Category: Nerdiness

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] army’s 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]

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.

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.