Our “Burning Wheel” video has made it to the next round, along with three others.
Links to the other three are at http://boards1.wizards.com/showthread.php?t=883365
Wizard Needs Haircut…Badly
Geisel created this video for the “Ultimate Gamer Test” contest at gleemax.com to show his favourite roleplaying game rule mechanic. John and I helped him, with a special cameo by Neal Bennett!
Sequelbots – Transform!
So I just got back from seeing Transformers. Warning: Spoilertron!
Cons:
– Extremely Hollywood (this is only a con if you’re not expecting and wanting it to be Hollywood, which I think at least everyone is expecting it).
– When I saw the early previews I noted that the bots looked excessively pointy and “cool” – I got used to that throughout the movie but I still think they could have been at least distinguished more by colour or shape – they all looked very similar and it was hard to tell who was fighting whom, sometimes.
– Weak plot overall.
– They didn’t get Frank Welker to voice Megatron, and there’s no good reason.
Pros:
– Best robots fighting you’ve ever seen.
– Unexpectedly good jokes.
– Lots of good “wow” moments, if you’re in to that sort of thing.
– They did get Peter Cullen to voice Optimus Prime.
In short, definitely worth seeing on the big screen, and you can’t go wrong with The Rio.
ps – the original Jazz was voiced by Scatman “The Shining” Crothers, who as you may know died some time ago.
Star Wars Clone Wars CG Series
The annual Star Wars convention “Star Wars Celebration” is wrapping up today and I gather they have showed some trailers for the upcoming Clone Wars CGI TV series. There is a clip of George Lucas talking about it on starwars.com but I’m not going to make you listen to it just by dropping some [link] like a lazy blogger. No! You can come to expect more at Toren’s Absolute Blog. He says that the Cartoon Network 2D animation series was a ‘test’ for this new ‘big budget’ series which will be more like the movie (“Attack of the Clones” presumably). Because it’s episodic they don’t have to deal with the Skywalker story, It’s more a bunch of various adventures, and they can do some more “oddball” things with “smartass comedy with contemporary humour – not Saturday morning at all.” They’re bringing in new characters, and they have one episode with nothing but clone warriors, and one just about Kitt Fisto.
Oh, I just found the trailer. I can’t post it here so you’ll have to go away. [Link: http://starwars.com/video/view/000478.html] I’m glad to see they included one of the more interesting characters from the 2D cartoon – the bald, Tim-Burtonesque female Sith.
And the live action series is still a few years away.
de4dmeta1 is My Guitar Hero
Watch “A Marine Biologist” on Guitar Hero II in this youtube clip from de4dmeta1. Pretty sweetass. I wonder if we’d get in trouble if we released an actual music video for one of our songs this way. Too bad none of the characters in Guitar Hero wear Lovecraftian monster costumes. Although Pandora’s feather outfit is in the neighbohood.
Yeah, Expert baby!
A Marine Biologist Video Idea (please disseminate)
Marine biologist footage needed for rock video
Are you a marine biologist? Do you want to be in a rock video?
Hello all, this is Toren Atkinson, science lover and lead singer for the Lovecraftian rock band, The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets. You may, at http://www.thickets.net/toren/darkestofthehillsidethickets.mp3 [link] or http://www.myspace.com/darkestofthehillsidethickets [link] listen to/download the mp3 for “A Marine Biologist,” a fun little number about bathyscaphes, benthic trawlers, giant squid, etc.
I would like to create a video for this track that essentially features marine biologists from across the globe. The idea would simply be a series of video clips of marine biologists doing what they (you?) do, with text at the bottom of the screen detailing who it is we’re looking at, their location and specialty. So, for example, if we got a clip of Dr O’Shea, it would something to the effect of:
DR. STEVE O’SHEA
AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND (and/or specific institution)
SPECIALTY: THE GIANT SQUID
The footage doesn’t need to be created from scratch just for the video – I’m perfectly happy with any video of any quality where it’s clear who the marine biologist is, and that he/she/you are in their element doing marine biology stuff – whether that be in the lab, on site recording courtship sounds…whatever.
So the entire video would be like a profile of worldwide marine biologists set to our song. Hopefully the video would appear on various music/TV shows–MTV, Muchmusic, and their equivalents, but at the very least it would go out throughout the internet, youtube, on our site, and into your hands as well to do with as you wish.
To make this happen – I need your cooperation!
If you are a marine biologist and want to help out would you:
a) contact me at thickets@uniserve.com and we can work out how to get video footage from you.
b) provide a statement that you give permission for The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets to use the footage and your likeness strictly for the purpose of this music video
c) see also (d) below!
If you are not a marine biologist, can you please
d) spread this around to any marine biologists you know, or anyone you think might know a marine biologist!
THANKS SO MUCH – if we can get this done I think it would be really fun!
Gliese 581
On TV and film, the nomenclature for planets is always based on the star and how many planets the planet is away from that star, i.e. Rigel 7, or Omicron Persei 8. So Earth would be, to a Rigellian, Sol 3. And now you know.
Apart from that, I can’t say anything more than Phil Plait on the newly discovered potentially Earth-like planet, so I’ll just link to his blog entry [link]
Role-Playing Game or Rocket Propelled Grenade?
When President Bush ordered troops to Iraq, he probably never imagined that he would be ultimately be responsible for what very well could be the very first D&D convention/game day ever held in a war zone. Ziggurat Con, being held June 9 from 1200 to 2100 hours at Camp Adder/Tallil Airbase, is open to all allied military personnel and civilian contractors in Iraq.
[The] armys Morale Welfare & Recreation Department have graciously allowed service members to use part of the Community Activity Center to hold the Game Day. The Ping Pong room will be set up for RPGs (Role-Playing Games, not to be confused with the rocket propelled grenades which share the same acronym), and the DVD Movie room will be playing Anime Movies all day in support of the event.
The largest problem with running a Con in Iraq, of course, is that there are no local stores or game publishers, and few game books on the post. Even dice are in short supply, with many soldiers breaking the unwritten taboo held by many gamers and sharing dice.
[link to the rest of the article at http://www.gamegrene.com/node/790]
Underdog
There’s two things wrong with this movie. First, we don’t need another talking live action dog film. Secondly, Underdog is anthropomorphic and lives in a world of anthropomorphic animals.
The only thing that seems to be taken from the original is the name and the costume.
Compare and contrast:
They couldn’t even get a dog with black ears? I smell boycott! Oh wait, I’m already boycotting crap in general.
In A Secret Location An Experiment Is Underway
Hi kids! Well I got an mpeg of the N.S.E.C.T.s commercial that I was in – and it’s pretty awesome. If anyone wants to see it, just give me your email address.
Weathertop gaming convention was this past weekend. It’s the first time I wasn’t really involved in the organization (but still was to a small extent), but nevertheless I was interviewed for a Vancouver Film School documentary project which was interesting. The question of nerdism and the oh-so-spooky occult aspects of D&D always come up in the media, and I am loathe to address the latter as it is complete bullshit. Like intelligent design. My response to the question “have you ever summoned any demons duing a D&D session” was “no, and believe I’ve tried. I’m pretty clever so if I can’t do it, the Christian fundamentalists can rest assured it’s impossible. So just relax. Go attack death metal, or better yet rap.” Well I’m paraphrasing. And, of course, of all of the normal looking, socially versed, contributing members of society that were at the con, they interviewed the kid who is known for eating his earwax at the table. I wish that were a joke.
Anyhoo, I went to the con to see if I could sell some games and Thickets merch, and I sold a bit but not much. It was an interesting experiment anyway, and not only did I get a little gaming and socializing in, but I also brought my comic book homework and made some good headway.