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!

Yarn Imagination Contest!

I hadn't planned on posting today, but I came across this Yarn Imagination Contest by Lion Brand Yarn, and wanted to let you know.

I'm seriously thinking about entering, but don't have an idea of what to knit. You might say I'm waiting on inspiration.

It's all right, because I'll wake up in the middle of the night or tomorrow with a smashing idea.

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Sanctuary marathon is on SyFy today!

Not a lot on TV other than that, though.  We have to wait until next month for sweeps, then all the good stuff will be back on TV. A few series will be back late this month, though. I'll keep you up to date.

That doesn't help us much right now, though.

What might help me soon is the new (refurbished) TiVo I ordered last Friday. It shipped yesterday, and they estimate that it'll be here tommorrow. Then I just have to get the card(s) installed, and I can get special programming from TiVo, even if there's nothing I want to watch on TV.

I might have been satisfied to keep my Comcast DVR, but it's still having severe problems accessing the digital TV guide. I do have to say that since the repairman came last week, the picture and sound been much better, but it still doesn't want to let me know what's on. I tried to find out which Sanctuary episodes were on today, and in spite of the fact that one of them was on, it wouldn't tell me about any of them. And it's been refusing to let me know what's coming on tomorrow, like the other one did. Judging by the two I've tried, Comcast DVRs seem to have to choose a Wednesday during which they will not display any guide info! I have to fight with the DVR to get it to display any information more than two days ahead, and sometimes it won't display information for now, let alone two hours from now.

I hope you're having a great week!

It's supposed to display programming info for the coming week, but usually doesn't. TiVo is supposed to display info for the coming two weeks! And it's supposed to have lots of programming available through TiVo, too! I can't wait!

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!

iPad Giveaway!

There's an iPad giveaway happening here, or click the link below the Harry Potter ad above.

There are a number of ways to enter, and the prize is described at the link or the button.

Have fun!

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!

It's June!

Happy June, everyone!

I hope you had a great Memorial Day weekend!

I had planned to start watching the whole, complete Star Wars movies, all six movies yesterday, and finish them today. I watched the first three yesterday. Well, sort of.

So far, the first three have been butchered by Comcast, which decided I didn't really want any service from them for at least 20 minutes at about the first third of the way through the second movie!

Yes, that's right. Comcast had no connection to my apartment (or, from what I can tell, to anyone in the area) for 20 minutes on Saturday. Not only was the TV off, so was the internet.

Nada, Zip. Nothing.

My "brand new" just-got-it-on-Friday DVR also decided that "This DVR is not Authorized on this Network" just like the other one did, and turned itself off for about 20 minutes a bit earlier in the day from the power outage! So, the "new" DVR is just as defective as the one I traded in! So, I dumped a bunch of neat stuff to watch so I could get a DVR that is just as bad as the other one!

And as if that wasn't enough, they also weren't answering their phones and didn't have the grace to say "We all took the holiday off, and if you have a problem, we won't be available until Tuesday." I spent an hour and a quarter on the phone trying to tell someone about the long list of problems I have with Comcast. Oh, and the weather channel was off the air for more than a day. Their answer to the weather channel being off was not to check with the local station, which wasn't broadcasting it, but to send out a repairman! I asked how that would help, and was told that it was the only thing they could do. I asked them "If the repairman can fix it, why didn't he do that on Friday when he was out, or on the Wednesday of the previous week?" The phone person didn't have an answer for that.

Maybe the key is to get a repairman out here every week until they actually do something to fix their service?

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In knitting news, the 12th of June is World Wide Knit in Public Day, but you can adjust the actual date you celebrate it. I don't usually get to go to a formal gathering, but if I'm out on WWKIP day, you can bet I'm knitting. In fact if I'm out, I'm probably knitting in public no matter what day it is. I expect to be at the Potomac Celtic Festival that day, and you can bet that I'll be knitting in public!

Yesterday, I finished spinning the blue wool/silk/bamboo roving that I got at the Sheep and Wool Festival. Photos soon. I planned to ply it with some medium blue singles I was spinning before that, but the solid blue is a much warmer blue than the other, and now I'm leaning toward plying it with some natural white Finn wool that I spun a while ago.

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Encore is running Wall-E off and on today. I saw part of it the other day, and really liked it, so I set my DVR to record it later today. Although I enjoyed it, it's a movie that's also suitable for kids. If you liked Finding Nemo, you'll like this, too.

Now that sweeps month is over, there's almost nothing on TV except reruns, and some of the stations aren't showing those because they don't get high enough ratings. In spite of the fact that I, personally would prefer to watch a good rerun rather than some of the dreck they're putting on.

We can expect things to pick up in July, though. Have fun in the meantime!

I hope you had a great Memorial Day Weekend, and will have a wonderful rest-of-the-week!