About 20 years ago or so, Marvel comics killed off fellow commissioned officer Captain Mar-Vell, and made a big noise about how he was actually dead and wouldn't be coming back.
It's interesting to me that they kill off a big character like Captain America while simultaneously bringing Captain Marvel back to life (though still riddled with the cancer that will eventually kill him again), the very character they claimed would always be dead.
At this point, Marvel's comics are subsidized by Hollywood, existing as a kind of incubation chamber for the next Summer movie. They need to breathe some life into the old characters, and the easiest way to do that and to grab headlines is to kill off a major icon.
I really started ripping my CDs back in the day when CDDB was just getting popular. All of my track listings, and I don't have to type them in? Sweet!
But I didn't know anything about compression back then. 128 bitrate? Sure. Why not? The shareware ripping program I'm using says it's CD quality. Good enough for me!
Because I'm lazy, I long ago gave away all of those old CDs (over 100), or lost them, or threw them out because I didn't feel like packing them for a move. Over the last few years, my CD collection went from physical to ephemeral. But they're frozen at 128, and my ears can hear the difference.
Yeah, I was an idiot. Yeah, I should have done the research. Yeah, I should have cared about that more than I cared about, you know, graduating from college.
My music tastes haven't changed much since then. I still discover and purchase and grow my collection, but still - it would be nice to have all of those Queen songs I love actually not sound like garbage when I play them in my car.
Agreed, the Star Wars D6 RPG is a superior game in almost every way to the newer WotC d20, except in the implementation of force abilities - though d20 is probably not the best system to refit for that purpose.
It's also interesting that the wealth of source material written by the excellent contributors to the West End Games version is still actively bought and sold on eBay - that stuff never really loses its utility.
What's incredibly disappointing about the WotC acquisition of the SW license is that they've seemingly bought themselves out of the market - they haven't published a new book for the system since 2004 (though there are indications that at least one more book will come out in 2007).
I quit because, it be came work and was not fun any more. I had to spend hours getting game together, adventures, random monster tables, etc.
I wanted a game where this could all be generated so I could actually "have fun", which is how it used to be when I first started to play.
Here's my advice: get someone else to DM.
I find most players want to DM. It usually lasts only for one session, especially if the other players don't appreciate their effort and mock the Gm the whole time and undermine everything he tries to do with silliness and stupid jokes.
Groening has made it clear that Futurama was intended to make fun of sci-fi but that it was also intended to treasure and honor it. Vast swaths of Futurama's painfully few episodes were little homages to standard sci-fi elements that didn't even necessarily distill into a joke.
But Groening says it better than I could:
So anyway -- yeah -- so, the inspiration is partly all these things in literary science fiction. When I was a kid, I would read these books and I was so excited by some of the adventurous ideas. Particularly Phillip K. Dick and I really thought Robert Sheckley's work was very funny. And, I thought, boy, it's really going to be great when I'm grown up and special effects get so much better. And, they'll be able to do all the things that are depicted in these books. And, I grew up and I found a lot of science fiction concepts really annoying. And, so this show is an opportunity to both honor some of the conventions of science fiction and satirize them. Have fun with them. (quote from here:http://www.bartfan.com/matt2.htm)
Besides, Futurama was consistently more inventive than that other animated Groening show, which could easily and more accurately be called "Homer is Stupid and Fat."
I think this paradigm is how Blockbuster makes the bulk of its profits. One way of doing that was when they extended the hours of returns, from noon on the due date to midnight on the due date. The register monkeys began saying that the due date had changed! and now the movies weren't due until the next day! Most everyone thought that actually meant that one could keep the movies an extra day and that they would be due on noon of that next day, as it had always been.
I fail to see any reason to make a change like that except to trick the customers into racking up more late fees.
Anyone who thinks that greater numbers can't win a war has no business commenting on warfare. Do you think the Russians took Stalingrad because of superior technology? They didn't even have enough weapons for everybody!
Seriously, though, you need to read more David Weber. That guy is nuts.
Whenever someone would do something potentially dangerous on the show (even slightly dangerous), the deep-voiced announcer guy would say "careful," almost subliminally. I surely can't be the only one who's encorporated that little gem in his day to day geeky reference-slinging. Can I?
And, does anyone else remember another sciency show on PBS in which a very insane-seeming old man with crazy hair would at turns scribble on a giant chalk board (or dry erase board) and operate devices and chemicals on a large lab table? I remember it being over my head, as a child, but still fascinating to watch, like C-SPAN for the Thundercats crowd.
It's quite funny, really. There are others, as well, including a podcast of Air America's daily programming (http://www.airamericaplace.com/), which you'll get a few days late, but is still entertaining (especially for those of us stuck in the Hannitized Savage Nation of Rush).
What most people here don't seem to understand is that podcasting is, currently, a purely talk format. Since most talk radio (with rare exceptions, above) is directed at a very specific Rapture Right listenership, it's nice to have lots of topics and styles to choose from. Music barely enters into it, unless the subject
is music.
Nonsense.
Good Show does not equal Ratings.
The networks, UPN included, do not care about quality. They care about money, which means they care about ad revenue, which means they care about large numbers of people watching their network.
Many Hollywood careers have been built on the reliability of Americans to devour cheap, mass-produced, pandering junk.
Hell, promising shows are scheduled for timeslots after popular, established shows because executives know that viewers will be too lazy to change the channel! And that strategy works!
Enterprise didn't fail because it was a bad show. It failed because it sure as hell doesn't belong on UPN. Just take a look at the front page of the UPN website! If that Star Trek Enterprise picture on the sidebar hadn't been there, would you have ever turned on UPN to catch the latest sci-fi series?
Trek either belongs on Sci-Fi channel, or it belongs in syndication. Anything else, and nobody will continue to watch it, no matter how much money the fans pump into it.
Sure, it has the oft-discussed cachet of exploration, learning, adventure, honor, etc., but at its core, Trek is a playground.
Up until now, the people we've seen playing on this playground have all been stodgy, uptight Starfleet shemps, with the exception of some offensive charicatures (Neelix, Phlox, Quark); even the dicy idea of throwing some terrorists onto a crew of said Starfleet stuffed shirts (Voyager) didn't materialize: the terrorists became carbon copy stuffed shirts themselves.
New players on the playground: the bad kids, the ones who punch and pull hair, the ones who get detentions and suspensions. There are outcasts and bullies and punks and shy kids all over the place, but Trek has either ignored them or forced them to conform to a soft and mushy conceit that looks downright silly and naive in the modern era.
You can use the same play equipment. You just need some interesting people swinging on the monkey bars.
Slashdot Mirror
It's interesting to me that they kill off a big character like Captain America while simultaneously bringing Captain Marvel back to life (though still riddled with the cancer that will eventually kill him again), the very character they claimed would always be dead.
At this point, Marvel's comics are subsidized by Hollywood, existing as a kind of incubation chamber for the next Summer movie. They need to breathe some life into the old characters, and the easiest way to do that and to grab headlines is to kill off a major icon.
I think it's a great idea.
and blame his behavior on playing too much Law & Order.
.... I dig that attitude.I think you meant digg.
But I didn't know anything about compression back then. 128 bitrate? Sure. Why not? The shareware ripping program I'm using says it's CD quality. Good enough for me!
Because I'm lazy, I long ago gave away all of those old CDs (over 100), or lost them, or threw them out because I didn't feel like packing them for a move. Over the last few years, my CD collection went from physical to ephemeral. But they're frozen at 128, and my ears can hear the difference.
Yeah, I was an idiot. Yeah, I should have done the research. Yeah, I should have cared about that more than I cared about, you know, graduating from college.
My music tastes haven't changed much since then. I still discover and purchase and grow my collection, but still - it would be nice to have all of those Queen songs I love actually not sound like garbage when I play them in my car.
It's also interesting that the wealth of source material written by the excellent contributors to the West End Games version is still actively bought and sold on eBay - that stuff never really loses its utility.
What's incredibly disappointing about the WotC acquisition of the SW license is that they've seemingly bought themselves out of the market - they haven't published a new book for the system since 2004 (though there are indications that at least one more book will come out in 2007).
I wanted a game where this could all be generated so I could actually "have fun", which is how it used to be when I first started to play.
Here's my advice: get someone else to DM.
I find most players want to DM. It usually lasts only for one session, especially if the other players don't appreciate their effort and mock the Gm the whole time and undermine everything he tries to do with silliness and stupid jokes.
Not that I'm bitter or anything.
The last 10 girlfriends I've had over numerous years, including the most recent, my current wife, have all been gamers.
Let's hope she doesn't read Slashdot...
Yes, Sci-fi series.
Groening has made it clear that Futurama was intended to make fun of sci-fi but that it was also intended to treasure and honor it. Vast swaths of Futurama's painfully few episodes were little homages to standard sci-fi elements that didn't even necessarily distill into a joke.
But Groening says it better than I could:
So anyway -- yeah -- so, the inspiration is partly all these things in literary science fiction. When I was a kid, I would read these books and I was so excited by some of the adventurous ideas. Particularly Phillip K. Dick and I really thought Robert Sheckley's work was very funny. And, I thought, boy, it's really going to be great when I'm grown up and special effects get so much better. And, they'll be able to do all the things that are depicted in these books. And, I grew up and I found a lot of science fiction concepts really annoying. And, so this show is an opportunity to both honor some of the conventions of science fiction and satirize them. Have fun with them. (quote from here:http://www.bartfan.com/matt2.htm)
Besides, Futurama was consistently more inventive than that other animated Groening show, which could easily and more accurately be called "Homer is Stupid and Fat."
Who are you and what have you done with Dubya?!
I think this paradigm is how Blockbuster makes the bulk of its profits. One way of doing that was when they extended the hours of returns, from noon on the due date to midnight on the due date. The register monkeys began saying that the due date had changed! and now the movies weren't due until the next day! Most everyone thought that actually meant that one could keep the movies an extra day and that they would be due on noon of that next day, as it had always been.
I fail to see any reason to make a change like that except to trick the customers into racking up more late fees.
Anyone who thinks that greater numbers can't win a war has no business commenting on warfare. Do you think the Russians took Stalingrad because of superior technology? They didn't even have enough weapons for everybody!
Seriously, though, you need to read more David Weber. That guy is nuts.
Whenever someone would do something potentially dangerous on the show (even slightly dangerous), the deep-voiced announcer guy would say "careful," almost subliminally. I surely can't be the only one who's encorporated that little gem in his day to day geeky reference-slinging. Can I? And, does anyone else remember another sciency show on PBS in which a very insane-seeming old man with crazy hair would at turns scribble on a giant chalk board (or dry erase board) and operate devices and chemicals on a large lab table? I remember it being over my head, as a child, but still fascinating to watch, like C-SPAN for the Thundercats crowd.
Besides, Stuart Little meets a crappy sci-fi remake?
What's next, Planet of the Talking Pigs?
Try the Dawn and Drew show http://www.dawnanddrew.com/.
It's quite funny, really. There are others, as well, including a podcast of Air America's daily programming (http://www.airamericaplace.com/), which you'll get a few days late, but is still entertaining (especially for those of us stuck in the Hannitized Savage Nation of Rush).
What most people here don't seem to understand is that podcasting is, currently, a purely talk format. Since most talk radio (with rare exceptions, above) is directed at a very specific Rapture Right listenership, it's nice to have lots of topics and styles to choose from. Music barely enters into it, unless the subject is music.
Nonsense. Good Show does not equal Ratings. The networks, UPN included, do not care about quality. They care about money, which means they care about ad revenue, which means they care about large numbers of people watching their network. Many Hollywood careers have been built on the reliability of Americans to devour cheap, mass-produced, pandering junk. Hell, promising shows are scheduled for timeslots after popular, established shows because executives know that viewers will be too lazy to change the channel! And that strategy works! Enterprise didn't fail because it was a bad show. It failed because it sure as hell doesn't belong on UPN. Just take a look at the front page of the UPN website! If that Star Trek Enterprise picture on the sidebar hadn't been there, would you have ever turned on UPN to catch the latest sci-fi series? Trek either belongs on Sci-Fi channel, or it belongs in syndication. Anything else, and nobody will continue to watch it, no matter how much money the fans pump into it.
Sure, it has the oft-discussed cachet of exploration, learning, adventure, honor, etc., but at its core, Trek is a playground. Up until now, the people we've seen playing on this playground have all been stodgy, uptight Starfleet shemps, with the exception of some offensive charicatures (Neelix, Phlox, Quark); even the dicy idea of throwing some terrorists onto a crew of said Starfleet stuffed shirts (Voyager) didn't materialize: the terrorists became carbon copy stuffed shirts themselves. New players on the playground: the bad kids, the ones who punch and pull hair, the ones who get detentions and suspensions. There are outcasts and bullies and punks and shy kids all over the place, but Trek has either ignored them or forced them to conform to a soft and mushy conceit that looks downright silly and naive in the modern era. You can use the same play equipment. You just need some interesting people swinging on the monkey bars.