Well-known character actor Willie Garson died after a short illness. He was known to science fiction and fantasy fans for roles on Stargate SG-1, Quantum Leap, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Groundhog Day, Mars Attacks!, and other productions.

Of course, he had many acting credits outside the SF&F genre.

   

Link: Willie Garson on IMDB

My best wishes go out to his family and friends. He was only 57 years old.

So this article is from July 11, 2021. I don't follow ScreenRant as much as I used to become they've become a kind of cheap content factory. But this review of John Carter RPGs struck me as interesting. I didn't realize there was so much interest in the John Carter franchise among gamers.

All my gamer friends are, of course, familar with the ERB books but I don't recall any of them expressing an interest in playing these games. So I've never heard about them.

The article also introduces a knock-off game franchise that isn't specifically John Carter.

I suppose you could probably put together a John Carter game from almost any game universe, even classic Dungeons and Dragons. Just change the names of some of the animals and use the standard monster stats. John Carter's biggest monsters were the plant-men and white apes. The real villains of his adventures were the various warlords who wanted to conquer or maintain influence across Mars (Barsoom).

The swashbuckling heroes and the resourceful women characters (especially Thuvia and Tara) made the stories interesting as well as Barsoom's unusual ecology.

This story was first published on May 20, 2021 so it's a bit old but I cannot find any more recent news.

John Carter Of Mars Series In The Works For Disney Plus

I cannot help but wonder if there isn't a tie-in with the game that was also announced earlier this year.

Before the pandemic we had two great cinemas close to where we live. My wife and I enjoyed seeing the latest movies in both theaters.

Now one of them is closed. It's an older cinema owned by Regal Cinemas but it was well-maintained and had lots of screens.

The AMC Cinema is closer to us, has more screens, and is newer. It's re-opened but we're not ready to start watching movies in public again.

Although we're both vaccinated and we still wear masks in public, we don't feel comfortable spending a couple of hours in a cinema showroom. The idea just doesn't appeal to us.

Living in Georgia, we find ourselves surrounded by people who - for whatever reason - are vaccine-reluctant. And I'm not going to mock or ridicule them. While many of them have concerns I don't agree with, it's still their decision to take that step and get vaccinated. Georgia has one of the lower vaccination and one of the higher hospitalization rates, and that's not likely to change any time soon.

So we continue to stay home as much as possible, or to limit our time spent indoors when we go shopping. Most of our time away from home is spent at nearby parks where people give each other plenty of space.

Although we signed up for Disney+ earlier this year we only did that to watch a few shows. We've cancelled the subscription. It's not worth it to us to spend $30 to watch a new movie at home.

We've also cancelled subscriptions to Netflix and a few other channels. We'll resubscribe once in a while as we find reasons to.

I watched a video yesterday where the commentator speculated that some companies are intentionally piling up their inventories on ships. I'm not sure I agree with his assessment but he brought several talking points to support his hypothesis.

This article from Quartz discusses the 65 ships that were waiting to get into the Port of Los Angeles the other day.

Why are so many container ships waiting to dock in California? — Quartz (qz.com)

A probably related story concerns rising costs for renting shipping containers (and shipping them over the seas).

Shipping container rates continue to soar despite increased attention | ICIS

So my guess is that as ships pile up outside major ports waiting to be unloaded, the demand for containers drives up their prices.

The lack of truck drivers in the United States, Great Britain, and other nations also means the containers are piling up in ports and railway yards. So while deliveries are stretching out farther into the future, inventories are piling up in places where people cannot get to them.

My wife and I tried to buy a new love seat over Labor Day Weekend. Well, that didn't work out. You need to wait for months to take delivery from many retailers. They simply don't have the inventory.

And so we decided to order slipcovers to help extend the life of our furniture. We're still waiting for delivery and Amazon rescheduled for around October 1.

Why are we using Amazon? Because our love seat has a console in the middle and good luck finding slipcovers to fit that.

So things are zoinky with the supply chains all over the place. This disruption in supply chain deliveries is affecting everything. One major problem is that many manufacturers had switched to just-in-time production. They received supplies in the morning and integrated them into their production lines right away. Well, now they're struggling to keep production going.

But even when they have raw materials or components, many manufacturers are now struggling to keep employees on the production lines. And the idea that "stimulus" or extended unemployment benefits are discouraging people from going back to work has been completely debunked after 2-6 weeks of states ending those benefit programs.

Millions of people have taken early retirement, moved away from their old jobs, taken better jobs, or decided to stay at home (maybe to take care of children or family members) instead of going back to the jobs they once had.

My feeling is that this economy won't work its way of this collection of holes for at least another year. Maybe by Spring 2024 things will get sorted out. Maybe.

What do you think?

Steve Sears was executive producer for Xena: Warrior Princess, but he's worked on 15 TV shows including Swamp Thing and others.

He and his wife, Jessica Brawner, have started a travel blog called Author Kabob. Fans who have wondered what he's been up to in recent years can now follow along as he and Jessica detail their HiJinx adventures.

After destroying Utumno why didn’t the Valar return to Middle-Earth? I get they had Valinor but Melkor was defeated. Now was their chance to finish or enjoy all of the things they’d made. Why not tutor the Elves there?

Hello everyone! 
I am a Ph.D. student in musicology, and I am researching music and science-fiction. My focus is on how music and sound help to create audiovisual experiences with cyborgs. 
I have a survey that I would love for you to make. The duration is several minutes since it has a few music and video clips. For those willing to answer, I will be very grateful!

https://forms.gle/iGFptjVtVjCnccU29

I have heard and read about this experimental community before. I don't think they're creating a blueprint for a future America, but as one of the community leaders says in the video, maybe this will inspire people to think about different ways to address the problems facing the world.

Watch America’s Experimental City - Arcosanti from YouTube
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This is heartbreaking and disturbing.

Watch This Town Was Paradise, Then Everyone Started Working From Home from YouTube
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