In the better late than never category: Meeting # 1187 April 29, 2013 Chris Garcia, Acting President Dave Gallaher, Treasurer Diane Osborne, Secretary Pro Tem held at Coco's, 1206 Oakmead Parkway (Lawrence Expressway/101 Fwy), Sunnyvale
Meeting started at 8:00 p.m. with ensuing silliness. 26 people attended. A party jar was established. With no meeting number on hand, Andy moved to call the meeting “This is the Winter of Our Discombobulation”. Move was approved. The minutes from last week's meeting were not read. Dave Clarke moved to call them “We didn’t read these either.” Move was approved. Treasurer reported the regular jar took in $12.60 and the party jar $7.10 last week. Vice President announced there is a new "Drink Tank" out, sorta kinda. The issue is The Taral Wayne Finale, posted on Scribd by Reverend Dr. Christopher J. Garcia. http://www.scribd.com/doc/138505216/ The-Drink-Tank-340-The-Taral-Wayne-Finale<http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.scribd.com%2Fdoc%2F138505216%2FThe-Drink-Tank-340-The-Taral-Wayne-Finale&h=qAQGzP5-iAQFlR0dEc5e_mpnA7dyTad9U8x1q3GRMW8s8rg&s=1> The next issue of "Drink Tank" is Handicapping the Hugos, will be posted Thursday. Sports Committee: Jerry announced San Jose Giants will have a Star Wars night on May 30, 2013. Start preparing your Giants / Star Wars costume now. Pick up free tickets at your local retailer, i.e. Home Depot, now while they are available. Dave G. announced he has tickets for the SF Giants game at Pac Bell Park in September. See him for tickets. Announcements: Brad announced that a friend in Nevada has acquired 20,000+ trading cards with SF themes. They are low value cards, 25 – 50 cents each. He is looking to offload them in bulk. Get contact info from Brad if interested. Chris announced the TAFF Race is over. Jim Mowatt will be going to Texas 2013. The DUFF Race has begun for Australians. Candidates include Bill Wright and Clare McDonald-Sims. Vote now. http://taff.org.uk/duff.html<http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Ftaff.org.uk%2Fduff.html&h=5AQG_bPPgAQFpKnyHNXjOGvrwPHdrS7J_6yyLjZPo6wDMsw&s=1> JC announced Nerdvana Podcast Part 4 is coming out Wedn. Nerdvana will be taping live this Saturday, May 4th at SLF Art Boutiki, 44 Race St, San Jose CA. Josh announced the Berkeley Repertory Theater is bringing Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Patrick Stewart to star in a special presentation of the play No Man’s Land by Harold Pinter, August 3- 31, 2013. Further details available at http://www.berkeleyrep.org/season/1213/7148.asp<http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.berkeleyrep.org%2Fseason%2F1213%2F7148.asp&h=mAQEHSg_jAQHeWQcsQo7c1FuVofjITwjtVeZLk0Oj-m-RkQ&s=1>. Reviews: Radar reviewed the Single Barrel as having a menu for custom cocktails, which has cut the wait time from 90 minutes down to 45 minutes. Bartenders will still make anything not on the menu. Kevin R reviewed Live Journal is purging inactive entries. Pure Gametes of Gore is due to be purged. A Gentleman whose name I didn't catch: Reviewed the Steampunk film being produced by KCAT as lots of fun. It is still in production, they are looking for extras and crew. Adrienne reviewed SFSF on BASFA’s Facebook page as worth visiting daily. If you haven’t already, check it out, vote daily, help show better numbers for the grant. Ric reviewed a new Kickstarter program for A Study in Emerald, based on the Neil Gaiman story. Fanboy Planet recommends AFAM, a stop motion short film as worth seeing. Fanboy Episode # 305 came out last week. A new episode will be recorded at Café Stritch Thursday sometime after 7:00p, featuring two ordinary guys talking about WesterCon 66. Ken reviewed May is the Month of Mayhem at KFJC. Check out Ken’s show Mondays, 2:00 – 7:00p for something special. Ironman 3 opens May 1st. Ken is looking at the Friday afternoon show at the Saratoga Theatre. Worth full price. Andy reviewed BBC America. They are playing monthly classic Dr. Who shows. This month’s features: The Pyramids of Mars, which has excellent pre-show interviews; and The Journey to the Center of the Tardis, newer episode; shows aired this past Saturday, April 25th. Brad reviewed the movie Oblivion. Excellent movie if you are looking to blend stereotypes of SF, i.e. Independence Day + Star Wars. Utterly derivative film. David C reviewed the book The Rook by Daniel O’Malley is a fun debut novel. Go to Amazon to read the full plot description, which is better than he can do. Short description: Espionage with a dollop of purple slime. Carol reviewed Nova Albion, its third convention at the Hyatt last weekend. [Prior cons in 2010 and 2011]. It was a little flat, no Burners with their activities, an OK con that didn’t seem to reach critical mass. Follow-ons: Ric went to four perfectly fun, exciting panels with Chris Garcia. The bar was great. Other than the internet brigade in suits who were rude, it was a fun con. Bill reviewed the costumes as there were lots of people in costumes, some very well done. Lots of dealers. ~ a disagreement blossomed about Clockwork Alchemy Artist / Dealers room, which Chris quashed. ~ Dave C. handed out lots of information about WesterCon66 at the table in the Dealer’s room. Chris had an excellent time, went to five panels, four of which he gave. Many dealers were displeased about the split locations. He had fun interviewing people about “5 Cons”. Saw a lot of great costumes, the best being the Brass Steampunk Spaceman. Highly recommends the Tusca Buffet’s white bean ragout, which is 5 lbs. of sausage + 1 can beans. The Hyatt has draconic rules about food and parties, which is a bummer. Worth full price unless you were a dealer. Adrienne reviewed the book Cat Track by Sofie Kelly as Cozy Mystery’s version of soft core fantasy. The book is part of the Magical Cats Mystery series. It is a cute and the writer is pretty competent. The series trick: two pets with magical powers. Not a real winner. Mo reviewed playing the game Legend of Rimrock for research as very fun. Same mechanics as Dungeonmaster, better technology. Free to download. Warning: Don’t load it if you have to get any work done. Ric reviewed playing the Walking Dead card game at Nova Albion. Highly recommends it. Good for 2-6 players. Cost: ~ $15. Also, Mark Mallars has a new comic book out, Jupiter’s Legacy, Kickass and Wanted, worth the low full price of $2.99/issue. Chris reviewed The Hobbit Game, a team-playing game, says it is much fun. ~ Silliness ensued about a Jewish Dragon named Shmog. ~ Josh: Friday night was pinball box opening, two boxes at a friend’s place: 1. AC/DC Premiere Edition and 2. Augmented sound system with 12” subwoofer and speakers. Awesome game. It can TILT itself. If you like pinball, you can play it at California Extreme convention July 13 – 14. Chris reviewed the TV show Hannibal on NBC Thursday at 10:00p. Serial killer of the week is interesting but not, outlined by one of those convoluted WTF are these writers. Hulu is now in the business of soap operas, All My Children and One Life to Live. Andy said this was the last Robogames. He is watching the finals of the TV show Robot Fighting League. It is the absolute worst of reality shows. It is a crapfest for a reality show. From a robotics and animatronics standpoint, it was absolutely awesome. Mark got $200K to build the prototype / skeleton with hydraulics, etc., $100K each for the others. 12 robots = $1.3M. ~ extensive discourse about merits and metaphors happened ~ We did auctions. Meeting adjourned at 9:37p. The Rumor of the Week: This week’s Guest Check on Iron Chef: Tony Stark.
_______________________________________________ Basfa mailing list Basfa@lists.basfa.org http://lists.basfa.org/listinfo.cgi/basfa-basfa.org