Spent the weekend commuting to and from I-Con, the convention at Stoneybrook University that, over the course of a quarter century, has grown from taking up one building to taking up about a dozen. My knee, although on the mend, still hurt enough to make the schlep between buildings tedious and tiresome. But the panels were well-attended and, as always, part of the fun of I-Con is hanging out in the green room where I could shmooze with Terry Brooks, Michael Uslan, Greg Pak, George Takei, Bob Greenberger and many others.
Oddly, most of my panels seemed to focus on comics transitioning into movies, or movies into books. One panel, oddly, consisted of only me, talking about the subject as if it were a dissertation.
I begged off the final panel of Sunday afternoon, since it was about Web Comics vs. Print. Since I've never written a web comic, have no intention of doing so, and have no opinion on the subject whatsoever, I didn't see that my presence would add much of anything to the proceedings. I got home, put a turkey in the oven, and am overseeing dinner cooking while Caroline, Ariel and Kathleen all nap.
Also came home to discover that my VCR didn't fire for some reason and I missed PBA bowling this afternoon. Seriously pissed about that. Fortunately it's rebroadcast tomorrow at 10, but still...
PAD
Posted by Peter David at March 26, 2006 05:13 PM | TrackBack | Other blogs commentingVCR?? For God's sake, Peter. Set aside a little of that Battlestar Galactica advance and get a TIVO! Do your feet also get sore when you drive your car Fred Flinstone style? ;)
You got to schmooze with TERRY BROOKS?
ENVY!!!
That man is responsible for getting me interested in the fantasy genre, at the tender age of 11, no less. I wrote him a fan letter when I was 12 and got a handwritten letter in reply. I treasure it to this day. That guy is a seriously upstanding human being in all respects, and I curse you and all your celebrity perks. :)
Btw, Peter, speaking of bowling, one of the DVDs released this past week was "A League of Ordinary Gentlemen", which is supposed to be a documentary about the PBA. Haven't seen it myself so can't judge the quality, but figured you might be interested in it.
Damn -- now that I'm back on this coast, I have GOT to start thinking seriously about hitting I-Con again. Sounds like it was an interesting time.
(And tyg, I believe Peter has discussed that DVD in this very blog, so I think it's a safe bet that he's aware of it. :-)
TWL
Went to I-con.
Saw Peter.
Peter was great as always.
The panels you were on did all seem to have the same topic, however I think my favorite panel was Peter David presents, with pannelist talking of I-cons of the past. Many amussing stories came out of this, however the best line had to be when Peter renamed the CON Schlep-con.
Thanks for a great time Peter.
And thanks to everyone at I-con.
SPB
I see that the first post beat me to it, but PAD, you need a TiVo!
It may sound like something you don't need, but don't most new, great inventions? TiVo will change the way you watch TV and best of all you can "set it and forget it."
I saw the good PAD at two panels, and he was great as awesome. (Ironically, before one of PAD's panels I attended one on webcomics and good taste, and one of the panelists listed PAD as the person he hated the most. (And no, I don't remember who it was, sorry.)) PAD really got me to think about movie adaptions from previous works in a different light, and he was a blast to listen to!
...webcomics and good taste...
You know, in another thread recently, we were discussing oxymorons. As a regular reader of "Something Positive", and occasional dropper-in on "Alien Loves Predator", "Sore Thumbs", and "April May June", I have to nominate that panel as superior in its oxymoronity to even my prized "Microsoft Works"! :-)
Come on, the best PART of webcomics is their poor taste!
There are good ones out there...8-Bit Theater, Least I Could Do, Filthy Lies! and Penny Arcade are, of course, my favorites.
I'd recommend getting a TiVo with DirecTV (although DirecTV is selling their own branded version these days). The version I have allows me to record two different channels simultaneously, which you can't do with the TiVo's set up with most cable systems.
The beauty of this is, you can buy another DirecTV receiver to run off the same satellite dish. (My dish has four outputs on it; I could run two DirecTiVo's and record up to four programs simultaneously, if I were utterly crazy.)
If you DO get such a unit, make sure you get one with the biggest hard drive available. In fact, I'd recommend getting one that's modified (somewhat illegally) off eBay, and get a HUGE hard drive or drives inside the unit. You can then record hundreds of hours of programs and get to watch them whenever your assignments lighten up.
I begged off the final panel of Sunday afternoon, since it was about Web Comics vs. Print. Since I've never written a web comic, have no intention of doing so, and have no opinion on the subject whatsoever, I didn't see that my presence would add much of anything to the proceedings.
Yeah, and you didn't have anything worth talking about, much less on a weekly basis, that would be interesting enough for a weekly column in the COMICS BUYERS GUIDE.
Even if true, that would make you the luddit-er, I mean the "Control" for all the hypesters who would be trumpeting webcomics to the high heavens. You would ask the hard questions that many would fear to ask--cuz, you know, you're not reluctant to turn INTO the wind of popular opinion ... altho maybe not QUITE as bad as Ron Moore vs BSG fans a few years ago (they have the video clips and transcripts ... tense).
-- Ken from Chicago
Thomas has it about right. With the normal direcTV tivo unit, you have approx. 30 hours of record time. That amount typically serves us well unless we're in the middle of watching several Sci-fi series. My husband tends to keep the last two or three episodes in case we miss anything and have to backtrack. Gets kind of full there.
And can I mimic Queen Anthai? ENVY!!!
Best webcomic out there though, hands down and won't ever convince me otherwise is Two Lumps. Gotta love the Snooch. I don't care for the rest of the comics out there though.
Sounds like a fun con. :)
Vee-see-Ahr?? What is this that you speak of? You can fire it? Must be some high-tech weapon for sure that a man with such Sci-Fi background would own. I'm sure you'll hit the Pee-Bee-Aye's on your next salvo.
Yeah, my cable company started offering their own digital video recorders and I finally went for it a few weeks back.
Love the thing. It records two at the same time and can hold fifty hours. Pretty much enough. Haven't cranked up VCR since....
Woah, Pete. Seriously. Ditch the VCR and pick up a TiVo. It is the greatest invention of all time; you will not regret the investment!
Why is it I never hear about conventions in my own state? Oh well - couldn't've gone anyway, as my wife and I were in the Carrier Dome on Saturday night, at the Billy Joel concert - !! (Some footage of it may show up on American Chopper, or whatever they're calling that show these days - they gave Mr. Joel his new motorcycle in the middle of the concert.)
Anyway, it seems to me that several people around here reported that their TiVos failed to record the end of the Battlestar Galactica finale, because it ran over. So, no better than a VCR there; and with video tapes, you can choose to keep whatever you want, for as long as you want. Obviously, it's nobody here's business, and your choice, PAD; but to counterbalance these other posts - stick with the VCR!
Questions about Tivo:
I’ve never seen one, but my understanding is that it makes digital recordings of TV shows. If that’s the case, can a person A) save a particular program indefinitely, as you can on a tape; or is there only a finite amount of memory and no way to transfer the show to some sort of archive?
And B) is a Tivo dedicated to just one TV? In other words, if PAD has a program he videotaped that he wants to show his brother, he can take the tape over to his brother’s house and pop it in the VCR. Could he likewise do the same with his Tivo thingamacallit, or would his brother have to come to him to see the program?
If a Tivo is essentially married to one TV set, that's a bit of a drawback, to my way of thinking.
Myself, I rarely tape programs anymore, because any series I might once have been inclined to tape I know will come out on DVD within a year or so. So why not just wait and buy the DVD? In days gone by, I taped shows because it might be years, if ever, before they were released on pre-recorded videotapes. But I always had the expectation that one day I would get said pre-recorded tapes, that my own tapes were just placeholders.
In fact, I didn’t even tape _Doctor Who_ when it ran on the CBC last year. I knew it would eventually be out on DVD.
Of course, one of the reasons I didn’t tape it was because the reception wasn’t that great, and the VCR wouldn’t always lock into stations- especially that one. Would I have taped it if I’d had a better reception? Maybe.
Rick
Rick, the Tivo is effectively "dedicated to one tv" in the sense that it shows its content to whatever tv it's hooked up to. You can't pop out the hard drive and carry it over to a different Tivo (well, you can, but your random user won't know how/be able to).
On the other hand, at least my DirecTV Tivo (which, btw, has 80 hours recording time on it) has a save to VCR option. Which is somewhat a misnomer, since I can also save to a recording DVD player. So if I want, I can dump shows to external storage which can be used on other VCR/DVD players.
VCR??
doesn't your cable company have a box in your house? our's is that new dvr kind, holds something like 50 hours...
where do you buy blank vhs tapes? j/k
As far as shows running over, as long as the onscreen guide the cable company has knows the show is running long, it will record the whole thing (if the show is on schedule...haven't had to deal with somthing getting pushed back by a ball game or something yet). Plus, if I notice a particular network not keeping to the schedule exactly, I can adjust the starting and ending times by a few minutes just like I always did with the VCR.
tyg -- My copy of that bowling documentary is on its way from Amazon right now. I know what I'm watching this weekend. . .
PAD -- The PBA presentation was great fun last weekend. If you still missed it, let me know. I burned it off to DVD for posterity. (I love my TiVo with built-in DVD burner.)