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Hey all…

Don’t forget about the Expedition Africa Prize Pack contest! I’ll pick a winner from the entries on June 12 — nine days from now. All kinds of cool stuff for exploring the world or your own back yard!

Check out the contest here…

And don’t forget to watch Expedition Africa on Sundays on the HISTORY Channel!

–Fitz

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• Contest: Explorer’s Prize Pack from Expedition Africa (writer.fitzhome.com)

I thought this was interesting today… It’s been announced that what was to be the final book of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, completed by Brandon Sanderson, has instead turned into a final three books. A Memory of Light is being broken into three volumes, the first of which will be released on November 3, 2009 as The Gathering Storm.

Now… This to me is starting to resemble a series by L. Ron Hubbard back in the mid-1980s called Mission Earth. And, like with Jordan’s series, it started strong and became convoluted and dragged out at the end. Though I’ve owned book 10 of Mission Earth for close to 15 years, I still haven’t read it. The last two of Jordan’s books are the same way… I have Knife of Dreams and New Spring on my shelf where they’ve been for the last few years. And I just can’t get back into it.

Perhaps Sanderson will breathe some new life into it. But the fact that they’ve chosen to split up Jordan’s final book into three doesn’t bode well for me. Will I purchase the books? Maybe.

How do you feel about this news? Any comments?

–Fitz

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• Tor announces The Gathering Storm, Book Twelve of Robert Jordan’s legendary Wheel of Time fantasy series (tor.com)
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Sorry, but I’m having some issues with my site following my WordPress 2.7.1 upgrade yesterday. Please bear with me as I work out the kinks.

Thanks!
–Fitz

This morning I got an e-mail from the blog of Tim Ferris (author of the 4-Hour Workweek) pointing me to a new site he’s helping a friend with called The Laugh Button. (Though I’d love to do more with the 4-hour workweek concept, it hasn’t happened for me quite yet — I’m working on it. )

The post talks about tonight’s special on PBS honoring George Carlin at the Mark Twain Prize presentation, and how some of Carlin’s quotes are almost indistinguishable from Mark Twain’s… Separated at birth and a 100+ years? Maybe! (Here’s the post from Ferris — it’s worth reading. All of Ferris’ posts are thought provoking, and that’s great first thing in the morning to get the juices flowing.)

Anyway… I digress! The really cool bit is that this site, The Laugh Button, is kind of like a Pandora for stand-up comedians. We all need more funny in our lives. This is a perfect way to introduce a smile into your day. I will be checking out this site regularly!

So check out The Laugh Button today and watch the Mark Twain Prize tonight on PBS to honor one of the great comedians of our time – George Carlin – with some of the other great comedians of our time (Jon Stewart, Garry Shandling, Margaret Cho, Denis Leary, and one of our favorite crazy people – Lewis Black).

You know you want to listen.

–Fitz

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• George Carlin wins Twain award for humour (thestar.com)
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So Columbia Pictures is remaking The Karate Kid, and it’s going to star Jaden Smith as the kid and Jackie Chan as the “Mr. Miagi”-like role. (Announced last night at Variety.)

Why do we continue to see remakes for movies that don’t really need to be remade? Because it’ll make money of course. Will Smith’s son plus Jackie Chan = $$$$ in the eyes of producers I guess.

But I have to wonder what they’re going to do. It’s the same story as before. A kid is bullied by kids at school and learns to fight his own battles (physically and philosophically) with the help of an eccentric older mentor.

What kills me in this one is that Jerry Weintraub, who launched the original 1984 movie (dang I feel old), is producing the new one. The 1984 version starred a young Ralph Macchio (who’s not looking great in his older years – he’s appearing in the weird movie Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Undead set to come out later this year and time has not been kind) and Pat Morita (a classy older asian dude who unfortunately passed away in 2005). Why Weintraub sees the need to trash the 1984 version (which in my demented mind was a great movie as seen by me at age 14) by redoing it is beyond me.

But the remake bandwagon rolls on… This isn’t one I’ll be lining up to see.

–Fitz

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Ain’t It Cool News just posted an amazingly detailed list of shows that are starting up again in 2009. (You can see the full list here.) I just thought I’d provide a list of the shows I’m excited about or have been watching (a subset of the full list).

• 

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  Scrubs (ABC) Jan. 6

• Flashpoint (CBS) Jan. 9
• American Idol (Fox) Jan. 13
• Supernatural (CW) Jan. 15
• Battlestar Galactica (SciFi) Jan. 16
• Fringe (Fox) Jan. 20
• Lie To Me (Fox) Jan. 21
• Burn Notice (USA) Jan. 22
• Last Templar (NBC) Jan. 25
• Heroes (NBC) Feb. 2
• Chuck (NBC) Feb. 2
• Life (NBC) Feb. 4
• Dollhouse (Fox) Feb. 13
• Reaper (CW) March 17

We’ve been watching Scrubs for a few seasons now and I have to admit we’re hooked on the upbeat sarcasm. I’ll be curious to see if moving it to ABC changes the show’s vibe.

Flashpoint was a surprise when it aired in late summer or early fall. Though it’s a bit formulaic, it’s the characters that will make me tune back in to see what happens to this SWAT team in Canada.

American Idol you ask… Yes, we’re Idol fans. Not rabid, dial every week a million times kind of fans, but still fans. We’ll see if this year is as good as last.

Supernatural is another show that we’ve been watching since the beginning. Sam and Dean are now trying to stop the Apocalypse. Who could ask for more?

Battlestar Galactica enters its last season in January. We’ve been waiting for far too long and dare to dream that it will end in fantastic fashion.

Fringe hooked us this fall and hasn’t let go yet. Each episode we enjoy the banter between Walter and his son and look for new clues to the Pattern along with everyone else.

Lie to Me looks like it might be Fox’s answer to the Mentalist. I’m a big fan of Tim Roth (ever since Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, one of my favorite movies) and can’t wait to see what he has cooked up for this character.

Burn Notice continually teaches me new ways to look cool and act like an ex-spy.

And the Last Templar looks like a bit of Lara Croft meets Indiana Jones or the Da Vinci Code. We’ll see if it keeps my interest.

The Heroes/Chuck tandem has worked well on Mondays for quite a while and I’m hopeful that Heroes gets back on track. We’re about 6 episodes behind at the moment (thank you Tivo), so hopefully we’ll be caught up!

Life is another show who’s quirky characters and interesting story lines keep us coming back.

Dollhouse has Joss Whedon and Eliza Dushku once again matched up for a show (hasn’t happened since Buffy and Angel). We’ll see if Whedon has better luck with dolls than with westerns in space.

And Reaper is just plain fun. Sam as the Devil’s inept bounty hunter with his friends (Sock is our favorite — his brand of sarcasm and wit always makes us smile).

Of course… This could all just be a pipe dream if the SAG goes on strike in January. But who knows? Happy thoughts… Happy thoughts…

What shows are you excited to see return to television in the new year? Let me know!

–Fitz

I saw this article on TechCrunch this week and it made me pause and scratch my head. Why would Dell pre-load their computers with movies?

Your typical high definition digital movie file takes up a large amount of space, somewhere between 1 Gigabyte and 4 Gigabytes (assuming some degree of compression) of storage would be required on a hard drive. If you have a 300 gig drive, which is about average these days, that would be a maximum of less than 1.5 percent of your hard drive.

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Apparently Paramount and Dell inked a deal for Dell to sell Iron Man on new machines for $20. This includes the digital movie, plus the DVD extras, right on the hard drive. And you can burn it to DVD. But only once.

I’m guessing that we’ll see more movie studios go this route with hard disk space as cheap as it is (and getting cheaper every day), but I have to wonder why. What’s the benefit of having it on the hard drive? I only see one — no DVD to haul around and lose. But that’s the only benefit I can see.

Am I just missing the point?

–Fitz

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I’ve now stumbled upon this site a total of three times and have finally had a chance to write about it. If you haven’t seen it, there’s a movie called 2081, which appears to be set in a very Orwellian dystopia.

The site is here. And there’s a bit of information about it on IMDB here. It appears to be in post-production currently.

But the trailer is eerie and hits far too close to home. In a world where no one rises above any other, where individuality is frowned upon and the norm must be adhered to blindly, a revolution is brewing.

Based on a short story by Kurt Vonnegut, the movie appears to be about breaking away from what is expected and doing the extraordinary. I won’t take it on face value, however it’s certainly enough to peak my interest.

There doesn’t seem to be a release date yet. But I hope it eventually makes it to DVD or the big screen.

Because it’s time for a revolution.

–Fitz

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I’m going to try and do my blog refresh tomorrow. So if it’s offline for a while, don’t panic. I’ll hopefully have it back up and running in no time!

Thanks for your patience!
–Fitz

Yes, I know I’m only stating the obvious. Jar Jar Binks, that loveable Gungan from his native Naboo, is everybody’s favorite character from Star Wars Episodes 1, 2, and 3. Thanks George for creating his winning personality!

What do we know about Jar Jar?

Well, he’s grace personified under pressure. He has a beautiful singing voice. And he has a ton of political influence in the Republic. What else is there that we need to know? Nothing. That pretty much sums it up. His political career was untarnished by questionable practices. He truly led a simple, above-board life in the name of the Republic.

Without Jar Jar, I think all three of the Star Wars prequel movies would’ve severely sucked.

Yes, Jar Jar, we all salute you!

–Fitz