I'm Sorry, But I Think Jacques Cousteau is Dead

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!  I hope you are all spending your turkey-day with exactly the people you wish to be spending it with!  And if for some reason, you can't be with those people, I hope you can at least let them know you're thinking of them, and that you love them.

My husband and I are officially hosting our first Thanksgiving this year, so I am very excited (and a little nervous).  It's just my hubby's little brother and his fiancee, but still, it's the first time I am cooking for more than just the two of us.  I am still not making a turkey, I don't think I'm quite ready for that step yet, we're still just doing the turkey-ham.  I am, however, making sweet potatoes, despite the fact that I loathe them.  Well, loathe may be a strong word, but I will not be eating said sweet potatoes.  However, my husband loves them, and my little sis-to-be likes them as well, so I will make a small batch, even though looking at the recipe, they are actually going to be the most labor intensive dish I will make today.  Sigh.  But it's a day to do for family, so I will do.

Also, this is the first Thanksgiving that Baby Girl actually gets to partake in the feast, so that's kind of exciting as well.  As you can imagine, I've got plenty of cooking and a little bit of cleaning to get to today, so this will be a short post.  I just wanted to share some of the things I am thankful for with you.

• My husband and daughter.
• My whole family, actually.  Even though we're all spread out and I won't get to see most of them, they are in my thoughts and my heart, and I will probably be spending a good portion of today on the phone making sure they know that.
• The wonderful circle of friends I have managed to amass in my lifetime.  They've seen me through the fantastic times and the impossible (seeming) times, and somehow, someway, they still love me.  I don't know where I'd be without them.
• The fact that one of the biggest "problems" in my life currently is that I fear I will never be caught up on all of the books I want to read, DVDs I plan to watch, and video games I hope to play.  
• The fact that even in this crazy economic climate, my husband is willing to let me be a stay-at-home mom, which means I get to be with my daughter every day and watch her grow and learn and explore the world around her.
• NaNoWriMo--I've found my muse again, and that is a wonderful thing.

I truly do hope you all have a wonderful day.

In parting I will leave you with perhaps the funniest two minutes of Thanksgiving television to ever be created.  Enjoy.

Thanksgiving Lightning Confessions

Also, the final episode of Riese:  Kingdom Falling is up today, check it out!

Word Count Update: 46,681 out of 50,000

Update:  Ooh, Gronk posted a day early.  Go check out this week's strip, here!  

Hey! I Think I See a Way Out!

First things, first, announcements!

Don't forget to watch the new episode of Stargate Universe tonight on Syfy at 8 pm CST!!!

There's a new episode of Riese:  Kingdom Falling up today.  Check it out here.
 

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Wow, I am having a hard time believing that it already the week of Thanksgiving.  Where did my November go?  Oh, wait, that's right, I spent it writing.   Mostly.  I mean, yeah, I sort of remember some other stuff sneaking in there, but mostly it was just writing.

Now that we're past the two-thirds point of the month, I thought I would give you a little "state of my novel" entry.  I remember saying after the first week that I thought I might be able to actually finish my story (or at least hit my 50,000 words) by November 20 or 21.  Well, clearly, that hasn't happened, but mostly because life kept getting in the way.  I have broken 40,000 words though, so I have no doubts that I will hit the 50,000 mark by or before November 30.  Whether I actually finish my story by then, well, that's another matter entirely.

Heh.  Remember when I was agonizing that my story might not even lend itself to 50,000 words?  Silly Past Me.  The more I wrote in this world, and the more I stopped to sit down and actually build this world, the more ideas I came up with for what was going on in the story.  I think I may have actually tried to do too much.  I've got about three possible big final conflicts, that, ideally, would all happen and play nicely off of one another.  In reality though, I think I am about to have to pick one and write towards that conflict and wrap up the story.  I would like to figure out a way to do that without those other plot points just fizzling away into nothingness though.  So right now, my primary goals with my story are:

1. Start ending the story.
2. Wrap up what can be wrapped up.
3. Provide plausible reasons for why what was left hanging was left that way.

I have so many cool ideas that I have been kicking around that I fear I am just going to have to leave be.  But, I am making sure to take notes on them.  Maybe if I write another story in this world, I can work those in somehow, and provide resolution to the unresolved issues from this story.  As I am sure you can imagine, since I've come up with so many new ideas while writing, my story has started to stray a bit from that shiny outline that I sat down and hammered out back in October.  Granted, I tried to leave that outline slightly vague in the first place, because while there were some specific scenes I envisioned that needed to be included, I didn't have the entire story worked out beyond where I wanted it to more or less go.  So, I am not completely off the rails, but I am getting to that point where I haven't referred to my outline in a while, and I am just a teensy bit scared to look at it and see what I've totally left out and how much I've veered from my original plan.

Not that veering is a bad thing.  An outline is just that, an outline.  It's a set of steps, a path, if you will, for your characters to try to follow over the course of the story.  But just like any path, there are forks, and detours, and you can't always know where or when those will crop up.  Sometimes you just have to leave the established road and hope that you end up where you need to be, whether that's where you thought you were going or not.  I honestly have never really been big on using outlines in my story-writing in the first place, so I am really not surprised that this one has ended up not dictating my every scene.  Still, just having it has been more than helpful, especially when I would find myself stuck on where to take my characters next.

I do think I need to sit down and do one more review of my outline, and of my story notes, and then compare it to where my story is right now.  From there, I am going to make new,  retroactive outline of what has actually happened, and what there is left to do, and hopefully I can bring this puppy home.  As I've said before--starting stories is never something I've had a problem with.  Finishing them, well, that's my challenge.  That's why I am doing this.  But, that means that I have now officially entered the hard part of the process.  Whee!

I do have to say, I truly am really really glad that I decided to participate in NaNoWriMo this year.  The reason I started this blog back up was because, in not writing regularly, I really felt like I was missing some crucial element of me, and doing this, as stressful as it has been at times (self-imposed stress is still stress), has really made me feel so much better about myself than I have in a very long time.  I've learned something very important about myself this month.  Writing is in my soul, and writing stories, whether they are excellent, or complete crap, or even unfinished, is something that I need to be doing on a regular basis. 

Of course, so is playing video games, apparently.  I am just itching to jump back into that particular part of my life.  Finding a balance between that and story-writing should prove an interesting challenge, but as we start to close the books on this year, I feel like it is one I am up to.

I have been debating with myself over which game to pick up and play once I finish my story, and I think I have chosen Kingdom Hearts.  It is the "great unfinished" challenge in my video game playing history.  I have started this thing so many times.  Seriously, I've been trying to beat it since 2002 or 2003.  (Look, I have never once said that I am a good video game player.  This game was actually one of my gateway drugs into the pastime, and I have leveled up considerably since then.)  I had already decided that 2011 was the year that I was finally going to finish it.  But, in the wake of setting a goal and finishing a story within a given period of time, I am wondering if it might not be possible to actually do the same with this video game.  If I could manage to beat it before the year is out?  Well, that'd just be the icing on the cake.

Word Count Update: 42,116 out of 50,000

Austin Bound!

That's right, kids and kiddos, in just a few short hours my husband and I are heading down to Austin, TX for a long weekend, and I am super stoked.

This is my first time to be away from Baby Girl overnight, ever.  So, in addition to being stoked, I am a teensy bit nervous as well.  But mostly the first one.  My super wonderful and spectacular mother-in-law not only agreed to watch her namesake while we're out of town, but she's also staying at our house with Baby Girl so her world isn't completely turned upside down by Mommy and Daddy disappearing for a few days.  This has the added bonus of solving the "who will take care of the kitties while we're gone?" conundrum as well.  Double score.  Have I mentioned that I love my mother-in-law oodles and lots?

I may have mentioned before that in addition to his really cool day job, my husband is also a gigging musician by night.  This is actually the reason we're going to Austin.  Occasionally he sits in on bass for the band The Frontier Brothers.  They are, to say the least, an interesting group.  Let's just say that Austin is the perfect place for them.  No, seriously, they're really good, I'm just still scarred by the first time I saw them, when the drummer played in a flesh-tone one piece skin-tight body suit.  That kind of thing sticks with you.  They are really nice guys though, and they asked if my husband could come down and play with them on Thursday and Saturday.  So instead of driving down to Austin Thursday afternoon, driving back Friday, then driving down there again on Saturday, he decided he would just stay for the weekend.  And then we got the idea to make it a couple's getaway. 

Since he was already going to be down there, he also got asked to play with Calhoun tonight, another band that he sits in with occasionally, who is playing the same gig with The Frontier Brothers.  This is super awesome news for me, because while I get a kick out of The Frontier Brothers, I love Calhoun.  I haven't gotten to go to one of my husband's gigs in a while, and this weekend I get to seem him play two.  I am really looking forward to it, provided I can stay awake for the shows, that is. 

In a happy coincidence, this happened on the weekend that the new Harry Potter movie comes out, and he has Friday night off!  So, while we're down there, we're also going to go see that.  We've already got our tickets.  Y'all, I haven't been to a movie with my husband since before my daughter was born.  Of the four whole movies I've seen in the theater since she came along, two were by myself and two were with a friend of mine.  So this is a pretty big deal.

Also on the plate while we're down there, besides a lot of relaxing and enjoying each other's company, and possibly going shopping for clothes (because that is for some reason how we roll), I am also planning to do two things:

1. Get a buttload of writing done.
2. Read most, if not all, of Towers of Midnight.

I am going to miss my daughter like crazy, and I have no doubt that I will be fighting the urge to call and check in on her a whole freaking lot.  But this is going to be pretty awesome.

In writing news, I think I finally figured out the actual sequence of events leading to the end of this story, which is awesome, since I've broken 30,000 words and that means it's time to start moving them toward the finish.  I had a vague outline, but now I actually know specific details, and that's super nice.  You guys, I just might be able to do this.  I am already thinking about next year's NaNoWriMo project.  It's gonna involve space ships.  I am debating, once November is over and I get into the actual editing/revising process (probably after the start of the year, which is disturbingly close), on whether or not to share my story on this blog.  Like maybe once a week I'll post a chapter.  I dunno, I am still kicking it around, but that might be coming your way.

Hey, did anyone watch Human Target last night?  I am so glad that it is back!  That was my favorite new show of last season.  Funnily enough, it was another of those shows that I totally wasn't going to watch at all.  The preview promos showed a lot of Tricia Helfer in the first episode, which tempted me, I'll admit, but it wasn't until I found out that David Nykl (Zelenka!) would be guesting in the first season that I decided to give it a try.  And I am so glad that I did, because not only did it blow me away and suck me in right off the bat, but the slew of guest casting that this show had in its first season was absolutely phenomenal.  I mean, imagine my surprise one Wednesday night earlier this year, when the preview for the next week's Human Target showed up, and Kavan Smith was featured all front and center!  Sure, he turned out to be the bad guy, and then, well, dead.  But still.  You know how I feel about any show that involves Kavan Smith.  And that was only the tip of the awesome casting iceberg.

I am pretty sure I should never be allowed to go to Vancouver.  I don't think I would want to leave, which is a shame, since I would probably be forcibly evicted for stalking half of the actors working there. 

Last night's episode kicked off season two extremely well, I have to say.  Plus, the stunt casting is already underway with not one, but two awesome actors.  First, there was the addition of Indira Varma to the show as a new member of the team.  I first noticed her in the short-lived 3 Lbs. but after that she started popping up in pretty much every show I watch.  It's crazy.  But a good kind of crazy, since I totally adore her.  I knew that she had been added to the show, but I did not know that Tahmoh Penikett was also guesting in the first episode of the season!  I was so happy when he walked into the room!  Of course, (spoilers!  highlight the block text to read!) I knew right away that his character was either the bad guy or was going to get killed before the end of the episode.  He was a good guy, but also a little stupid, so that meant he got killed.  Sigh.  I was kind of thinking, well, at least he wasn't the bad guy, after all, but, maybe if he had been, he could have been set up as the season's big bad.  I would have been totally down with that.  Oh well. At any rate, the new season status quo has been established and I am super geared up for more!  Also, can I just say that I love Guerrero?  He is awesome.  Yay for the return of good television!

Word Count Update: 33,455 out of 50,000

Oh, and don't forget to check out the new episode of Riese out today!  Click here to watch.

Can Spoilers Go Too Far?

Don't forget to watch the all new episode of Stargate Universe, tonight on Syfy at 8 pm CST!!!!!

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Also, check out the newest episode of Riese:  Kingdom Falling right here!

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Warning:  This post is about spoilers.  It might therefore be reasonable to assume that it contains spoilers.  

 (Mostly for Stargate Universe, but also a little bit for the BBC show Luther.)

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Spoilers, you say?

So, remember last week in my review of the SGU episode The Greater Good I said it pretty much looked like Ginn and Perry had been killed by Creepy Lucian Alliance guy? Then, the day after the episode aired, a bunch of people from the show (most notably David Blue and Joseph Mallozzi) went on the record telling us not to jump to conclusions, and we didn't know what we thought we know?

Sure, a couple of the trailers for tonight's episode have made it look pretty convincing that those characters are now ex-characters, but that could all just be down to editing.  Then, yesterday, I am perusing the weekly What to Watch article on io9, and imagine my surprise to find that this is the synopsis for tonight's episode:

Simeon makes his escape from Destiny after killing Ginn/Amanda Perry, sending Nicholas Rush on a vengeful mission. But Young and Greer attempt to retrieve Simeon unharmed.

Well.  That seems pretty darn definitive.  

Then, yesterday afternoon, I was catching up on Sunday's episode of Luther, which is a really fantastic miniseries that has been airing on BBC America for the last few weeks.  I was fast forwarding through the last commercial break of the episode and stopped when I got to what looked like the return of the show.

Except, that's not what it was. 

It was a preview for next week's episode, which for some reason BBCA decided to air before the episode was actually over.  In this preview, we see that Luther's wife Zoe has been murdered by his crooked cop pal and framed for the crime, and now Luther is on the run trying to prove his innocence.  My brain exploded a little bit.  When last I saw Zoe, before the break, she was alive and well.  After the preview, the episode wrapped up, giving us the big climactic scene wherein the crooked cop kills Zoe.  But the scene had lost all of the tension that the show had worked so carefully to create, because I had just seen an ad for next week and knew that Zoe didn't make it.  It really killed the end of the episode for me.  At least next week's ending won't be spoiled in the same way, since it's the final part of the series and there won't be any previews to show.  But still.

All of this got me thinking about spoilers and how they have wormed their way into the mainstream in the last few years.  Do television viewers truly not want any more mystery in their shows?  Is it just that the people who make the preview trailers aren't paying attention and put in something they think will grab viewers without realizing it gives away the ending of the episode?  

I really don't understand the thought process that went behind the programming decision to air the preview for the next week's episode before the episode had actually ended.  Granted, this series had already aired in its entirety across the pond in Britain earlier in the year.  Maybe somebody just figured that it was technically a rerun and spoilers were off the table? 

Then again, BBCA isn't the only network doing that, now that I think about it.  Psych on USA usually had their ad for next week before the last bit of the show as well.  Although usually the bit after the last break for that show is a wrap-up and all of the big reveals in the episode have happened already.

As far as preview trailers go, I know I've seen quite a few that have raised the ire of actors or writers from a given show.  They feel like they worked hard to make a really cool episode that would keep you guessing, and then someone with some editing tools somewhere went and cut together a teaser that doesn't tease but in fact totally gives it all away!  (The return of Carson Beckett in season four of Stargate Atlantis, anyone?)  What, then, is the point of bothering to watch the show?

The really good teasers do just that.  They hint at what the twist might be, and the best make you think it is something completely different from what it actually is, so that when you watch, you really get the full effect of the reveal.

I mean, I am all for spoilers for the most part.  I tend to see them as harmless fun that gets me excited for the new show.  I mean, heck, I read a daily article on io9 called Morning Spoilers after all.  But I very rarely read the whole thing.  I tend to skim, and only check out the entries for shows or movies that I like or am anticipating.  But if it's just an episode synopsis of, say, the sixth episode of the season that hasn't started airing yet, or an actual reveal about a big plot point, I try to skip it.  The spoilers I am usually looking for are casting scoops, or a general idea of where a show is headed for a season (as in, the vague overarching plot).

So, I guess when I say I like spoilers, I mean I like hints.  The problem is that the hints tend to get roped in with the really big ruiners and it can be hard to separate them without stumbling across some of the latter.  Sure, it's my own fault for reading the spoilers page in the first place, or the comments on a discussion thread or whatnot, but I do like to have a general idea of what could happen.  It's knowing that something is probably coming, but not knowing how it's gonna end up happening that makes it worth watching.

I have this problem with books a lot too, actually, because I read so many series.  I remember one of the first fantasy series I really dug into in college, I had read the first two books (out of six) and went to the store to pick up the rest of the series before I went out of town on a trip.  I read the back jacket of the fourth or fifth book, and it totally gave away the ending of the book I was reading at the time.  I was so appalled!  What made it worse was that it was a plot development I had seen coming and was really hoping would end up not happening.  So I was grumpy reading the whole rest of that book.  Now, I don't even look at the back cover (or inside flap) of books in a series unless it is the first book and I am trying to decide whether to pick up the series or not.  I realized the other day when putting away a book I had read multiple times that I had never read the story blurb on it.

But sometimes, even if you're someone who goes out of your way to avoid spoilers, you can't escape them.  Like when it's right there in the commercial before the show is over (and the networks are pushing you to watch things live), or when the usually spoiler free preview for next week instead gives away the big reveal at the end of the episode.  Heck, I love the author Jim Butcher, and as much as I enjoy The Dresden Files series, I completely adore his Codex Alera series so much more.  But once I read the first couple of books, and looked at the titles for the next few books, I realized that the actual titles of the books themselves are kind of a spoiler.  It's crazy!

I have really struggled with this in my reviews of the Star Wars Republic Commando series that I have been doing on this blog.  I've tried to discuss the primary plot of each book without giving away any of the really cool stuff that actually happens in the story.  For example, there's one plot line throughout the series which I totally left out of my review, as much as I wanted to expand upon it, because I just felt it would not be doing right by the readers to tell them that it happened before they read the book. 

I'm just left wondering, can spoilers actually go too far?  It's right there in the name, isn't it?  Spoilers.  If you're looking at something labeled "spoilers" aren't you asking to find more than you're probably looking for?  I do know that it's not fair to inflict spoilers on someone who isn't suspecting them.

I know, I know, life isn't fair.  Sigh.  But don't you kind of wish it was?

Anyway, I don't really have any answers on this topic, it has just been on my mind, and I wondered if anyone else hangs out in the middle of spoiler-land like I do.  I'll just be floating around, trying to figure out the best way to cope without letting all of my fun get ruined, I suppose.

No word count update today.  I did a lot of world-building yesterday but no actual writing, sadly.  On the other hand, I now know exactly what the paper is made of in the various countries in my story.  I also know what kind of fabric they use and what they eat, and how their language evolved.  Whee!  In that sense, my word count from yesterday is huge, because I added to my notes like crazy, but nothing in the story sad to stay.  Still, I am right about on track, and I think at this point it's very important to get my ducks all in a row in the notes so that I don't have to stop to look things up when I really get into the wrapping-up part of things.

Ta ta for now, folks.  Join me tomorrow, when we'll find out if Ginn and Perry really are dead or not.  (And you'll get to see me express my rage or amazement about how it was pulled off if they really are still alive.)

Stargate Thursday: The Greater Good (Revisited)

I know, I know.  Two days about the same episode of Stargate?  Really?  But, I want to take a few minutes to "update" yesterday's SGU review based on some links I stumbled across on the webs.  Notably here and here.

Apparently, I may have jumped the gun in calling Perry's (and by extension Ginn's) death.

In the Q & A section of his blog, SGU writer and executive producer Joe Mallozzi had this tidbit:

Kassian writes: “Please, please can you tell me something regarding her story arc, because I love Julies charakter Ginn and it´s just heartbreaking what happened to her.”

Answer: What happened to her?  If you think you know, think again because this is science fiction, after all.  Anything can happen.  And will.

And also this one:

Nathan writes: “Those guards should’ve been completely focused. Any thoughts as to why there was no guard with him???”

Answer: Now that you mention it, that IS strange.  After all, we did establish the fact that all Lucian Alliance prisoners are only been permitted out of their quarters with an armed escort.  What happened to Simeon’s guard?  Hope he’s okay.  Well, guess we’ll find out next week.  I mean

On his Facebook page David Blue (who is notoriously anti-spoilers of any kind, which is totally his prerogative but bears mentioning here) had this to say:

David Blue BTW guys, avoid teasers/trailers/sneak-peeks of next week's all-new SGU ("Malice"). It'll just ruin things for you, or make you think things that aren't true. Watching it clean is always best. And, can I just tell you, Robert Carlyle gives an amazing performance in this one. ;)

All of this seems to be trying to say that Creepy LA Guy did not, in fact kill Perry/Ginn.  Now, as I said yesterday, while the end of the episode is a fade-to-black so we don't know exactly what happened, the teaser trailer for next week's episode seemed to pretty much explicitly state that they died at the end of this episode. I do acknowledge it has been a method long in use to tweak the scenes in trailers to make it seem like something happens that really doesn't at all, just to get potential viewers to tune in and find out.  I will give you that.  Maybe that's the case here, and I, like many many other people jumped the gun in making an assumption.  BUT, I can't imagine what other way it could have gone down from the ending where Creepy LA Guy is advancing on Perry.  In that situation, his only recourse to stop Ginn from spilling her guts to Homeworld Security is to kill Perry in Ginn's body, therefore killing both women.

I included the bit from Mallozzi's blog about Creepy LA Guy's guards because I wonder if maybe that isn't the answer and Mallozzi was trying to give us a clue.  Maybe right after the scene cuts away, the guard(s) catch up to him and save Perry, and it's some other "she" entirely who is dead next week.  But that all seems a bit eleventh hour to me.  Don't get me wrong, I like Ginn.  A lot, actually.  And I hope for Eli's sake that she's alright.  But if she is, there had better be a damn good explanation for how she and Perry survived the confrontation with Creepy LA Guy.

It is entirely possible, of course, that Mallozzi and Blue are just trying to throw us off the scent.  Mallozzi certainly doesn't deny that they died.  He just says that it's unlikely that what we think happened is what actually happened--which could mean anything.  And as I've mentioned already, Blue really really really hates spoilers.  I wouldn't put it past him to deny a story element right up until it airs if he believes that people thinking they know what's going to happen will cause them not to tune in.  Again, totally his right to feel that way, I am not judging.  It is just a plausible explanation for the comments above if Creepy LA Guy turns out to have really killed those women.

I said yesterday I couldn't wait for next week's episode, and now that is even more the case.  On a positive note, this week's viewership saw an increase (huzzah!), which hopefully means that next week will stay strong or (knock on wood) rise again, considering this episode left us hanging in a rather artfully suspenseful manner.

Nerds in love (and leather). 

In other news, as it is Thursday, there is a new episode of Riese up to watch, yay!  I forgot to link to Tuesday's episode (bad Cori).  So, here are the links to both:

Riese Episode 5

Riese Episode 6

I am really enjoying this web series so far.  Though, I do think the addition of the narrator, as much as I love Amanda Tapping, is way too intrusive.  It feels like they are trying to dumb it down for an everyman audience or something.  This is, by the way, just one more example of how Syfy doesn't actually understand its audience (or even try to, really).  I think it's a pretty safe bet that anyone who is going to go to the Syfy website twice a week to watch a web series is intelligent enough to infer some things that are shown on the screen without dialogue to explain them in detail.  In fact, I'll even go so far as to say that a lot of us prefer to work some of these things out on our own, as it makes the show more interesting.  Some people have been griping about the addition of the map, to show where each character is, but I kind of like that.  Granted, I am one of those people who gets super happy when I crack open a new book and see a map inside of it.  I think maps are pretty spiffy as a general rule.  Sigh.  But still, I wholeheartedly support this endeavor, and would love to see it have enough online popularity to go the full television series route like Sanctuary did.  Riese would be an excellent addition to Syfy's scant genre lineup.

On the plus side, however, it is great to see Alessandro Juliani play someone awesome again (so far at least).  His character was hands down my favorite on the recent Battlestar Galactica series until his character took an unfortunate (understandable, but still one I couldn't get on board with) turn in the last season.  In fact, if they make Riese a television series, they could make it all about Alessandro Juliani, and I would be a happy Cori. 


Word Count Update:  21,054 out of 50,000

Out With the Old, In With the New

TUESDAY PSA:  Don't forget, new episodes of Stargate Universe and Caprica tonight on Syfy starting at 8 p.m CST!!!

With The Guild wrapped up for another season, and the Legend of Neil series finale getting ready to air tomorrow, there is a sad empty spot in my heart that was once filled by web series.  But, never fret!  Syfy has the answer (scary as that may seem)!  A new web series is premiering today on the Syfy website called Riese:  Kingdom Falling.  Here's the "about" blurb for the series:

Riese: Kingdom Falling takes place in Eleysia, a dying kingdom where distrust and anxiety have clouded people's minds, causing a regression into primitive ways of thinking. Rituals and mythology have resurged, and the darker side of mankind has begun to reveal itself. Riese, a wanderer, travels across the decaying land with her wolf, Fenrir. Marked as a heretic by religious group The Sect and the new Empress, Riese must evade their assassins and discover their true intentions for Eleysia.

Narrated by Amanda Tapping (Sanctuary), the series stars a cavalcade of talent from the world of popular speculative drama including Christine Chatelain (The Bone Collector); Sharon Taylor (Stargate Universe); Ben Cotton (Harper's Island), Allison Mack (Smallville); Ryan Robbins (Caprica); Patrick Gilmore (Stargate Universe); Alessandro Juliani (Battlestar Galactica) and Emilie Ullerup (Sanctuary).

Of course, this isn't actually a new series.  Riese was running under it's own steam for at least one whole story arc before the creators brokered a deal with Syfy and pulled all the episodes off the air so it could be retooled and they could have exclusive rights to it.  I watched the first episode about a year ago and was very intrigued.  I didn't get a chance to delve too deep into it before it was pulled though, so I am really excited that it has come back.  I can only hope Syfy does it justice.

Though looking at their website I can already see a big issue.  They don't seem to understand that part of what makes web series so popular is that they don't follow the BS scheduling practices of network and cable television.  They've got its scheduled "air time" plastered all over the page--which isn't until 11 pm CST.  What the heezy?  Sigh.  Once the episode is up, it should be available for viewing at any time though (hopefully), but still.  Come on, Syfy, don't jerk us around and try to make us dance to your schedule--that defeats the whole purpose of a web series.  If I get excited because Tuesday is web series day, that means I get excited because I can hop on my computer at any point on Tuesday and watch my shows, not have to wait until the end of the day or the next day for you to get it put up.  At that point, you may as well just decide that Riese day is Wednesday, not Tuesday.  I really do want this series to succeed though, because it truly does have a fantastic cast--those listed above don't even start to list all of the awesome people involved. 

But this just reminds me again that the heyday of the SciFi Channel is long long gone.  There was the name change, of course.  I'm not going to get into my rant about that, it's been done already and often, and has been done well.  Plus, there's the wrestling thing.  Look, I am not a fan of professional wrestling.  I really just don't get the appeal.  Many people I know (my brother-in-law in particular) love it, and I am totally cool with that.  Not everybody enjoys science fiction on the level that I do, after all.  To each his own.  BUT.  Syfy is supposed to be a specialized cable channel.  Changing the spelling of your name doesn't change the expectations a name like "Syfy" is going to give your viewers.  The programming decisions that the network has been making over the last several years has made it very clear to me that the people now running the show don't believe there is an economically sustainable demand for a purely science fiction and fantasy channel.  So they've got this Ghost Hunters crap, and they've got wrestling.  And they keep making ridiculously substandard monster and disaster movies instead of devoting those resources to well-done series.

Update:  It looks like the first episode is already up and can be watched here.  Thank goodness for Ryan Robbins' FB account keeping us all in the loop!  Though, this does make me wonder, why the heck do you even have an air time listed on your website at all Syfy?  

The decision to move Stargate Universe and Caprica to Tuesday nights is another clue that the people running the show don't really care about the actual scifi programming anymore.  They moved the shows primarily because they got Friday night wrestling and didn't want to risk losing any of those shiny new viewers by changing the night of the program, so they decided instead to screw over all of the existing viewers by canceling the long-standing SciFriday and shunting our programming to Tuesday nights.  The argument was that this should actually help these shows succeed because their summer programming does so well on Tuesday nights.  Okay, see, here's the thing, summer programming that is original is going to do better simply because it isn't reruns.  But your fall shows?  Why would you put them on against such a seriously stacked existing Tuesday night lineup on other channels?  An io9 article yesterday stated that SGU and Caprica are "circling the drain" and it made me bristle--but it's true.  The ratings have been abysmal.  The shows themselves have been outstanding, but there is simply too much competition on Tuesday nights for anyone who isn't a straight up fangirl/guy to bother about watching the shows live in the days of DVR.  The +7 day numbers for SGU, at least, are something like an additional 70%.  What does that say when 70% of your viewers aren't watching your show live?  It says it's on at a bad day and time.  The end of the year is coming up, and along with it the decision of whether or not to give these two shows new seasons.  I think the yea or nay here is going to say a lot about the network's devotion to its scifi programming, because the move to a new date should definitely be taken into account when they start crunching numbers.  I try to keep watching this channel, because the genre shows it does air are a lot of my favorites, but it is getting harder and harder to trust the people behind the scenes to look out for my viewing interests, I'll tell you that.

Hmm, well, that was a kind of unintended rant.  Sorry about that.  I'll wrap up with some costuming updates.  I only ended up having one party to go to last weekend because one got called on account of rain and rescheduled for a few weeks from now.  As predicted, no one at the party recognized my costume, but that's alright.  Here's a reminder of what I was going for:

Karen Gillan as Amy Pond

And here's what I ended up with:

Cori as Amy Pond

Considering I am a bit shorter and quite a bit rounder than Karen Gillan, I think I pulled it off rather well.  I do think however, that when I do wear this to a convention, I'll probably just go ahead and invest in getting my hair colored, because when push came to shove, I couldn't bring myself to wear the wig.  Here's what it looked like with the wig though, in case you're curious:

This wig adds +6 to Silliness.

And, to close things out on a happy note, here's another picture of a baby dressed as a giraffe.  

Baby Girl checks out her costume.

Enjoy your Tuesday, folks.

I'm Trying to Keep Up With My Brain Today

But really, it's been a bit difficult.  It's just been racing all over the place since yesterday.  This is largely because I got struck with the huge Mallet of Inspiration regarding my Halloween costume (which I need to have ready one week from today).  Until yesterday, I had been thinking that if I ended up dressing up for anything Halloweeny, I would just reuse my peasant/wench costume from a few years ago, because I hadn't felt like getting anything together.  Well, that's not entirely true.  I have been slowly figuring out how to put together a super cute Kaylee Frye (from Firefly) costume.  Here is the look I am wanting to achieve:

The second picture is her "basic" outfit, though I definitely want to complete it with accessories/hairstyle for the scene from the pilot, which you can see in the fist picture.  See, my husband and I have decided we would like to start going to genre/comic conventions every once in a while, and I thought it would be fun to have a costume put together that I would wear to these.  The main requirements of course would be that it be a costume of a character I love, be something that would be comfortable to wear (especially wandering around a convention hall for hours), and be something that I could put together with my limited sewing skills (i.e., that I could find all of the pieces and would need to make limited alterations to).  Kaylee fits the bill perfectly for all of this.  I had thought I might try to get the basics assembled for Halloween as a kind of test run, but quickly realized that I will need to do some serious searching to get this as close to accurate as I would like it to be.

So, I kind of fizzled out on getting Kaylee put together by this Halloween, though she is still very much on the back burner. 

Then, yesterday, I found out that the Halloween party tomorrow night that I couldn't go to has been moved back to next Friday, when I can go.  And I found myself suddenly in need of a costume.  I considered just recycling the peasant costume, but it's just a cheap store-bought ensemble.  It's got some potential, mind you, but I get the impression that the people throwing this party are a lot more serious about their Halloween costumes than I normally am.  So I was sitting on the couch thinking maybe I'd just check out the costume aisle when I go to the store next week and see if there was anything there that I could combine with my existing costume for something more interesting, when a little thought flickered through my brain.  I blinked, went "huh," and tried to go on about my life, but the thought turned around and came back for another, slower, pass. 

Amy Pond. 

For those not in the know, Amy Pond is the newest companion on the wonderful series Doctor Who.  The most recent season of Doctor Who has gotten a lot of scrutiny because there's been a new companion AND a new Doctor.  And both of them are portrayed by exceptionally young actors.  But I am in the group of fans that have absolutely loved Matt Smith's performance as the good Doctor so far, and that is at least in part to his companion, played by the amazing Karen Gillan.  Together they are just extremely adorable. 

But, back to costumes.  Amy wore a few different outfits throughout the season, naturally, but here's the one that stood out for me:

And I realized this would probably be super easy to put together in a week.  So since that thought occurred to me, I've been doing research online, tracking down items, making lists, and all of that.  It has paid off so far.  I have found the sweatshirt she wears (forum consensus is that it is this one), and there is a store in Dallas that carries it.  My husband has a gig in Dallas tomorrow and offered to head out early and pick up the shirt for me, so they already have one on hold for me!  I love my husband, he is truly awesome.  I've found a few good candidates for the miniskirt online (one of which is from Old Navy, so I can go to the store and actually try it on first), but I am first going to hit up some thrift stores today to see if I can find one there.  Given that it is Halloween time, I have high hopes that I can track down a decent and not too expensive red wig.  Other than that, it is just picking up the pantyhose, socks, and a headband, and hoping that I can track down some blue hi-top Chucks in an actual store so I don't have to pay the ridiculous price of express shipping.  Huzzah! 

I am not going to worry too much about accessories (i.e., jewelry) right now, but once the I get the season on DVD next month, I can keep an eye out for any other pieces I'll need to pick up down the road to perfect my costume.  That way I'll already have one con costume in the bag, and I won't have to feel any kind of pressure on taking my time assembling my Kaylee costume.  I am really quite pleased with myself, I have to say.  Part of me wants to use this as an excuse to justify getting that sonic screwdriver I've had my eye on, but technically that wouldn't be part of Amy's costume, so I will have to make myself wait on that. 

And yes, I do know that it is unlikely anyone at that party next week will recognize my costume.  But I'm okay with that, because I will know. 

Let's see, I have a few more tidbits for you before I let you go for the weekend.  Flick Filosopher linked to this amazing "intro" for Star Wars using the Macgyver theme music.  It is beautiful.  Check it out. 

Also, here's some more behind the scenes dirt from the making of the original trilogy for you. 

And in a slightly Star Wars related item, Joel Watson has a new shirt up in his Hijinks Ensue store, based on this comic strip.  Ewok Stare, I love it. 

Here's a sneak peak at the upcoming Syfy original movie Red:  Werewolf Hunter.  It's a re-imagining of Little Red Riding Hood starring Felecia Day and Kavan Smith.  I don't care if it's a cheesy made for TV Syfy flick, I am super stoked about this.  Felicia Day.  And Kavan Smith.  'Nuff said. 

Oh, and the web series Riese, that I wanted to start watching forever ago, but couldn't because they pulled it off the web for retooling, is coming back via Syfy.  That's pretty spiffy.  Plus, it now has added Amanda Tapping.  Never a bad thing, IMO.  

And lastly, it's Friday, so you should go check out the new Gronk strip. 

Now, go forth and enjoy your weekend.