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Caught this tonight while reading up on the new iPhone and doing some freelance work. Absolutely stunning – completely stopped me in my tracks. Shouldn’t all tourism ads be this brilliant?

The Best of Daria: Reliving the Animated Teenage Angst Comedy (LA Weekly)

Unbelievably, I can remember nearly every episode of this, the last of MTV’s intelligent programming.

I’ve been watching my way through the History Channel series Ancient Aliens (which I didn’t realize had become a series, instead finding myself wondering why the special was on again and again) and I keep thinking to myself what I always think when we depict aliens in media: why would they look anything like us?!

Luckily, io9 steps up to the plate with an essay entitled “We’ll Only Find Extraterrestrial Life If We Know What We’re Looking For” that points out just how limiting it is to think that any sort of non-Earth entity would share much in common with life as we know it at all. We really need to stop depicting aliens exclusively as greys, bugs or slightly altered people (Star Trek, I’m looking at you.) Quoth the post:

This would be especially true of lifeforms that aren’t based on carbon or don’t use water as solvent, whose biochemistry would be nothing like ours. For these, we would have to fall back to the highest-order definition of life: an open system with negative entropy, emergent properties and ability to adapt and evolve, with an inner code which ensures that there will be strong continuity of form and function as the organism reproduces.

Check it out if your inner science fiction geek gets belligerent about this topic, too.

In case you missed it (or just totally forgot like I did,) I would like to take a moment to remind you that Tim Gunn will be wearing the Iron Man suit instead of his own in an upcoming comic series called Models, Inc.

It seems that Tim is going to be taking on the role of Charlie-figure for a band of models from across the Marvel universe. His first stop will be saving the day in Tony Stark’s suit when the bad guys crash a costume exhibition.

Most superheroes are fighting the same thing – good vs. evil – but who’s taking on crimes against fashion? Me!

Talk about making it work…

From Later…with Jools Holland

Was anyone else so hooked on the Vancouver 2010 Olympics that they actually watched the closing ceremonies “starring” Avril Lavigne? We were.

(Are you also getting a surprise Olympic Quatchi mascot in the mail soon? Maybe that’s just me.)

Well, if you found yourself tuned into NBC’s coverage last night, you may have noticed the incredible spangly awesomeness that was the “Welcome to Sochi” animation. This thing was a bitch to find on the interweb today, but since I was off sick, I had plenty of time to dig around without mercy.

Success:

And, if you are absolutely smitten with it and would like to see it in much higher resolution, go here and jump to the 4:56 mark (apologies for SilverLight.)  To quote one blogger:

Just to make Canada’s sloppiness look bad, we got treated to Glorious Mother Russia coming out to annihilate all of our brains with a precise, choreographed, sensory-overloading preview of Sochi 2014.

Yes.  Yes, we did.  And I want to be treated again and again.  Bring on Sochi!

(Thank you to Mahalo & NBC Olympics)

If you’re curious, the winning search string was “ice cosmonaut ballerina snowboard.” Always a good sign.

I finally got to see the Caprica pilot thanks to my successful installation of DirecTV OnDemand (for only $35, no less.)  As the first two episodes premiered in April, there are plenty of reviews of things like plot and characters already online.  So, instead of focusing on these things, I’ll instead be talking about the two topics I really cared about:  technology and aesthetics.

Caprica being set a few years into another culture’s future certainly sets a geek up for quite a bounty of lust-worthy gadgets.  It doesn’t hurt, either, that the family Graystone is rolling in cubits from their diverse and expansive tech empire.  In just the first two hours we’ve seen immersive virtual worlds delivered via holobands, a robotic butler/target, swanky maglev train system and more.  But what I was most smitten with was the electronic paper interfaces that Zoe, Ben and Lacy favor.  Example:

I want this.  I have no idea how it would work, really, but I want it.

And all of this gizmo-y goodness is wrapped in a far more grey depiction of Caprica City than we ever saw in Battlestar.  Any time filming takes place in the Pacific Northwest I’m likely to be won over (Twilight, anyone?) by the finished product.  But Caprica goes a step further than just a great, dreary locale by presenting a world that reads as believable and beautiful.  It’s science fiction, but not campy from fashion to industrial design.  The styling goes above and beyond BSG (who wasn’t tired of Roslin’s suits?) with compelling touches like Victorian mourning garb and references to the show’s Grecian mythology.  Sets are minimalist but richly textured.  I was particularly pleased to see the same predilection for artifacts and sculpture in Joseph Adama’s home as in his son’s future quarters.  I’m excited (as I’m sure the cast and crew are) to see how style evolves without the limitations of refugees and the same damned warship.

Overall, I want to live in Caprica City at the brink of The Fall of Humanity.  But, since it’s fictional, I’ll settle for it’s skyline donor, Vancouver.

Can’t wait for the remaining 19 episodes this January!

Already there’s imitation from competing networks. You know what they say about imitation…

…after a sick day on Monday and getting caught up yesterday. It happens. I apologize.

In any case, in my laziness, I’ve decided to point you to Tom & Lorenzo’s pretty spot-on review of episode two of V.

VS1E02: There is No Normal Anymore

I do have to agree with their assessment that the second episode really does a good job of shaping the feel of the season. I think that perhaps it’s a bit more sorted than they are giving the writers/actors credit for, but let’s get right to it: the star of the episode was absolutely the iPhone. And Anna’s rad virtual closet. Those two were played perfectly.

So I caught Tuesday’s episode of the new ABC remake of V, the 1983-ish series (depending on where this falls in the original story, which Wikipedia isn’t really making too clear.)  I missed it on TV and attempted to watch it on ABC’s website last night, but was stunned to find that their strategy in the age of Hulu and Surf the Channel is to make you wait five days after the broadcast for the streaming version.  Screwing that, I found the episode in its entirety from CTV and set to work trying to like this version.

Set in a city populated entirely by models which turns out to be New York, V follows the lives of several somewhat relatable characters: a mother and son who have drifted out of touch following a divorce, a disenchanted, young Catholic priest, a businessman with a shady past and his soon-to-be fiancée and an anchorman with hopes of being more than a newsreader.  Nothing particularly groundbreaking here and any tensions being faced by each character has been so thoroughly dumbed down as to be nearly laughable.  I mean, when the Visitors arrive, Father Jack is nearly crushed while saving a man from a giant falling crucifix in his church!  Thanks for making that metaphor painfully obvious, ABC!

Anyway, so the Visitors pull up in their spaceships (zing! we think!) and immediately awe all of the world with the short-haired beauty of Anna (the always lovely but now lovelier, Morena Baccarin.)  This part was rather cool and a very modern take on a first encounter, especially with the entourage and press release-y-ness of it all.  Frankly, the Visitors get snaps for being sharply dressed and on-point, on message – and, as it turns out – on time.  I can get behind this kind of alien takeover.

Then, blah, blah.  The V aren’t what they seem.  A resistance is brewing.  The only black guy is a V!  Alan Tudyk goes from most likable to dead, just like always.  All with too-quick pacing that might be attributable to this being a 45 minute pilot that could have benefited from an extra 45 minutes?  There’s probably a reason why this was a miniseries in 1983, friends.  I will have to see if the pacing continues at such a frenzied, soap opera gallop, but I’m not thrilled with it right now.

And that’s my overall verdict on V: why so fast?  Why so frantic?  I know production was troubled by thoughts of early cancellation, but this isn’t helping.  You got off to a good start with 10s of millions of viewers, so perhaps we can slow it down and make it more complex with the extra time?  Science fiction continues to be a hard sell in network primetime, but it doesn’t have to be this clipped to be successful.

My real question with V is, and always will be, why it strays so far into the realm of Reptilian lore in the first place.  I’m always suspicious of anything that comments on the fictional motivations of the global elite by calling attention to the rumors about the actual global elite.  Is someone trying to tell us something that we should know?  Especially with the Obama connections so plainly laid out?