SFLIS Minutes - August 8, 2001

- The meeting was more disorganized than usual this week, but here's what
  happened.
- We watch the Simpsons.  One of the Halloween episodes.
- Reviewed the discussion of Planet of the Apes and howitzers for those who
  missed it last week.
- D&D is outselling Pokemon now.
  There's a new Harry Potter card game.
  Digimon actually predates Pokemon, and it has a plot and overall storyline.
- Gencon happened last weekend.
  Spike from Buffy was there.  He had a big headache.  1200 people were waiting
  in line to get an autograph, but not all of them succeeded.
  Lots of gaming news, most of which went by too fast to write down.
  Some RPGA games are going to be run by a for-profit business, and a
  couple magazines are being merged into Dragon.
  And some talk about fighting Death in D&D.
- Now we're watching the "news" on Comedy Central.
- There's an interactive mystery game Saturday night at 7 at Serendipity,
  with space pirates.
- "There's no such thing as new anime."
  Supposedly, there's an anime series with ugly little girls and parents
  who discipline their children.
- An experiment in India.  Took air samples at various altitudes up to
  125,000 feet, and they found bacteria in all of them.  They speculate
  that maybe the bacteria is coming from comets or meteors instead of
  the surface of the earth.
  There's an article about this in New Scientist magazine.
- Witchblade is not extremely faithful to the comic, but not bad if you're
  not too picky about that sort of thing.
- The Nashville Network will be showing reruns of Star Trek the Next
  Generation.
- A discussion of the colors of uniforms in Star Trek.
- Chemistry classes and labs, and the amusing accidents that can happen.
  Organic labs are good for breaking things and melting glass.
  Softball use to be a girls' sport and baseball was guys only, but not
  any more.
  Now we move on to teaching physics and some fun props to use, and some
  ideas for impossible homework assignments.
- Someone brought a video camera into the theater, taped Jurassic Park 3,
  and put it up on the internet.
  How would you do Jarjar in Spaceballs?
- Did any of the civilizations in Star Wars ever invent the wheel?  You don't
  see very many wheels in the movies.  Were they able to develop spaceflight
  without them?
  Star Wars 2 - Attack of the Clones  (there's still time for them to
change
  the title).
  What horrible death would you like to see Jar Jar experience?
  How about cloning JarJar?
  Are we expecting Star Wars 2 to be really bad?
  If we make our expectations low enough, will it become good?
- More wandering discussions.
  Stories about California.
  Parking ramps in Iowa City.
  Putting things on your U-bill.
  Using cell phones while driving.
  Watch out for the cop with the unmarked Mustang in Cedar Rapids.
  Be careful of passing motorcycles in California.
  Old computers, floppy disks, and old video game systems.
  Etc.