Weekend post-mortem

Very tired after a long weekend. Made some more progress on the book promotional front. I went by the nearest Borders location to pick up the "paperwork" the regional marketing manager told me had to be filled out, and discovered it was merely a statement that amounted to "we won't schedule signings for vanity press, self-published or print on demand books." What a colossal waste of time. I also tried to talk to the inventory manager about carrying Voices of Vision, but it was obvious that talking to me was the absolute last thing she wanted to do, and kept telling me to "refer to the information sheet." The information sheet, you may be interested in knowing, says that local stores have discretion on which titles they stock and should be approached directly. sigh

Frutstrated and in a funk, I drove over to the nearest Barnes & Noble, which isn't really near at all. I'm glad I did, however. The floor manager I spoke with was friendly and enthusiastic, and made me feel like I wasn't some wretched insect just crawled out from under a particularly rank rock. A signing looks like a distinct possibility--I'm talking with their community relations manager today to follow up.

In other news, three science fiction/comics related radio programs are interested in having me as a guest on their show. This is good. All are available online, so anyone around the world can listen in. More details coming soon.

I finally saw the new Battlestar Galactica miniseries on Saturday. It was much better than I expected, and I can see why it's spawned a successful series on the Sci-Fi Channel. The human angst was well-done, and the new version of Baltar, a self-centered weasle who is merely trying to cover his ass and advance his position no matter how many innocents have to suffer for his actions is a vast improvement over John Colicos' version of the character, who was merely evil for evil's sake. Edward James Olmos does a good job of standing in for Lorne Green, giving viewers a harder, more flawed version of Adama. Another thing that stood out for me was the new rendition of Caprica. I felt like I was watching a world that was urbanized but also had come to terms with environmental issues to create a sort of Frank Lloyd Wright version of utopia. Very cool. The Cylon attack fighters are pretty wicked as well. What I didn't like, first and foremost, was the new design for the Galactica itself. John Dykstra's original model is iconic and has so much more personality than this one. The original also looks like an old ship, whereas this one looks far too new and glossy. This is the same way the "old" Viper Mark IIs looked better and had more personality to them as the Mark Vs or whatever the "new" versions were called. The "new" Cylon centurions looked more crude and thuggish than the "old" chrome ones. The horny blonde Cylon said the chrome version still exists, however, so maybe we'll see them in the future. But as for the horny blonde Cylon herself... sheesh, that was just about the stupidest thing I'd ever seen. Sure, having her seduce Baltar to screw humanity over was a valid and useful plot device, but the fact that she's perpetually in heat doesn't follow logically any way you look at it. As for Starbuck and Apollo... eh. They were almost irrelevant to the plot, whereas the Dirk Benedict and Richard Hatch characters were usually the focal point of each episode. Katee Sackhoff does an OK job with the material she's given, but there's too much angry anti-authority figure juices flowing, and not enough scoundrel in the mix. The cigar chomping is a welcome touch, though, and I could really see Dirk Benedict guest-starring on the show as Starbuck's father, reprising the role originated by Fred Astaire in "The Man with Nine Lives" from the original show. In any event, I expect I'll end up buying this one on DVD before long.

And to wrap up the weekend, the whole family headed down to Port Aransas for SandFest. It was cloudy and windy, a little too cool for ideal wave-splashing (not that this kept Calista from dragging me as far offshore as she could). There were a lot of amateur and pro/am entries this year, but not as many pro competitors. Some of the sculptures were spectacular, but there weren't as many clever/amusing efforts as in the past. I have no idea what kept the sculptors away, but hopefully they'll return next season. We took a lot of pictures, so with luck I'll have them posted in a gallery in a few days.

Now Playing: Pink Missundaztood