Monday, July 30, 2007

The A.M. Digest

* This news from Comic-Con is almost enough to make me really, really happy on a Monday morning. Whedonesque.com and TV Squad are reporting that Ripper, the Buffy spin-off focusing on my imaginary Sunnydale boyfriend Rupert Giles, has actually been picked up by the BBC. It will be done as a 90-minute TV movie and yup, Anthony Stewart Head will reprise his role. No details on plot or when it will start filming, but hey, I'm not greedy. I've been waiting years and years for this bit of Whedon-y goodness, so I'm just happy to hear it might actually be happening. I hope Head remembers how to stammer and clean his glasses....[TV Squad story]

* In slightly less important cinematic news (kidding, of course), Swedish director Ingmar Bergman has passed away. Which is weird because I thought he was already dead, but then I realized I was thinking of Ingrid Bergman. And then I thought about how Woody Allen's movies wouldn't have been as good if he'd been aping Ingrid Bergman all these years, and then that made me appreciate Ingmar a little bit more and then I felt bad about mixing him up with a woman. Sorry, Ingmar. [NPR story]

* If you want to feel slightly old this morning, and who doesn't really, then take a stroll down memory lane with this visual history of game consoles. You'll see the old Odysseys and Ataris and realize that the 1970s were all about wood-paneling on everything. Including babies and small cars and trees.

* Also, the Italians exhumed two Medici writers...apparently just because they can. Bunch of Renaissance-having show-offs. [Guardian story]

3 comments:

Steve B said...

Ahh the Magnavox Odyssey². That was the first console we had. Played K.C. Munchkins like it was crack. It was it's version of Pac-man. Each level would get insanely faster and faster.

Also I think the first console to have voices. I wish I could get it to work since I still have it and have about 30 games.

Shan said...

Yeah, Ripper! (I posted about that m'self, I was so enthused).

Also, we bought the first edition of Pong and were mesmerized by its simplicity. Then we became an Atari 2600 family, and bought hundreds of games for that thing. In my world, that was the "golden age" of video games, when all you needed was one joystick and one button, and didn't need to get carpal tunnel to complete a pass, shoot from three missle silos or maneuver Pitfall Harry. Sigh. I'm old.

Liz said...

I loved Pong. Frogger was nirvana for me though. And Centipede. Remember when you'd go to restaurants and they had those video game tables? I used to love going to dinner with my parents and playing Frogger while we waited to get seated.

I feel like my grandmother when she used to talk about how people used get dressed up to go to the movies....