Month: May 2003

“That’s what the Internet is for, slandering others anonymously.”

–Banky, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back

So, some anonymous prick starts stirring shit over on EN World about how Green Ronin shouldn’t hire me ever again, because I’ll end up costing them sales because of people boycotting me due to my behavior on RPGnet.

I find out that it’s the same guy who went after me on RPGnet a few months back. Then, somebody points me to thread on some site called Nutkinland, where my stalker takes the opportunity for further slander. Hell, most of the stuff he says on that thread about interaction between us is flat-out lies. Never happened.

I know I shouldn’t let it bug me. Part of me is taking this as just a timely reminder of the low end of the folks that I’m going to have to be dealing with, now that I’m getting back into things full-time. Another part of me is kinda disturbed by the fact that someone whom I don’t know, and whom I’ve had the barest of interactions with would have such a hard-on for me that he goes out of his way to mess with me like this.

Of course, there’s another part of me that thinks of the end of the above-quoted film, and smiles.

GMS

Better than Enterprise…

A while back, I posted the link to the Starship Exeter, the fan-produced Original-Series-era Star Trek episode. Goofy fun.

Yesterday, the Dastardly Best Friend sends me the link for another fan-produced Trek project, Hidden Frontier–a TNG-film-era series. That’s right, a series. This fan group has produced 3 seasons worth of episodes, filmed with virtual sets (via greenscreen), with starship sequences rendered using Lightwave 3D. The acting is amateurish, the cast definitely leans towards the less-flattering stereotypes of the fan community, but damn if their enthusiasm isn’t palpable and, to an extent, contagious. The absolute professionalism of the starship SPFX is a big help…and the fact that they use the music from Galaxy Quest as their theme music is a nice inside joke, while simultaneously being a stirring piece of music that isn’t associated with an existing Trek series.

It is amazing what fans are able to produce, using home equipment.

I need to get myself a copy of Lightwave 3D. Since I was a kid, raised on Original Series Star Trek, Star Wars, Space:1999, Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers, I’ve had a desire to create my own Space Opera. Taking a look at what these fans have done makes me think that it just might be something do-able.

Must ponder that.

GMS

A Pleasant Surprise

So I’m off work today—sick. The inaugural yes-it’s-spring-so-now-your-allergies-will-kick-your-ass fun fest. So I took a day to get it under control.

I’m crashed out on the couch, drinking tea and general trying to get some rest. I turn on the tube, and catch the opening credits of a movie starting on FLIX, one of the movie channels I get via satellite. It’s a Vincent Price movie—one of those Roger Corman-directed early-60s gothic horror B-movies that took their title (and little else) from Edgar Allen Poe stories. (Stephen King was a big fan of these, and in his book On Writing said that he and his friend referred to them as “Poepictures”) This was one I hadn’t seen before: “The Haunted Palace”…the title cribbed from one of Poe’s poems.

So, as I’m watching, I start catching references in the dialogue: the town is called “Arkham”. Price’s character is named Charles Ward. Charles DEXTER Ward. As soon as it begins to dawn on me, the floodgates open, and the references come heavily, one after another: The Necronomicon. Cthulhu and Yog-sothoth. Tillinghast.

It’s a Lovecraft movie, as well as a Poepicture! Woo-hoo! The day suddenly gets just a little bit better.

I love little surprises like that.

GMS