Month: January 2008

Joel Hodgson, the creator of MST3K, along with several other original cast members, have launched Cinematic Titanic, which brings back the classic riffing-on-B-movies schtick.

Mike Nelson and other cast members are doing audio riffs of newer films over at Rifftrax. Funny stuff, but, for me, it misses the point, which was the older B-movies. Watching a riff of an old, obscure and terrible B-movie means that I can take the film+the audio as a whole, and really grow to love it as its own thing. Using a newer movie that I’m already familiar with? It’s just the same snarking that I do with my friends.

Me, I was always more of a Joel guy, so it’s good to hear his voice (especially along with Trace Beaulieu, the original – and best- voice of Crow T. Robot) again.

They’ve got their first DVD available: The Oozing Skull, released a couple of weeks ago via their website.

Check the trailer:

Or, as I’ve seen in countless publishers’ blog posts since the announcement: 4e or Not 4e?

A lot to consider. Various random thoughts:

1) A recent poll on ENWorld, asking what publishers people would like to see 4e products from (from the list of those of us on the advance call, plus a few others) — Adamant is only polling at about 7%. This may be because we’re more known for our genre explorations of d20 Modern, rather than fantasy material. Still…

2) Wolfgang Baur was successful in raising 5K from patrons. Would something like that also work for Adamant? At least enough to defer some of the costs?

3) Possible co-branding and partnership with other publisher(s)? Is the loss of individual control and brand identity worth the increased impact of being a Phase 1 publisher?

4) Given a focus on PDF and POD direct-to-consumer and direct-to-retail (avoiding the broken distribution system if at all possible), is being a Phase 1 publisher even worth it?

5) It occurs to me that under the current 3.5 version of the rules and license, it’s probably eminently doable to release products lightly-statted enough to work with ANY edition, and make a big launch of those products the minute 4th Edition is available, rather than having to wait even for the August 1st go-live date of Phase 1, much less 2009. From what we’ve heard of 4th Edition, it’s not changed so far as to be unrecognizable….so under the unrevokable OGL 1.0, it should be nothing more than a slight design challenge to come up with “close enough.”

Any comments or thoughts would be welcome. I’m brainstorming here.

Citing the reports alleging disparities around the state between hand-counted ballots, which tended to favor Obama, and machine-counted ones that tended to favor Clinton (which I posted about earlier this week), Kucinich is calling for a recount of New Hampshire votes.

Kucinich said he does not expect significant changes in *his* vote total, but wants assurance that “100 percent of the voters had 100 percent of their votes counted.”

Of course, it probably won’t happen — NH law requires anybody who lost by more than 3% to pay the full costs of a recount, and Kucinich has only sent out $2K (the amount reserved for people who lost by 3% or less). I suppose Obama could ask for the recount, but it’s probably better for him to just move forward with what momentum he has, and not give the media a “sore loser” meme to play with.

So, all in all, it’s only a gesture…..but I still think it’s an important gesture.