AJ Papa’s Blog

So I’m back from my tour of duty of “The Con”. I survived the legions of sweaty geeks and cosplayers. I ate cookies and pretzels at %500 markup Comic-Con exclusive prices. I walked 15 blocks back and fourth from my parking space. I queued up in lines just for the sake of queueing up. I got suckered into buying toys as a grown man. Why the hell did I do this crap? So i can experience and blog about it; that’s why. Though I don’t know exactly how to format or organize my thoughts since throughout this weekend I’ve been subject to an overload of all things geek. So I’m just going to call it a grenade; You know … an explosive that spreads fragments and shrapnel in all directions randomly. That’s to say that this blog entry is going to be in fragments and generally unorganized. Oh and don’t forget it’s going to be explosive!

So let’s pull the pin shall we?

• The Bionic Woman - I saw the pilot screening of NBC’s ’70s remake of The Bionic Woman. Obviously the original show was a bit before my time but I did get a chance to see some of the syndicated episodes as a kid. I particularly remember that distinct sound that Lindsey Wagner made when she used her bionics. This time around though the producers definetly wanted to emphasize that this series is going to have a more dark contemporary tone to it. Whereas the ’70s series was a bit light hearted, the new adaptation wanted to show the serious struggle between being a machine and being a young woman. It’s good to finally see women getting a heroic role in mainstream TV. From what I’ve seen of the pilot, I have to say that I’m generally excited about the concept of the show, though I was kinda disappointed with how the pilot was a machine gun of story coming at you so quickly and in short blurps. I guess we’ll have to see how much polish they put into it this coming Fall season. By the way considering this show is being produced by one of the producers of Battlestar Galactica, David Eick, there are a lot of recycled BSG actors in it and got quite the chuckle from the crowd.
• Heroes - The Heroes panel was really cool. The whole venue was entirely packed with press and fans that it was pandamonium. What made this particular panel cool was that it was more of a thank you to the fans than anything else. Seeing all the cast talk candidly about the show and their experiences was really awesome. Perhaps the highlight of the panel was when they announced a new spinoff show called “Origins” in which one of the episodes was going to be directed by Kevin Smith. When Kevin Smith came out the crowd erupted in cheer in which he responded, “I hope I’m not the guy who ruins Heroes”; that got quite the chuckle from me. Here are a few bits of exclusitivity I heard and saw while attending. Apparently there will be a couple new heroes including a Spanish speaking immigrant and a New Orleans tradegy survivor. From watching the sneak peak at volume II, I saw Nathan, Sylar, and Peter. Are they alive in the next season? Who knows. I also go this kick ass Comic-Con exclusive box for the season 1 box set for attending the panel.
• Battlestar Galactica - Oh boy BSG. My baby. This is MY show. If at the panel they had announced something that didn’t digest well with me, well … I would have rushed the panel myself and punched Ronald Moore in the face. Good thing it didn’t come to that. The panel was dedicated for the most part to the “Ladies of Battlestar”. Sadly though Grace Park was a no show. The producers talk a little bit about the upcoming TV movie “Battlestar Galactica: Razor” and the cast talked about their experiences with the show and their feelings now that the show is wraping up its last season. I was overall satisfied though at that point I had sat down for 4-5 panels sitting in the same seat for 4 hours. I kinda just wanted to leave at that point.
• Downtown San Diego - I thought I had seen everything strange and weird just walking down the halls of my university. Apparently not. I saw some of the most … “unique”… people while walking the blocks of Downtown San Diego. It is too horrendous to describe.
• The Totally Rad Show meet up at Bar Basic - I ran into the folks from the Totally Rad Show on the exhibit floor. They are nice buncha guys and they all posed for pictures. All of ‘em even signed my tweenty sided dice. Afterwords at the meet up at Bar Basic I met with some of my old UCR alumni and friends who were there to see the Totally Rad Show guys. Fancy that! It gave us a chance to have some beer, eat some pizza, and catch up.

Well that’s my grenade of thoughts for ya. I’m already thinking about next year. This is something I’m definetly looking forward to making an annual thing.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 30th, 2007 at 4:48 pm and is filed under Geeky. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.