Jason Martin's first love affair with science fiction all started with Star Wars. He was intrigued by the elaborate details of the action figures along with the Star Wars sketchbook he received as a child. This led him to create his own Intergalactic Hockey team. Check out some of his other star hockey players, plus his menagerie of weird creatures.

Punchy the Clown: Remember the punching clown you had as a child? And how much fun you had punching it over and over again? Well, he's back and he's got all kinds of upgrades. Don't be fooled by his large belly. He's a serious player.

The Goalie for the Cyborgs: This character sheet shows you that all is not as it may appear. There's a human inside this goalie armor. And check out the fancy foot design.

Shorty: Last but not least there is Shorty, probably the fiercest player of them all. He's a member of the Clown Team and you would be surprised how often the Clowns defeat the Cyborgs.

Not part of the Hockey team, but one of Jason's proudest achievements. Jason loves artwork that tells a story and has done quite a bit of animation work. His first comic book, "Homunculous" is a collaboration with Niko Karvounis and he's also wrapped up his first cartoon, Juvees, for the Fox AniBoom Competition.

He is currently developing a book, Lil' Book of Critters, and it's filled with a bunch of strange and fantastic creatures. And since Jason is all about the story behind the creatures, each one has a name. This one is Fangs (naturally)!

And this is Frisky. When Jason showed these creatures to others, they often came up with their own stories behind the critters. So I thought I'd take up this challenge and tell my own stories about them.

Here is Wisp. He may look a bit weak but he has a powerful singing voice (especially in the shower...).

Ok, this one is Clog. Not sure where to begin with his story (ha-ha). Makes my imagination just go wild. Probably better left unsaid.

It's not so much that he can't keep still, but that he is just an excitable boy. Fidget has a hard time staying in one place. And why should he? The world is a wonder and filled with marvels to explore.

Frizz is just a hopeless romantic. She enjoys a great love story and cries at the drop of a hat.

Sweet little Peep also sometimes cries, but this is usually because people forget where he is (because he is sooo very small) and he gets crushed or stepped on.

Ogler has been known to appreciate the finer things in life, such as good wine and beautiful women.

Leaflet may be small but she doesn't miss a thing. And don't worry. She is a loyal friend and your secrets are always safe with her.

Not all of Jason's critters are sweet. Some are downright mean. Not only does Snitch blab, he also thinks he's better than everyone.

And Worrywart is not much fun. He wrings his hands so much that they're all chapped; one of the many reasons he refuses to shake hands (also, he's worried about germs).

And here is Habringer. She doesn't just foresee the upcoming horrible events, she brings them.

Our last creature is Doubt, whom many consider the scariest of them all.

Many thanks to Jason Martin for giving me such cool art that allows me to make up my own stories!

Look for more of his work at http://www.conceptcreature.com/animation_art.php

One of the current barriers to orbital skydiving is protecting the diver from the extreme heat of reentering the Earth's atmosphere. But NASA may have developed a solution in the form of the Inflatable Re-entry Vehicle Experiment. The IRVE is vacuum-packaged around a cylinder of gas, so it can be quickly inflated and deployed upon reentry. In NASA's test, the IRVE successfully resisted the heat of reentry at subsonic speeds.

NASA is developing the shield in hopes of using it in a future Mars mission, but it may have applications right here on Earth. The company Orbital Outfitters is exploring technologies that would make regular orbital dives feasible. Their plan is to bust Colonel Joe Kittinger's record 102,800 ft jump and to make a habit of it, allowing wealthy thrill-seekers to plummet to Earth from space. You will still, of course, have to check your fall plan to ensure there are no giant drills in your trajectory.

Orbital skydives to follow inflatable heatshield success? [The Register via Metafilter]

I've watched Calamari Wrestler (aka Ika Resuraa) twice all the way through, including once on the big screen, and I'm still not entirely clear on what's supposed to be happening. But it's all so masterful, it just grips you in its firm tentacles and never lets go. And here's the "training for the big fight" montage I mentioned. Rocky's just a damp squib compared to this guy:

JOHN CARTER
I don't know why people are excited for this. Car Dealers, no matter how hot their woman may be, are shady all over the universe.

LOST
Lost continues to give the viewers what it wants. Especially the dames.

FRAK BUCKET
No explanation needed I say.

GRACE
What Superbowl is complete without a creepy fake mouth talking baby!?

HE-MAN
We learned this week that John Stevenson, one of the directors on Kung-Fu Panda is handling the new He-Man reboot. I managed to steal an early teaser poster which shows some pretty predictable casting decisions from the man.

MISC
On a random note, commenter Brogan misread a comment of mine referring to Klingon Camp, and wanted to see a "camp" Klingon. I found this old Klingon TV Guide Ad that proves they existed and they were fab.

KNOWING
And finally...Nicholas Cage, Albino Cult, Coded Fortune Telling, The Director of iRobot? I am knowing one thing about this film.



This is Garrison Dean (who if he had a Facebook profile would set his status to: Garrison Dean is super excited to see the Transformers trailer during the superbowl) signing off. See you next Sunday.

Rollerball
Screw the remake — the original 1975 Rollerball with James Caan (pictured above) was a masterpiece of blood, wheels, and oil fires. Set in a corporate dystopia, the flick follows rollerball star Caan. Trying to prove that individuality is better than corporate conformity, Caan wins by becoming the best at this violent racing/skating/stabbing/flame-throwing game (and killing a lot of skaters in the process). Yay, individualism!

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome
No deathsport is more iconic than the "thunderdome" from the third Mad Max post-apocalypse flick. Our hero Max (Mel Gibson) must fight some dude in body armor, with only his mullet to protect him, while Tina Turner watches regally. Rules of thunderdome? "There are no rules! Two men enter! One man leaves!" Oh, also, there are bungee-jumper cables and a chainsaw. So many people have seen this movie and wanted to play its deadly game that a bunch of people recreate the thunderdome every year at Burning Man. Without the chainsaws.

Death Race 2000
As with Rollerball, there can be only one Death Race movie: Fuck the remake, and watch this 1975 gem directed by cultmeister Paul "Eating Raoul" Bartel. David Carradine is the black-hooded racer in this flick where the world becomes your deadly game, and competitors try to murder as many people as possible with their cars (women are more points than men; the elderly are more points than anyone). Plus, there is just a wee bit of political satire. You know, like making fun of Nazis and stuff. And lots of death. Did we mention the death? Kill! Kill!

The Phantom Menace
I think we can all agree that we'd like to forget The Phantom Menace, but you can't deny that the podracing scene was pretty cool. Though this was a kid movie, Lucas wasn't afraid to show little Anakin zooming through Tatooine's desert valleys and rock formations while his competitors blow up and die around him. This is a seriously long scene with multiple alien deaths and tons of shit-talking in those goofy alien languages that Star Wars is famous for. Plus, explosions! And the whole thing is even cooler when you think about all the ways this murderous sport trained Anakin to be a great leader in the world of murdering.

Hard Target
Alright, so Hard Target is more on the "thriller" side of the scifi/thriller fence, but it is definitely set in an alternate reality where a rich dude (played by Lance Henriksen) and his pals hunt down a homeless Vietnam vet for fun. Using crossbows. In the Louisiana bayous. But the very ultra-best part of this slaughterfest is that the guy they are hunting turns out to be a "hard target" because he's played by . . . Jean Claude Van Damme! Not only does he have the same mullet that saved Mel Gibson in thunderdome, but he's also chewing up the scenery and kicking shit around like a pro. This was also John Woo's first U.S. film, and despite everything it shines the way only a Woo film can. And yes, Jean Claude gets spicy-handed with the guns in one scene.

A.I. — Artificial Intelligence
Blah blah human story of a young boy robot who wants only to love his mommy . . . blah blah emotions . . . human love overcomes all blah blah . . . FLESH FAIR! In the middle of his sometimes-brilliant, often-smarmy film A.I., Spielberg lets the usually-hidden evil side of his imagination go wild with his depiction of the Flesh Fair where anti-mecha humans torture and kill escaped robots. They kidnap these mecha while they are on the run, and then invite a huge audience to the fair to watch as the ringleaders shoot them out of cannons, rip them up, or melt them with acid. Hey, that's show business! And a seriously fucked-up deathsport.

Predator
If there's any sport more fun to watch than Lance Henriksen stalking Jean Claude Van Damme with a crossbow, it's Predator hunting Arnold Schwarzenegger with a whatever-the-hell alien technology gun he has. Humans never tire of making movies where they are the prey to some scary hunter, and Predator is king of the "you are the hunted" subgenre.

Tron
Everybody knows the light cycle scene in Tron is one of the coolest ever — even the Sweded version kicks major ass. But what few people remember about this sport is that it kills. Programs that the Master Control Program doesn't care about anymore are sent to ride the light cycles until they die. Humans in the real world who are playing the videogame in arcades don't realize that each time they die, they are actually killing some poor accounting program who is screaming in agony.

The Game
Before the Batman alternate reality game (ARG) had people receiving phone calls from the Joker and going to bakeries in the real world to get cakes that contained cell phones, The Game was about an ARG gone wrong. A bored rich dude played by Michael Douglas (who pretty much owns the "unhappy middle-class white guy" role) decides to play a game that will make his life more interesting. Like an ARG, it starts out with phone calls and "fun" stuff designed to make it seem like he's being stalked by bad guys who want to kill him. Then it turns out he really is being stalked. What is real? What is the game? Why does Douglas always get to make it with some freaky blond chick who is fucking with his head?

T.A.G. the Assassination Game
From the same subgenre that brought you The Game comes this forgotten 1980s gem that featured both Linda "Terminator" Hamilton and Robert Carradine. I know this will shock you, but it turns out that fun college game where everybody tries to assassinate somebody with fake darts is actually . . . REAL! Dum dum dum! Who has yanked this silly college comedy into the realm of speculative weirdness by turning Animal House into DEATH HOUSE? Watch and find out.

Proving that demented minds think alike, John Scalzi has also posted about scifi deathsports — and he includes several that I forgot to mention here!

• Supercomputers and weather control - The Beijing Meteorological Bureau purchased one of the ten most powerful supercomputers in the world from IBM to help predict weather and pollution levels for all events in and around Beijing. The Chinese are also adept at controlling the weather. The Beijing Weather Modification Office (seriously) fires cloud seeding material into oncoming rain clouds with anti-aircraft guns, draining the precipitation before it can cause problems.
• Cyber warfare - China has claimed that they will "attack" and shut down websites that broadcast Olympic events illegally. No one is sure if this means they intend to attack other countries' websites or private sites hosted internationally. If they do, it could be the first case of open international cyber warfare.
• On demand coverage - NBC will be broadcasting Olympic events both live and tape delayed on several of the television networks they own, and will also provide on-demand video streams of events on the web. In total, they will present more than 3,600 hours of Olympic coverage. That's more Olympic programming in 2008 than the sum of all the hours of Olympic TV coverage ever. Dude.
• Anti-terrorism efforts - Security has been tight at the Olympics since the 1970s, but even more so since 9/11. In addition to metal detectors, bag searches, long lists of prohibited items (no crossbows!), facial recognition software, bomb sniffing dogs and whatever else the Chinese can come up with, they'll be using special equipment that lets officials detect and identify radioactive isotopes. So strontium crossbows are right out.
• Timing - Most Olympic races are timed to the thousandth of a second. In track events, the timer is set off by the starter's gun and stopped by a laser at the finish. A high-speed camera at the line takes 2,000 images per second to help determine the winner if the race is close. Swimming events, held in the Water Cube (pictured), are timed by contact plates that determine when a swimmer leaves her mark and when she touches the wall to end the race. Image by: IOC.

Sources:
China threatens Olympic Cyber Attacks. [Defense Tech]
IBM To Work Beijing Olympics Weather Magic. [ChinaTechNews]
Universal Detection Technology Secures Beijing Olympic Contract. [TMCnet]
China Leads Weather Control Race. [Wired]
How Olympic Timing Works. [HowStuffWorks]
Digital technology to play major role in Olympics. [LA Times]