Home of the Soul Cookie

Calling all B5 fanatics that read this blog (Dave and Noelle, I’m looking at you):

At last! It’s here!

They said it couldn’t be done. They said it wouldn’t be done. Some even said it probably shouldn’t be done, and certainly not in public, but by gosh, it’s done.

www.babylon5scripts.com is up and running and open for business.

Volume One of The Babylon 5 Scripts of J. Michael Straczynski is now available for purchase, 454 pages in length containing candid, behind-the-scenes photos, and a 13,000 word/53 page introduction and commentary on the episodes contained in this volume.

In this volume, you will find the scripts for “Midnight on the Firing Line,” “The Parliament of Dreams,” “Infection,” “Soul Hunter” and “Mind War,” as well as an alternate draft of “The Gathering” never previously released. The introduction includes information and stories never before told about the creation, production and writing of Babylon 5.

In addition, the volume contains 30 pages of memos written during production, detailing the construction and design of the Babylon 5 universe…casting, sets, alien races, technology, CGI, wardrobe…you name it.

These books, released one-by-one over the coming months, will represent the definitive 15 volume set on the making of Babylon 5, told from the inside-out.

So the door is open, the site is up, feel free to come by and say hello.

(Source: Email from babylon5scripts.com)

The really cool thing is that if you buy the first 14 volumes, you’ll get, for free, the not-sold-in-stores fifteenth volume that includes, among other things, an overview of what the 5-year arc would have looked like if Sinclair had stayed!

It’s been a pretty fun Halloween season so far.

Went to Nate and Crista’s “5th Annual Night of Debauchery Halloween Party” on Saturday night. I was hard-pressed to think of some sort of follow up to last year’s costume that also fit in with the theme set for this year’s bacchanalia:

“Hollywood Horror”
Come as a character from your (or someone else’s) favorite horror flick or as a celebrity who has met an untimely (and even better, brutal/grizzly/horror-filled…. muah ah ah ah) end.

After too much time spent in indecision, I finally settled on going as Dracula. (Thanks for the “well, duh!” nudge, Valli!) So I gathered the pieces for my on-the-cheap costume — white shirt and black slacks I already had, plus a “Dracula medallion” on a red ribbon and a long polyester cape.

And the fangs.

Now, mind you, I didn’t spend a lot of money on my costume, but I did splurge just a little on the fangs to get non-cheesy ones that wouldn’t need to be trashed immediately after Halloween. One of the selling points of these fangs — the most expensive part of my costume — was that their wearers could mix a binary compound (a powder and some sort of liquid) into a mold that would customize their fit.

My fangs, however, had a powder and a small capsule that may have, at one time, contained a liquid, but which now contained something the consistency of superglue that’s been left out in 100+ degree weather to dry and solidify.

So at the time I’d wanted to leave for the party, I’m instead at Safeway picking up (wait for it) a tube of Fixodent with which to temporarily attach my fangs.

Eww.

But at least it let me keep the fangs in for a little while, until I grew so tired of talking like Mushmouth that I exiled them to an Advil bottle-cum-carrying case.

The party itself was quite fun, and there were some really cool costumes — Nate’s Chucky costume was probably my fave of the bunch.

Today, I’ve dressed up as a goth boi for the Halloween festivities at work. Apparently I make quite the imposing Dark One, ’cause I won the “scariest costume” award for our floor’s costume contest. I’ll see if I can get some pics to post.

Scott is okay!

(Scott, I got your email, too, and will respond soon, probably tonight.)

You know those customized car horns that play a song instead of going “BREEEP!”? Like in “Dukes of Hazzard” or on the streets of the L.A. ghettos?

A car (”a ‘68 Mustang,” Amy says) just drove past our apartment “playing” its custom horn: The theme from The Godfather.

Steve introduced me to Stephen King’s Dark Tower series a couple of years ago. Knowing how ecstatic I am to hear this news, I can only imagine how cartwheelin’ ape-shit he’s going:

NEW YORK – World Fantasy Award-winning writer Stephen King, long acknowledged as the master of modern horror, and Marvel Comics join forces this spring to launch a ground-breaking new comic book series adapted from King’s magnum opus, The Dark Tower.

The comic series will mark the first time Stephen King has produced original content for an ongoing comic book project. The series will expand the saga of King’s epic hero, Roland Deschain, whose quest to save the Dark Tower is captured in seven best-selling novels published over the course of twenty-five years.

That’s right: An ongoing series about Roland.

Kick. Ass.

The series will be illustrated by Eisner-award winning artist Jae Lee.

The first issue’s set to hit in April, and the press release is already indicating that there will be a hardcover compilation of the first six floppies ’round the holidays next year.

Update 10/29/05: Marvel’s Joe Quesada and Ralph Macchio are interviewed about the new series over at Newsarama.

The return of questions from the Friday Five.

1. If you had all the money in the world and could choose to own anything, what you would get and why?

My own amusement park, a kickass one with:

• roller coasters
• immersive, state-of-the-art video games
• the world’s best (and craziest) mini-golf courses
• go-karts
• a reconfigurable human-scale maze
• an IMAX-sized cineplex
• a world-class performance hall/venue

Why would I want my own amusement park?

For my own amusement, of course.

Skydiving.

As I discovered earlier this year when I did the bungee swing thing at Great America, I still have a healthy respect for gravity and the solidness of terra firma.

Nonetheless, I still intend to throw myself “out of a perfectly good airplane,” as my mom has put it, at some point.

I could mention Chien and Shanna, the dachshunds my parents had had since before I was born, but they were never really mine.

That honor went to Kinky, a cat we found in the park one day when I was four or five. He was so named because of a double ninety-degree bend in the end of his tail.

He was, definitively, my cat. I could get away with so much with him, far more than anyone else in my family could, stuff like wearing him as a shawl. (Kitties, as it turns out, don’t really dig that sort of activity.)

He was a good cat. I miss him.

Scotland.

I would be summer: Not as light and bouncy as springtime, nor as crisp and waning as autumn, nor as cold and still as winter, summer is the season of heat, of activity, of joie de vivre.

Poe’s “Haunted” (from her album of the same name) is a song of stirring, beautiful complexity, both lyrically and musically. It reminisces and it looks forward. Regret and hope and earnest examination all cavort about its stanzas.

It is, in short, a good approximation of what I would be as a song.

“Haunted”
by Poe

Ba da pa pa ba da pa pa…

Come here
Pretty please
Can you tell me where I am
You won’t you say something
I need to get my bearings
I’m lost
And the shadows keep on changing

And I’m haunted
By the lives that I have loved
And actions I have hated
I’m haunted
By the lives that wove the web
Inside my haunted head

Ba da pa pa ba da pa pa…

Don’t cry,
There’s always a way
Here in November in this house of leaves
We’ll pray
Please, I know it’s hard to believe
To see a perfect forest
Through so many splintered trees
You and me
And these shadows keep on changing

And I’m haunted
By the lives that I have loved
And actions I have hated
I’m haunted
By the promises I’ve made
And others I have broken
I’m haunted
By the lives that wove the web
Inside my haunted head

Hallways… always

I’ll always want you
I’ll always need you
I’ll always love you

And I will always miss you

Ba da pa pa ba da pa pa…

Come here
No I won’t say please
One more look at the ghost
Before I’m gonna make it leave
Come here
I’ve got the pieces here
Time to gather up the splinters
Build a casket for my tears

I’m haunted
(By the lives that I have loved)
I’m haunted
(By the promises I’ve made)
I’m haunted
By the hallways in this tiny room
The echos there of me and you
The voices that are carrying this tune

Ba da pa pa…

Father: What is it Annie?

Daughter: You think I’ll cry? I won’t cry!
My heart will break before I cry!
I will go mad.

(I’m sure this stuff is totally unique to me… and to anybody else conceived in early June…)

Your Birthdate: February 27

Your birth on the 27th day of the month (9 energy) adds a tone of selflessness and humanitarianism to your life path.

Certainly, you are one who can work very well with people, but at the same time you need a good bit of time to be by yourself to rest and meditate.

There is a very humanistic and philanthropic approach in most of things that you do.

This birthday helps you be broadminded, tolerant, generous and very cooperative.

You are the type of person who uses persuasion rather than force to achieve your ends.

You tend to be very sensitive to others’ needs and feelings, and you able to give much in the way of friendship without expecting a lot in return.

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

[via]

I got summoned to jury duty this week, and each evening I’ve gone to the jury commission’s website with a twinge of dread that my jury pool number would be ordered to report.

Well, last night, group 615 — my group — got the call.

So I worked from home this morning and made the trek down to the courthouse.

It’s not located in Cracksville by any means, but I did have more than one homeless guy urban survivalist badger me for spare change.

Once at the courthouse, I got to stand in a security queue (bag searches, metal detectors) that, I swear, rivaled some of the TSA’s finest examples of inefficiency.

Some time later — hours or epochs (or, okay, minutes) I cannot say — I made my way to Room 307, the Jury Assembly Room. Give me your tired, huddled masses and I’ll do you one better by adding bored to the mix.

Some random employee (she said her name, but none of us moved to write it down; it’s not like she’s gonna get on our Christmas card lists) came in and explained what the jury selection process would look like, what our obligations would be if we were picked, et cetera.

And then she played the video.

You know the one: California is the greatest state in the union; it’s our civic duty — nay, privilege! — to bring meaning to the entire justice system as jurors; many people who’ve served on juries have enjoyed the experience so much that they keep in touch with their fellow jurors; yadda yadda yadda.

I should point out that I don’t inherently disagree with the “civic duty” part. Hell, I think a real trial could be interesting to compare to Mock Trial and far too many seasons of the Law & Order family of shows.

But that doesn’t mean I’m not gonna ridicule the process of The Process. And here’s where that ridicule comes in handy:

After summoning us, preaching to us (in their completely secular way, of course), and making us wait (and wait), they announce that both of the courtrooms that might’ve needed our presence are not, in fact, ready for us.

And so: “Jurors dismissed; you don’t have to come back for twelve months.”

I’m proud to have done my civic duty. It gave me a great opportunity to catch up on some homework be a key part of the American legal system.

McFarlane Toys has another sexy/scary/gross set of toys out: Twisted Fairy Tales.

In honor of Hallowe’en weekend, I present some pics after the cut. As with the Twisted OZ toys I’ve blogged about previously, these are not gonna be palatable to all audiences. You have been warned.

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