dumnbunny

Know who I miss?

Max Faggator.

I have not been this sick in awhile. I am so sick I cannot sleep. My body aches all over. Uggghhh.

Left work early today. Probably going to have to call in sick tomorrow if right now is any indication. Uggghhh.

Flipping through videos, I found this first one and just started clicking "Related Videos." These are completely random. I put each one up that I watched. I skipped nothing.

I found watching these absolutely fascinating.

Anyway, here are the videos, submitted without further comment.

...of Fringe.

I realize that I'm a bit late, but I just watched the very first episode. I liked it enough to keep watching, but... I need to know what the show's frustration quotient is. I gave up on X-Files around season 5, and I was bitter about it. I don't mind ongoing mysteries/plotlines, but only if they're tied up within a reasonable amount of time. On Babylon 5, Straczynski had a policy: Any given question would never take more than a year or so to be answered. Granted, each answer might raise other questions, but each question was answered.

Also, B5 clearly knew where it was going, whereas it became very apparent that Chris Carter didn't know where he was taking X-Files.

So, where does this fall?

Full dinner. Full costume (we're getting closer!). Full live action.

Rachel puts it all in perspective... with facts.

This is absolutely shameful. Either these men and women are ignorant of the way our government works (in which case, why the fuck are they part of our government?) or they are willingly and knowingly lying.

Either way, they deserve severe punishment.

This guy is so inappropriate, Fox News cuts him off fast.

Awkwaaaaard!

I have about had it with the Forge from a technical/usability standpoint. The vast majority of the time I try to log on to read posts or reply, I am confronted with 503 errors and timeouts.

It gets fixed for a couple days, then has issues again for weeks, which I find personally ridiculous. And the users are never told what's going on with the problems, why they keep cropping up, if anyone is actually doing anything about it or trying to get to the bottom of it.

So I'm pretty close to just removing it from my reading/posting list, given it took me fifteen minutes tonight to make one two sentence post.

Are there any other decent tabletop discussion forums out there (NOT Story-games, thank you) that might serve as a decent replacement for game and theory discussion, and who might host independent forums for small presses?

A fictlet.

"You know, it's funny. I was involved in some early sex-bot trials. Ethically, of course, we needed to motivate them, so we designed AIs that only wanted to have sex, all the time. The funny thing is that it didn't work -- they acted just like everyone else."

( Tweets )

I figured that I would share some of the best blogs that I'm regularly reading, which might be of interest to those of a similar bent toward geekery:

Christopher Mills is a one-man pop culture virtuoso. I originally started reading his "home" blog, Atomic Pulp -- with that name, how could I turn it down? Atomic Pulp is his general blog, given over to self-promotion (he's a comic writer, editor, and graphic designer) and pop-culture obsession. When he notices that a particular pop-culture focus is taking up a lot of posts, he'll spin them off into blogs of their own. The two of his spin-offs which I read regularly:

Spy-Fi Channel -- which, as the title indicates, is devoted to Secret Agents, Superspies and the like. A member of the COBRAS group (Coalition Of Bloggers wRiting About Spies) -- which features several other blogs I read as well (more on these, below).

Space:1970 -- Mills' newest spin-off blog, an extended love letter to the Sci-Fi movies and television shows of the 1970s. As a fellow obsessive, this one might as well be titled: "GARETH'S CHILDHOOD: THE BLOG." Of special joy: The regular feature "Space Babes", spotlighting the women who loom large in the lives of geeks of a certain age (my age, not to put too fine a point on it), as gateways from the "girls are icky" stage of childhood into the "Say, now..." initial hormonal whisperings of adolescence....

Moving away from the oevre of Mr. Mills, we find ourselves at one of his fellow COBRAS blog: Tanner's Double-O Section. Another excellent blog devoted to the Spy genre in films, television, comics and literature. Excellent source of news regarding upcoming releases.

Also of note from the COBRAS group, the excellent The Illustrated 007, which features artwork from a staggering array of sources, much of it very rare -- including international editions of the Bond novels, toy packaging artwork, paintings accompanying magazine articles, and much more. I'm an absolute Bond nut, and quite a lot of this stuff is new to me -- and that's saying something.

Moving away from spies, The Groovy Age of Horror is devoted to the 60s and 70s in the horror field -- paperbacks, comics, movies, and more. To be honest, the blog has slipped a bit recently -- he's covering a lot more of the Italian Fumetti stuff (very NSFW), and expanding his coverage to more recent works (like DC's "Blackest Night" comics event). I liked it better when he was more focused on the "Groovy" -- Tomb of Dracula comics, Series paperbacks like "The Guardians", and Hammer films -- but the blog is still a good read, if not as good as it once was.

In the realm of steampunk, Brass Goggles is a good blog, but honestly, the forums are better than the actual blog. I go to the forums quite a bit, but for blog reading, I stick with Voyages Extraordinaires and Steampunk Scholar, in addition to occasional glances at the main Brass Goggles blog.

Of general geek-interest, I've found that the personal blog of SF author Chris Roberson has yet to steer me wrong. Roberson's Interminable Ramble is a mix of personal commentary, self-promotion and "hey, this is Totally Boss -- check it out!" posts. The latter is where the blog shines. In fact, a large amount of the stuff that I've posted about here from time to time was originally brought to my attention by the esteemed Mr. Roberson.

For things Doctor Who, my go-to source is the Gallifrey News Base, which took over from Outpost Gallifrey when it shut down earlier this year.

There are more, of course, and what constitutes "regular reading" changes as interests wax and wane, but those are a good start. If you have any suggestions for good sites that I might not know about, feel free to comment!

with Jess Hartley, Juliet Meyer & Monica Valentinelli

It's come to my attention that CMP has announced the ending of the Blackmoor license. It has also come to my attention that they're saying some negative things about the people who worked for them, and blaming us for the fact that the Age of the Wolf book isn't going to see release.

I feel that I need to say something--but I don't think it'd do much good to get into a war of words with them, and I don't think it'd be professional to make specific accusations in a public forum. So let me just say that there are definitely two sides to what happened, and that the problems that led to this did not originate with the freelancers.

I'm sorry that the fans are the ones ending up disappointed, but we could not, in good conscience, continue to work for CMP. (The fact that almost the entire freelance team--writers, artists, art director, and cartographer, some of whom had never even spoken to one another before the shit hit the fan--agreed on this course of action should be indication enough that there were problems coming down from above.)

I don't feel it appropriate to say anything else, except that I hope that, in all my years of working in this field, I've earned enough of a positive reputation for people not to assume the worst about me, or my fellows on the creative team, in this unfortunate situation.

I hear, as by the voice of the wind itself, that copies of Cthulhu 101 are now present at Third Coast Comics (6234 N. Broadway, Chicago). Which means, yes, that's right, the Signing Is On. I'll be on hand to sign and chat and do comic-store things on Wednesday, November 18 from 6:00 p.m. until Whenever. And who knows? There might be copies of the elusive Complete Idiot's Guide to U.S. History, Graphic Illustrated. Or even Where the Deep Ones Are and The Antarctic Express, for all your young-and-squamous gift-buying needs. Can such things be? Only Dagon can say -- and you can ask his representatives in the world of delightfully illustrated irreverence on Wednesday.

(introduced to me by trekhead. you can blame him.)

There is no way this could possibly go wrong.

He was in so much stuff that I've loved (The Wicker Man, for example, and Who Dares Wins/The Final Option), but to me, he will always be Robert McCall, The Equalizer. Best semi-retired badass EVER.

Man, now I seriously want that show on DVD -- the whole thing, not just Season 1, which is all that has been released so far.

I TOLD you there would be more Super Genius Games news coming this week! I've known and worked with Owen for about a decade now, and I've ALWAYS been impressed by his talent, put to shame by his work ethic, and proud to call him my friend. Now I can call him a Genius without fear of contradiction.

OWEN K.C. STEPHENS JOINS SUPER GENIUS GAMES
Escondido, CA (November 13, 2009) — Super Genius Games (SGG) is proud to announce the addition of a new Genius to the team! Starting immediately Owen K.C. Stephens will be the Pathfinder RPG Development Manager for SGG. Owen’s role-playing contributions are legion, having contributed to the 3rd and 4th editions of Dungeons & Dragons, d20 Modern, the Black Company, EverQuest, Song of Ice and Fire, and Wheel of Time role-playing games, as well as the Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting. Owen is also author of the Advanced Gamemaster’s Guide from Green Ronin, the Guide to Absalom released by Paizo Publishing, and was co-author of Star Wars Saga Edition from Wizards of the Coast.

“We’re proud to have a proven professional like Owen join the team,” said Stan!, Creative Director of SGG. “Owen has been part of the OGL movement from the beginning and he not only writes great content, he also has a good head for rules and for what makes the game exciting. He’s a real triple threat.”

SGG is committed to providing fun, engaging, and useful content for the Pathfinder RPG. Over the next few weeks Owen will work his Oklahoman magic and soon Pathfinder fans can expect amazing content from Super Genius Games each week.

“I am pleased to finally be acknowledged as a Genius, a moment I have long known would eventually arrive,” said Owen about his new position. ”On a serious note, I’m really pleased to be part of what I see as a very strong team, and I’m really excited about the projects we have coming down the pike.”

( The Day After Dec 21 2012 is definitely not the day to schedule your wedding )