new, personal record, and not a good one.

For the last 55 years, I've frequently walked around reading with no ill effects. Yesterday, I broke that record.

I've come to the conclusion that reading while walking (with some caution) is OK. 

Carrying home two big bags of groceries in the dark and using a flashlight to read at the same time doesn't seem to be a good thing, though.

I walked right into a curb that was nearly invisible in the dark. One second, I was walking along with no problems, and the next I was flat on my face in some thick grass with some very soft ground under it. I didn't even have a second to react and try to break my fall.

This is a very nice neighborhood. By the time I realized what happened and began to pick myself up, someone in a car had pulled up next to me and there was someone asking if I needed help. And when I fell, there was not a moving car in sight. I told them I was OK, and went inside. Fortunately, it was right in front of where I live.

I have a very small cut on one hand, and it feels like a very mild case of whiplash along with soreness in my right arm. My neck and arm have been informing me all day that I never should have done that, and they are not amused. I put a gel band aid on my hand, effectively  repairing it immediately. The arm and neck will take a day or two to get back to normal.

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I had planned to go to WalMart today for some stuff, but when I checked my email, I had a request to do some Christmas knitting for someone. I spent some time checking the availability of different yarns and the general feasibility of the project. It looks like I'll be knitting five Christmas stockings in a very intricate color pattern. You'll see photos for that if and when it progresses. I'm thinking about doing it in Caron's new Simply Soft Eco yarn. Well, most of it. Santa is on the stocking and has, of course, a white beard and trim on his suit, which I want to make from fuzzy yarn. Plus I need to find some yarn in a  color for his face.

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Spike is showing the first two Star Wars movies tonight. Phantom Menace just started and I want to get to see it, so this post will be short. It will be followed by Attack of the Clones.

Of course, SciFi will be having it's usual four hours of Lost tonight starting at seven.

And NBC will have it's usual line-up of Chuck, Heroes, and My Own Worst Enemy.

Oh, and the Eloise movies will be shown on ABC Family next Saturday. If you've read the Eloise books and liked them, these movies look as much as it's possible for live actors to look like the drawings from the book. They are enchanting.

I have some other, exciting news that I can't announce yet (maybe tomorrow). I can hardly wait!

Have a great evening!

Dollhouse

Here is my towel from earlier today, when it was 14 inches long. I will add 4 more inches, and then I will do about 3 inches of border and bind off.

I originally thought I wanted a towel that was 30 x 40, but after seeing how big 30 inches is, I changed my mind to 20 x 30.

Actually, my gauge is a little off so it will be 20 x 32. But that's the nice thing about towels. Precise size isn't essential.

The big news today is something I found on Ravelry.

Joss Whedon is working on a new series. For fans of Firefly and Buffy, that's a cause for celebration.

The new series will be called Dollhouse (more info here), and stars Eliza Dushku as the heroine, Echo. Her IMdB page shows what we all know, that she was Tru in Tru Calling, and Faith in Buffy. She was also the daughter in True Lies (one of my favorite movies).

The SciFi channel is having all three Indiana Jones movies both Saturday and Sunday. Right before the series on Saturday, they're showing Timeline, which is an excellent movie, but an even better book.

Timeline, the movie bears little resemblance to Timeline, the book. You have to adjust your mind-set if you want to watch both of them.

After the three Jones movies on Sunday, they'll be showing Mystery of the Crystal Skulls, which seems to be (judging by the trailers), a bit about the actual archeology that the new movie is based on.

And Holly has notified me that the Cartoon Network will be showing the Family Guy episode about Star Wars on Sunday evening, followed by Robot Chicken, which is also a Star Wars episode. She says both are hilarious.

And, of course, Sarah Jane, and Doctor Who will both be on SciFi tonight, at the same time as the season finales of Ghost Whisperer and Moonlight.

And Prince Caspian opens in theaters today!

What an exciting weekend!

This was intended to be mostly a knitting blog, but the science fiction people have overwhelmed me this weekend.

Have a fun one!