I know I mentioned it in yesterday's Genius update, but I thought that the fact that Strike Force 7 is the focus of the latest episode of Game Geeks was worth a post all to itself.


Strike Force 7 is something I'm most excited about. We're going to have a print version out early in the new year, and hot on the heels of that we plan to announce an innovative plan for supporting the setting in this Savage Worlds edition. It's still too early for me to spill the details, but of all the cool things Super Genius Games has planned for 2010, I think this is my personal favorite.

Originally published at The Whitechapel Project (for MP3s and polls, click this link). You can comment here or there.

Due to work and the holidays, this evening is the first chance I’ve had to sit and even think about Whitechapel, and I’m not likely to get much more time until around Christmas. My options are to try and crank out a shitty episode, or push it back a week, and I’d rather do it right. So, in order to keep my life somewhat sane, I’m going to push back episode 10 to next Wednesday, December 30th.

I gave in to temptation and engaged in a flame war over at a friend's blog during the weekend. I mention this because a) it's an example of how not to behave (from lack of proper punctuation/capitalization/spelling to invoking 9/11) and b) Andrew Wheeler's comment is made of win. Interviews

• Wet Asphalt interviews Michael Moorcock.
• Science Fiction Musings interviews Jay Lake.
• The Agony Column interviews Jeff & Ann VanderMeer (podcast).
• Hour of the Wolf interviews Jedediah Berry (podcast).
• Nethspace interviews Jeff VanderMeer.

Advice/Articles

• Tansy Rayner Roberts on Lone Princesses and Girly Books.
• Huffington Post on Science Fiction Goes McDonald's: Less Taste, More Gristle.
• Odyssey Workshop on Writing question: Most useful exercise.
• Jenn Brissett on Postscript to Vitriol.
• Neth Space on The SFF Literary Pub Crawl.
• Missions Unknown on Your Most Memorable SF/F Album Covers.
• Suvudu on Authors Share Once Titles.
• Rachel Aaron on The unexpected perks of publication.
• PJ Nunn on Name Recognition.
• Juno Books on Book Sales Stats: Apples and Oranges?
• Mike Brotherton on Five Reasons Why People Think They Hate Science (and what to do about it!).
• Kate Elliott on When What We Think We Know, Is Actually Wrong.
• Justine Musk on 5 Principles to Remember as You Battle the Demons of Creative Procrastination.
• Janice Hardy on Great Holiday Gifts for Readers.
• John Joseph Adams on Anthologies in the Age of Lightspeed.
• Rosemary Jones on Shared World Fiction: Spinning Stories Out of the Unmapped Bits.
• Joe Sherry on A Golden Age for Short Fiction.
• Pamela Freeman on The Things An Author Does.
• Shaun Duke on Science Fiction Ain’t Dead (So Shut Up).
• Jason Sanford on Positively positive that positive SF doesn't have to be positive to be positive.
• The Intern on the (book promotion) gods must be crazy.

News

• Sam Elliott, Philip Pullman Says Religious Right Blocked Golden Compass Sequel.
• DreamWorks announces Kung-Fu Panda writers for Gil’s All Fright Diner.

Currently reading:

So with regard to the brouhaha over the Christmas #1... First off, the only winner is Sony BMG. Second, for those of you who spent months watching The X-Factor week in, week out, and now crow about the winner not having achieved the Christmas #1, I smell a whiff of hypocrisy, and a lack of principles...

December 17th, 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Savage Mojo partners with Cubicle 7

We’re delighted to announce that Savage Mojo is joining forces with Cubicle 7 to deliver a range of roleplay material in print.

“Our traditional strength has been in the PDF market,” said Martin Klimes, the head of Savage Mojo, “and we plan to continue offering high art downloads for the convenience of gamers everywhere. Now, though, we can move beyond the occasional print-on-demand offering to develop a full range of products in game stores.”

The initial roll-out in the first half of 2010 will see the following RPG game books going to print, each one an addition to our acclaimed Suzerain game universe.

Savage Suzerain, our core setting book for the multi-award winning Savage Worlds system (192 pages). We’ll be following this book with six setting/campaign books, each hard bound and full color throughout:

Dogs of Hades, 160 pages of Spartans in Space. Frank Herbert’s ‘Dune’ meets ‘300’. Admit you’re intrigued.

Shanghai Vampocalypse, a cyberpunk setting and campaign for demigod characters where one vampire is a monster… but eight million are an apocalypse!

Noir Knights, a setting and campaign in the Great Depression of the 1930s, where gumshoes and government agents investigate the paranormal and the truth is out there.

Caladon Falls, the first part of the War of the Wild series in the fantasy world of Relic, and a gritty look at what it’s really like to be inside a war in a fantasy setting.

Covert Ops, where it’s 1998 and there are secret agents and Secret Agents. Answering the question, “What would Tom Clancy do with his elite special forces troops if there were werewolves and wizards to hunt?”

Halcyon 6, a far future aboard the most exciting exploration fleet to ever leave known space… right until everything goes wrong, about ten seconds through the Archon Gate.

Additionally, we’re delighted to announce the development of our first special edition: Celestium Empires, a self contained swashbuckling world for our own Mojo Rules! game system, planned as two 256 page full-color volumes, including all the rules you need to play politics among the courts of the New World empires, cross swords with pirates in the Setward Isles, or head out to the wild frontier… and it’s very wild indeed.


FURTHER INFORMATION

Savage Mojo was formed under the name ‘Talisman Studios’ in 2003 as an art and design studio to the adventure games industry, the brainchild of master artists Jason Engle and Aaron Acevedo. The studio is an Origins Award Winner (for Deadlands Reloaded), and has worked on dozens of products. In May 2007 the company stepped up a gear, becoming a publisher in its own right, starting with its Gamescapes line of game accessories and building up to the launch of Suzerain. 2008 saw the company work on more than a hundred high art gaming products, with Suzerain being Origins Award semi-finalists. 2009 expanded the range of books and game accessories further and brought products to print for the first time. 2010 will see Savage Mojo in game shops everywhere through a partnership with Cubicle 7.

Suzerain is a multi-genre, multi-world game universe, Origins Award nominated in 2008. Ron Blessing of The Game’s The Thing (www.thegamesthething.com) had this to say about it, “I can't wait to spend time in this playground. As a whole it’s awesome. Suzerain can be as simple or detailed as the players and GM want. The art is absolutely gorgeous. Hopefully it's obvious I'm pretty high on this product. Wow. Just wow.”


For contact on this or any Savage Mojo topic, contact Savage Mojo at:

Website: www.savagemojo.com
Email: hello [at sign] savagemojo.com

Suzerain is an Origins Award Nominee from the Talisman Studios design house (who brought you Shaintar and Gamescapes, and are Origins Award winners for Deadlands Reloaded). This edition of Suzerain is written for the Savage Worlds rule system (SW:EX rulebook required), expanding the core rules in a number of key ways – a new approach to races is just the beginning.

Suzerain takes characters from one world to another or even to another time. History and fantasy; past, present and future – they are all your playground now. Your gaming group just became...

...a pantheon in the making.

Inside the covers you’ll find:

* All the universe background you’ll need to run games in any time, any place.
* Over 50 new Edges, Hindrances and Powers.
* Stats for over 100 new NPCs and monsters to use as allies and adversaries.
* A vastly expanded system for characters once they hit Heroic rank, with plenty of emphasis on the Legendary experience, and introducing a whole new rank – Demigod.
* 30 scenarios including a campaign spanning the three main eras of a character’s development – Novice, Heroic and Demigod.

Where most Savage Worlds settings finish their campaigns, Suzerain is just getting started. With Suzerain a Novice character can expect to battle his way up to being a true Hero of the universe, to meet deities, and finally to become a god himself!

Product Contains: A 196 page full color, hi-resolution PDF. It is a large download file and art intensive. Also included for the same price is a print friendly version.

Available from: Savage Mojo Shop, RPGNOW, DriveThruRPG, and Paizo, for your convenience.

Yesterday I played some Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd Edition with Rodney Thompson, Logan Bonner, and Chris Tulach. It’s something that I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. I’m a big fan of the minis game, I like the Warhammer franchise (though I like the 40K franchise better), and recognize a lot of great and revolutionary things that have helped sharp RPG design that came out of the original game. I’ve been following the design journals put out by Fantasy Flight with a mix of awe and WTF. When Rodney told me he was getting a copy, I browbeated him for months into running a game.

Anywho, someone on Facebook asked me about Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd Edition, so I thought I would share here as well in a slightly expanded form. If WFRP1 or 2 got drunk, and met D&D 4e at a bar, they fucked all night, but 4e scooted out the next morning before WFRP 1 or 2 woke up without leaving a phone number or a note or anything, WFRP 3 is what happened after 9 months of "development” and a few years of being raised by its step daddy – Mr. Board Game. It’s not a boardgame, though. It is purely an RPG with a bunch of board-game-like pieces. Many of the pieces help information flow. Some are just bits porn. It keeps some of the core conceits of WFRP, but improves the encounter flow. It musters and army of new tech some of which works. Usually what works are the parts they swiped from D&D 4e, but there are a few interesting ideas new ideas in there as well (their solution for “feat stacking” is truly inspired). There’re a handful of things in the game that are probably design dead ends. Their movement is bitsy and annoying. If they didn’t want to go with a grid, they should have gone with zones (a.k.a. a larger grid) but it’s pretty easy to fix that (as I am sure some groups already have done so). The tension meter is bullshit, and no good GM will every use it unless he is running a game for a group of fuckwits, hates himself, or both. I think that boons and banes, at least their relationships in the dice pools and within actions, are clunky and sometimes just aggravating. I need to do more research on it but I have a suspicion they are bad mechanics hiding in rules arcana. I am not nearly as impressed with the party card as I wanted to be. Having unifying adventuring group mechanics is a seemingly interesting idea that always ends up becoming meh in application. I think this game’s no different. I think it might be hard to write adventures for this…but I’m not sure…yet.

All that said; I like the game. I think it is a good RPG that I’ll end up buying and playing. I’m interested to see how campaign play works, and there are parts that I really want to explore, take apart, put back together, and fiddle with.

If you like fun, don’t mind bits, and are hip with the newer directions tabletop RPGs (and tabletop games in general) are taking, you should check it out. At least play it once. If your one of those “theater of my mind” troglodytes that think cards and pre-paint plastics rot your imagination or soil the grand Gygaxian tradition of RPGs (your wrong BTW) just give this one a pass.

BTW, if you want to read Rodney's thoughts on the game, you can find his journal entry here: gamescribe.livejournal.com/113154.html

Over at Pharyngula Professor Myers posted this on the controversy over apparent duplicity regarding data by climatologist. Originally he only quoted the piece by Professor Pete Wyckoff, and provided a link to the original (now behind a paywall). PZ later added correspondence between Pete and one Don Baccus (who has a few sites of his own) where Don and Pete discuss the science, get into the details Pete was not aware of, and come to the conclusion that the science is valid, tree rings are not a reliable indicator of temperature, and that more often than some would like to admit, details matter. Be sure to read the comment thread for further details and insights.

Ladies and gents, when you get right down to it, this whole mess about the alleged suppression of data is a crock of shit. The data is still available, take the time and you can learn what climatologists are talking about, and why tree rings and other proxies are not as reliable as direct observation and measurement. The only thing a tree ring can tell you is how well the tree that laid it down did the year or season. We can guess as to the cause, but there are a number of conditions that can affect tree growth.

To make this simple for people, thermometers have contradicted tree rings ever since 1960. Not in all cases, certainly not everywhere, but in a few locations tree growth has indicated cooling, when direct measurement has indicated warming. Don’t know about you, but I’d much rather put my trust in a simple measurement over a complex interpretation.

You get right down to it, certain parties are using a false controversy to deny global warming because it’s an inconvenience. It means changes, it means doing things differently. You’d think we were dealing with a bunch of autistics or cats. You know, professional fussers and worrywarts. Rather than prepare for the changes, or even doing things to mitigate them, they’d rather hide in their little cabins, stick their fingers in their ears, and drone on and on, “You’re a fibber. You’re a fibber.”

The bulk of the evidence says the climate is warming up. Sometimes there is evidence that contradicts the other evidence, or interpretation of evidence that contradicts the prevailing finding. This happens in research, especially in research as complex, even complicated, as climatology. The data will not always agree. in a situation like this the conclusion depends greatly on the weight of evidence, and on persuading fellow scientists that there is a best interpretation of what is happening and why.

Life evolves, continents move, and the global climate is warming up. Each is supported by the available evidence, no matter what you may feel about it.

One final note. By now you have probably heard about the rise in sea level over the next century; that the seas will be one meter (maybe two) higher by 2100. That means an average rise of one millimeter a year, so by now sea level has risen something like one centimeter. Considering how sea level varies just because of Lunar tides, just spotting this rise on casual observation is going to be downright impossible. For some people even a one meter rise is going to be hard to spot, especially when they have a vested interest in denying that the sea is rising.

Be careful who you put your trust in, for there are those who will lead you astray.

Mirrored from Mythusmage Opines.

• 17:51 @flamesrising Thanks for the shout out on Snows! #
• 17:52 @jasonlblair Dude, it's worth the price of admission just to see how amazing the effects are. It's game changing IMHO. #
• 17:55 @YSDC Thanks Paul! #
• 18:00 @davidahilljr It's pricey now, but give it a few years and effects that good will be on TV. #
• 18:01 @jasonlblair I think it'll hold up in 2D. It's just beautiful to watch and when it was just CGI I found it hard to visually see that. #
• 18:08 So Pandora just played Miley Cyrus' "Party in the USA" followed by Britney's "3". Someone has a sense of humor. :) #

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As I've said before, one of my favorite things about Christmas is the music. Unfortunately, hearing the same song over and over and over again... that's not something I like about Christmas. So, here's me presenting another of my favorite Christmas songs you won't hear on the radio. Here's The Pogues & Kirsty McColl.

lj-userpic: The Force!
lj-tags: thoughts
Richard's mind blasts in 140 characters...

• 16:35 Snow all over the place. #
• 16:36 Also today showed me why I love Half Price Books. I found, and bought a Mason Bible. #
• 16:36 Yes, a Mason Bible. #

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It's been another busy week at Super Genius Games. We released THREE new products this week, recorded some podcast appearances, and spent a good deal of time working on upcoming material. This taking over the world thing is a tough business!

NEW RELEASES
Just when you were probably getting used to us having a product a week hit the market, we went and TRIPLED your expectations. This week we released two new Pathfinder products plus a new adventure for Call of Cthulhu. You can pick any of them up via Paizo, Drive Thru RPG, or RPGNow.

Loot 4 Less, vol. 2: Pretty, Pretty Rings: The second volume in our massively popular Loot 4 Less line features a collection of permanently enchanted magic rings, all of which cost no more than 2,500 gp. More ways to outfit your low level Pathfinder characters and make them feel more individualized and heroic even at 1st level.

The Forgotten Tomb of Felgar the Goblin King: The second of our One Night Stand adventures gives you everything you need for an evening of Pathfinder RPG fun -- the adventure (of course), full-scale map tiles for the entire complex, GM reference material, and cut-and-tape standees for all the monsters.

Snows of an Early Winter: Our latest officially licensed Call of Cthulhu product, this time an adventure set in modern day New York. It's the last week before an important city-wide election and strange things are starting to happen, not that most New Yorkers ever look up long enough to notice. Written by Lou Agresta (remember that name, you'll be seeing MORE great things from Lou in the future, I assure you) this adventure is perfect for a couple of cozy winter nights around the gaming table investigating things that voters were not meant to know!

TOP OF THE POPS
There's a really great podcast that comes out twice a month from Moonstew Productions, it's called RPG Countdown and if you're not listening to it, you really should be. We've been lucky enough to get a product or two onto the show in the past, but this week we were shocked to find out that FOUR of the top ten products were from the Super Genius catalog! This as the show is INCREASING the number of sources it uses to generate the list. Want to know the details? Swing by and check out this week's show ... and subscribe while you're there. It really is a terrific listen, even when our books AREN'T in the mix.

Speaking of top ten lists, SGG again had four products on the Paizo.com "Top Downloads from Other Companies" review, two on Drive Thru RPG's Hottest Small Press list, and five in RPGNow's Hottest Pathfinder Products list.

LET'S REVIEW
Any publisher loves to see positive reviews of their products, and we've been lucky enough to have a good share of them over the past few weeks. (Check out the feedback section of the PDF sales sites and you'll see.) But this week we had two very gratifying reviews from OUTSIDE sources.

First, FlamesRising.com posted a thoughtful review of After Lovecraft: The Cold Case of Robert Suydam.

Second, episode #126 of Game Geeks went up on YouTube, and it's devoted to reviewing Strike Force 7--Savaged!. I have to admit that we knew in advance that this was coming ... and we were a little nervous. Kurt Wiegel doesn't pull any punches in his reviews ... and as much as we love SF7, I know that our perceptions are a bit biased. It came as a great relief and provided a gush of pride to hear him say such overall positive things about it.

ATOMIC POWERED
Besides the mini-plugs for RPG Countdown, we also recorded an interview for the next episode of Atomic Array, due to be released on next Friday (that's Christmas Day for those of you who don't have a calendar handy). So when you're stuffed full of turkey or ham or Chinese food or just your usual Friday meal ... check it out nearly a full hour devoted
to Snows of an Early Winter and other Genius products.

MAY YOUR HOLIDAYS BE FILLED WITH GENIUS!
That's it for this week. We've got more coming up next week including our usual Pathfinder goodness and a holiday-themed surprise. Check back if you need a break from all that family togetherness and holiday cheer.

And from all of us here at Super Genius Games, whatever holidays you call your own, may you and your loved ones have an especial time of peace, health, prosperity, and most of all happiness.

...yesterday I made an appointment to see the dentist. Unfortunately, I was able to get in on Monday. I was expecting to work up to this for a couple of weeks, but no, they got me in right away.

For those of you who don't know my history with dentists... well, it began in my high-school years with an amateur serial killer. The short story of one telling experience: He removed a wisdom tooth without functional pain-killers, despite the tooth breaking; he kneeled on my chest as he hammered away at my jaw with some kind of medieval torture device; when I used to much laughing gas, he turned it off; said procedure lasted about an hour. This history was furthered upon a visit to a dentist a few years later, who replaced a filling without pain-killers, saying, "Oh, it's not very deep" before realizing he had to work in there for a while. And so forth.

I can count my positive dental experiences on two fingers of one hand, and negative ones on a couple of hands. I mean, have you had dental hygienists give you pain-pills (because novocaine doesn't do much for me) and then leave you alone in the little room as panic mounts and heart races, even though you hadn't really been worrying before that? And just as you're about ready to walk out, she returns and says, "Oh, I forgot to mention that a side-effect of those pills is heightened anxiety." Nice. Or dentists who screw up a filling so that it hurts all the time? And, when you go to get it fixed, he uses one of those horrific screamy-grindy tools to relieve the tension... without giving you pain-killers (again) because "You won't feel anything - I'm just grinding the filling," when in fact doing so causes a great deal of heat... and of course requires more work than he had expected, but doesn't give you anthing at that point because "I'm almost done." And so forth.

My favorite experience with the dentist took place in Seattle. I went in for a regular checkup - by "regular," I mean that my friends pushed me to go because it had been five years or so since my last experience in dental torture. Anyhow, and the dentist decided that the top wisdom tooth that stood opposite the bottom one (removed; see above) should come out. He sensed my resistance (or my cold sweat), so invited me to chat in his office, where I admired photos of him with Bruce Lee. He told me stories about what it was like to study under Lee, we talked martial arts, and after a while said, "Ready for that tooth to come out?" I couldn't well leave at that point, and after a shot or two of pain-killer that actually worked and some very careful work, he removed the tooth in one piece (unlike the one that my high-school dentist shrapneled). "Huh," he said, admiring the curved roots, "I see why your teeth are so difficult to remove. Mind if I keep this to train students? If they can do a root canal on this puppy, they can do a root canal on anyone."

Anyhow. So I get to see the dentist on Monday. It's been a few years, but I don't expect anything untoward to happen... then again, I never do. Wish me luck.

Chris

...and this is just too cute:



Click the image to see some beautiful shots of the Sun's new storms.

Chris

Poll #1501189
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 5

Who would you start this weekend?

This is an actual billboard erected by an actual church. The church erected it (heh, heh) to "inspire debate." Hours later--hours--the billboard looks like this:






 Stay classy, Christians. Classy. Meanwhile, the Family First folks had something to say about the sign...

Yeah. Inside the church. Don't let them nasty doubters get anywhere near our faith. They'll just throw reason and logic at it.  Unlike Christians who, apparently, spray paint all over anything they disagree with.

Kurt Wiegel, Game Master and YouTube reviewer extraordinaire reviews Strike Force 7 and gives it a hearty thumbs up.

Thanks Kurt!



(And for a limited time you can get 20% off SF 7 if you use the code in the review.)

.

Originally published at Eventually Clever. Please leave any comments there.

Ben’s not the only Wark who knows how to work the spotlight! Go, Nomi!

The best looking film in cinema history, unquestionably.
Utterly amazing.
Spellbinding.
Incredible.
Stunning.

No hyperbole.

Where to begin. There's been press about how the film was made using "performance capture." I avoided such press as well as new trailers, behind-the-scenes, and whatnot about the film so I wouldn't be spoiled. I wanted to see the film as cold as I could. However, I watch The Daily Show and Sigourney Weaver was on it and I couldn't resist watching her bit. She said that the cast wore bike helmets with cameras pointing at their faces so the expressions you see on film are the actors' real expressions as they acted them in real time. Hence the new terminology performance capture instead of the now crude by comparison motion capture.

It works so well that I recognized actors without knowing in advance who they were. That's amazing to me. Everything, and I do mean everything, is so completely natural and fluid there's not a trace of uncanny valley and that's the greatest technological achievement in movie making to date as far as I'm concerned. To do everything that's done and it feel natural? Astounding.

Next up: You Are There. I caught myself actually feeling that the alien landscape was so real and familiar that it felt like it was home. If you've seen the trailers or stills you've noticed bright colors and the like that're obviously alien. But once into the film and on that planet and walking with the characters, the totality of the environment, from how the plants and animals behave and how the people in it interact with it and each other that everything becomes so natural and familiar it's like I felt welcomed back to a place I hadn't visited in a long time, and that I suddenly felt homesick for it even though I was standing right in the middle of it.

I ache to go back to Pandora, even now. I want to be a Na'vi, even for a little bit.

Speaking of that: If the choreography and direction of an action scene are good, you want to join the fight instead of witness it. Avatar makes you think you already are doing everything you see on the screen so when the action breaks out it's natural that you're in it. When the Na'vi leap from one tree branch to another or pull back on a bow or bend down to put their hand on the ground, it's as if you're doing it right alongside them. You can feel the bark underneath your foot, the tension of the bowstring, the softness of the dirt. Oh, what it must be like to stride underneath a giant planet filling the sky and with such beautiful wonders on the ground. I miss Pandora so much now. With Star Wars I thought it would be neat to have Force powers and a lightsaber. After Avatar all I want to do is go for a walk and simply be on Pandora.

A quick word about characters. Colonel Quaritch (actually not real military, "just" corporate military) is amazing. A well-rounded villain who combines personal proficiency in combat with natural leadership and intelligence. He's like Rambo with Force powers but perfectly level headed while still maintaining emotion. It was a great pleasure seeing him work, even though everything he was doing was evil. The last time I felt like that was with the Colonel Landa character from Inglourious Basterds. After that film I wanted a TV show where Landa goes on adventures to solve mysteries. After Avatar I want to watch Quaritch give orders and kick ass. All day.

Incidentally: This is a powerful film just from the experience of it.

We saw Avatar at an IMAX 3D theater and ... wow. What an experience, to keep using that word. If you at all have the chance to see this film that way, your humanity will not be complete until you do (to throw a dash of hyperbole on it. But seriously, see Avatar at an IMAX theater or you will regret it deeply once it's no longer available. I'm serious.).

If you don't go see it at least in 3D somewhere then there will come a time, to paraphrase King Osric the Usurper: when the wrapping on your presents cease to sparkle, when bright candies lose their luster, when the standard cinema becomes a prison, and all that's left is the deep regret of not seeing Avatar as it was intended.

@Unicorness tweeted the following, after coming out of the theater:

Just saw Avatar in IMAX 3D. Stupendously awesome. Better than any Star Wars. Cannot express how great.

Yes. It's like Star Wars but without anything that sucks. There are no Ewoks or corny lines or stilted dialogue.

Instead there is a compelling action, tragedy, romance, and the most brilliant wonder ever committed to screen that, more than any other film I've seen, makes me want to go to another world.

Avatar has my highest recommendation.

• 21:36 Savage Suzerain is finally finished, I just uploaded the files to our server. Woot! #

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• 09:08 Morning world. Catching up on the finale of So You Think You Can Dance, then it's time to get our new Call of Cthulhu product up for sale. #
• 10:21 @AtomicOvermind It'll be in the high 60's, low 70's here in San Diego. Can I mock you. Please? :D #
• 10:24 @ReviewDuJour Lileks does some of the best 60's/70's commentary around. #
• 10:35 HP is definitely looking to Apple when it comes to the design of this laptop. It looks a lot like a Macbook Pro, just with black and silver. #
• 10:36 @stannex Huzzah! #
• 10:52 Doing the happy dance. SGG gets 9th, 6th, 4th, and 2nd place in the rpgcountdown.com/ list. Only company to have 4 listings. :) #fb #
• 11:15 @AtomicOvermind And don't forget the earthquakes, and mudslides. :) At least we don't have Congress! #
• 12:41 Guy in Uruguay makes 5 min movie for $300.00 and 4 days later is offered a Hollywood contract for $30 million. tinyurl.com/ylon7sa #
• 13:19 @lpjdesign Huzzah! #
• 19:20 Awesome Strike Force 7 review on the front page of DriveThru: rpg.drivethrustuff.com/index.php It also has a code for 20% off! #fb #

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lj-userpic: The Force!
lj-tags: thoughts
Richard's mind blasts in 140 characters...

• 07:50 Good morning one and all. #
• 19:20 And now I am off until December 28. #

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I just saw a movie that was close to 3 hours long. I wish it was 6 hours long, because that would mean I'm still watching it. If I say that Avatar is my new favorite James Cameron movie, maybe that will get the point across. This movie is, in other words, incredible. No... that demands ALL CAPS.

THIS MOVIE IS INCREDIBLE!

One of the best parts about it is how it exceeded the hype, at least as far as I was concerned. I did go see the 3D version, and that was the first time I'd seen a 3D movie in a LONG time, and while the 3D effects were top notch... the combination of sitting not in the perfect spot (I was too close to the screen) and the fact that I have glasses that are kinda out of perscription and also have a polarizing film on them kinda made the 3D stuff a bit TOO distracting. After about an hour, I finally got used to the effects and it was smooth sailing from there on out... but damn. This movie may have made me decide to switch back to contact lenses so I could see it without my damn eyes robbing me of the full experience.

As an aside... I'm ready to declare 2009 the year quality Sci-Fi came back to theaters. Avatar, The Box, Knowing, District 9, The Road, Moon... need I say more?

Avatar: A+