What a weekend! Game Night, Trivia Night and the final Norwescon organizing committee meeting before the con.

Game night was great, as always. We played three rounds of Pandemic and even won one of them! We played the “easy” game since none of the players were really experienced with Pandemic. It is startling how fast the situation in the game goes from “everything looks like its under control” to “oops, we just lost to the diseases”. For those who haven’t played it, Pandemic is a four player (or five with the On the Brink expansion) cooperative game in which players race to find cures for disease outbreaks before they infect the whole world. Definitely a “quick to learn, hard to master” type of game but lots of fun and a unique mechanic. In addition to Pandemic there was also some Gloom (the card game) and a round of Run For Your Life, Candyman.

If you missed Trivia Night on Saturday you can find all of the questions right here. If you’re planning on being at Norwescon, be sure and check our Find Shannon and Matt at Norwescon page so you can, well, find Shannon and Matt at Norwescon. We’d love to see you there!

Your Monday News is under the fold

MMO

• Cryptic’s super hero MMORPG Champions Online is celebrating the release of its Revelation expansion with a free weekend. Revelation is a free expansion for the game that adds brand new end-game content, costume options, perks and enemy groups. The free promotional weekend will run from Friday, March 26, 2010 at 10:00 a.m. Pacific until Monday, March 29, 2010 at 10:00 a.m. Pacific. You can sign up and download the Champions client straight from Cryptic.

Movies

• The much-loved 1962 Newbery Medal-winning science-fiction novel A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle is up for adaptation into a movie. Again. The BBC made a film version of the young-adult novel, and Dimension produced a telefilm for ABC in 2004 but now The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that screenwriter Jeff Stockwell has been hired by Bedrock Studios to write a new version. Stockwell has previously written adaptations of The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys and Bridge to Terabithia. We reserve judgment on how successful this adaptation may be.

TV

• Following in the steps of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Fringe will be having a musical episode this spring. TV Guide is reporting that the show’s April 29 episode is going to be titled “Overture” and will feature at least Phillip, Olivia and Astrid breaking into song. Unlike Buffy’s musical it sounds like the Fringe cast will not be performing original songs though.
  

• Just as series five of the new Doctor Who is getting ready to air in the UK, word comes that the BBC has, unsurprisingly, renewed it for another season. The 2011 season will be number 32 if you count from the beginning of the show in 1963 and number 6 since its revival in 2005. ATV Network is reporting that the sixth series will kick off with another Christmas Special and the full series will begin airing in April. This announcement comes on the heels of the announcement of a two-season renewal for The Sara Jane Adventures but there is still no word on the fate of Torchwood.
  

• News that the Matt Groening creation Futurama will be retuning retuning to TV on Comedy Central this June has been out for a while, but now the first teaser trailer for the new series has been released. Enoy!
  

Video Games

• Good news for fans of The Lord of the Rings games. Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment has officially announced The Lord of the Rings: War in the North for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC, scheduled to ship in 2011. War in the North offers online co-op for up to three players and will “introduce new lands, characters, and story threads that tie into J.R.R. Tolkien’s narrative”. The game is being developed by Snowblind Studios who also made Balder’s Gate: Dark Alliance which was awesome so we’re cautiously optimistic about this one.