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Surprises in store…..

15/10/06 at 9.51pm   /   by siderealmovement   /   14850 Comments

I am very very very excited!!! This weekend I’m getting to check something pretty awesome off of my bucket list. Would you like a hint?

I’m going to be in waking up in the city that never sleeps!

 

Bonus hint: I will be in a very interesting location from which I will be posting fun pictures and should have some great stories to tell!

 

Any guesses? Well, I’ll keep you posted!

 

(My sincerest apologies for my over use of exclamation points. I’m just so very excited!!! On second thought, no apologies. I’m definitely feeling every single one of them!)

Excuse me. Do you have a moment to talk about Tentacle Kitty?

15/10/06 at 9.26pm   /   by siderealmovement   /   14151 Comments

You don’t know who Tentacle Kitty is? Please allow me to educate you in her particular brand of cute.

 

Tentacle Kitty, also known as Pink One, is from another dimension where being a rainbow of colors and having tentacles instead of legs is perfectly normal. Through a series of events that can be read here (Tentacle Kitty’s first adventure!), she comes to this planet and is befriended by a girl named Violet and a pair of kittens names Pirate Kitty and Ninja Kitty. You can find out more about Tentacle Kitty and her friends over here!

 

I first stumbled across Tentacle Kitty when I was attending WonderCon in Anaheim CA, back in April of 2014. My husband and I were perusing the seller’s booths, and found ourselves at a table filled with small, pink creatures with a lot of legs. My immediate response was to turn to my husband, grab his arm, and tell him that whatever those were, they were too cute and too pink to not take over the planet. A short while later, I had one in my possession, and it’s been love ever since.

 

I adore my Tentacle Kitty. She, along with a stuffed Stitch (also a gift from my husband) have been my travel companions over the past few years. She has been to Disneyland with me multiple times, accompanied me on road trips all over the United States, been my sidekick at multiple conventions, and has even completed a circumnavigation of the world with me this past year! I absolutely adore her!

 

In the fall, there was a KickStarter for creating a purple version of Tentacle Kitty! There were stretch goals to unlock other colors as well, and by the end of it there were purple, blue, black, and calico options. Naturally, I got one of each. And the t-shirt. And the bumper sticker. Did I mention that I adore Tentacle Kitty? After months of waiting for everything to be ready and clear customs, I finally got a shipping notice! I may or may not have spent a lot of time refreshing the USPS tracking page. And waiting on the front steps at unreasonable hours.

 

But finally, the day came!

 

And my wonderful husband took a video of the whole unboxing, which I didn’t realize for a few minutes.

But that’s not all!

When the KickStarter went live one of the donation options allowed me to design my own custom Tentacle Kitty, there wasn’t a whole lot of debating with myself involved. Of course I wanted that opportunity! It did take a good deal of time to come up with a design that I wanted, but finally settled on a design and color scheme that represents my love of travel and is also in keeping with the name of this blog! When she arrives, I will tell you all about her.

Shore Leave

15/07/15 at 8.56pm   /   by siderealmovement   /   15410 Comments

You may be wondering what shore leave is.

From a nautical perspective, it is the time during which a ship is anchored out in a safe harbor or moored up to a pier, and the sailors are allowed time off the ship to see the local sights, enjoy the local food and drink, and generally stretch their legs on a surface that isn’t constantly rocking and pitching. It’s good for moral, and an excellent opportunity to take part in a new, or not commonly visited culture.

From a geeky perspective,  the crew of the USS Enterprise arrived on a planet in the Omicron Delta region on stardate 3025. After a landing party was sent down to briefly explore the surface, it was determined that this planet would be an excellent opportunity for the crew to experience some time off of the ship.

In honor of this event in the original series, the Star Trek Association of Towson hosts an annual fan run science fiction convention. It is the weekend of 7-9 August, and is a scant 75 miles from me. Also, John Barrowman is one of the special guests this year. (squee!) Who just preregistered today? This girl!

For more information, please visit their website! http://www.shore-leave.com/

 

 

Doctor Who Season 9

15/07/09 at 6.38pm   /   by siderealmovement   /   14729 Comments

Many many many thanks to my friend Marih for alerting me to the official trailer for season 9 of Doctor Who that was released today!

Ok, now that’s we’ve all seen it…….

 

Clara and Missy and Zygons and Emperor Dalek and could that be Skaro(?) and cyborgs and the Doctor playing an electric guitar and…..Arya? Obviously I know she’s not Arya, but who then, is she? Could she be another version of River? Or possibly Romana? Or could she be Jenny?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? What are your thoughts here? Mine is pretty much that September 19th can’t get here soon enough!

San Diego Comic Con!

15/07/08 at 9.50pm   /   by siderealmovement   /   14988 Comments

Just kidding. I will not be attending San Diego Comic Con this year.

 

I mean, it doesn’t help matters that I live in Washington D.C. and am literally on the other side of the country. Or that tickets are damn near impossible to get. Last year, when I happened to be actually living in San Diego, I sat on my computer for nearly three hours while my husband and a friend did the same with all of our registration names, trying to get tickets. We watched as Saturday sold out, then Friday, then preview night, until finally only Sunday remained. Amazingly, I was able to make it in to the purchase room when Sunday was still available! But before I could even click anything, I was immediately redirected to a new page telling me that they were sold out. Talk about disappointment. Leonard, you are my spirit animal here.

Flash forward to this year. When tickets went on sale, I wasn’t in San Diego, or even on the other side of the country. I was on the other side on the WORLD! And with a shitty internet connection to boot. Considering that the only way you have a prayer of getting tickets is if you had a badge the previous year, I knew I hardly stood the smallest of chances even if I had been able to get a badge last year.

And there are a ton of really, truly, great conventions available to attend all around the country and at all times of the year. There’s AwesomeCon in D.C. and Emerald City Con in Seattle and Comicpalooza in Housten and New York Comic Con! The one in San Diego is simply the most well known. Because of this, SDCC is able to get a lot of exclusive content and first sneak peaks at a lot of things. And with it’s proximity to Hollywood, they do get a lot of guest stars and panelists that are able to attend. I suppose this does make it desirable to attend.

But can it really be considered Nerd Mecca anymore? It’s prohibitively exclusive, largely due to the fact that it has simply outgrown its space. Even Nerd HQ in the Petco Park is full to bursting, and just trying to get around anywhere the San Diego Convention Center is a nightmare. (I know, I tried. Although, Crazy Fish was weirdly empty. I think because the outside was covered in an advertisement, a lot of people didn’t realize it was a restaurant, maybe? If you’re there, check it out. Great fish tacos!)

 

Am I saying that I wouldn’t go to San Diego if I could somehow, miraculously get badges? Heck no! I’d be there in a heartbeat! What I am saying is that I am not going to let the fact that my local conventions aren’t SDCC dampen my enjoyment of them.  And to anyone in the VA or MD area who may be attending Shore Leave in August, please wave if you see me! I’ll probably be in line to meet John Barrowman.

Happy Fourth of July!

15/07/05 at 7.36pm   /   by siderealmovement   /   15678 Comments

It is very late. As in it is technically now the 5th (and by technically, I mean it’s past noon). But I spent all day yesterday at the farmer’s market, waiting around for the Toyota dealership to call me back about when my car would be ready for pick-up, and then driving to Fredericksburg to have dinner and watch fireworks with an old friend and her family.

So to commemorate that yesterday has the birthday of my country, (and also the fact that I love the Muppets) here is a clip from the end of MuppetVision 3D that can be seen in full at various Disney parks. Probably also on YouTube, but hey. Anyway, I love this show, and particularly this segment of it. How it is largely about American patriotism, as well as how intertwined we are with all cultures across the world and how we’re still trying to get everything to run smoothly.

Take it away, Sam Eagle!

Captain Marvel vs Superman

15/06/19 at 3.28am   /   by siderealmovement   /   15292 Comments

Who would win in a fight; Superman or Captain Marvel? (To be specific, this argument is pertaining to Carol Danvers once she’s assumed the mantle of Captain Marvel.)

 

This whole debate started because I wore my Princess Sparklefists t-shirt to work, and one of my coworkers was wearing a Superman t-shirt that particular day. He argued that Superman would have the edge because he isn’t human, and has a superior physiology to humans and would therefore win in a fight against a human. My argument was that Carol may have been born a human, but due to her accident and subsequent survival thanks to Mar-vell, her DNA was permanently imprinted with Kree DNA. Now, the Kree are an alien species, which makes Carol now at least partly alien.

 

So now we have even footing! Let’s now break down their various abilities to see who would win in a showdown between our two heroes. For the purposes of this argument, I chose not to focus on their initial abilities, which are fairly limited, and instead chose to focus on what abilities we see them display on a regular basis.

 

The first, and most obvious ability, is flight. Both Captain Marvel and Superman are capable of the power of flight. I know at first that Superman could only jump incredibly high due to Earth’s gravity having less of a pull on him, but I will ignore this detail since he eventually developed the ability to actually fly. It’s a draw.

Super strength? Also a draw. Both are capable of lifting buses and subway cars and the like. Not a lot else to say on the subject.

What about speed? Hmm. This one is tricky. On the one hand, Captain Marvel holds several air speed records from the cockpit of a jet, and admits that she is capable of flying even faster on her own than in the jet. On the other hand, Superman is capable of flying fast enough to send the Earth back in time. Now, Carol has never tried that, but she was able to fly fast enough at one point to escape a time warp and get back to the present from where she got sucked into WWII. I’m going to give Superman the win for this category. It’s a slight edge, but I feel like being able to fly fast enough to reverse time is slightly more impressive than being able to fly fast enough to regain the present.

Ability to survive in space? Another draw. They have both flown in space mostly unassisted. They can each hold their breath for extremely prolonged periods of time or only need access to an oxygen supply, so one dragging the other to space in an effort to win the fight would be fairly pointless.

Durability or invulnerability. They’ve both been shot, fallen from great heights, survived extreme temperatures and been smashed without sustaining any permanent or crippling injury. Once again, a draw.

They have all of these similarities, but they also have some different abilities. Superman has laser vision, which Carol does not have. But she is able to absorb various types of energy, which would cancel out the laser vision by causing it to have no effect on her. In fact, she could even project it back on Superman if she chose. In addition, she can create and fire powerful stellar light energy from her hands, hence the nickname Princess Sparklefists. Neither would have a large effect of Superman (see durability above), but Carol has the edge here.  I’m going to give this point to Captain Marvel.

 

For anyone keeping count, here’s the tally.

Captain Marvel: 1

Superman: 1

Tie: 4

This is starting to get interesting.

 

Carol has her slightly precognitive seventh sense, known as Flash Precognition. This subconscious ability would keep her out of harm’s way in any fight. She also doesn’t have the vulnerability to kryptonite that Superman has. I feel like it’s a little cheap to have this point, but in any universe where Captain Marvel and Superman are fighting one another, everything from each universe would have to simultaneously exist, and Carol just doesn’t have a corollary Achilles Heel. And Superman doesn’t have anything to counter that precognition. I’m sorry. Two points to Captain Marvel.

 

Final tally?

Captain Marvel: 3

Superman: 1

Tie: 4

 

My final argument is that Captain Marvel would kick some serious Superman butt in a showdown fight. That being said, I will leave the argument with this:

Stan Lee has spoken!

A moment with Sir John Hurt

15/06/18 at 12.17am   /   by siderealmovement   /   15133 Comments

Let’s all take a moment to send a good thought towards Sir John Hurt. He has recently been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

 

He is a famous actor who has given numerous memorable performances over the years, but my two favorite are two of his more recent roles. He gave us the War Doctor in the 50th Anniversary special of Doctor Who, The Day of the Doctor. A strong man, who was tired of war and willing to do whatever it took to make the war come to an end. A man who was strong enough to see another way, when he though the only way out was total and complete annihilation of two entire species. Here is that moment. Along with The Moment. (Yes, I went there.)

 

He was also the venerable Mr. Ollivander in the Harry Potter series. He appeared several times, always with some sage words of advice or wisdom gleaned from an innumerable amount of time crafting and selling wands to young witches and wizards. He was instrumental in helping the Trio to find the Elder Wand and understand enough of wand lore to successfully defeat Lord Voldemort.”The wand chooses the wizard, Mr. Potter.”

 

I wish you well, and hope for your speedy recovery, Sir.

Jurassic World: First Impressions

15/06/12 at 3.29am   /   by siderealmovement   /   8162 Comments

Being left to my own devices for the next few days (the husband is out of town for a friend’s wedding), I was faced with how to spend my first evening alone in over a year. Did I choose to sit in a hot bathtub with a glass of wine and a new book? No. Did I decide to be a responsible adult and fold all the laundry that is currently heaped on the guest room bed waiting to be put away? Also no. I got home from work, changed my clothes, fed the cat, and took myself to the nearest movie theater to watch Jurassic World in 3D. I give it a “solid thumb up”.

Quick description of my rating system*:

“Two thumbs up” = a great movie. Something like The Princess Bride, the original Star Wars trilogy, or The Grand Budapest Hotel. I could watch it over and over.

“Solid thumb up” = a pretty good movie, and well worth the watch. All around enjoyable, but just not quite there for me. Think along the lines of Pitch Perfect 2.

“Meh.” = a decent movie. Not terrible, but not something I would likely enjoy a second time.

“Thumb down” = please don’t ever make me watch this movie again. Citizen Kane, I’m looking at you.

“So bad it’s good” = admittedly not a great movie, but so much fun or has that special something. This is where The Rocky Horror Picture Show belongs.

* This is highly subjective. Take it with a grain of salt. And a shot of tequila and a lime wedge if you must.

 

First, the dinosaurs. True to Spielberg, we didn’t get a good look at this new, awesome dinosaur, Imdominus Rex, until about forty minutes into the movie. Even the T-Rex got minimal screen time. When we did finally get to see the new Big Bad Dino, it was wicked impressive! But in the mean time, we did get to see plenty of raptors. And there were cute little baby triceratops and great big lumbering Long Necks (yes, that’s the term I’m going with), and even a few Stegosauruses. And of course there was the aquatic shark muncher that is in just about every trailer you saw for the movie. Just in case you forgot, here’s the trailer.

Ok, now the humans. The kids, Zach and Grey (Nick Robinson and Ty Simpkins, respectively), weren’t too bad. They behaved like brothers, annoyed with one another, but really having fun every once in a while, and they definitely worked well together when they needed to. Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) was the Frigid Ice Aunt to a tee, and developed a reasonably likable personality by the end of the movie. I’m even willing to (mostly) forgive the fact that she completely forgot about her nephews for a few scenes. The fact that she ran around that whole island with dinosaurs while wearing nude patent leather heels the whole time, I just had to push the “I Believe” button on a few times. They fit her uptight, controlling personality, but c’mon. Zero points for practicality. Don’t even get me started on her sterile, white skirt ensemble. I know, I know. It’s what she was wearing when everything fell apart. I promise she’s run better barefoot. Owen (our dearly beloved Chris Pratt) was not the over the top personality you may have been expecting. He was quiet, charming, and totally in control of himself and as much of the situation as he could be, given they were dealing with giant death lizards. And yeah, he trains the raptors. What’s that? Owen was hired to work for the park out of the Navy? Even if that doesn’t make the most sense ever, the way he dealt with situations and the decisions he made meshed with that back story. Take the points Claire lost on her ridiculous shoes and give them to Owen. There were several generally confusing are-they-or-aren’t-they Baddies, but they’re not really worth mentioning. The quiet, behind the scenes hero who spoke reason when Owen wasn’t there was a control room guy by the name of Lowery (Jake Johnson). He stole every scene he was in, and gets bonus kudos for wearing a vintage Jurassic Park t-shirt that was probably actually a prop in the original movie 20 years ago. You go, Lowery!

Speaking of the vintage t-shirt, there were several nice touches that alluded to the original movie, if they didn’t actually come right out and reference it. The laboratory was named for John Hammond, and he was mentioned at least twice by name. The lead geneticist is still Dr. Henry Wu (BD Wong), a hold over from the first go round. I loved the line he had about how in recreating dinosaurs in the first place, they had to use other filler DNA to complete the genome, and that’s why the dinosaurs don’t completely look or behave the way they’re “supposed” to. It was a throw away line, but it was so well placed and accounted for varying skin colors in the same species. We get to see a goat tethered to a spike, awaiting Death by T-Rex. And remember Mr. DNA? Even he gets a cameo! Sadly, there is no Dr. Ian Malcolm there to explain how none of this makes sense and why. His chaos theory demonstration makes a subtle, albeit bloodier, appearance in his stead. This whole movie was much bloodier in general than I remember the first movie being.

My biggest reason for not giving it a full “Two thumbs up” is really because it didn’t hold the same kind of suspense that Jurassic Park had. There were a few too many C plots that could have gotten less screen time or been ignored completely in favor of tighter story telling. All the same, I would recommend seeing it on the big screen. Those dinosaurs are worth seeing larger than life!

 

Ok, is everyone who hasn’t seen it happy? Because consider yourself warned. From here on out, there be spoilers!

 

 

 

 

 

Holy Cannolli! I loved how they spooled out the various creatures that Dr. Wu combined to create Indominus Rex as they became relevant. Even if the various components were spoken aloud eventually, we were shown what she was made of first. T-Rex  and tree frog and cuttlefish and raptor! The way her jaw unhinged to bite and kill everything in her path! Long arms and claws that she could actually use to fight and kill! Everything about her was just so alien; she was obviously something nature never would have made, and it made her terrifying. (Also, anyone else notice how Claire asked if the dino being all white would make her too scary, when she herself was in an all white outfit?) The show down with the dinosaurs all fighting for their own places in the food chain against this seemingly unbeatable adversary was a great sequence. The raptor fricassee  in the Margaritaville restaurant grill was just plain funny. Also the raptor that got blown to bits by some sort of shoulder launched something or other. (Charlie? Delta? Echo? I have no idea which one died when) Hehehe. C’mon, there was no way all the raptors were going to survive this.

 

Not gonna lie, I teared up a bit when Owen and Claire with comforting the dying Long Neck. It was a little too reminiscent of Littlefoot’s mother dying in The Land Before Time for me to not get choked up. I don’t know if that was an intentional parallel or not. Also, her eyes were so human compared to the very reptilian eyes of the carnivorous raptors and rexes.

 

I also loved the quick visit to the old park central building, all grown over with vegetation. I loved how the map of the island had the whole top third of the island “restricted”, which is where the old building was. I guess there are still dinos roaming free there, too wild to become attractions. Lowery’s menagerie of toy dinosaurs on his console made me happy every time I saw them, and how he kept arranging them when people bumped them out of order. And the guy who saves his margaritas when the flying dinos of doom came swooping in? That man has got his priorities straight. {edit: Apparently Margarita Man is none other that the most famous Margarita Man himself, the ever fantastic Jimmy Buffett!}

 

My favorite part though? I loved how once Indominus Rex got munched by Aqua-saurus and Blue Beta Raptor ran off into the sunrise, the T-Rex climbed up onto the helo pad, watched the ferry steam away with all the people that didn’t get pecked to death by the flock of pterodactyl-things, and roared it’s supremacy to the island. The T-Rex got to save the day again. Nice touch.

Awesome Con Experience Prelude

15/06/05 at 1.28am   /   by siderealmovement   /   15634 Comments

So I am still writing my post about Awesome Con this past weekend. I think I may have to break it down into at least two smaller posts because of all the pictures. I’m just not sure how to break it up, yet. Saturday and Sunday? Panels and costumes?

Either way, there are a ton of people out there who are much more on the ball than I am (and already have Tumblrs and YouTube channels and blogs well established) and have posted already. So while I finish writing up my experience, here are a couple of photos my husband and I took and a video I found on YouTube.

First, the video. It is by the wonderfully talented Code Name Cosplay.  This is a brilliant video that showcases a lot of amazing cosplayers that were at the event all weekend. She got some video of me in my Captain Marvel cosplay on Sunday. (Your’s truly shows up around the 0:46 second mark, and a friend of mine with a couple of his friends is at the 1:07 point.)

And here are two photos of myself taken by my ever fantastic husband.

Awesome Con 1

The first was taken on Saturday with the afore mentioned friend. I was Ms. Marvel that day. The gent cosplaying Loki and I went to high school together, and actually haven’t seen one another in at least five years. Seeing him at Awesome Con was a totally random coincidence, and it was great to see him again!

Raptor Punch

 

And here I am as Captain Marvel again. (My people don’t ride dinosaurs. We punch them!) This was actually a really cool prop at the Museum of Science Fiction booth. They also had a really cool 3D printer that made a miniature raptor skull, a working nut and bolt, and a four inch length of chained links! They were promoting the MOSF, which is supposed to be open some time next year. I know, I know. Dinosaurs aren’t science fiction; they’re science fact. Just bask in the awesomeness that is #raptorhead, ok?

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