Want to help RoboGames succeed and keep going?

The RoboGames Town Hall is an informal conversation where robot builders, circuit benders, robosumo enthusiasts, combat people, kit bashers, software mutators, makers, doers, thinkers and all other nerds bent on robotic world domination get together to discuss RoboGames 2009.

Topics will include:

• Helping RoboGames before the event by helping find sponsors/donors/vendors
• How to compete at RoboGames;
• How to get involved with the RoboGames populace as a competitor, volunteer, sponsor or other supporter;
• How to show off your robotically-oriented wares at RoboGames;
• and ideas on how to make this year?s RoboGames a truly spectacular event.

The Town Hall will take place on Saturday, April 11 at Tech Shop at 120 Independence Dr, MenloPark.

Our April reading takes place on Saturday, April 18. Doors and cash bar open at 6:00 PM. Readings begin at 7:00 PM.

The guests will be Richard Lupoff and Peter S. Beagle. Each author will read a selection from their works, followed by Q & A with the audience moderated by author Terry Bisson. Books will be available for sale courtesy of Borderlands Books.

The Variety Preview Theatre, The Hobart Bldg., 582 Market St. @ 2nd/Montgomery, San Francisco. Take MUNI/BART! The Montgomery St. stop is steps from our front door.

Wednesday, April 8

6:00 PM – Doors and cash bar open

7:00 PM Films start – there will be a brief intermission between films – we have some freebies to give away!!!

Night of the Comet (1984, 95 mins.) Oh, like, wow, there’s this comet, and it’s like, dude, I don’t know, it likes kills everyone but us, I mean, oh my god! A classic (classic! I’m telling you) funny horror flick. With Zombies, a comet, and two Valley Girls fighting the good fight. Fun and games ensue.

Brother from Another Planet (1984, 108 mins.) A John Sayles masterpiece, starring Joe Morton as an alien who crash-lands in Harlem. A brilliant black comedy with great social commentary on racism, it’s one of Sayles’ better films. It’ll keep you thinking long after it’s over.

FREE POPCORN!!

Come have fun while helping others! We’d like to help out the Variety Children’s Charity just a bit more this spring – a $5 suggested donation at the door will help us reach our goals. Combined with tips, bar proceeds, and donations, we’re hoping to raise enough this year to buy an adaptive bike for a disadvantaged child.

The Variety Preview Theatre, The Hobart Bldg., 582 Market St. @ 2nd/Montgomery, San Francisco. Take MUNI/BART! The Montgomery St. stop is steps from our front door.

April is National Poetry Month. Learn all about the Science Fiction Poetry Association. Noted poets in the SFF field include David Lunde, Suzette Hagin Elgin, Gene Wolfe, Jane Yolen, Ursula Le Guin, Brian Aldiss, Joe Haldeman, Tim Pratt, and many others. The Rhysling Award (named for the blind poet Rhysling, in Robert A. Heinlein’s short story “The Green Hills of Earth”) is annual award given for the best science fiction, fantasy, or horror poem of the year. They publish a yearly anthology, available at your local independent bookstore.

There is plenty of book club activity in the first half of April.
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Friday, April 3 – Sunday, April 5
25th Annual CONTACT Conference 2009

Come join an interdisciplinary gathering of scientists, artists and writers as they explore human futures in fact and fiction at the annual CONTACT conference. CONTACT is a unique interdisciplinary conference which brings together some of the foremost international social and space scientists, science fiction writers and artists to exchange ideas, stimulate new perspectives and encourage serious, creative speculation about humanity’s future … onworld and offworld. Each year we meet to promote the integration of human factors into space age research and policy, emphasize the interaction of the Arts and Sciences and their technologies, and develop ethical approaches in cross-cultural contact, whenever and wherever it occurs.

2009 Guests include authors Karen Anderson, Larry Niven, Kim Stanley Robinson, SETI Institute official spokesman Seth Shostak, and includes a panel on “Robert Heinlein and Us: Fictional Future Histories,” among many other interesting offerings. Conference costs, directions, and program details are available online.

NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Building 943 (to the right, just outside the main gate), Mountain View.

Here’s what we have for you on the readings front in the first two weeks of April.
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Monday, March 23rd, 7:00 PM

Cory Doctorow, Rudy Rucker, Charlie Jane Anders and Annalee Newitz will perform a geek reading benefiting the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the leading civil liberties group defending your rights in the digital world. Borderlands Books will be on hand to sell books.

111 Minna Gallery: 111 Minna Street, San Francisco. Admission is $25, although no one will be turned away for lack of funds.

Sunday, March 22, 3:00 PM

Peter S. Beagle – We Never Talk About My Brother; reading and signing at Clayton Books, 5433 D Clayton Road, Clayton.

Join us tonight (Saturday March 14th) to listen to Frank Robinson and James Clemens / James Rollins. Terry Bisson will host, and there will be signings afterwards (with books provided by Borderlands if you don’t have any by our guests).

As usual the event is at The Variety Preview Room, 582 Market St. @ Montgomery, 1st floor of The Hobart Bldg. Doors Open 6:00pm, readings start 7:00pm. There will be a cash bar in aid of Variety.