Jumbie

Given what this threads turned into, I question the need for a Pimp Hand forum.

The Boston Herald is apparently trying to blame D&D and LARPing for the recent school shooting in Alabama.

Bishop, now a University of Alabama professor, and her husband James Anderson [pictured below] met and fell in love in a Dungeons & Dragons club while biology students at Northeastern University in the early 1980s, and were heavily into the fantasy role-playing board game, a source told the Herald.

 

"They even acted this crap out," the source said.

 

When questioned about it yesterday, Anderson, 45, a research scientist in Huntsville, Ala., dismissed the egghead escape as "a passing interest. It was a social thing more than anything else. It's not the crazy group people think they are." . . .

 

The popular fantasy role-playing game has a long history of controversy, with objections raised to its demonic and violent elements. Some experts have cited the D&D backgrounds of people who were later involved in violent crimes, while others say it just a game. A federal appeals court recently upheld a prison ban on the game in Wisconsin, where prison officials reportedly testified they were afraid the game could promote "hostility, violence and escape behavior."

io9 reports on it here: http://io9.com/5473500/did-dungeons--drago...ps-murder-spree

Whatever happened to Jesus was Goth?

do a volume when youve got something to say. i dont know why more books dont try this, this kinda format would shine with such a character.

Yeah, yeah! Remember all those awesome self-contained Venom miniseries?

I'm not sure I agree with you completely on the idea that cosmic novels work because they're finite. Lots of novels are part of lengthy epic series that never seem to end like the Wheel of Time series and Discworld and The Terry Brooks novels and the Dragonlance books, etc.

I suspect it might have to do with the art form's focus. Novels take you inside a character almost immediately if they're good. Comics tend to keep you in the exterior taking everything in visually. But then again, BONE worked and it was set in a fantasy land. I think I could have sustained interest in a bone comic that went on perpetually like the way say Scooby Doo or Superman do.

But yeah, Aqua man is defined too much by where he comes from and not enough by his character. I mean, Batman SHOULD be more boring that aquaman, if we go by what powers they have, but no one ever gets into Aquaman's training or skills or personality in any way that makes him stand out.

I know that Aqua hook got dissed up above, but I enjoyed that run because it gave Aquaman a distinct personality for the first time. He was a man struggling to be King and all the best parts of that comic came from that aspect. If you think about it, the character dynamics of an Aquaman comic shouldn't be any different from a Black Panther comic, should it? Isolated kingdom and culture, wary of outsiders but needing to go into the larger world to solve problems every now and again...

you need people for him to interact with. YOu can use us land humans or you can use atlanteans.

If you decide to stay under the water and look at the various underwater tribes interacting within themselves and with each other, YES, you can tell good stories, but it basically becomes a comic like Conan, where it's basically a science fiction or fantasy world apart from ours.

That's whay baytor was talking about. Those kinda worlds are hard to sustain for a lengthy comic run.

It works better in novels. I can't exactly say why.

Are they changing the shirt from orange to gold? cuz that'd help.

Or was it always gold and I never realized?

The problem with Aquaman is that he isn't part of a human context. He is essentially sea=cosmic as baytor pointed out. To get him into a human context you have to remove him from the water and then find plot devices to put him back in the water.

The one thing I can hink of to get around this is that humans have a pretty well established coastal presence. If you were to set the book in a place where he could have a consequential human support cast, like Miami or NYC, maybe that's a start. Another way would be to look at human exploration or even settlement in the ocean and have him interact with them. Not in a eco-preachy way, but in a science fiction way, loolking at issues like sovereignty, resource and economics, alliances, CRIME, safety etc.

I think SeaQuest DSV is a good lesson about the weakness of the ocean as a setting. THey tried to have a pure science feel for the series early on and then had to bring in greek gods and aliens etc to keep an audience because the ocean is kinda boring.

I'd love to go into Spiral Diner and order a steak, medium rare.

+10% to my respect for baytor, which compensates for the -10% he took for being a fan of Freddie got fingered.

EDIT: Well, almost. I mean, it's adding ten percent of 90% of the original value so- Stop staring at me with that glazed look, Nick!

Um, yeah, Predator II rules.

 

Come on you know you love this movie its got Danny Glover and Bill Paxton!

 

The part in the abattoir is one my favorite action movie scenes.

 

It aslo get double fan boy points for having an Alien skull in the thophy cabinet.

I've never understood the dislike for this movie.

I mean, even Sci-fi fans and B-movie fans often express disdain for this. Why? It's got great characters, dialogue and action set pieces.

Cartoony, but well within B-movie parameters.

I find it to be just as good as the original and in some ways better.

There's a guy in North Miami Beach whos' selling vegan cookbooks on craigslist. I don't know if that's something you'd be interested in, but he crossed my path, so I figured I'd let you know.

He advertised that he had kids books so I got in touch with him, but he's changed his mind and is only selling his cookbooks.

http://miami.craigslist.org/mdc/bks/1579927520.html

Anyways, there's just 2 problems: One, is he's selling his books because he's moving back home to Boston and we've had trouble with Bostonian people here before.

Two, he was kinda rude the first time I contacted him, though he immediately apologized and has been cool since then.

There's a guy in North Miami Beach whos' selling vegan cookbooks on craigslist. I don't know if that's something you'd be interested in, but he crossed my path, so I figured I'd let you know.

He advertised that he had kids books so I got in touch with him, but he's changed his mind and is only selling his cookbooks.

http://miami.craigslist.org/mdc/bks/1579927520.html

Anyways, there's just 2 problems: One, is he's selling his books because he's moving back home to Boston and we've had trouble with Bostonian people here before.

Two, he was kinda rude the first time I contacted him, though he immediately apologized and has been cool since then.

Tango and Cash, hell yeah.

I suspect Kurt Russel will make this list a lot.

(Just not for 'Soldier'. That's one of the rare ones where the movie failed because HE sucked.)

I appreciate Freddy Got Fingered in the same way I appreciate a crazed homeless person on a street corner shouting obscenities at passersby. It's amusing just to watch someone be off their rocker fucking crazy for once. It's like the 4chan of movies.

An obscene homeless man is INTERESTING to watch.

Freddie got Fingered is boring. You cannot enjoy it for its absurdity because of how easily you end up getting the urge to go do something else. Which is why I've never watched more than 10 minutes of it at a time.

I could, and have, watched an obscene homeless person go nuts for much much longer than that.

HA!

Face/ Off was a bad movie?

-------------------------------------

You mentioned Stallone so I have to say that I LOOOVE Demolition Man.

And the fact that you appreciate Freddie got Fingered in any way, be it ironic or post-modernist deconstructionist or whatever means I've just lost at least 10% of the considerable respect you've earned with me over the years regarding your opinion on art.

Well, I mentioned it in shoutbox a while back and actually got newt and JZA to offer their love: I find Escape from LA to be a better and better movie with every viewing.

Also, not about a movie per se, but I thought the Ewoks were one of the best things about ROTJ.

I'm actually one of the people who's glad when SNL has a couple flops per episode, IF they're the kinda flops that come from them experimenting.

Right now I'm watching the Seinfeld episode where Jerry and George are pitching a show to NBC.

Ah the good old days.

Right.

Now you can just boycott ALL of NBC

The affiliates were pressuring nbc over Leno, not over Conan. NBC were the ones who decided to pressure Conan onto accepting Leno as his deformed siamese twin at midnight, like that Quato thing in Total Recall.

Fucking thing is making me dizzy.

I'm now officially out of solid food in the house.

Off to the supermarket!

It's looking like Conan's gonna be giving up rights to stuff like Triumph and the masturbating bear.

I think Letterman hit a sore spot, cuz Leno's been pretty harsh in response to Letterman, making a lot of jokes about him sexually harassing employees.

The younger kids at my school are trained to t stand say, when a teacher enters, "Good Morning, Sir. Welcome to our class." in unison.

It' sfucking creepy.

Now, this is the same school where *I* was student and we also did the stand and say good morning sir, thing, but the 'welcome ot our class' bit int he rehearsed voices they use, just adds an unbearable level of robotic creepiness to it. I discussed this with some of the older students, because they don't do it. (they just say the 'good morning' and it turns out that they're also supposed to say at the end of class, "Thank you for the lesson sir" in unison after standing.

Some people have no idea what education is about and apparently they've put those people in charge of my school.

Conan: "It's been a dream come true for me to host the Tonight Show and I wnat all you kids to realize that you can grow up to do anything you want to do. Unless Jay Leno also want to do it."

That one surprised me. So far Jay and Conan both have been unloading on NBC's execs and leaving each other alone. I was surprised that Conan would cross that border into going one on one and actually blaming Jay for this. (not that I think he's WRONG about the situation, just that I'm surprised he'd make the joke)