On Thursday, August 24th, Nintendo unveiled its two new consoles at the SpaceWorld 2000 expo. The Game Cube home video game system, seen at right, features some stunning graphics capabilities and, according to Nintendo’s press materials, will make game development easier. It also appears to be, like the Sony Playstation and Sega Dreamcast, CD-based rather than cartridge-based. The Game Cube will hit stores about a year from now. Also unveiled at SpaceWorld was the new Game Boy Advance portable system, a vastly-upgraded handheld cartridge-based platform with improved graphics and sound, a faster processor (the original Game Boy systems were based on a Z80 chip), and backward compatibility with original Game Boy titles – a move which may put this little machine on the top of the heap, since it won’t mean rebuilding one’s game library from scratch. Taking a cue from the Dreamcast and its Virtual Memory Units, Nintendo also hinted at connectivity capabilities between the Game Cube and the Game Boy Advance, which may mean the possibility of taking your games portable and then uploading the results back to the larger console. The Game Boy Advance also sports a larger screen than its ancestors. The timing of Nintendo’s expo is, no doubt, designed to steal the thunder of the Playstation 2 (whose U.S. debut is just around the corner) and the Sega Dreamcast, which has just been dropped in price.
Source: Nintendo of America

Big Finish Productions has announced that, beginning with the October Doctor Who Audio Adventure, the new audio dramas will be released toward the end of their release months, rather than the beginning. The first title affected by this schedule change will be the eagerly-awaited The Shadow Of The Scourge, the first Audio Adventure to be set in the era of the New Adventures novels rather than the TV series. Also, due to problems that occurred during the mass-production of the latest adventure, Dalek Empire Part 2: The Apocalypse Element, Big Finish is offering a free replacement to anyone who has wound up with a defective copy. Apocalypse Element also features, by the way, a three-minute preview of the upcoming four-story “season” of Audio Adventures featuring Paul McGann as the eighth Doctor.
Source: Big Finish Productions

What do you do when you buy a computer game and it turns out to be nothing more than well-packaged crippleware? If you’re like Donald A. Thomas Jr., you’d probably fire off an e-mail to complain to the source. But in this case, an attempt to figure out what’s going on has brought up the shocking concept that Thomas could be sued for complaining. After a heated e-mail exchange with eGames, Inc., Thomas was carbon-copied on an e-mail in which eGames CEO Gerald W. Klein says, “Mr. Thomas obviously has a mission here and short of revamping our marketing and product development strategies, he’s not about to [be] appeased.” Later in the note, Klein asks, “Ellen, are you sure we can’t sue him?” Thomas has posted the full exchange of e-mails, including this stunning display of corporate thick-headedness, on his well-loved I.C. When web site, which is also a dandy repository of video game industry knowledge. Go take a look and judge for yourself.
Source: I.C. When.com

A year ago, I initially resisted the idea of buying the Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace soundtrack CD because I knew it wouldn’t contain the entire score. Now Sony has announced that a deluxe double-CD edition, containing the complete score, is in the works. What a surprise! No word on the pricing or release date of this more complete version, but we’ll keep an eye on this one for you. Don’t worry – your original Phantom Menace CDs will occupy a nice little niche next to your original Star Trek: The Motion Picture soundtracks and the original trilogy Star Wars soundtrack anthology box sets at the used music store near you.
Source: Film Score Monthly

It’s been almost exactly five years since the original LogBook print fanzine folded. The ‘zine was distributed locally in the Fort Smith area, and sent to numerous subscribers from Fidonet, from August 1994 through September 1995. The ‘zine started out as a double-sided one-sheeter, then grew to an 8-to-10-page endeavour with a couple of full-color covers that very nearly bankrupted its editor.

A small item that appeared in the June ’95 issue, seen here, was a notice about the LogBook’s brand-new, first-ever web presence…

The actor best known to SF fans as Obi-Wan Kenobi died on August 6th. Sir Alec Guinness was a working actor for over sixty of his 86 years, though directors had to beg him into participating in his two best-known outings – Star Wars and The Bridge Over The River Kwai; indeed, in recent years, he made his disdain for the former project very well known to any fans who dared to ask. Reports around the time of his death indicated that Sir Alec Guinness was suffering from liver cancer. He is survived by his wife and son.
Source: Daily Variety

Robert Gilruth, the director of NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center through the eras of Mercury, Gemini and Apollo, died on August 17th after a lengthy illness. Dr. Gilruth served with NASA (and its progenitor, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) for four decades, only stepping down after the Apollo 15 mission in 1971. Prior to his management stint, Dr. Gilruth had been an aerospace researcher who participated in experimental rocket-powered plane tests. But when NASA was formed, Gilruth was appointed to the position of director of Langley Air Force Base’s Space Task Group, a think-tank which originated numerous spacecraft concepts, as well as astronaut qualification criteria, launch safety procedures, and other guidelines still followed by NASA today.
Source: NASA press release

The BBC has announced that, among other things, the 1986 Radio 4 Doctor Who play Slipback, starring then series headliners Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant and written by former Doctor Who script editor Eric Saward, will be re-released for the first time on CD in January 2001. Though previous cassette editions have packaged Slipback with cast interviews, as is customary for BBC Radio dramas, there is no word of any extras to be included with Slipback’s CD reissue.
Source: Outpost Gallifrey

Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski has signed a deal with MGM to script a movie based on his own well-received and critically acclaimed Rising Stars series of comic books. MGM is said to be developing the property as a new franchise – and a potential film trilogy. With the screenplay in the early stages, there is, of course, no word as yet on casting or a director – or whether Netter Digital Entertainment, the B5/Crusade FX house which recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, might get a lucky break out of the deal.
Source: Daily Variety

Yep, I’ve noticed that the counters are in disarray – believe me, I’ve noticed. Oddly enough, on my machine at home, which calls up the entire site as local files, the counters still work. This was actually a blessing, as it allowed me to continue the counter service uninterrupted with the settings available with MyComputer.com’s free counter system, which is what I’m going to gradually installing for all of theLogBook.com’s counters. The question arises of whether or not I intend to redo the counters on every one of theLogBook.com’s nearly 1,300 available pages …and that’s a good question. For one thing, it’ll be quite a while before I can get that many counters set up, so you can expect to see “offsite NPH counter access denied” for a few weeks yet on several pages (possibly even months, depending on time constraints). These pages do still work without the counters, so I’m considering this a low-priority item for the moment. This problem stems from theLogBook.com’s long-ago-severed relationship with Wisconsin-based ISP ExecPC (now Voyager.net). This site was originally hosted by ExecPC, and the ExecPC counters continued to work after theLogBook.com acquired its own domain name and moved to a different server – at least until recently.

The counter crisis has also given me a new impetus to remodel some of the older Phosphor Dot Fossils arcade archives – go take a look and enjoy!

Another nifty feature provided by MyComputer.com is free online polling. I’m currently trying this out in only a couple of places on the site. One of those polls, however, is something whose results I’m interested in seeing. I admit that I’ve been having trouble lately finding the time to get site updates done. I get articles and reviews written in advance, and theLogBook.com’s staff of writers also does a lot of work on this front. But sometimes sitting down to code this stuff is another matter entirely. Only the medical miracle we call “insomnia” has given me the opportunity to get reasonably caught up of late. The thought recently struck me: what if there was only one update per week, but it was a good update? New items in episode guides, ToyBox, Phosphor Dot Fossils, SongBook, Movie Reviews, and BookBag, all in one shot – sort of like a weekly magazine. (And, of course, this news page.) But I’m running a poll on theLogBook.com’s main page to gauge reaction to this idea first. Let me know what you think.

In the meantime, I’ll keep pluggin’ away at this thing. No matter whose counters I’m using, they’re telling me that you’re on the other side of the screen, reading this right now. So long as we’re both having fun with it, that’s all that matters.

Earl Green
theLogBook.com webmaster

British actor John Abineri, a fixture on such SF series as Doctor Who, Red Dwarf and Blake’s 7, died early in July. His well-regarded Doctor Who appearances included the portrayals of such characters as the mad Van Luyten in Fury from the Deep (1968), paranoid General Carrington in The Ambassadors of Death (1970), Railton in Death to the Daleks (1974) and Ranquin in The Power of Kroll (1979). He also stepped in at the last moment to play the character of Ushton in a badly-written 1979 Blake’s 7 episode titled Hostage, and appeared as an image of Rimmer’s father in the 1988 Red Dwarf classic Better Than Life. Mr. Abineri also made over 300 appearances in other shows over the years, as well as extensive theater work and even opera training.
Source: the BBC’s Official Doctor Who Web Site

An accident during location preparation for the upcoming X-Files season premiere has left one crew member dead, another in serious condition, and five others injured. Six of the crew members were working on a scaffolding which came into contact with a high-tension power line, subjecting them to 4,800 volts of electricity. Crew member Jim Engh went into cardiac arrest and was pronounced dead at the hospital. Production has been halted while officials from Fox and Los Angeles County conduct an investigation.
Source: Daily Variety

You knew this was going to happen. Anchor Bay has announced that their first quarter 2001 DVD release schedule includes the two 1960s Peter Cushing Doctor Who feature films, Doctor Who and the Daleks and Daleks: Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.! – two movies which are either fondly remembered as a part of the rampant publicity machine which helped to raise the show’s public profile and ensure its survival, or are maligned for doing away with even the remotest shreds of the TV series’ fledgling continuity. (At the time, William Hartnell was still playing the role of the Doctor on TV.) There’s no word on any extras, though widescreen trailers for both movies were excerpted in Kevin Davies’ excellent 1993 documentary, More Than 30 Years In The TARDIS, so it is known that they exist in some form. Meanwhile, still no word on any television Doctor Who releases for the United States, though the series will be available on DVD in Australia this fall.

In the meantime, even Doctor Who videotapes have become nearly impossible to find in the U.S., due to Warner Bros. Home Video’s insistence that retailers, both online and otherwise, yank existing Doctor Who releases published by CBS/Fox Video off the shelves for a new, unified repackaging job. Even the most recent CBS/Fox release, The Invasion of Time (a Gallifrey-based six-parter which ended the show’s 15th season and saw out popular companion Leela), was just released in July and has already become nearly impossible to find for those who didn’t pre-order it.
Source: Anchor Bay

Granted, this piece of news will be of interest to no one except the webmaster of this site, but there are rumblings from the U.K. – rumors that Jeff Lynne‘s long-overdue new solo project may nearly by complete. But more startling than that is the rumor that Lynne may release this new project under the name of his long-abandoned band, The Electric Light Orchestra. Lynne disbanded ELO in 1986, and has patiently sat out on the revived ELO Part 2 projects trotted out by the band’s former drummer, bassist and violinist. Perhaps the disappointing sales of Lynne’s 1990 Armchair Theatre album have inspired him to revive the name…but how many Electric Light Orchestras can we have performing on any one planet at any one time? Stay tuned.
Source: The Unofficial Jeff Lynne Reference Page