New Email, Old Politics

First of all, just a quick note to let people know that I’ve changed my email address. The old adamant.rpg.net one will be inactive from here on out.

Second–I caught the premiere of Real Time with Bill Maher last night on HBO. Good to see him back on the air—even better to see him in a live, uncensored format. My favorite part of last night’s show (aside from when Chris Rock responded to shrill conservative fembot Ann Coulter with an incredulous “What the hell? Are you fucking the President?”) was the section of the evening that Maher calls “New Rules”. The best one:

“New Rule: Enough whining about the French. At least they’re standing up to the Bush administration, which is more than can be said about the Democrats….”

Ouch. Too true.

Another good line last night, during the debate about why we’re going after Iraq, instead of Bin Laden: “It’s like I lost my keys in the garage, but I’ve decided to look for them in the living room, because the lighting is better in there.”

Hit upon a disturbing political theory of my own this morning: it’s more than a bit paranoid, but perhaps even more frighteningly, makes some degree of sense. What if the Bush administration’s North Korea policy is driven by a desire to convince the American people that the idea of a “missle defense shield” is necessary? Think about it–we sit back and largely do nothing, until such time as it becomes conclusive that North Korea has nuclear weapons, and has missles that can reach the US (Right now, we’ve sure of the latter, but only suspect the former…they have the ingredients, we’re not sure if they have the finished product). So, then, the Bush administration turns to Congress and the American people and says “see? Told ya we need a missle defense shield…” and Ratheon or Grumman or General Dynamics gets a big fat contract for a multi-billion dollar system that currently is viewed as a folly.

Wouldn’t surprise me.

GMS

The Blizzard of ’03

Well, that was fun.

It started snowing Sunday night.

It stopped snowing at around lunchtime today.

We got somewhere over 2 feet of snow—snow of the powdery, flaky variety which blew in the 50 m.p.h. gusts into huge drifts. The roads out by our house were only just cleared today, and our landlord’s plow guy did our driveway…but piled all of the snow into a massive snowbank that proceeded to avalanche overnight, burying my car. I got to dig it out (with Laura) about an hour ago. Fun.

Been thinking quite a bit about pulp stuff again. What sucks is that I don’t really have an outlet for it. I mean, the thing about pulp was that it really wasn’t very well written. So, it doesn’t make sense to try to write some, because part of the style of the genre is a way of writing that pretty much insures that I wouldn’t be able to find a publisher for it.

It doesn’t make sense to do an RPG, either– there have been a couple of them released on the market recently, and their success levels proved yet again that pulp is a genre that game designers love, but gamers largely do not. I suppose that I could do it simply because I want to, the market be damned…maybe release it as a PDF. I don’t know…that could work, I guess. If you’ve got any input on this, drop me a line. I could use some focus.

GMS

LXG– Lame, Xtreme Garishness

So the trailer for League of Extraordinary Gentlemen is online.

Given the graphic-novel-to-film translation of From Hell, I had high hopes for this one. However, it looks as though it’s going to suck more than an economy hooker during Fleet Week. This film should have been to the Steampunk genre what The Matrix is to cyberpunk….but no. Check out the trailer. It looks like the director read Alan Moore’s work, said “Nobody is going to get this”, and decided instead to make a mix of Dick Tracy, Highlander 2, and Jet Li’s Black Mask. What the HELL?

I especially like the LXG-mobile, or whatever-the-fuck that souped-up roadster thing is supposed to be. The Victorian Age being known for its automotive style, of course.

Grrr. Disappointed.

GMS