calliopes_pen

Leading ‘Ethical’ TV Show BitTorrent Tracker Shut Down By FACT. The site in question is UKNova.

Rapidshare Goes Down Locally.

Dropbox upgrades security with two-factor authentication.

Karl Kesel, Marvel Comics Writer, Sells Comic Book Collection For Adoption Of Baby With Heroin Exposure.

Fan Expo Canada: Marvel’s X-Men Panel In Art.

Fan Expo Canada: Darwyn Cooke vs. Amanda Conner…To The Death, But Not Really.

Fan Expo: James Marsters and Juliet Landau Look Back On Buffy.

Geoff Johns and David Finch add Stargirl, Catwoman, and more to the brand new Justice League of America.

The Abandoned An’ Forsaked—So How Many Ice Maidens Are There?

Frantic as a cardiograph scratching out the lines, Day 239: Detective Comics #610.

When We First Met—The Life Of Roy Harper.

Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain will return.

17 Fictional TV Towns With Personality.

David Hadju reads from The Ten-Cent Plague.

Comics in the classroom: news and resources round-up.

Hobbyist builds working S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier.

5 Horror Movies With Horrible Endings.

Dancing With The Stars: Sabrina Bryan wins viewers’ choice vote.

Deadpool Pie.

Probably Not What Batman Would Carry: Batarang Knives.

Mighty Axes and Beer-Soaked Beards: The Portrayal of Dwarves In Fantasy.

The first five pages of Justice League #12.

The Dark Knight Rises Box Office Update.

Superman on TV: From August 27th, to September 2nd.

Michael Dorn Talks Trek, Kickstarter, and More, Part 1. Part 2.

Doctor Who Prequel: Pond Life, Part 1.

A Warm Welcome For Doctor Who In New York.

More Pics of Carrie Before And After Her Blood Drenching.

Freddie Wong and Brandon Laatsch recreate a scene from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Steampunk Madam Vader Cosplay.

4 Cool New Posters For American Horror Story: Asylum.

Comics Alliance Reviews X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), Part One.

Kevin Feige On Why Guardians of the Galaxy Was Greenlit; Seemingly Confirms Thanos.

Perhaps the most disturbing cereal ad ever filmed.

Watching reruns can actually help restore willpower.

Continuum renewed for second season. Now when will the U.S. get it?

Norman Bates’ mother has been cast in A&E’s Psycho tv series: Vera Farmiga.

Jo Blo Podcast Commentary: Jaws (1975)

Film Sack Podcast #128: Wild Wild West.

Weirdly, I was just nominated for the Wicked Awards for a ship_manifesto essay I wrote for Angel/Darla back in 2006. I have until September 1st to accept or reject this nomination. Looking through it now, I see almost all of the links are dead (a couple went to Geocities) and gone, several fanfic sites turned to dust, and at least one journal has been deleted and purged. I’m leaning towards rejecting this nomination due to the fact it wouldn’t be of any practical use to people these days, and is barely an overview.

Demonoid Faces Prolonged Downtime After DDos Attack.

Either Romana Or Fred: Remembering Mary Tamm.

DirecTV spot with John Cleese.

TARDIS “materializes” at Olympic Opening Ceremony.

Burning Question Answered: Did The Doctor Light The Olympic Flame?

New Doctor Who Trailer Coming August 2nd.

Short trailer for season 5 of Merlin.

5 Batman Villains Who Deserved The Christopher Nolan Treatment. Mild spoilers for The Dark Knight Rises.

I Love Ya But You’re Strange—Batman’s Moron College Friends.

Grant Morrison’s Guide To Batman On the Big Screen: 1950’s Batman Serial.

Warner Bros. tones down the guns in Beware The Batman cartoon.

Rare Batman Comics That Everyone Should Read.

The Dark Knight Rises: Description of a Deleted Scene With Miranda Tate And Lucius Fox. While this scene could be considered a very mild spoiler, I suggest you avoid the comments entirely if you haven’t seen the film. Several comments give away major plot points.

A guide to the fantastical work of Joe Dante.

Interview with the developer of the Manos game.

Comic Book Legends Revealed #337.

New Rifftrax VOD Title: Future Force.

Marvel Cancels Thanos: Son Of Titan Mini-Series.

Robert Kirkman On The Future Of The Walking Dead.

Alexa Vega joins Machete Kills—and so does Lady Gaga.

Todd McFarlane Spider-Man Cover Sells For $675,250.

Writer of Steel: 10 super-names for Action Comics.

An Ode To Jasper Fforde: Introducing His Works and Worlds.

How To Watch Battlestar Galactica.

20 Things We Love About Babylon 5.

Young And The Restless Replaces Head Writer.

The CW Looking To Bring Battle Royale To The Small Screen As A Weekly Series.

Is Indiana Jones Dead At Last? Crystal Skull Was Indiana Jones’ Last Hurrah, Frank Marshall Says.

What If 60s/70s Marvel Comics Had DC Comics Covers?

Dancing With The Stars Cast Revealed.

Franka Potente joins American Horror Story.

Director And Cast Talk About The Possession.

The best cult shows on TV—what’s your #1?

Weekend Discussion Thread: MSTed Movie Characters In Olympics

Kerrith Johnson Casts Superheroes And Their Alter Egos In Motivational Posters.

The CineFiles- Cronenberg Films, Part 2.

Fake Stan Lee vs. Comic Con 2012.

Bad Movie Fiends Podcast #135: Deathstalker II: Duel Of The Titans (1987). After which, they have a brief discussion of The Dark Knight Rises. So if you’re not interested in hearing about that, stop listening at the 45 minute mark, or skip ahead to 53 minutes.

Movie Issues Podcast: Commando (1985).

Schlock Treatment 86: Murder, She Wrote: A Very Good Year For Murder.

Thursday evening, following a severe thunderstorm, Comcast accidentally snipped a fiber optic cable. Service wasn’t resumed for the area until earlier today.

The network presentation for the unaired Buffy pilot. whedonesque discusses it here.

Why Space Cases deserves more love.

The Anon Or Not Love Meme.

The list of people joining Dancing With The Stars was announced last night. They are: Ron Artest, Kristen Cavallari, Chynna Phillips, David Arquette, Carson Kressley, Nancy Grace, Robert Kardashian, Elisabetta Canalis, Chaz Bono, Hope Solo, and J.R. Martinez. I cannot stand Nancy Grace or the Kardashians, so I doubt I’ll be watching this season.

The people appearing on this season of Dancing With The Stars were revealed last night. They are: Chelsea Kane, Petra Nemkova, Ralph Macchio, Lil Romeo, Sugar Ray Leonard, Chris Jericho, Hines Ward, Mike Catherwood, Wendy Williams, Kendra Wilkinson, and Kirstie Alley. So not really anyone I would be interested in seeing on there.

New on-set pictures of Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man.

Two new posters for X-Men: First Class.

10 Ridiculous Life-Sized Role-Play Toys. Toys for kids, and nothing else if anyone is worried by that title.

Craig Ferguson covers Gallifrey One.

Anne Hathaway confirms it’s Catwoman in The Dark Knight Rises.

The next season of Doctor Who will be split into two parts.

The Pirates of Darkwater has been released on DVD.

jubella is hosting an anonymous love meme. My post is here.

Remember the TARDIS sitting on the Little Dome at MIT? Well, it moved to the top of The Great Dome.

The History of Rachel Summers Explained In Comic Form.

The cast for this season of Dancing With The Stars has been announced. They are: Brandy, Jennifer Grey, Margaret Cho, Audrina Patridge, Florence Henderson, Bristol Palin, Michael Bolton, The Situation, David Hasselhoff, Kurt Warner (who I keep reading as Kurt Wagner), Kyle Massey, and Rick Fox. The only one that might be worth watching is Jennifer Grey. Maybe Florence Henderson or Brandy. Otherwise, I’m not really interested this season. I’ll likely not watch until The Situation’s gone. Also? I have the horrible feeling that because of who her mother is, Bristol will win.

Over at dark_fest, omorka wrote Touching The Light. It’s in the Ghostbusters fandom—the prompt I gave was "Ghostbusters, Zuul decided Peter was a better (strategy-wise, anyway) host, during the battle in the first movie. Things get worse from there." If you want a dark story where things get oh, so much worse for everyone starting with things being different when Zuul tries to seduce Peter, then I highly recommend this one. I loved it. Walter Peck gets a larger role in events than just opening the containment unit and trying to get them arrested, and that’s all I’m saying, since I don’t want to spoil anything.

A casting spoiler for The Sarah Jane Adventures.

A couple of clips from the next episode of Doctor Who.

Over at ontdcreepy, they have a weekly post for creepy things that have happened to people over the years. Here’s just a taste of the weirdness that happened to me in the hospital, back in 2008. Accidentally left out the time the fire alarm went off three times, because someone had a coffee maker that kept literally going up in flames. That’s not supernatural, though, that’s just rotten luck.

Last night, I had a choice—watch Dancing With The Stars and their weird little Movie Night theme, or watch Top Gear, as they struggled to survive the rain forests and everything else across South America. I chose Top Gear, and I’m pretty sure I made the right choice. Even if only for Hammond’s bug-related freakout as they traveled through the rain forest, and Clarkson sinking in the mud. Part 1 of that special is here.

10 Completely Insane Foreign Knock-Off Films.

Io9 interviewed the people that created TV Tropes.

The 9 Greatest Sleazy Characters From 80’s Movies. Walter Peck makes the list, along with Biff Tannen.

Found via wisteria_, and I told seandc I would post the links for him: The Norwegian Alpine Ski Team performed Beat It. As a dance-off, the French team then performed Thriller. Followed by the Norwegian team dancing to Smooth Criminal.

You can now claim prompts for the Doctor/Jack ficathon over at wintercompanion. You can claim spoiler-filled prompts here, and spoiler-free prompts here.

The list of people on Dancing With The Stars has been revealed. I don’t think I really care for anyone there—and I just keep seeing Shannen Doherty going insane and killing them all when she gets stressed.

In other news, I was considering doing a sequel to the story I posted yesterday. If I do write it, it will just have to wait a little bit until I finish the stories for dark_fest and help_haiti.

The 15 Dumbest Superhero Retcons Of All Time.

Top 10 fantasy novels that haven’t been made into movies (but should be). Good Omens is on the list.

From Cracked: 5 Horrific Ways Your Brain Can Turn On You Without Warning.

Edward Woodward has passed away, at the age of 79. May he rest in peace. At first, I thought he played Watson in the Jeremy Brett version of Sherlock Holmes—but no. I was mixing him up with Edward Hardwicke. He played Sherlock Holmes in Hands of a Murderer, which is one Sherlock Holmes movie I have been trying to track down for years, without success.

Going by what I’ve read on Io9, a three-minute clip from the next episode of Doctor Who will air on Friday, as part of the BBC’s Children in Need. Before clicking on the link that mentions it, just know that there are major casting spoilers (and a vague sort of spoiler from RTD) for who is showing up in End of Time, if you’re avoiding those. And for anyone out there that hasn’t seen the trailer for End of Time, you can watch it here.

I’m good with Joanna being sent home on Dancing With The Stars. With Joanna, it always seemed like there wasn’t any (or wasn’t very much, if there was) emotion in her dances. I’ve heard mentions that her feet weren’t quite right in the dancing, and she could have benefited from a bit of ballet, and I think I agree. With her last dance right before the credits, the version of Hallelujah played sounded so familiar, and was driving me nuts (along with Mom, since she recognized it, too) as I tried to place it. Someone at dwts said it was played during Shrek, so that’s where we’ve heard it before.

Of the ones left, I prefer Kelly Osborne, since she seems to have grown the most. If not her, then Donny Osmond. It might just be me, but it seems Mya really hasn’t changed skill-wise from week to week.

And in Yuletide related news, I suddenly had an idea, and now I know exactly what I’m going to be writing in the fandom I was assigned. I’ve already written down a bit of a plot outline, and I’ll finish it up later. Just need to think of a title, and a few more details, and I’ll get started on the writing itself.

Of all the footage I’ve been seeing of the sandstorm in Australia, I find this one to be one of the most amazing. And over at Io9, you can find at least one more video in the comments to this post.

And for those that are interested, I stumbled across a site called Comic Book Movie Fansites, where someone named TheHawk compiled a list of pretty much everyone (I think a few of the Exiles, and a few from Generation X are missing) in the X-Men and Justice League comics, and who should play them. 108 characters from the Justice League. 330 X-Men characters. Some of the ideas are pretty good. A few are horrible, but others might actually work

Regarding Dancing With The Stars, I’m glad that Macy Gray went home. I think the reason Tom Delay didn’t go home, was because of what I like to call The Cloris Leachman Effect. Ashley Hamilton was awful, anyway, so it’s good that he went.

I’m working on the plot (from the prompt I’ve mentioned over in this post, if anyone missed it) of the Support Stacie fanfic. I also need to think of a good title. Any ideas? A Slap Is Worth A Thousand Words is the only one I’ve been able to think of so far, because at some point Jackie (or Donna, or Martha—while the clone wisely sits back and watches in amusement, grateful it’s not him) will slap the Doctor for even entertaining the notion of running away from everyone.

Sarah Michelle Gellar finally gave birth to a baby girl. Her name is Charlotte Grace Prinze.

Embedding videos on LJ was disabled for a while—here’s why. Personally, I’ve always hated embedding videos, and prefer to just link to things. For some people—like me a for a while there a year or so back, when IE crashed whenever it encountered them on my friends page —their browsers just don’t like embedded videos.

ETA: I've just gone through and checked, and I don't believe that my account was affected by this. There is now a news post about it, over here.

I got my prompt from wendymr and The Shadow Proclamation, for the Support Stacie Auction, and I love it. Before I get started on it, I’ll rewatch The Stolen Earth and Journey’s End one more time. Here’s the prompt: “The final 10 minutes of Journey’s End: Jack, Rose, Donna and the Duplicate Doctor gang up on Ten to make him change his mind about running away from everyone. OT3 conclusion, with or without the Duplicate and Donna on the scene, would be lovely.”

Did anyone else watch Dancing With The Stars last night? I was wondering how Kelly Osborne was going to do, since she seemed like she had grown up quite a bit. She was fantastic.

In contrast, I’m hoping that Macy Gray (from the male celebrities, I want Tom Delay to be kicked off) goes home tonight, as it’s obvious she doesn’t want to be there.

And now, a meme, taken from a few people on my friends list:

Give me the title of a story I've never written, and feedback telling me what you liked best about it, and I will tell you any of: the first sentence, the last sentence, the thing that made me want to write it, the biggest problem I had while writing it, why it almost never got posted, the scene that hit the cutting room floor but that I wish I'd been able to salvage, or something else that I want readers to know.

In honor of Patrick Swayze, the results show of Dancing With The Stars (on the 23rd) will apparently perform a special dance tribute. Oh, and thanks to mst3k, I also found a clip of A Patrick Swayze Christmas—a skit that MST3K did. You can watch it here.

Battleship—yes, the game—is being made into a movie. And the comments in yendi’s post about it are simply priceless.

I just received my creature prompt and two secret prompts (you take inspiration from two covers of pulp novels this round) for the spook_me ficathon. I’ll be writing something in the Doctor Who fandom. The creature prompt is Mad Scientist. The two secret prompts are Death Watch and Donovan’s Brain. With that second one, it keeps saying Forbidden when you click on it. However, if you cut off the url after /sf/, and then click on sfmisc, and from there click on bantam_819.jpg, you should see it.

stunt_muppet is hosting the Doctor Who Bite-Sized Comment Ficathon. Stories should be no longer than 40 words, and are posted in the comments.

I'll post the drabble for yamx either tomorrow or Friday.

The Shakespearean Heroes Science Fiction Should Steal From.

A Shaun of the Dead themed bar has opened in Minneapolis.

The best of science fiction’s oppressed species. It includes the Ood and the X-Men.

Some news has slowly been coming out about who each celebrity on Dancing With The Stars will be dancing with. Cheryl Burke is apparently being paired with Tom DeLay. She deserves better.

For those that are interested in the remake of The Wolfman, you can watch the trailer over here.

The 20 Greatest Shows Canceled By Fox Before Their Time. whedonesque has a discussion of it here.

The Support Stacie Fanfic Auction starts again in September. I’m actually considering signing up for this round.

There’s a new David Tennant interview—you can watch it here.

The celebrities that will be on the newest season of Dancing With The Stars have been announced. You can read who they are here.

Sony has commissioned scripts for Spider-Man 5 and 6, despite not having one finished yet for Spider-Man 4.

The Syfy Channel is aware of its own ridiculousness, says Io9.

In other news, today is my birthday. I went with Mom and Dad to the restaurant that I occasionally like to go to—we’ve been going there for over 10 years, and it’s nice. We did that today, and I was in the middle of drinking some iced tea after a refill and I saw…something in my glass, near my straw. At first I thought it was a weird reflection on the ice, and eventually pulled it out.

I hope people can see where this is going.

Not ice--it was a bug. No, not a roach or a fly--it was long and brown, and it had wings. Cue me fleeing to the bathroom to scrub, while Mom got the waitress. The waitress (not the usual one we get, since she had the day off for once) got the manager.

She knows us, since we’ve been going there so long. A whole lot of apologies and double our money back (given to me after it was given to Dad, since it was in my drink) later, and the manager said a company had come in to spray for bugs yesterday. It’s what they always do once a month as a precaution, and they’ve never seen anything before now. Apparently, one thing was missed (or it got in the building at some point) and fell in my drink and died when nobody was looking--since my drink was the first poured that day. They’re going to bring that guy in to check the place top to bottom again, just in case.

Meanwhile, someone had (somehow) stolen the soap dispenser. They were having it replaced as I went to the bathroom to wash my hands.

When Torchwood: Children of Earth airs on BBC America, it will air uncut.

The rumor of David Tennant being Bilbo Baggins was funny, even if it wasn’t true. He would have been the tallest Hobbit the world had ever seen.

There’s a rumor that Len Goodman won’t be on the next season of Dancing With The Stars. Reportedly, his replacement is Michael Flatley.

I discovered this in a comment somewhere on my friends list. The Sixth Doctor—apparently in a Big Finish Audio—singing (with back-up singers) to the tune of “I am the very model of a modern major general.” It’s changed to “I am the very model of a Gallifreyan Buccaneer.” It’s actually funny, and all of the lyrics he sings are in the user info on the right hand side at Youtube.

An interview with Joss Whedon, where he discusses the fact that Dr. Horrible got an Emmy nomination, as well as other subjects. A discussion of the interview can be found here, over at whedonesque.

In other news, someone was shooting fireworks last night. The problem is that these weren’t the kind that whistle. These were the kind that makes it sound as though a house (or transformer) nearby has just blown up. Imagine that happening at 9:30 PM, right as you’re going to sleep. Now imagine that happening every 30-45 minutes until around 2 AM. Not much sleep here. Going by what a neighbor said, it was possibly someone at least one street away. And then they started again around 7:15 AM, and went until 8:30-—I assume they used them all up by the time we left for church, since there’s been nothing since.

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I would have to say Doctor Who and Firefly/Serenity.

For those that haven’t seen the new Sherlock Holmes trailer yet, you can watch it here. And a couple of links to reactions in two Holmes related groups. I definitely won't be watching it, since I really don't care for Jude Law or Robert Downey, Jr. (And I keep typing Roma Downey, which makes it worse.) One point in its favor, however, would be that they haven't made Watson into an idiot--I liked his rant in the trailer about Holmes stealing his clothes.

Looks like Julianne Hough will likely be back on Dancing With The Stars next season after all. She’ll be leaving at some point, but not for good. In related news, I really think it would be nice if Dancing With The Stars would stick their finale from 7 PM to 9 PM CST, rather than from 8 PM to 10 PM. Didn’t they have it earlier a few seasons back? I seem to remember something like that.

Found via whedonesque--an interview with Joss Whedon. The whedonesque post can be found here.