I thought I'd try to do some smaller updates more frequently instead of letting those long, vacant gaps appear between posts. It really only takes time away from me reading other blogs anyway.
I've updated the sidebar again, with links to some of my favorite (roleplaying) game designers, and Blizzard Entertainment.
Some time back Robin Laws posted a small discussion of John Paul II as game designer to his blog. After seeing that it struck me that really, our legislative branch has no training for actually making laws. Legal training might tell them what the laws are, or how to write in such a way that those laws are incomprehensible, but there's little actual training available for the making of laws.
Except in game design. Good game designers know the effects their rules will have. They know that their rules need to be fair and balanced, otherwise everyone will carry a monofilament whip. Given that Blizzard can somehow manage to make a game where all nine classes are interesting to play, and have consistently produced games that I enjoy, even though I don't like the genres, I figure it'd be best to simply replace both houses of congress with the Blizzard design team.
Saturday, May 21, 2005
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Werewolf Films
From my March 17th post:
Anyway, don't listen to me and go back to work on your vampire that becomes a werewolf or vice-versa spec script.
My guess is that it'll be even more difficult than the current "impossible-unless-you're-Wes Craven" to sell a werewolf script nowadays.And here on May 14th comes Skinwalkers. I kind of suspect that I might have missed one or two other werewolf films too. However, I don't count movies with werewolves as costars to much cooler vampires, such as Underworld: Evolution, as werewolf movies.
Anyway, don't listen to me and go back to work on your vampire that becomes a werewolf or vice-versa spec script.
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Enron and Mom
My mom and stepfather visited this weekend -- that means I drank more beer than usual. This part of Texas was heavily settled by Germans back in the 19th century so there are some nice beer houses around the area. But the best has to be Flying Saucer -- they've got 76 different kinds of beer on tap (check this pdf of their beer menu), from all around the world and from micro-breweries in the U.S. They have other locations too, but none in the northeast or west coast I'm afraid.
There's a couple theaters in town that play arty, foreign, indie, or documentary films. After seeing Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room I grew much fonder of the idea of a death penalty, or perhaps a torture-to-death penalty. For my Californian friends you ought to check this out and see how the rolling blackouts you suffered helped some CEOs receive 300 million dollar payouts.
There's a couple theaters in town that play arty, foreign, indie, or documentary films. After seeing Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room I grew much fonder of the idea of a death penalty, or perhaps a torture-to-death penalty. For my Californian friends you ought to check this out and see how the rolling blackouts you suffered helped some CEOs receive 300 million dollar payouts.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Dairy Products
Perhaps it's just that I haven't actually bought dairy products prior to this year, but it seems like the shelf life has gotten longer.
I'm fond of breakfast cereal (Oat Flakes or Captain Crunch, but not the Captain Crunch Swirled Berries), baked potatoes, and the occasional taco. But the problem with all those foods is that they require either milk or sour cream and I never use up the milk or sour cream fast enough to avoid having half of it acquire a strange odor and some small degree of sentience.
However, Jaru bought some ultra-pasteurized milk just a bit ago and it had an expiration date like one month after purchase. I'd swear that it used to be that you were pushing your luck if you didn't drink the milk in the car on the way home. And I've got this sour cream that's refrigerated-aisle-legal until July 11.
Our local grocery chain (which has some weird almost-monopoly on San Antonio shopping) has this milk-like substance on sale called MooTopia. Actually, they say "it's real milk, only better." I'm a bit put off by the milk that HEB isn't quite willing to call milk -- but I also realise that's inconsistent of me given my general fondness for chemically and genetically engineered food products.
I'm fond of breakfast cereal (Oat Flakes or Captain Crunch, but not the Captain Crunch Swirled Berries), baked potatoes, and the occasional taco. But the problem with all those foods is that they require either milk or sour cream and I never use up the milk or sour cream fast enough to avoid having half of it acquire a strange odor and some small degree of sentience.
However, Jaru bought some ultra-pasteurized milk just a bit ago and it had an expiration date like one month after purchase. I'd swear that it used to be that you were pushing your luck if you didn't drink the milk in the car on the way home. And I've got this sour cream that's refrigerated-aisle-legal until July 11.
Our local grocery chain (which has some weird almost-monopoly on San Antonio shopping) has this milk-like substance on sale called MooTopia. Actually, they say "it's real milk, only better." I'm a bit put off by the milk that HEB isn't quite willing to call milk -- but I also realise that's inconsistent of me given my general fondness for chemically and genetically engineered food products.
Monday, May 09, 2005
Four Pickups
Jaru and I have been doing some furious house-hunting over the last week or two. Despite the fact that we're living solely on Jaru's visiting prof salary, we can afford a house down here. They run like 100k a pop -- I told a friend that he should sell his place in Silicon Valley and buy a half dozen down here -- my dad could sell his house and move into a lakefront or golf-course-front mansion.
But they would be in Texas then...
While looking at houses we drove past one nice little place (right around that 100k range) and in their two car driveway there were parked four pickup trucks. Not a bunch of little runabouts either -- two were identical extended cab jobbies, one looked like a big work truck, and the other was a small runabout kinda thing (maybe for the cat). That's like a hundred and twenty thousand dollars of pickup in front of 100,000 dollars of house; or 160 square feet of pickup bed in front of 1400 square feet of house.
Anyway, we've cancelled the house search since our circumstances are so volatile now and buying/selling fees in one or two years would cost us more than we gained in equity.
What kind of family could possibly need two tons of cargo capacity???
But they would be in Texas then...
While looking at houses we drove past one nice little place (right around that 100k range) and in their two car driveway there were parked four pickup trucks. Not a bunch of little runabouts either -- two were identical extended cab jobbies, one looked like a big work truck, and the other was a small runabout kinda thing (maybe for the cat). That's like a hundred and twenty thousand dollars of pickup in front of 100,000 dollars of house; or 160 square feet of pickup bed in front of 1400 square feet of house.
Anyway, we've cancelled the house search since our circumstances are so volatile now and buying/selling fees in one or two years would cost us more than we gained in equity.
What kind of family could possibly need two tons of cargo capacity???
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
MCI Supports Child Porn?!?!?
I'm helping spread a meme I picked up from Kung Fu Monkey (damn those monkey virii!):
This website has a link to an MP3 of a telephone conversation between stand-up comic Eugene Mirman and a telemarketer for a company that sells itself as the phone company that doesn't support gays or hard-core child pornography (but cleverly begins the telemarketing by claiming just to be an oranization opposed to same-sex marriages).
In addition to being just funny in general , there's also this nice little bit toward the end where the telemarketer says that MCI sponsors hard-core child pornography. I wonder if Karl Rove trained their marketing staff? And I wonder how long it will be before MCI sues that company into the ground.
***
I'll leave the main info in the link (on the Jesus' General page), but I suspect this meme will spread fast and we'll start seeing bandwidth usages maxed out so maybe later I'll look around to see if there are any other hosts.
This website has a link to an MP3 of a telephone conversation between stand-up comic Eugene Mirman and a telemarketer for a company that sells itself as the phone company that doesn't support gays or hard-core child pornography (but cleverly begins the telemarketing by claiming just to be an oranization opposed to same-sex marriages).
In addition to being just funny in general , there's also this nice little bit toward the end where the telemarketer says that MCI sponsors hard-core child pornography. I wonder if Karl Rove trained their marketing staff? And I wonder how long it will be before MCI sues that company into the ground.
***
I'll leave the main info in the link (on the Jesus' General page), but I suspect this meme will spread fast and we'll start seeing bandwidth usages maxed out so maybe later I'll look around to see if there are any other hosts.
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
"error in judgement" + "appearance of"
Outlining a new story means lots of time sitting around doing nothing, sort of, while trying to figure out what would work best in the third act.
This leads to webcrastination -- which led to checking out Slate --> then Poynter Online's Romenesko column --> and finally to this Wall Street Journal article on TV Experts getting payoffs.
Going into that article you know what's coming -- a whole bunch of weaselly business about "experts" going on TV and pimping products after getting, oh, my yearly teaching assistant salary, from the company whose products they're pimping.
What I was waiting for was the pseudo-apologetic "I made an error in judgement..." combined with some statement to the effect of "...that might give the appearance of..." [bias, undue influence, rampant corruption, moral turpitude -- okay, maybe those last two are me projecting].
Instead, we get an article from a point early in the Scandal-Cycle. This is that period of a scandal-cycle where the people getting fingered claim there's no wrong-doing at all. There's something almost acceptable about getting paid to endorse a product you already believe in -- assuming that these people really do believe in those products, and believe in them more than competing products that didn't pay for an endorsement, and are forthcoming about their financial arrangement....
My guess is that if this scandal has a decent shelf-life we'll finally get to the later stage of the scandal-cycle, which involves those phrases in the title of this post. I've grown so used to hearing those phrases close together that I now just wait to see how they pop out of the scandal-source's mouth.
Which led me to a question: how often are those phrases really used together? Now, it's unscientific but you can get something approaching an answer through the power of Google.
About 630 results (for some combination of those exact phrases). Frankly, far lower than I expected. And some of those hits are false leads, e.g., to potential difficulties in Japanese Sword Polishing.
However, five of the ten links on the first page are links to articles or statements using the phrases in their weasel way. Maybe I would have gotten more hits by using appear as or some other variant as the second phrase.
This leads to webcrastination -- which led to checking out Slate --> then Poynter Online's Romenesko column --> and finally to this Wall Street Journal article on TV Experts getting payoffs.
Going into that article you know what's coming -- a whole bunch of weaselly business about "experts" going on TV and pimping products after getting, oh, my yearly teaching assistant salary, from the company whose products they're pimping.
What I was waiting for was the pseudo-apologetic "I made an error in judgement..." combined with some statement to the effect of "...that might give the appearance of..." [bias, undue influence, rampant corruption, moral turpitude -- okay, maybe those last two are me projecting].
Instead, we get an article from a point early in the Scandal-Cycle. This is that period of a scandal-cycle where the people getting fingered claim there's no wrong-doing at all. There's something almost acceptable about getting paid to endorse a product you already believe in -- assuming that these people really do believe in those products, and believe in them more than competing products that didn't pay for an endorsement, and are forthcoming about their financial arrangement....
My guess is that if this scandal has a decent shelf-life we'll finally get to the later stage of the scandal-cycle, which involves those phrases in the title of this post. I've grown so used to hearing those phrases close together that I now just wait to see how they pop out of the scandal-source's mouth.
Which led me to a question: how often are those phrases really used together? Now, it's unscientific but you can get something approaching an answer through the power of Google.
About 630 results (for some combination of those exact phrases). Frankly, far lower than I expected. And some of those hits are false leads, e.g., to potential difficulties in Japanese Sword Polishing.
However, five of the ten links on the first page are links to articles or statements using the phrases in their weasel way. Maybe I would have gotten more hits by using appear as or some other variant as the second phrase.
Monday, April 18, 2005
Screenwriting Links
I've added some screenwriting links to the right so here's a little rundown:
The Done Deal Message Board is a good thing to read through during the writing your first few screenplays. By looking at the comments there you'll get a solid sense of what rules are pretty important and what rules aren't. Also, when you finally send out some queries if you get a few responses from places you've neither heard of nor can find on the internet, you can post a question and get the lowdown.
John August does a little question and answer thing for IMDB's Ask a Filmmaker feature. He gives even more free advice at his website so check it out.
The Artful Writer has some general screenwriting advice and a bunch of writer's guild related advice on the legal angles.
Finally, John Rogers's Kung Fu Monkey is another screenwriting blog, but this guy also plays Dungeons and Dragons and the like (he even includes a link to the premiere d20 gaming site on the net) so some extra kudoes go that way.
The Done Deal Message Board is a good thing to read through during the writing your first few screenplays. By looking at the comments there you'll get a solid sense of what rules are pretty important and what rules aren't. Also, when you finally send out some queries if you get a few responses from places you've neither heard of nor can find on the internet, you can post a question and get the lowdown.
John August does a little question and answer thing for IMDB's Ask a Filmmaker feature. He gives even more free advice at his website so check it out.
The Artful Writer has some general screenwriting advice and a bunch of writer's guild related advice on the legal angles.
Finally, John Rogers's Kung Fu Monkey is another screenwriting blog, but this guy also plays Dungeons and Dragons and the like (he even includes a link to the premiere d20 gaming site on the net) so some extra kudoes go that way.
Saturday, April 09, 2005
Writing is Rewriting
Still no news from the producers, but I think the lawyers are busy...
I've been doing rewrites lately on two scripts. I'll typically work one month taking a screenplay from concept through outline and to first full draft. Subsequent rewrites then take another two months. So, before I even show it to potential purchasers two-thirds of the work was in rewriting.
I imagine for others it might be different. I go through first drafts quickly, just writing past areas that feel clunky knowing that I'll go back and toss it out in a re-write. More exacting people might take longer on first draft but need fewer rewrites.
One of my screenplays is a noirish thing and I wound up having a bunch of back story in it to prop up the plot. That was nagging at me for a while, which is one of the reasons you put things away for a bit -- so that they can nag at you enough that you actually change them. And do change them -- that nagging is your instinct giving you great advice.
In a movie you really can't afford much backstory; there's just not enough space to give it an adequate treatment. That meant I needed to dump almost all the backstory -- and that meant scrapping large, honking chunks of the text. One good thing about that is it cultivates a feeling of detachment -- you've already killed so many pages that killing some more doesn't feel so bad -- and that's good to have when you get around to working with producers and directors.
Given the breadth of the changes I started to wonder whether it would be just as easy to simply write a wholly different screenplay. Certainly my gut instinct is "no" -- but I'd like to have a richer justification than gut instinct.
There's the "not wanting to feel like a quitter" justification. You know, finish what you start; see it through to the end, and so on. But that sounds as tautological as gut instinct.
However, there is something a rewrite retains, even when you throw away every word and start writing again from the beginning. You have a picture of the overall structure -- what worked before and what didn't, what the timing should look like, and so on. Also, a bunch of the characters have been given idenitities that one can hang dialogue and motivations on, or make distinct with a few tweaks.
I think that's why the WGA gives so much priority to the first writer -- note though that there's some debate over whether the WGA gives too much priority to the first writer.
I've been doing rewrites lately on two scripts. I'll typically work one month taking a screenplay from concept through outline and to first full draft. Subsequent rewrites then take another two months. So, before I even show it to potential purchasers two-thirds of the work was in rewriting.
I imagine for others it might be different. I go through first drafts quickly, just writing past areas that feel clunky knowing that I'll go back and toss it out in a re-write. More exacting people might take longer on first draft but need fewer rewrites.
One of my screenplays is a noirish thing and I wound up having a bunch of back story in it to prop up the plot. That was nagging at me for a while, which is one of the reasons you put things away for a bit -- so that they can nag at you enough that you actually change them. And do change them -- that nagging is your instinct giving you great advice.
In a movie you really can't afford much backstory; there's just not enough space to give it an adequate treatment. That meant I needed to dump almost all the backstory -- and that meant scrapping large, honking chunks of the text. One good thing about that is it cultivates a feeling of detachment -- you've already killed so many pages that killing some more doesn't feel so bad -- and that's good to have when you get around to working with producers and directors.
Given the breadth of the changes I started to wonder whether it would be just as easy to simply write a wholly different screenplay. Certainly my gut instinct is "no" -- but I'd like to have a richer justification than gut instinct.
There's the "not wanting to feel like a quitter" justification. You know, finish what you start; see it through to the end, and so on. But that sounds as tautological as gut instinct.
However, there is something a rewrite retains, even when you throw away every word and start writing again from the beginning. You have a picture of the overall structure -- what worked before and what didn't, what the timing should look like, and so on. Also, a bunch of the characters have been given idenitities that one can hang dialogue and motivations on, or make distinct with a few tweaks.
I think that's why the WGA gives so much priority to the first writer -- note though that there's some debate over whether the WGA gives too much priority to the first writer.
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Bad Film Week
With Jaru away at sasshin for seven days I'm taking the opportunity to see practically any movie that falls under the action or horror genre, irrespective of their critical or popular acclaim.
So far I've seen Cursed, Boogeyman, and Hostage. I liked Hostage best of the bunch, though there's this weird plot-bump towards the end.
One thing I was really curious about was why Boogeyman did about twice as well as Cursed at the box office. Cursed has everything going for it, better name recognition off the actors, a Wes Craven/Kevin Williamson film, higher budget, and so on. Moreover, if you look at the ratings on IMDB it's even got better popular reviews.
Maybe it's that Cursed came at the tail end of about six weeks of horror releases (next year it'll likely even be worse as the January/February bracket is flooded with horror flicks).
But I also think it has something to do with one lesson I learned losing money self-publishing game books: concept is king. People won't even check your stuff out unless it's got a hook that makes them curious.
I think what happened is that Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson got together and said "let's do a good old fashioned werewolf film" and the audience said: "What? It looks like just another werewolf film." I know that's what slowed me down in seeing it.
My guess is that it'll be even more difficult than the current "impossible-unless-you're-Wes Craven" to sell a werewolf script nowadays.
Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing that we trim back even more on the werewolf films. Personally, I'm fond of werewolves -- they're cool. But the movies always seem to be let-downs.
After seeing Cursed I think part of the reason they're let-downs is that the werewolf always looks so cheesy. Even now with all the high-tech CGI and highly paid graphic artists the werewolf looks like a fuzzy, plump guy wearing a carpet. The morphing bits are often excellent -- but the werewolves just don't cut it. If anyone has some examples of movies with actually cool-looking werewolves in it I'd be pleased to hear them. The only one I can really come up with is Wolfen, but that's not quite a werewolf movie in the same way as the others.
To balance out the bad movies, I also bought some DVDs: Miller's Crossing, Fargo, and The Maltese Falcon. Those films can balance out a lot of bad.
So far I've seen Cursed, Boogeyman, and Hostage. I liked Hostage best of the bunch, though there's this weird plot-bump towards the end.
One thing I was really curious about was why Boogeyman did about twice as well as Cursed at the box office. Cursed has everything going for it, better name recognition off the actors, a Wes Craven/Kevin Williamson film, higher budget, and so on. Moreover, if you look at the ratings on IMDB it's even got better popular reviews.
Maybe it's that Cursed came at the tail end of about six weeks of horror releases (next year it'll likely even be worse as the January/February bracket is flooded with horror flicks).
But I also think it has something to do with one lesson I learned losing money self-publishing game books: concept is king. People won't even check your stuff out unless it's got a hook that makes them curious.
I think what happened is that Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson got together and said "let's do a good old fashioned werewolf film" and the audience said: "What? It looks like just another werewolf film." I know that's what slowed me down in seeing it.
My guess is that it'll be even more difficult than the current "impossible-unless-you're-Wes Craven" to sell a werewolf script nowadays.
Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing that we trim back even more on the werewolf films. Personally, I'm fond of werewolves -- they're cool. But the movies always seem to be let-downs.
After seeing Cursed I think part of the reason they're let-downs is that the werewolf always looks so cheesy. Even now with all the high-tech CGI and highly paid graphic artists the werewolf looks like a fuzzy, plump guy wearing a carpet. The morphing bits are often excellent -- but the werewolves just don't cut it. If anyone has some examples of movies with actually cool-looking werewolves in it I'd be pleased to hear them. The only one I can really come up with is Wolfen, but that's not quite a werewolf movie in the same way as the others.
To balance out the bad movies, I also bought some DVDs: Miller's Crossing, Fargo, and The Maltese Falcon. Those films can balance out a lot of bad.
Monday, March 14, 2005
City of Heroes Update
Sung requested I update the city of Heroes information so that everyone in our group can keep some sort of track of who's online and what they're playing.
City of Heroes: we're on the Liberty Server
Steve's Heroes:
Recursive
Vesuvius
Sung's Heroes:
Fire'Lord
Fire'Storm
Lady'Blaze
Shadow'Spawn
George's Heroes:
Torrancean
RoboX
FureX
Super-boy
John's Heroes:
Captain Jimmy
Bent Space
Jerome's Heroes:
Obsidian Bane
Note: to add any of the heroes above to your CoH friends list, type in the chat window:
/friend hero name
Eg: /friend Fire'Lord
********
I'll also update my World of Warcraft information:
World of Warcraft
Eonar Server:
Steve's Characters [Horde]:
Trespass
Feathermoon Server
Steve's Characters [Alliance]:
Umbranic
Leucauge
Gipper
I mainly play Trespass since the Eonar server is easier to get on and a little less crowded, though its population is getting up there too.
*******
Finally, in the "no news means it's sinking into the Abyss" category I've still heard nothing from any of the producers or director. On the other hand, it is Hollywood and the same incomprehensible forces that can explode a project in 96 hours can rebuild it in something like that time.
In a -- perhaps unrelated -- bit of news, one of the other companies that was interested in making The Sound emailed me on Thursday. They emailed out of the blue last October as well, but, from what I understand, the business is a little gossipy so I figure there's a decent chance they've heard things.
City of Heroes: we're on the Liberty Server
Steve's Heroes:
Recursive
Vesuvius
Sung's Heroes:
Fire'Lord
Fire'Storm
Lady'Blaze
Shadow'Spawn
George's Heroes:
Torrancean
RoboX
FureX
Super-boy
John's Heroes:
Captain Jimmy
Bent Space
Jerome's Heroes:
Obsidian Bane
Note: to add any of the heroes above to your CoH friends list, type in the chat window:
/friend hero name
Eg: /friend Fire'Lord
********
I'll also update my World of Warcraft information:
World of Warcraft
Eonar Server:
Steve's Characters [Horde]:
Trespass
Feathermoon Server
Steve's Characters [Alliance]:
Umbranic
Leucauge
Gipper
I mainly play Trespass since the Eonar server is easier to get on and a little less crowded, though its population is getting up there too.
*******
Finally, in the "no news means it's sinking into the Abyss" category I've still heard nothing from any of the producers or director. On the other hand, it is Hollywood and the same incomprehensible forces that can explode a project in 96 hours can rebuild it in something like that time.
In a -- perhaps unrelated -- bit of news, one of the other companies that was interested in making The Sound emailed me on Thursday. They emailed out of the blue last October as well, but, from what I understand, the business is a little gossipy so I figure there's a decent chance they've heard things.
Sunday, March 06, 2005
The Silence?
In the spirit of full access I thought I'd post something now, when the matters are still up in the air.
Last week the head guys dumped the entire production staff, the people I was originally working with. However, they kept the director and quickly called me to say that the film was still going forward, and that it would actually enter pre-production a little earlier but might be delayed by two weeks for filming.
I suspect this had to do with creative differences within the producing group -- which, frankly, just seems odd -- but it could also be wholly political.
Then, on Friday, I found out (unconfirmed) that the boss wanted to delay filming by another 3 months, so the director quit the project.
When bad things happen everyone stops talking to me. I believe there's some complex legal stuff involved but who knows. Anyway, the quiet is something of a confirmation of the unconfirmed report. However, it's also a sign that they're all probably wrangling over the weekend and perhaps into next week -- when I'll finally receive another call that will either pretend that nothing happened or tell me that the project is in serious delay (since finding a new director would easily add another three months in addition to the existing delays).
I also suspect that a collapse of this magnitude might incur some lawsuits -- which would probably mean that the project is completely done for until the option agreement expires.
Regardless, this is probably good training for how volatile this business can and will be. I'm disappointed of course, but not as bad as I could be because I'm rather pleased with a new script I just finished.
Last week the head guys dumped the entire production staff, the people I was originally working with. However, they kept the director and quickly called me to say that the film was still going forward, and that it would actually enter pre-production a little earlier but might be delayed by two weeks for filming.
I suspect this had to do with creative differences within the producing group -- which, frankly, just seems odd -- but it could also be wholly political.
Then, on Friday, I found out (unconfirmed) that the boss wanted to delay filming by another 3 months, so the director quit the project.
When bad things happen everyone stops talking to me. I believe there's some complex legal stuff involved but who knows. Anyway, the quiet is something of a confirmation of the unconfirmed report. However, it's also a sign that they're all probably wrangling over the weekend and perhaps into next week -- when I'll finally receive another call that will either pretend that nothing happened or tell me that the project is in serious delay (since finding a new director would easily add another three months in addition to the existing delays).
I also suspect that a collapse of this magnitude might incur some lawsuits -- which would probably mean that the project is completely done for until the option agreement expires.
Regardless, this is probably good training for how volatile this business can and will be. I'm disappointed of course, but not as bad as I could be because I'm rather pleased with a new script I just finished.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)