I've been a regular Con attendee since 1999 and at the risk of sounding like an old curmudgeon - it ain't what it used to be. For myself and many of the gang that I go with Con was about seeing the cool new projects, hearing the intimate details from creators, and finding out about the stuff that you wouldn't otherwise. This dynamic has changed dramatically in recent years and the attendee population has gone thru the roof (120K+ by some reports).

Hooray for Hollywood? - For better or worse, Hollywood has fully embraced Con as the go-to place to launch and drive buzz for their TV shows and action blockbusters. This has caused an explosion in Movie and TV fans who are quite content to wait in line several hours for the chance to catch a brief glimpse of their favorite celebrity from Heroes or the next Star Trek movie. I'll happily admit that I managed to jump in line ahead of people who'd probably been waiting several hours to see the Bionic Woman premiere and Battlestar Galactica panel. Yeah I felt a little dirty, but part of me felt like screaming "screw you johnny-come-lately's - GTFO of my Con!"

Con & Web 2.0 - The feeling that you're getting the inside track or seeing something exclusive is greatly diminished these days. People knew that the actor who plays Sylar on Heroes is the new Mr. Spock within seconds of it being announced at Con - people were live-blogging and text messaging the whole time. With a little effort you can find badly captured shakey-cam versions of the "exclusive" trailers that were previewed at Con. Even the smaller panels weren't really that "small" and just seemed to lack the intimacy and sense of dialogue that past sessions had.

So what now? Damned if I know. I was pretty down on Con this year. Everything seemed like "hurry up and get in line" everywhere we went. I'll probably still go for work, since it is an excellent venue now for video-games but I'm afraid that the wide-eyed wonder with which I used to approach Con is gone. Growing up sucks. 

Truly one of the coolest things about the Internet is to recall a random toy or TV show from your childhood, google it - and find that others have already devoted entire web-sites to it.

Growing up in Hong Kong in the 70s, I got exposed to a lot of Japanese anime and tokusatsu (live-action) TV shows. One of my favorites was Kamen Rider V3 (aka Masked Rider). These guys are essentially insect-themed cyborg super-heroes with a thing for motor-cycles. A pre-cursor to the much more kiddified and colorful Power Rangers.

Anyways, it turns out just like in the US, there's a trend for reviving old franchises from the 70s and 80s and turning them into movies. I'm happy to learn that releasing this October is a re-make of Kamen Rider V3 called Kamen Rider - The Next.

On a whim I caught the pilot for USA Network's new spy show Burn Notice. I wasn't expecting much, but I have to say I really enjoyed it. The main character is Michael Westen, international spy and trouble-maker - who's been forcibly retired, or as they say in the spy-biz: he's received a "burn notice." All of his assets have been frozen and he's under constant surveillance - granted this happens against the oh-so-chic backdrop of Miami, so it doesn't totally suck.

While he tries to figure out why this happened to him, he has to use his skills to make a buck while he's down on his luck. Fortunately he's ably supported by his ex-gf Fiona (Gabrielle Anwar), an ex-IRA femme fatale for whom violence is fore-play. Bruce Campbell provides the comic relief as Sam, another ex-spook who's been so drunk and out of the biz that no one considers him a threat anymore - a perfect support operative for Michael.

The show has a slightly dark sense of humor, with a sort of instructional MacGyver edge, as Michael has to cobble together the tools of his trade from everyday household items. Give it a look!

Burn Notice (USA Network)

I see artistic indecision trying to pass itself off as inspiration, and a TV-watching intelligentsia, after recovering from its initial disorientation, rushing in to bestow approval that I do not believe will ring down through the ages. - Timothy Noah on Slate on the Sopranos series finale, and the resulting critic reaction.

Sopranos Finale Discussion

I think I found out about this thru one of Amazon's hot-seller lists. I was a little leery - I've never been big on reading comics on the PC. But the prospect of being able to read every Amazing Spider-man from the the 1960s thru 2006 was too good to resist.

I've always been more of a reader than a collector, so something that gives me access to so much story without having to pay stupid collector prices is right up my alley.

It took a little getting used to reading comics in PDF format, but having a wide-screen monitor definitely helps. Right now I'm going thru John Romita Sr's original run in the 60's and loving it.

Just a quick note that for those of you who haven't checked it out yet - the new Bond delivers! Daniel Craig portrays Bond as a thug with a veneer of style in the Sean Connery tradition - not the foppish dandy that Moore and Brosnan played. Casino Royale takes Bond back to his roots - rebooting him for the new millennium. The gadgets are there, but they take a back-seat to the man and his skills. The obligatory card game is also there - but redone with a twist.

Its not perfect - about 80% of the way thru the movie - the pacing changes significantly and the plot loses its way IMO, but still the most fun I've had at a Bond movie in over a decade!

• Comic Con - Act Your Age! - OK 10 years ago it was cute to lounge around in your T-shirt and sweats in your parents' basement and not really give a crap, just let it all hang out. Today you're playing in the big leagues and it's time to act your age. Considering the Web exploded onto the scene over a decade ago and that 99.9% of your audience is wired it's appalling that you only this year got around to offering online registration. And don't give me that "I'm a non-profit" excuse either - there are tons of non-profits that pull in a lot less revenue than you do that do a better job online. At least for 2007 it looks like you've enabled RSS Feeds - a step in the right direction, but the jury's still out.
• Good Programming - For the Love of God! - Not sure what happened this year, but in years past whoever was in charge of programming had the good sense to save the interesting panels for the weekend. That meant that the hard-core faithful could retreat from the hordes of "looky-loos" on the Exhibition floor into the peace and relative sanity of quieter, air-conditioned conference rooms. Not so this year! Perhaps there's some method to the madness that I've overlooked, but most of the panels I was interested in were scheduled on Thur/Fri, leaving me only Saturday to get onto the floor... and boy did I hate it. Wall to Wall sweaty fandom. Not pretty.
• Bright Lights, Big Previews - There was just too much in the ways of high-profile previews for new movies & TV series. This is not necessarily a bad thing - it just means that you have to plan & prioritize better. Chances are you're not going to be able to see BOTH the hot new Ghost Rider trailer AND the intimate panel with your favorite writers. This year I erred a little too much on the former and feel I missed out on the latter. It's an embarassment (and inconvenience) of riches.

So now that I've gotten some of the griping out of the way, let me assure you that Con is still well worth going to - especially if you're a middle-aged "boy" looking to relive or drop some cash on his childhood. So what caught my eye at this year's Con:

 
• Heroes (NBC) - Jeph Loeb (Smallville, Lost) previewed the director's cut version of the pilot of his new TV series Heroes. As you may have guessed the premise of the series is that all over the world people spontaneously begin to exhibit special abilities - and no one knows why. The first episode is intriguing enough to warrant a Tivo. Each of the main characters' stories thread and interweave tangentially - similar to Lost. There's a strong emphasis on character and how all of these characters may interrelate. Let's hope the writers have a strong idea of where they're going with this - otherwise they're likely to lose the audience's interest quickly.

 
• The Raygun Collection (Weta) - On an exhibit floor filled with all manner of collectibles, The Raygun Collection from Weta definitely stood out for me. Straight out of the pages of Jules Verne, H.G. Wells & Edgar Rice Burroughs these lovingly crafted steam-punk era rayguns will set both your head and wallet aspin. My personal favorite is the Goliathon 83 Infinity Beam Projector, complete with singed vacuum tube.
• Warhammer Online (Mythic) - Could this be the first MMO to successfully grab a slice of the WoW pie? Quite possibly - it's definitely got a lot of Orcs in it - and the UI and game mechanics are not so surprisingly quite WoW-like. Now to be fair Warhammer has been around a lot longer than the Warcraft franchise, and the hardcore among us have little doubt that Blizzard "lifted" heavily from them to create their own IP. Nevertheless, at this point WoW is has very much come into its own and now Warhammer is playing catch up.