calliopes_pen

Warren Stevens has passed away, at the age of 92, due to complications stemming from lung disease. May he rest in peace.

In Memory of Andy Hallett. He passed away three years ago today.

Fantasy themed B&B in Belgium. You can find a Jules Verne space-exploration room, Baba Yaga's hut, a troll's den, a Gaudi themed room, and what appears to be a Trojan Horse.

Dark Shadows reveals nine new, full-body character posters.

Three new hi-res images from Cabin In The Woods. New UK poster.

The 10 Most Baffling Moments In Lois Lane And Superman’s Love Life.

Ways To Screw Up The Avengers Movie.

CBS (and possibly J.J. Abrams) have put a stop to that long-lost Star Trek episode.

Looking back at Quantum Leap.

Free digital download of the first Shazam strip from Justice League.

Indiana Jones trilogy posters by Maxime Pecourt.

10 More of the Greatest Ghosts In Geekdom. Vigo makes the list.

Watch the press conference (from the Doctor Who Convention) with Matt Smith, Karen Gillan, and Arthur Darvill, Steven Moffat. and Caroline Skinner.

Benedict Cumberbatch is a wizard now. Is anyone really surprised?

Marvel Mash-Up Preview

Fox has renewed Bones for an eighth season.

Cartoon Network announces their schedule of new and returning shows—no sign of Thundercats, and no word as to whether it was cancelled just yet.

The Dark Fest deadline is tomorrow.

Bill Corbett has opened a kickstarter page to help finance a comic book he’s working on, called Super Powered Revenge Christmas.

The Firm moves to Saturday nights, while Awake takes its original timeslot.

Watch the opening scene from The Woman In Black.

Jane Levy is now in talks to play the female Ash for the remake of The Evil Dead.

A rare watercolor of Calvin and Hobbes is up for auction.

Here’s Alex Kingston on The Graham Norton Show.

Max Landis’ The Death And Return of Superman—somehow, he got Mandy Moore to play Lois, and Elijah Wood as the Cyborg Superman, with Simon Pegg and Ron Howard popping in for cameos.

William Shatner reacts to the death of the Priceline Negotiator.

Lindsey Sterling’s Lord of the Rings Violin Medley.

At dark_fest, they’ve posted the prompts, categorized by fandom. A-F. G-M. N-S. T-Z. Any Fandom. The prompt claiming post.

Doctor Who Friending Meme

Io9 remembers High Spirits. I loved that movie, Peter O’Toole was great in it, along with a then relatively unknown Liam Neeson.

The Greatest X-Men Crossover And Mash-Up Art.

10 Batman Webcomic Parodies (Occasionally) Better Than The Real Thing.

New images from The Amazing Spider-Man.

A question to my friends list, both on DW and LJ: When I cross-post, it just leaves the link to where it is located on the other site. However, I’ve seen other people have it set to tell how many comments there are, on each end. How do I do that?

Nicol Williamson passed away on December 16th, at the age of 75, following a two-year struggle with esophageal cancer. May he rest in peace. Sherlock Holmes fans will remember him in the lead role from The Seven Per-Cent Solution. He was also the Nome King/Dr. Worley in Return to Oz, Merlin in 1981’s Excalibur, Cogliostro in Spawn, and Father Morning in The Exorcist III. Despite Return to Oz scarring me when I was little, I catch it whenever it’s on Flix. The Seven Per-Cent Solution is one of my favorite Holmes movies.

Official White House petition to veto SOPA First link goes to the article, second to the actual petition—over 51,000 signatures as of the last time I checked. There’s also a petition to end ACTA.

6 Made Up Words That Made It To Common Usage, and 8 That Should.

Layman and McCrea relaunch Mars Attacks.

10 Most Undignified Deaths In Science Fiction And Fantasy.

Lily Collins will not be in the remake in the remake of The Evil Dead after all, due to a scheduling conflict.

Prompt submissions are open, over at dark_fest. Banners for spreading the word are located here.

New poster for The Raven. It almost looks like Edgar Allan Poe just became the new host for the Phoenix Force.

Dimestore Dames spotlights Sylvia Danvers.

An official synopsis for The Amazing Spider-Man.

ABC ordered a Beauty and the Beast pilot. Not to be confused with the one the CW just picked up.

The strange or ill-advised movie sequels that never were. Check out the insanity the Gladiator sequel would have been.

Adapting Sherlock: Series 2. This is a lovely article on the canon of the season, so if you haven’t watched the season yet, beware the spoilers.

Stan Lee reflects on 70 years in comics.

Another notification of a journal purging came through. This time, for kinross_shewolf. I only used that one briefly for a game that died, but I never posted in the journal. So I’m fine with that one being swallowed by Frank the Goat. (The username originated for me on Greatestjournal for a different game, before I moved stuff over to Insanejournal—just happened to use it once more here on LJ.)

Topless Robot is having a contest where you describe the worst RPG character you ever played or encountered. It looks to be mostly Dungeons and Dragons and World of Warcraft, neither of which I’ve never played. I didn’t start playing in any RPG’s until 2004, so I don’t really have any stories.

One of the next movies to get the Rifftrax treatment will be Highlander. I look forward to that.

Ducktales: An Epic History.

You can now claim prompts for dark_fest, over here.

There was a time back in 1994 when Katie Couric and Bryant Gumbel asked if someone could explain “what an internet was.” In the fall of 1994, I was just starting 9th grade and high school. I would have just turned 14, and I didn’t have a computer at home yet until a few months later--until then, back in middle school the most I really did with a computer at school was the occasional search, Oregon Trail, and Carmen Sandiego. And learning how to draw a circle in Microsoft Paint. In the dark, because of the teacher freaking out over power consumption, but that's a whole other story. And I still knew what @ meant. Mom says even she knew what @ meant back then.

Funny Sidenote: In 9th grade, I had my first typing class. We only had typewriters, and couldn’t afford computers until 10th grade. I discovered dial-up soon after.

Vh1 is showing Ghostbusters right now, starting at 4:30 PM CST. And it looks as though they are airing the Blu-Ray version. They aired the same version last night, too. Everything’s crisp and bright. When the Terror Dog’s eyes glow, it’s a much brighter red than other airings. The lightning is brighter. When the containment unit blows, it’s not as faded as in previous viewings. Someday, when I can afford a Blu-Ray player, I must buy this version.

Prompt submissions are now open at dark_fest.

From Cracked: Secondhand Nightmares: 10 Horrifying Thrift Store Finds.

Some new images from X-Men: First Class have been released, as well as the poster.

Selina Kyle (look carefully, it hasn’t said Catwoman in the press release—just Selina Kyle) and Bane will be the villains for The Dark Knight Rises. Anne Hathaway will be Selina Kyle, while Tom Hardy will be Bane. Rachel Weisz would have been my pick, but Anne Hathaway might be okay. Before anyone complains, just remember the uproar when Heath Ledger was cast as the Joker. I’ve only ever seen Hardy as Shinzon in Star Trek: Nemesis, so I should watch get around to watching Inception soon.

Io9 has written a great overview of Bane’s history in the comics.

For Regis’ replacement, I’ve seen the suggestions of Anderson Cooper, Kelly’s husband, Mark, and various other people—but what about John O’Hurley or Tom Bergeron?

A huge thanks to the current highest bidder (misura, at $6) in my thread at qldfloodauction. Bidding closes on the 26th, if anyone wants to join in on offering fanfic or other items for the auction.

Submitting prompts for the next round of dark_fest begins January 18th.

If it’s actually true that Georgia Moffett and David Tennant are expecting their first child, then congratulations to them.

Just discovered: A 2500 Year Old Recipe For Celtic Beer. Is it sad that my first thought was Methos would either be pleased...or he was the one trying to hide it for himself all these centuries?

From Cracked: 5 Reasons There Must Be Corpses Under The Batcave.

I edited my offering for the auction at qldfloodauction just a little bit, to include these fandoms that I'm willing to write: The Librarian, Highlander: The Series, Merlin, Buffy, and Angel. Willing to completely ignore Highlander: The Source for the sake of everyone's sanity. If it hadn’t been so long since I had seen an episode of Xena, I would have included that. Would anyone actually want to see Mr. Boogedy fanfic? If so, I can throw add that into the mix, too.

For the flooding in Brazil, helpbrazil2011 has been set up.

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.

I’m now researching lunatic asylums of the late 1800’s for my dark_fest fanfic. Wikipedia turned up Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum, which has the longest corridor ever, taking 5 hours to walk. So if Holmes tried to escape from there during the night, he would still be trying come morning, unless he went out a window. I’ve also started digging through Victorian Era related tags over at little_details. I haven’t found a list of everything done to people in asylums back in those days, but I’ve found a few things to reference.

David S. Goyer is reportedly going to be writing a new Superman movie, while Christopher Nolan directs.

There’s a list of people who screen tested to be Captain America. Personally, I think Nathan Fillion would work better. Even Mark Valley (who I don’t like due to his extreme blandness during his stint on Days of Our Lives) would be better.

Prompt claiming over at dark_fest closes tonight at 11 PM CST.

The date the new season of Doctor Who begins on BBC America? April 17th.

And in other news, it was the starter that was the car’s problem. It’s fixed as of now, and Dad refused to pay them or leave until the clock was plugged back in, free of charge. The repairman wouldn’t tell Mom what the problem was with the car, because she was a woman. And that’s about when Mom drove off in it, leaving Dad behind to pay (he had his own car to get back in, so wasn’t stranded--he understood). She says it drives and starts fine now. Would have been bad if it wasn’t doing fine, as she attempted to storm off in it.

I finally signed up for dark_fest with this prompt: “Sherlock Holmes (2009), Holmes/Watson, AU, they say there's a fine line between genius and insanity, but this time "they've" drawn the line in the wrong place; Holmes is in a mental institution, his doctor, Watson, has to break him out.”

I finally got around to watching the movie the other day. I’ll be doing research on how insane asylums of the times were, just to make sure I have everything straight about that.

For anyone still interested in grabbing a prompt, you have until tomorrow to do so. There are a good number of prompts left for Merlin, Ghostbusters, Highlander, Doctor Who, Sherlock Holmes, Torchwood, and many other fandoms.