So you know now, they both contain spoilers! Massive, earth shattering, why-bother-to-see-the-movie-now? kind of spoilers.  You have been warned.

Oh, and I personally prefer Eric’s analysis.  As overwrought as Campbell’s Hero’s Journey is in movies today, it’s always nice to see a really clever movie come along and sneak it in right under your nose.  If you read Eric’s essay and think, “huh, I didn’t even see that!” Then JJ Abrams can pat himself on the back.

That is, of course, if he or his script writers even planned it that way.  And if they didn’t?  Well, that’s even better.

1. and so you know: yes, it rocks! ↩

Me and my better half about to step through the Stargate

This past weekend, my wife and I went down to the Texas Renaissance Festival in Plantersville.  One of the nation’s largest renaissance festivals (so their website claims), we’ve been going to it for over a decade now.  Some years we go in costume, usually faux-medieval outfits comprised of things we’d bought the previous year, swords and all.  Some years we just go in our skivvies, particularly if the weather looks to be bad.

This year, I thought we could try something new.  After discussing it with Cindy, we began laying plans back in October.  We nearly had things in place for Halloween, but alas had to wait for everything to arrive last week; just in time for this weekend when we went down to the festival as our very own Stargate SG Team.  So read on for details of our adventure, and full instructions on how we put our outfits together – where to buy, what to buy, and what options you have.

Before the costume guide, though, a quick note on our weekend.  It was a blast!  Walking around the festival, we felt like rock stars.  People would stop us, congratulate us on our costumes, take our photos!  (An eerie feeling for me, I don’t normally like my photo being taken)  We met another Stargate fan at Slayer’s Castle near the Odeon stage.  Lord Slayer has a small FX production company, and showcases some of his work in the haunted house out at Ren Fest.  He took the picture above, and provided the weapons for us to pose with.  That’s his Stargate, which you’ll find in the depths of Slayer’s Castle, just before the Anubis crypt chamber.  Check it out sometime, the picture doesn’t do it justice.

So, for building the basic off-world costume, there were couple of resources that are essential:

• Mike McPhail’s page on his character Michael Donovich
• SG-Operations has a Costume Guide for many different styles of outfit.
• SG1Props has information and kits for converting air-soft P90’s to screen accurate props.
• SciFiHero.net and the subforum StargateHero.net have massively good resources for cosutming.

The Jacket

The first part of the costume, and perhaps the hardest piece to find, is the team jacket.  It’s based on the Navy’s WEP G-8 jacket, which from most outlets is sold in a somewhat shiny nylon rip-stop fabric.  Apparantly, the show used these their first season, the switched to a supplier who would make the same styile in matte cotton ripstop fabric, a better match to standard military BDUs.

A few sources for screen-accurate jackets are out there.  Flightsuits.com offers the standard nylon jacket, and supposedly has a custom cotton jacket somewhere on their site – but I can’t find it.  MilitarySupplyHouse.com has a cloth version of the WEP, but the pictures don’t load properly so it’s hard to tell…and risky to order blind.

The jacket we went with is offered through SciFiHero.net, by the site owner who coordinated the design and manufacture of the jackets based on actual costumes from the show.  It’s more expensive than the nylon versions, but it’s screen-accurate, blends in nicely with the pants you’ll be getting, and has several features the regular WEP jackets don’t:

• Removable Liner, for hot or cold weather
• Interior pocket (with or without the liner in)
• All velcro patches sewn-in!  All you need at the patches themselves, and SciFiHero.net will throw those in for an extra $10 per patch.

Patches

SG Teams wear three patches, and if you go for the jacket I did above, you’re already halfway there.  You just need the patches, and the hook side backs to fit.  I bought my patches from scifipatch.com and the velcro in 12″x4″ olive drab strips from supplycaptain.com.  I later found scifigeeks.com sells the same patches, and precut velcro rounds in 3″, 3.5″, and 4″ rounds.  Even later, I found I could order patches with my jacket, with velcro preattached, from SciFiHero.net.  Price wise, SciFiHero.net is around the same, plus the labor of sewing the patches to their velcro backing – not an easy task, and alas the iron-on patches don’t help.

The patches you need are:

• 3.5″ Project Patch (the Å sort of symbol over the planet Earth)
• 4″ Team Patch (my photo shows SG1, but for our outfits we used SG14)
• 3″ Air Force Logo

For our Team patch, we used SG14. I’ve seen every number from SG1 to SG25 available, as well as some others like SG-F, SG-X, and so on.  The number 14 has significance to us from our college days, but otherwise has no relation between our costumes and Stargate.  If you look at SciFiHero.net, they have regional fan clubs all over the country using the SG team system.  Since costuming is a big part of their fandom, don’t be surprised if wearing a given number doesn’t prompt people at conventions to think you’re from a given region.

The Vest

The original vest on the show is a BlackHawk Omega Medic vest in black.  They’re the real thing – made for military and police forces world wide, as such their “one-size-fits-all” is suitable for a somewhat limited range of “all.”

We opted for vests from TheVestGuy.  Another custom product, The Vest Guy makes all his own stuff, to order.  So, he offers size ranges and you can request special features if you’d like.  I’ve found him to be very responsive to e-mail.  One caution for purists: the vests have large velco panels on the back of the shoulders which, in the real thing, join the seperate front & back halves and allow for some size adjustment.  The Vest Guy’s are there for show, his vests are one-piece.  To me, the fact that he offers sized vests from medium to XXL more than makes up for this, but it might surprise some people.

On the other hand, his vests were designed based on the show itself, and like the jackets, Stargate modifed the original Blackhawk vests a bit to their liking.  The radio pouch is slightly larger, and there are clips at the shoulders for a modular backpack.  See StargateHero.net for more details on the backpack.

T-Shirt

Standard black, no pocket t-shirt.  I bought ours at the Army Navy store, where I discovered that service t-shirts are designed longer than normal – like about 6-8 inches longer.  This makes keeping them tucked in much easier.  Only probably I had with mine, was that after a washing the neck seems to have stretched out much wider than it had been new.

Pants

The show makes use of standard, 6 pocket BDU pants in olive drab.  I recommend purchasing your jacket first, then going out to your local Army/Navy stores to try and match.  The jacket I bought is 100% cotton ripstop, and the pants I have are Atlanco/Truspec 60/40% poly/cotton ripstop.  The color is almost a perfect match.

If you can’t locate them at a local store, try looking around Google for the Truspec brand BDU’s.  It looks like TheMillitaryMan sells them in any color/size combo you need.  Look here for the blend, or here for all cotton.

Belts

You’ll need two belts.  One for your pants, one for your vest.  The vest belt is called a Web Belt, or Army Pistol Belt.  Officially, it’s a LC-2-A issue, with metal eyelets and GVT-890-ABS and BBS lockable adjusters. It should be black and you’ll attach it to the bottom of your vest using the loops provided for that purpose.  Both the Blackhawk Omega Medic and TheVestGuy vests do not come with web belts – you must order them seperately. I ordered mine from US Patriot.

The pants belt is a standard 1.5″ web belt without the metal eyelets.  It should be olive drab to match your pants.  It’s also available from US Patriot, and likely from wherever you buy your BDU pants.

Boots

The show uses Magnum Response (formerly known as “Trooper”) boots.  I found a pair of Magnum Stealth II boots, with a side zipper feature, at my local Army/Navy store.  They’re similar, and I really like the side zip feature.  Any solid black 8″ leather boot with canvas or nylon sides should do.

Sidearm/Holster

For your sidearm holster, you’ve got some options.  The first is the Stargate issue pistol in standard holster.  In the show, they use a Blackhawk Omega VI Tactical Holster with an M9 (typically, a military issue Beretta 9mm).  I went with an ABS red pistol from ManVenture Outpost – a solid silicone injection molded pistol, the size and weight of a real M9.  Because I plan to wear this to ren faires and sci-fi conventions, I don’t want any security to doubt – even from a distance – my holstered weapon is still a fake.

For the holster, I went for an airsoft holster from evike.com.  It’s a little similar to the Blackhawk, but much cheaper.  A major differenece, however, is that I’m told the Blackhawk holster has removable/adjustable straps, which is why in some pictures you see actors wearing the holster with two thigh straps, and some with one thigh strap.  The one I use is not adjustable, and because the straps were too tight for my leg I cut the top one off to use as an extender. So, I’m in a permanent one-strap style.

Another option is the Zat Gun.  TheVestGuy offers a Zat holster, and the gun itself is available as a 2 piece resin kit.  Locating your own Zat Gun will be a matter of finding a kit through google or ebay, assembling and painting it yourself.  You might poke around some of the forums I mention at the top of this guide, and if you’re nice you might meet some hobbyists who could assemble and paint one for you, for a fee.

The SG1Props forum is especially good for another featured weapon of the SG forces – the P90 personal defense weapon.  It’s a real gun, designed in Belgium and used all over the world, including by the US Secret Service and police SWAT teams across the country.  Costumers usually start with an airsoft P90 replica, then modify it to match the versions used in Stargate SG1.  SG1Props apparantly makes a conversion kit for use in most airsoft P90s.

Other Bits

Well, that’s the main costume.  After that, there’s other bits and bobs you might go for.  For example, if you opt to go the P90 route, you might want the chest strap they use to carry it – check out TheVestGuy for a custom made one.  Looking through the resources at the top, you’ll find information on other accessories like canteens, radios, knives, and the infameous backpack.  Even O’Neil’s ball cape or Dr. Jackson’s boonie hat.  Although, be warned – the boonie hat is not for everyone.  I tried one on, looked the the mirror, and cringed.  If I hat with this outfit, it’ll defintely be a ball cap.

I hope this guide helps others, and the other gudies and forums I’ve listed here have helped me.  And remeber the most important part:  have fun!

I’m excited about this film, although I’m not usually inspired by “reboots.”  And, to be honest, hearing a Star Trek story is based around another time-travel adventures usually makes me queasy.  The later television productions got much too fixated on time travel, and, I feel, handled the concept rather poorly.

So what’s different about this movie?  Well, the vibe I’m getting isn’t so much that we’re looking at another time travel adventure, but instead Abrams seems to be using time travel as a hook to his reboot.  And the reboot is very much needed for this franchise.  Much as many fans had been clamoring for a change in production staff (Berman is loved by some, hated by others), the franchise itself has felt like it had been driven into a corner it couldn’t find the way out of.

We missed the adventure, the new, the unusual.  Instead, we’ve seen every old standby trotted out, spun ’round, and often retconned into something ‘new and even more terrifying’ for our enjoyment.  This oversaturation has rendered even the newer races like the Q and the Borg into toothless old hounds, like the Klingons and Romulans.

When is the last time a starship boldy went where no one had gone before?

On purpose?

It seems the further away from the earliest Trek we get, the more I long for it.  If Abrams can recapture it, I’ll be a very happy young kid in theaters next year.  If not, I’ll just be a cynical old fart instead.  Oh, and if I may be allowed a bit now, what’s up with the bridge?  Did Kirk go wild in an Apple store when he took command?

from: lots of places [AICN]

So, it looks like the new members are:

Alice (Lucy Cohu) described as “a woman keeping many secrets from the past.”

Bridget Spears (Susan Brown), “a character vitally connected to the government, which plays an important part in this story.”

Lois Habiba (Cush Jumbo), “a secretary who hacks into some vital information.”

and finally Doctor Rupesh Patanjali (Rik Makarem), a “junior doctor at St Helen’s hospital who gets drawn into Torchwood’s investigations.”

from: Digital Spy

Bringing the popular TiVo software interface and control to your desktop, it looks like you’ll need your own TV tuner card.  For the full experience, you can splurge for a actual TiVo remote and IR interface for your PC.  I imagine TiVo/Nero will have various packages to sell you any hardware you need.

The question is, where is this going for TiVo?  I’ve been a fan of their DVR for years.  I’ve also watched their highs, and lows.  No doubt the EchoStar win is an important one, but their original business model was always their week point.  Selling DVR equipment, while providing continual service in the form of television programming schedules that are downloaded via phone or internet.

Originally, you could purchase recurring monthly service, or for a hefty sum, pick up a lifetime subscription¹.  The lifetime subscription offer comes and goes, for while it’s a nice dodge to adding another monthly service fee to your home entertainment system, it doesn’t provide TiVo with much longevity.

TiVo has managed to expand in two areas.  First, the aggregate viewing data of their subscriber base can be bundled up in discrete, fairly anonymous packages and sold to marketers.  Any fashion they can market this, I encourage TiVo to do so…the biggest complaint the industry has always had to DVRs is watching their potential customers skip commercials.  If TiVo can provide that industry with an alternative that allows the DVR market a reprieve, more power to them.  As an offshoot of this, TiVo has found ways to introduce targeted advertising within their product which has, to date, not been terribly offensive.  Messages off the main menu, or flashing by when I do fast forward through commercials, don’t actually interfere with my use or enjoyment of the product.

The other avenue they pursue is partnerships with other segments of the entertainment industry.  Like their on-again-off-again releationship with DirecTV, or a newer partnership with ComCast.  This new deal with Nero is in that vein – getting TiVo’s software and services out to a new audience.  I see the merit of it, I do.  TiVo provides so much more than simply DVR hardware with handy scheduling features.  Updated programming data, advanced searching capabilities, and the TiVo Suggestions algorithms which (if you think about it) were cool before Pandora Radio or Apple’s iTunes Genius were cool.

All the same, these partnerships haven’t always panned out.  DirecTV has proven to be a tempestuous relationship.  ComCast was a partner 2 years before a product even hit the test market².  I guess my biggest question in this TiVo/Nero deal is: who is running the show?  Because when TiVo relies on partners to drive a product rollout, it’s often been more trouble than it’s worth.  Nero, so far as I know, has never sold hardware before…so is this TV Tuner their own? TiVo’s?  A third-parties?  Will it even matter?

In all, I’m optimistic.  TiVo has worked hard to help establish DVR’s as legitimate in the marketplace.  Perhaps they’ll contribute the same in the PC arena.  Already, some companies are seeking outlets to rent or sell media in protected formats to PCs and Macs.  I expect this is TiVo’s first steps in that direction.  I just hope they’re on stable ground.

from: TiVo Builds a Data Mining Empire [Slashdot]

1. Good for the lifetime of the unit.  Not the owner ↩
2. By which point, my neighborhood had been sold to Time Warner Cable ↩

The other day, this story floated across the wire.  It described Charles Whiting, who lost his wife in 2005 to cancer and emphysema.  One thing that comforted him was the voice mail greeting his wife had recorded with their Verizon phone service some years earlier.  The message remained long after she was gone, and Charles would call it daily to hear her voice once more.

Recently, system upgrades replaced the equipment which provided Whiting’s voice mail service, and the greeting was lost.  Calls to Verizon informed him the previous greeting recordings were lost for good.  It was sad, and a reminder that the world is always changing and someday the things we rely on most will inevitably disappear.

At least, that’s what I thought when I saw it.  Today, a follow-up article showed up on the AP wire.  From the article: Company spokesman John Bonomo said Tuesday that a contractor found the recording and restored it to the new voicemail system.

“I’m glad they rescued it,” Whiting said. “I’m very happy.”

Another reminder: There’s always some good in everyone’s heart.  Let it out whenever you can.