Halloween

In a couple of days, children in our area will walk towards our door, see a sign on the garage saying "No Candy"... and leave.

We don't "do" Halloween. Not in this house, anyway.

SF minifigs

What happens when you're both a Lego fan and a science fiction fan? Well, it doesn't take long before you start creating minifigures and scenes to recreate some of your favourite sci-fi movies and shows.

These are all what I've seen referred to as "purist" in that all parts are official Lego parts from sets. If you look around the internet for "custom" minifigures, you'll find a lot of people doing this, but you'll also find a lot of custom printing, custom decals, and things like that. None of that here! All I've done is mixed and matched existing parts to create my own versions of these sci-fi characters.

X-Men: Days Of Future Past

"X-Men: First Class" was a great prequel, but just as much a great film. The well-cast actors gave fantastic performances, and minor flaws aside, it's easily my favourite so far of the films with "X-Men" in the title. Next year its sequel will hit our screens: "Days Of Future Past", with a time travel plot enabling the use of both the original cast and the young prequel cast. I just came across teaser posters for its sequel, which I've got to say are pretty damn cool.

Jean-Luc Picard vs Tumnus. 

Gandalf vs Lt Hicox.

How far away is 2014?

Vigilant (3 of 3)

The conclusion of my ten-year-old science fiction story. If you missed Parts 1 or 2, it started here.

Everyone else, read on...

Vigilant (2 of 3)

This is a continuation of a piece of fiction. If you haven't read Part 1, it starts here.

Otherwise, read on...

Vigilant (1 of 3)

Another piece of fiction from the past. This one is ten years old.

It's a bit long, so to save on mouse scrolling (and possibly build suspense) I'm going to post it here as a serial.

Part 1 begins here...

Sixth Anniversary, Monsters University, Man Of Steel

Saturday was our sixth wedding anniversary.

Six years ago, dancing to The Whitlams' "Make The World Safe" at our reception.

Saturday night anniversary dinner at the Hyperdome.

We hadn't got each other any gifts yet, so I looked up a list of traditional gifts for each anniversary year. After finding iron, sugar and wood listed as the appropriate gifts for a sixth anniversary, I had a little idea which I let Kara in on yesterday.

Star Trek Into Darkness

We went and saw "Star Trek Into Darkness" on opening night (9 May). I've just come back from seeing it my second time (20 May).

There are two reasons why I delayed posting this review. I had some notes written after my first viewing, but didn't really want to spoil it for American readers (the movie wasn't released till 17 May over there). I also really really wanted to see it again, and figured I'd take more notes that time and end up with a decent review. There may still be spoilers in the following review, but I will keep them hidden like this. (Just be careful where you move your mouse.)

Hiram's Visit

I grew up as a missionary kid in Ghana, West Africa. One of the other families we worked with over there was the Rings, from the US. Among their many children were Ethan (my age) and Hiram (my brother's age), and we've been friends pretty much ever since. When I got married in Seattle back in June 2007, Ethan flew most of the way across the country to be a groomsman, and Hiram also flew across the US to attend as a guest.

I hadn't seen Hiram (other than keeping up with his worldwide travels, and music, online) since our wedding day. He's currently spending a couple months in Canberra doing research as part of his PhD studies in Singapore, so arranged to spend a weekend up north visiting the Davies families. He's now the second Ring to stay in our house, as Ethan was here on a work visit not long after we moved in to this place.

Friday, 22 March

He's here!

Science Fiction films of the 90s

Here are my favourite Science Fiction films of the 1990s.

No less than four of them feature time travel.

Revised Viper

When I got home from work, I sat down to watch the Torchwood season 2 final (we're working our way back and forth through Doctor Who and Torchwood in broadcast order), and made a few modifications to the Viper I made last night.

The main changes are:

• The blunt nose is now flush with the side panels, and is all white.
• The gaps either side of the cockpit are filled in.
• An improved undercarriage.
• Angled roof panels on the wings to hide more of the gap between the wings and the body.

And the only piece not from the original set remains the aeroplane tail.

The finished (again) Viper.

Viper Mark II

For my birthday last year my in-laws got me some Star Wars Lego... the X-wing. I put it together in December when my mother-in-law was here, and it's stayed intact till tonight.

I took it apart, intending to re-assemble it. For me, some of the fun of Lego comes from assembling the sets. Some of the fun comes from dismantling it completely, then building it all over again. My parents do jigsaw puzzles, I assemble Lego. The difference is, I can make my jigsaw pieces make more than just the one picture... which is where the other great fun thing about Lego comes in - my imagination's the limit.

So I decided to build something else instead - a Colonial Viper Mk II from "Battlestar Galactica".

The finished Viper. The aeroplane tail is the only non-X-wing piece I needed to use.

Top 10 science fiction films of the 00s

Here are my favourite science fiction films of the previous decade, 2000-2009.

All the following is my own personal opinion, of course.

Top 10 Science Fiction Films of the decade so far...

Top 10s. They're everywhere, I know, but I am going to put some of mine on this blog. Any such list is of course going to be highly subjective - I welcome comments.

The hardest thing about this list was figuring what order to put these films in. So without further ado, here are the science fiction films of the last three years that I have enjoyed the most. (* = saw it at the cinema)

A Day at the Movies

On a hot (not even summer yet) day off, there's nothing quite like going to your local shopping centre and having a double-movie day (using discount cards to full advantage!) with the Mrs.

Being members at our local RSL gets us movie tickets for $9.50 ($14.50 full price), and Star Cinema for $13 ($22 full price). After a quick breakfast, it was time for the first movie of the day.

Looper (MA)

"Time travel hasn't been invented yet. But 30 years from now, it will have been..."

Operation: Malcolm, part 1...

I'm a big believer in creating your own costumes, rather than renting. Partly because half the fun is in the chase, but mostly because this way you're guaranteed make sure everything fits.

Anyway, last week I did a bit of shopping to see if I could put together a Captain Malcolm Reynolds outfit. If you don't recognise the name, stop, and go watch Firefly now. All of it.

(Done? OK, I'll continue.)

I have no upcoming costume parties, birthday or otherwise, and I'm not planning on attending any cosplay/sci-fi convention events in the near future. This was just because I could. And because Firefly was just so gorram awesome.

For a little over $50 at Kmart and Big W, I got pants, braces, a belt, and boots. I couldn't find a decent shirt in the right shade of reddish-brown, so I went with an old maroon-ish business shirt I had in the wardrobe.

Leg up (on the bathtub) in a very Captain Mal pose, to show off the entire outfit.

More pictures below.

Blade Runner remix

The Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) here in Brisbane is currently running a Science Fiction exhibition, called "A New Tomorrow: Visions Of The Future In Cinema", screening a whole lot of films that paint varying (utopian and dystopian) views of our future.

Tonight was a special event, called "Zan Lyons vs Blade Runner AV".

Here's the blurb from the GOMA website:

Zan Lyons vs Blade Runner AV
Fri 25 & Sat 26 February 8.30pm (75 mins) / Cinema A
Don’t miss this exclusive audio-visual performance by Berlin-based filmmaker and sound artist Zan Lyons. With an international reputation for his uncompromising recordings and live shows, Lyons will perform with viola, foot pedals and laptop while simultaneously remixing and reworking Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner 1982. Lyons has completely rewritten the film's legendary electronic score by composer Vangelis, and re-edited several scenes with his own visuals to achieve a dark and chaotic spectacle.

The PR/Marketing department at work was offered free passes by the gallery (free is always good!) so I called up Marketing and said I was keen. Having re-watched Blade Runner within the last few weeks as part of Double Feature SciFi Saturday, it sounded like fun.

Double Feature Sci-Fi Saturday

We had our 2nd DFSFS tonight. What with "The Adjustment Bureau" (based on a story by Philip K Dick) coming out in cinemas at the beginning of March, February is dedicated entirely to films based on his other works.

Tonight we watched "Blade Runner" (The Final Cut) and "Impostor". If you haven't seen (or read) Impostor, it's worth checking out. It has its flaws as a film, but it's a brilliant short story.

Next Saturday night: "Minority Report" and "Total Recall".

The week after that: "Paycheck" and "Next".

Not actually making the February PKD schedule: "A Scanner Darkly" which we can always watch when we have a run of animated sci-fi.