Daily Breakfast #146
Today: Reality TV; JK Rowling and Harry Potter’s birthday; Harry’s Invisibility Cloak soon a reality? Dr. Leonhardt thinks it’s possible! Nintendo DS in the kitchen? Battlestar Galactica and the upcoming Simpsons Movie; the PrayerCast; Fr. Crunk aka Fr. Riccardo Bailey.
- Our Reality - by Joe Stevens
- Archdiocese of Atlanta Official Podcast
- Simpsons Movie Animatics
- Priest Hits Atlanta’s Airwaves On Popular Radio Show
- Get Crunk With Father Bailey!
Today’s show (Click blue triangle to listen)
Fr. Crunk would be a great compliment to Fr. RodVon on SQPN. That would great to get Fr. Crunk his own podcast.
Was the convention called ComicCon?
Something to pass along to the folks conducting the prayercast -
A couple of years ago I set up a prayer circle as part of my web site. Folks signed up for email notices of prayer requests, and then visitors to the site could email me prayer requests. I would then forward them to everyone on the list. I got flooded! Some of the most heart-twisting cries for help that I’ve ever heard.
What you’re going to do is a great thing. Just be prepared.
I spoke to a friend who is a journalist at the weekend. He told me that he went to a preivew of the Wii and was v. impressed by it. I’m not sure how you describe this, but he said you could use a remote control type device like a real instrument, for example, if you were playing a tennis game, you could swing the r.c. about like it was a real bat. If I remember rightly he said the Wii was coming out at the start of November. Perhaps someone will be able to confirm or correct me on that.
D.
I was able to go to Comic-con this year with my two sons, Sam and Paolo. It is the first year that Paolo was old enough (6 yrs) to go and enjoy himself. For Sam, who is 12, it was the highlight of his year. We were able to go to the Simpson’s panel. It was fantastic. Matt Groening and James Brooks were there, along with a number of the other writers. Having seen them at this presentation it is easy to understand why the show is so funny. These people are hilarious and so very quick witted. Someone asked the panel who their favorite musical guests had been. Someone said Paul McCartney and Matt Groening said that his favorite was The Ramones. Unfortunately, the panel was shorter than planned because the earlier panel, on Lost, ran long. That panel was also interesting. The actors who play Hurley and Jin were there as were the show’s creators. They were very close-lipped and didn’t let anything slip. They said that there was going to be a six-episode arc and then a break until into the new year when the rest of the episodes would run, without reruns, until the end of the season. The only other things that I remember them making a point of saying were that Kate would become involved with someone during the first 6-episode arc and that no one knows who is the father of Sun’s baby. What was really striking was how nice both Daniel Dae Kim and Jorge Garcia seemed when answering questions from the audience. We were unable to get into the Battlestar Galactica presentation. We were, however, able to go to the Lucasfilm presentation. It was in the largest room at the convention. Someone said that it seated 5,000 people. There were five gigantic screens. Before the Lucasfilm event there was a 15 minute presentation on film by Peter Jackson on the Director’s edition of King Kong that is going to be released. It will have a bunch of new extras and 13 minutes of new material in the movie. The Lucasfilm presentation focused on all of the new developments that were part of the franchise. He did a brief retrospective of Star Wars’ relationship with Comic-con (the first Star Wars got its first big promotion at Comic-con and Lucasfilm has been involved with the convention ever since then). They also focused on two new games - one an Indiana Jones game set in 1939. It will range from Chinatown in San Francisco to the Biblical lands. I think that the Star Wars game will be called Force Power. They said that the game will be set between episodes three and four and will significantly advance the story and will have “an astonishing revelation.” These games will be for the new game platforms - the 360, the Nintendo Wii, and PS 3. Apparently they are going to utilize groundbreaking game technology - Pixelux’s Digital Molecular Matter technology and NaturalMotion’s Euphoria - a biomechanical AI system -and combining them with things developed by Industrial Light and Magic to create their own engine for the game. According to the folks from Lucasfilm, this means that no matter how many times you play the game you will get a difference experience.The idea behind the Force Power game is that the gamer would be able to use the force to affect people and objects in the game. They also talked about a new animated series and the TV series. They said that the TV series would happen at the end of the decade and that it would be “darker” like Battlestar Galactica. It would take place between episodes three and four. They also said that 2007 would be full of activities to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Star Wars. They will kick off the celebration by having two floats in the Rose Parade on New Year’s Day. In addition to the two floats, there will be 200 stormtroopers from the 501st - Vader’s Fist - from around the world. The 501st is a volunteer club of people who celebrate the Star Wars movies through elaborate trooper costuming, but more importantly, who provide extensive community service. There will also be a huge Star Wars convention. Star Wars Celebration IV will fill the L.A. Convention Center from Thursday, May 24 to Monday, May 28, 2007. Here’s a description of the event from the web: “five days filled with live entertainment, celebrities from all six movies, special film and video presentations, an exhibit of movie props and costumes, exclusive merchandise sold at a 24-hour-a-day store, pop culture tributes, immersive events, costume contests, and scores of additional activities.” I think that one of my favorite moments of the entire convention happened right before the speaker from Lucasfilm stepped up. The announcer reminded the audience that no audio or video recording of the presentation was allowed - then he said, “If you are carrying a lightsaber, please turn off your lightsaber as a courstesy to others.”
The recent changes to the website are really good. As good as a wordpress start page may be, in some way I missed the usability and smoothness of the old “hand operated” website. And now the old advantages come back together with the benefits wordpress provides. And for the Catholic Insider you maybe could bring back the show site? You know, this page sorted by topics. There a real treasures hidden in the archives and I am sure that there are many new listeners, who actually don’t have an idea, what is waiting there to be downloaded.
Go on!
@ Maureen:
Your comment was a very good report of the events concerning Lucasfilm.
I sort of hesitated to mail Fr. Roderick some information, because I was a bit disappointed of the Con’s news. I want to share some further information concerning the Star Wars geek side of the Comic-Con (information from Steve Sansweet, Lucasfilm):
- The Clone Wars 3D animated series will not start before 2008.
- The Star Wars Real Series will be there “later in this decade”. There was no release year being mentioned.
- The 3D re-release (http://www.in-three.com/) of the Star Wars movies in the cinema could take place later than everybody thought before due to the lack of enough digital cinemas and due to the fact that there are immense costs for the cinema owners (those new 3D glasses, which are required for everyone in the audience, are not cheap, they include some technics).
So, there are three big things coming up. And at least two of them (Clone Wars and a potential 3D Star Wars cinema release) were expected to happen in 2007, when it is the 30th birthday of Star Wars. But nothing will happen. For me as a fan, it is quite strange that they only have this Star Wars game for Next-Gen-consoles for the 30th birthday. It’s disappointing because of the fact that they previously made so many big announcements. And now: only a game?
Well, I am getting wild. I should stop
Have a nice day, all of you!