Hopefully they serve popcorn, too.

Last year my employers were good enough to send me to San Francisco for a publishing conference.  Not only was it a great professional development opportunity, but San Francisco was a marvelous location for blog-related activities, as detailed in last year's postings about Borderlands, rocket ships, and changes of hobbit.

This year the conference is being held in Austin, Texas at the end of April, and I put in a request to attend again - I fully accept and understand that the company has the prerogative of turning down this sort of request, but if you don't ask, they can't possibly say "yes".

As it turned out, my VP and new departmental manager agreed that I could attend - much thanks to John and Ted - but I didn't see Austin as offering very much in the way of genre-related sidetrips.

And then I stumbled across a reference to the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema...

The Alamo Drafthouse is arguably one of the world's most famous theatres when it comes to genre films.  It's actually a chain, with locations in a number of US cities, but it got its start in, you guessed it, Austin Texas.  They're not exclusively a genre chain, but their annual Fantastic Festival, famous poster series, and general interest in science fiction and fantasy films have given them a strong presence in the community. In fact, I've mentioned the Alamo Drafthouse before - that was the location of the surprise debut of the 2009 Star Trek reboot, introduced and hosted by Leonard Nimoy.

In addition to that reputation in the fan community, the Alamo Drafthouse has taken a unique approach to the movie-going experience.  Their theatres have a full dinner menu with table service (the seats have something very similar to lecture hall countertops), and also serve alcoholic beverages.  In addition, their online booking system lets you reserve a specific seat in the theatre in advance, so there's no need to show up early and stand in line. Finally, they are famous (or infamous) for their draconic rules involving summary ejection for cell phone use or talking during the movie.   

To summarize:  the Alamo Drafthouse is a genre-friendly movie theatre that lets you pick your seat in advance and drink beer during the movie, and throws out people who talk or use their cell phones - is there some reason NOT to go?

So that takes care of one evening's entertainment in Austin.  Hmmm...I wonder what my movie options will be?  End of April, start of May - damn, no, I miss the premier of Iron Man 3 by one day.  Unless I get lucky - wow, imagine if history repeated itself and Robert Downey Jr. showed up on stage!

Or, if not so lucky, Tom Cruise with the blooper reel from Oblivion - sometimes you pays your money and you take your chances.

- Sid

Tidbits IV.

Or maybe just cheaper than showing Armageddon.

Speaking of threatening meteors, I see that Space is showing Deep Impact today, which is either an astonishing coincidence or really responsive programming.

(And possibly in slightly bad taste under the circumstances, come to think of it.)


Obviously a science fiction fan in the wait staff.

The latest from the good people at Johnnie Fox's Irish Snug who previously used quantum physics to flog Guinness.


Not only that, but it's sold out.
I admit to having made my share of genre-related purchases.  I have a souvenir Doctor Who t-shirt from London, a variety of toy robots, a couple of animé action figures, and of course my slowly growing Major Matt Mason collection, but I'd like to think that I've kept it under control.

That being said, I can understand both the desire to build a perfect replica of the HAL 9000 interface from 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the urge to own one.  But honestly, five hundred bucks?* 

I think that HAL himself says it best:  "I'm sorry, I can't do that, Dave."
 

Regardless, thanks for your support.
In September of 2012, I proudly reported that The Infinite Revolution was number 23,702,450 out of all the web sites in the world, which put me very close to the top ten percent.  Astonishingly, in the subsequent five month period, I've jumped to 12,745,249 - how is this possible?  Who are all these visitors, and why do they never leave any comments?  Damn it, speak up, people!

- Sid

* However, I'm not here to tell people how to live their lives.  Should this screen grab give you the desire to shout "Shut up and take my money" at the ThinkGeek orderbot, you can obtain your very own HAL 9000 here.

And why are they throwing them at Russia?

Sooner or later, it was bound to happen. On 30 June 1908, Moscow escaped destruction by three hours and four thousand kilometres - a margin invisibly small by the standards of the universe. Again, on 12 February 1947, yet another Russian city had a still narrower escape, when the second great meteorite of the twentieth century detonated less than four hundred kilometres from Vladivostok, with an explosion rivalling that of the newly invented uranium bomb.

In those days, there was nothing that men could do to protect themselves against the last random shots in the cosmic bombardment that had once scarred the face of the Moon. The meteorites of 1908 and 1947 had struck uninhabited wilderness; but by the end of the twenty-​first century, there was no region left on Earth that could be safely used for celestial target practice. The human race had spread from pole to pole. And so, inevitably...

At 09.46 GMT on the morning of 11 September, in the exceptionally beautiful summer of the year 2077, most of the inhabitants of Europe saw a dazzling fireball appear in the eastern sky. Within seconds it was brighter than the sun, and as it moved across the heavens - at first in utter silence - it left behind it a churning column of dust and smoke.

Somewhere above Austria it began to disintegrate, producing a series of concussions so violent that more than a million people had their hearing permanently damaged. They were the lucky ones.

Moving at fifty kilometres a second, a thousand tons of rock and metal impacted on the plains of northern Italy, destroying in a few flaming moments the labour of centuries. The cities of Padua and Verona were wiped from the face of the earth; and the last glories of Venice sank for ever beneath the sea as the waters of the Adriatic came thundering landwards after the hammer-​blow from space.

Six hundred thousand people died, and the total damage was more than a trillion dollars. But the loss to art, to history, to science - to the whole human race, for the rest of time - was beyond all computation. It was as if a great war had been fought and lost in a single morning; and few could draw much pleasure from the fact that, as the dust of destruction slowly settled, for months the whole world witnessed the most splendid dawns and sunsets since Krakatoa.

After the initial shock, mankind reacted with a determination and a unity that no earlier age could have shown. Such a disaster, it was realized, might not occur again for a thousand years - but it might occur tomorrow. And the next time, the consequences could be even worse.

Very well; there would be no next time.

A hundred years earlier a much poorer world, with far feebler resources, had squandered its wealth attempting to destroy weapons launched, suicidally, by mankind against itself. The effort had never been successful, but the skills acquired then had not been forgotten. Now they could be used for a far nobler purpose, and on an infinitely vaster stage. No meteorite large enough to cause catastrophe would ever again be allowed to breach the defences of Earth.

So began Project SPACEGUARD. Fifty years later - and in a way that none of its designers could ever have anticipated - it justified its existence.

Rendezvous with Rama, Arthur C. Clarke

At approximately 9:20 on Friday, a meteoroid exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk.  Estimates as to the object's exact size and weight vary - NASA's estimate is 17 meters in diameter and a weight of about ten metric tonnes.  Windows shattered,  buildings were damaged, and over a thousand people were injured, over one hundred of whom required hospitalization.

Coincidentally, the Chelyabinsk explosion took place sixteen hours before asteroid DA2012, 50 meters in diameter and 190,000 metric tonnes in weight, came within 27,000 kilometers of Earth, the closest recorded passage of an object of that size.  

I don't know who's tossing these things at us, but I have to think that eventually they're going to throw a strike.

- Sid