...and I'm not counting the time I watched with commentary.

How the hell did I miss the line about the Nestenes bringing breast implants to life the first three?

...are posted everywhere, including Emerald City.

Check out the list. If you're interested in voting, read up, watch up, ask around and pre-register for a membership (supporting or attending; attending only matters if you're, well, planning to attend) to L.A.con IV.

BTW, just so you know (and I made this mistake myself):

Vote Splitting is a myth!

Hugo voting is by preferential ballot. If you want to see any episode of Doctor Who win the Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form, vote your favorite episode as #1, your second choice as #2 and your third choice as #3. If your #1 gets knocked out of the count early, you're still helping the other two towards the finish line.

Remember, 9:00 tonight (with a repeat at 11:00)

New Doctor Who on SciFi.

Watch it, or Tivo it, or record it, or whatever.

A letter to Charlie McCollum, TV columnist at the SJ Mercury News.

The longest-running science fiction series in television (coming in at 26 consecutive seasons) returns to American screens with the first new episodes in 16 years on March 17.

You would hardly know it, though. It's not like the SciFi channel is doing any serious promotion.

British children's thriller "Doctor Who" was revived last year by the BBC and "Queer as Folk" creator Russell T. Davies to critical and popular acclaim, It's been a rough year for US fans of the series, though, with no American outlets showing any interest in picking up the series until a mid-January announcement that SciFi would be putting it in the spot that "Battlestar Galactica" will be vacating when its season ends.

This actually has a bit of local interest. KTEH was one of the last PBS stations airing repeats of the classic (1963-1989) series, finally ending their run (I believe) about two years ago.

If you're intrigued enough to follow this up, Ken Patterson at KTEH is excellent resource. He could provide you with plenty of background.

Yes, those Hugos.

Again, for those who don't know:

The Hugo Awards (named for science fiction pioneer Hugo Gernsback) are a long-running series of Science Fiction Achievement Awards selected by popular vote of the fans registered for the WorldCon.

Registered members of Interaction and L.A.con IV are eligible to nominate works that were released/performed/published during 2005 for this year's Hugo awards.

On a general note, Emerald City (with much input from basfa) produces an annual Hugo Recommendations list. Fans get together and brainstorm about short stories, novels, television shows, movies and other publications that are eligible for award this year. NESFA does too, but they're out in the Northeast and their brains are frozen, so anything you read there you should take with a grain of salt.

If you've received your Hugo nomination ballot, and haven't any idea what to put on it, check out these lists. You might be reminded of something you read, something you saw or something you listened to that you might want to nominate. Don't just take the list's recommendation.

Being that I'm filled with the Gospel of Doctor Who, I'm going to pimp three specific nomination suggestions for you to consider:

Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form: Doctor Who "Dalek"
Murmurs are floating around Doctor Who fandom that if you're going to nominate any episode of Doctor Who for a Hugo, make sure you nominate "Dalek." I haven't seen it yet, but I will in the next day or two. The folks who have made the recommendation to me are people I trust. I will definitely watch it before I fill out my nominating ballot. I saw it. Oy. Definitely.

Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form: Doctor Who "The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances"
There are people who argue that a two-part TV show (even one that's 90 minutes and where the episodes can't stand individually) doesn't belong in "Long Form." They're good arguments, but I'd like to see Doctor Who nominated in each category it's eligible for. I've talked about ways to show SciFi that Doctor Who is a hot property that deserves better treatment, and this is one of them.

Best Related Book: Back to the Vortex, J Shaun Lyon
It's a Doctor Who related book. Well, and the author is a friend of mine, and I'd love to see him get a Hugo Losers' tchotchke.

I will also point out, on a non-Doctor Who tangent, that Ready, Steady, Sew (the half-time show for the Interaction Masquerade) qualifies for a "Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form" nomination. I know it's something a lot of eligible nominators have seen. And, yes, for the record, I was involved in the production.

If you want to buy the Canadian release of Doctor Who so you get it right now, do it. Mine (that I ordered last week) came in this afternoon.

If you want to buy it because you're worried they're getting something we won't (in July when it releases here), don't. The only difference is the Canada Home Video Rating Sticker.

Seriously.

The packaging is all Warner Home Video USA. Order it now with a Canadian sticker, or July without.

...but this was a gospel revival, not a convention.

Gallifrey One was born in the last days of the Sylvester McCoy era, and didn't actually happen until after Doctor Who went off the air. Sure, there were still seasons that hadn't shown in some regions of the US, and KTEH here in San Jose continued to air Doctor Who until only a year or two ago, but production had been suspended and nobody expected it to come back anytime soon.

Still.

26 years.

It was enough momentum to get a convention started.

It was enough momentum to allow that convention to recover from staggering debt incurred in its first year.

It was enough momentum to keep that con going for 16 more years.

That, though, was helped by a publishing machine (BBC Publishing, Virgin Publishing and Telos) turning out Doctor Who novels one after another and fans for whom reading was almost as satisfying than watching television. BBC Radio (and eventually BBC Interactive) kept producing new Doctor Who content. Fan media houses like BBV and licensed operations like Big Finish Productions also kept voracious fans in videos and audio plays.

15 years of conventions for a show that was canceled. Sure, there was also a movie in 1996, but it was a bit of a disappointment to many fans.

15 years? Didn't I say 16 more?

Back at Gallifrey One's Fifteen Minutes of Fame news of a new series to be produced by Russel T. Davies was the big topic of discussion. I missed The Sixteen Swashbucklers of Gallifrey One, but I'm sure that was still everybody's favorite subject. The first episode, though, didn't air until 6 weeks after it passed.

This was the first Gallifrey One since the new series started airing in the UK and Canada (CBC was an investor in the project) and making its way around the world via BitTorrent.

That's a hell of a lot of back-story for a convention report, I suppose. The stage needs to be set, though.

As I said, kproche and I missed last year's convention. Had the joke about shaunskywalker getting Davies as a guest come true, I probably would have been inconsolable. As it was, San Francisco's 40th Coronation just left me exhausted, but dead-set on making Galli this year.

We stuck with tradition and drove down to LA Thursday night after work. Leaving San Jose at around 9:00 was kind of mind-numbing (I would have much preferred 7-ish like we pulled off for Anime Los Angeles) but plans had gone chaotic in the last week. Packing wasn't done, and we both got out of work later than desired. Still, the drive was pretty good (heavier traffic than ALA, but no cloud layer half-way up the grapevine). That extra 20 miles the move from the Airtel Plaza to the LAX Marriot added sucked, but we were pleasantly surprised when we finally got to the hotel.

Other people were less pleasantly surprised. Our surprise, though, was the scale of the suite that Christian had obtained for us, a large two-bedroom affair opening out onto the pool deck (well, except for the fact that the pool was half-torn-out for renovations). I've been told that the convention burned one of their room upgrades for us, as they like the loeg party and what it does for the convention. We got everything moved in and (it being after 3:00am) crashed.

Friday morning we got our badges at the registration desk and had breakfast with a few friends. After getting in some important visiting, we hauled off to Trader Joe's for a final grocery run (party shopping was one of the things that went chaotic) and then decorated the room.

Somehow we fit in dinner (with friendlypinet) and got K dressed and down to judge the Masquerade with Jennifer Kelley and Laura Freas. Yep, the masquerade (a.k.a. the Masque of Mandragora) had been moved to Friday night. We got our Friday night party and got it after the masquerade.

There were, not surprisingly, people wanting to get in when, after presentations but before the judges returned with awards, I went to set out snacks open. With a very short masquerade, a very short half-time show and judges constrained to finishing in the allocated time, I just finished putting out refreshments when K got back with a bunch of others in tow. It was, by my estimation, the most successful party we've ever thrown at Galli (thanks partially to our absence the previous year), and ran until 4 in the morning.

If you haven't guessed that much of Saturday was a write-off, you're not paying enough attention. K watched some episodes of the new series. They're really fantastic. It's such a contrast to the huge ensemble cast shows that are dominating American SF television these days. I hit the dealers' room and snagged copies of the new Titan Books Modesty Blaise collections from Cargo Cult Books. I'm still short Modesty Blaise: Top Traitor and Modesty Blaise: The Black Pearl. How I ever missed out on this British comic strip I'll never know. It's a real contrast to the very silly 1966 movie. I also snagged a copy of The Aristocrats because I've been dying to see it.

We did get out to the LGBT Fan Gathering to catch up with folks we hadn't seen much of to that point. There was one problem, though. It was scheduled against Mary Tamm's autograph slot. Let's see. Room full of boys, or autograph from the gal who wore all those fabulous outfits? This was a difficult decision for some people.

Saturday night was taken up by Sweets, a much more leisurely gathering. dinogrl & dave_gallaher, Dave Clark, Mark & Chris, Merv & Judith, Mo Starkey and a few others came over and sampled sweet wines. It was actually the weirdest Sweets party ever. We did a mix of non-fortified and fortified wines peppered through with all sorts of exotics. The Bodegas Aguirre "Postre" Merlot was well liked. The Hakusan "Sweet Blossom Sake" was despised, I thought it tasted more of mushrooms than sweet blossoms. A nice trockenbeerenauslese followed, and then an Inniskillin Icewine that got mixed but mostly positive comments. Alas, we weren't out of the woods yet. The fortified wines were yet to come. An Aeppeltreow Pear Dessert Wine was likened to pear seeds soaked in wood alcohol. The Trader Joe's Raspberry Wine turned out to actually be a framboise, and a very thick and syrupy framboise at that. It was still appreciated, though, and blended beautifully with a bit of dry sparkling wine. The Wild West Blackberry Port that followed didn't do so well; it tasted like many things, but blackberry wasn't one of them. Finally, the new Bent Creek Zinfandel Port was very young, pretty flat and very rough, but that may have been bottle-shock. A half hour breathing did wonders for it.

New Rule for Sweets: Bringing something you haven't actually tasted is a bad, or at least risky, idea.

After sweets we went down to the ballroom level and found the hallway party going strong.

Hallway party?

Gallifrey One is a rather British convention, due to the influence of British writers, actors and fans who would much rather be at a Doctor Who convention in LA in February than anywhere else in the world. It's subject to the "pub effect." British conventions don't have room parties (rooms are too small, booze is too expensive and food service regulations are scary), so everybody goes to the pub instead. A good convention hotel will have several pubs set up and reasonable prices. The LAX Marriott didn't have reasonable prices and the hotel sports bar was ridiculous, but they did have a bar set up on the ballroom level Friday and Saturday nights, so the conference lobby turned into the pub hallway party.

Sunday was a lot easier. We watched a few more episodes of the new series (including The Christmas Invasion), gave the dealers' room a last spin (it was a good dealers' room), and watched a bit of the 2005 retrospective tape and the closing ceremonies.

Yep, the con was over Sunday evening. Last year they switched back from 4 days (ending Monday) to 3 days. A lot of folks still stayed over, and the con didn't close until 7:00 on Saturday, but it was a weird shift in the con vibe.

To wind down we had the "boy party" in our room; a bunch of friends came over, had some cosmos and played a bit of cards. I did well in Guillotine but the only other person who crashed worse than me in Burn Rate was one of the other Andys.

Monday morning we awoke to an unexpected extra hotel bill, but Robbie and Joyce got things sorted out with the hotel very quickly. We packed and started heading north. It was kind of a rough run back. Traffic on the 405 to 101 and from 101 to Agoura Hills was pretty ugly even at lunchtime. We did a quick stop at a McDonalds there, and K lost his phone. We stopped at the rest stop near Gaviota State Park, and noticed an odd smell. We stopped in Solvang, discovered the phone was missing and the smell (something akin to burning rubber and stink bugs) was still with us. The belts and tires were all fine, though, and it didn't smell like any other burning smells I would expect from a car, so we went on. There was some gunk on the catalytic converter that seemed to be cooking. We did make it home, albeit very fried.

I've spent a lot of years militantly proclaiming myself a general fan. Yep, I'm in to costuming, filk, anime, yaoi, SCA... the list goes on. I didn't go to a Doctor Who convention until 4 years ago. But damn. A Doctor Who convention. New episodes of Doctor Who. Great new episodes of Doctor Who.

It's a bit of my childhood I've got back.

We've already got our memberships for The 18th Amendment of Gallifrey One next year. Davies, Eccleston and Piper have given the series and the fandom a long-awaited kick. David Tennant is even more amazing in his first outing as the Doctor. The DVDs are shipping in Canada now (I ordered the set from Amazon.ca) and we've got the Eccleston episodes appearing mid-March here in the US on Sci Fi Network. It's going to be a fantastic year for Doctor Who.

There will be a few other substantial posts based on the weekend, but they're self-contained items for wider distribution, so they need to be written up separately.

So I haven't been doing the traditional Wednesday night (Thursday morning) posting about Drawn Together because, unfortunately, most of the episodes have been crap.

Well, except for last week's "Clum baby/Arranged battle" episode. A good Wooldoor episode and...

...

Ling-Ling!

Foxy and the dead band was the only other episode this season that has even come close to last year.

but...

Ling-Ling!

Tonight was the re-run of gay-married-for-the-insurance, which isn't utter crap, but wasn't great.

So instead we watched (I love my DVR) the rerun of "Harvey's Civvy." Yep, the Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law where he gets sued by one of the villains, and Shado (evil leprechaun head-stealer) is the plaintiff's attorney.

Oy gevalt...

Such a funny thing I never saw. Seriously. I was just collapsing. Seriously.

...but not to others.

The George Takei (likely more permanent link) interview in Frontiers (better link, but probably gone in a week or two)

Had a fabulous time Friday evening at iamradar's li'l party. Great crowd, great food, great wine.

Went to SCCLA "Trash & Treasure" swap meet and rummage sale over at LeatherMasters on Saturday afternoon while kproche spent the day at IBM building a haunted house. Was fun. Looked at stuff. Didn't buy an autoclave.

Went to the benefit All Hallows Eve party for Second Harvest Food Bank at http://www.santanarow.com/ and Left Bank. Food was good, entertainment was decent, but we were kind of fried, so we went home pretty early.

Did a lot of nothing on Sunday. Had breakfast at The 100th Original Pancake House. Braved the "Clam Pancakes" and discovered they're suprisingly good.

Went to see Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Was somewhat predictable, but densely packed with jokes (there was at least one that only I laughed at), and very nicely done. It may have even more homages in it than Serenity

Picked up a new cordless phone; our old phone was getting flaky and was already on its second battery. It also trashed our wireless connections every time it rang or the phone got too close to a computer. The new one is a 5.8ghz phone, so it won't interfere with our wi-fi.

Had a spot of dinner at Aqui Cal-Mex. I'm really liking the new menu they introduced a few months ago.

Watched the new Sherlock Holmes TV movie. It was very obviously a modern script and story, and featured more than a few characterizations that were out of place in an Edwardian mystery. The class interactions, on the other hand, were priceless. Script problems aside, I loved the cast and the performances. Watson and his affianced, the American alienist (psychoanalyst) Mrs. Vandeleur (who, I think, was a touch too familiar even for an American of the period, but who was quite brilliant and something of the libertine) were fantastic, particularly to the point of Watson adopting Vandeleur's accent perfectly when passing himself off as an American. Rupert Everett just dripped ennui as a late-in-his-career Holmes. All in all, a lot of fun. I would love to see Everett, Hart and Dudgeon take on an adaptation of a Doyle story.