From Bob Greenberger:

Well, the Davids and the Greenbergers, among many others, are snowed in at the Hunt Valley Inn as the snow continues unabated. It’s weird, you’d think being trapped an extra day at a con would be fun. Instead, it’s eerily quiet as people wander aimlessly. There’s a full slate of programming today, with evening activities added. The con, which suffered from poor attendence due to weather fears, threw their programming open to all hotel guests since, after all, no one was going anywhere. The highways were closed around 9:30 a.m. and the National Guard got called out this afternoon. The hottest selling item in the dealer’s room was the “I Survived the Farpoint Blizzard ’03” t-shirts.

Given the current forecasts, those of us returning north will not try it until Tuesday morning. The true test of patience will be filling Monday’s empty hours without a con. People are lining up to borrow Deb’s laptop since Peter has a column due at CBG on Monday and Mike Friedman is on deadline. The three of us have already picked three episodes to watch in preparation of our next Mystery Trekkie Theatre performance, so we hope it thaws out by next July.

From those of us trapped down in Baltimore, to those of you potentially trapped up in Boston, we wish you a safe journey home. And to those on the west coast, we envy your current existence.

Okay, let me see if I understand: Boskone was also this weekend, but the convention in Maryland is snowed in rather than the one in Massachusetts?

Eric Wight shows off some drawings that he did for the Buffy animated series.

Lest you think being the webmaster here is a glamourous life of movie premieres, dalliances with scantilly clad fans, and deciding what nasty rumors to start on the Internet today, let me relate the conversation I had on my arrival home with my wife Brandy:

G: Happy Valentine’s Day, snoogy-woogy.

B: Same to you, bozo. Oh, Kathleen called.

G: Really? What’s up?

B: She’s asking for two favors.

G: Uh-oh. Yes?

B: She wants you to post a note to the website that she and Peter will be at Farpoint this weekend, and anyone who wants to say “hi” should come on down and do so.

G: You mean Farpoint Convention, this weekend at Marriott’s Hunt Valley Inn, 245 Shawan Road, Hunt Valley, MD with Special Guests Armin Shimerman,Gary Graham, Eric Pierpoint, Michele Scarabelli, Gil Gerard, Erin Gray, the Boogie Knights, Lolita Fatjo, Michael Jan Friedman, David R. George III, Bob Greenberger, Inge Heyer, Marc Okrand, Prometheus Radio Theatre, Susan Sackett, Howard Weinstein, and The Not Ready for Paramount Players, with more information available by calling (410) 785-7000?

B: If you say so. How do you get your voice to do that thing with the link?

G: What, when I say Farpoint Convention?

B: Yeah.

G: It’s easy. Try it yourself.

B: Farpoint Convention. Hey, that’s neat!

G: Did Kathleen want me to say anything in particular?

B: She said to write something witty.

G: Fat chance of that happening. Let me guess, the other favor was to make sure that I posted lots of old But I Digress columns while Peter’s offline?

B: No.

G: No? Then what?

B: They want us to tape Farscape and The Simpsons for them, they forgot to set the VCR before they left.

There. Now you know everything. Oh, and about those scantilly clad fans… for Kolk’r’s sake, Tom, put on a bathrobe, will you?

Wow. Gotta admit I’m somewhat rocked by the editorial shake-ups at DC currently being reported by Newsarama.com. I’ll tell you, if Mike Carlin is privately annoyed and/or angry (which I’ve no idea if he is) you sure can’t tell by his public face. Maybe he really, truly is more comfortable getting his hands more deeply back into editing. And Dan Didio has a lot on the ball. He’s one of the spearheads behind getting “Fallen Angel” up and running. Truth is, these days if you look at the major new titles with original characters that folks are talking about, they’re coming out of DC.

We’ll see how it all shakes out.

PAD

Not by leaps and bounds, certainly, but by bits and pieces, BTVS is getting up to speed and back to form.

Downsides: Certain tropes of the series are becoming so cliche that the characters have come to expect them. Willow’s trouble-making observation that Xander is a demon magnet back in season 4 continues to hold true. The problem is that making fun of a cliche doesn’t make it less of a cliche. Meantime we see Giles now touching everything in sight, after poor Tony Head had to spend weeks avoiding everything to the point where it was getting distracting. Now that he’s fondling every prop in the house, though, I wish he hadn’t chewed out the gang for making jokes. It was the first time they sounded like themselves in ages. After all the stuff about them growing up, *now* he addresses them as “children?” What the–?

Upsides: Plenty. So Principal Wood is essentially Blade the Vampire Hunter minus the vamp blood in him: Ultra cool vampire-fighting black guy seeking out the light-haired vampire who killed his mother. And yet for all that, I didn’t see it coming, and I don’t recall noticing anyone else coming up with that theory either. Be interesting if Wood actually dusts Spike, thereby earning Buffy’s enmity. Hope it doesn’t, but you just *know* it’s gonna end in tears. The subplot with the Asian potential slayer was beyond hilarious (“What are you, trying to poison me?!”) I wonder if Willow knows a language-bridging spell. If so, she better crank it out before the girl bolts the country. Anya’s jealousy was charming, Dawn wasn’t annoying, the running gag of both Willow and Wood laughing at the notion of Buffy being competent and then realizing their error was great. And Spike actually seems at peace with himself, which really couldn’t be worse for a character on this series than to find ANY degree of happiness. Because that’s when the boom is usually lowered.

Moving on:

Angel. Kicked ášš even more. Minor quibble over why no one questioned that Lorne totally misread the situation. Definite shock ending: Most folks, including myself, seemed to tag correctly who was going to be killed off, but the circumstances caught me off guard. My only real complaint: THREE WEEKS?!?

Hey, anyone want to see Faith team up with someone named Begorrah?

And hey, food for thought: Physical prowess aside, who could outhink the other: Angelus or Smallville’s Lex Luthor?

PAD