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New Star Wars RPG Goodness
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This link is a teaser to the latest Star Wars RPG book that is to be released later in July. http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=starwars/article/RebellionCampaignGuide They have not yet had any previews for the book, but from what they said in that brief is that it covers pretty much all of the original trilogy. They say that it contains information that will allow you to play either side of the conflict, but I'll stick with the Rebellion side thank you. Hopefully Wizards of the Coast will have previews up over the next few weeks that give us a taste of what is going on in the book. I have one book on pre-order from Amazon.com and will hopefully use it to design my first real campaign.
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Bad Writing Part 3
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I really don't know why the people at Newsarama keep this writer on staff, but Steve Fritz has written another "review" of the first part of the first season of the G.I. Joe Cartoon from the 1980's. I was raised on GI Joe; I watched as many of the cartoons as I could and Mr. Fritz has not done his research yet again. http://www.newsarama.com/tv/090707-animated-shorts-gijoe.html Mr. Fritz says in the article that Mr. Hama and Ron Friedman came up with the ideas for the characters together, but Larry Hama came up with all the characters a long time before Mr. Friedman was even on the radar. He says that the "real" leader of Cobra was Destro, but to me Destro always felt like a second in command that was competent unlike Cobra Commander always failing. The cartoons showcased the "main" characters that everyone liked (Shipwreck, Snake Eyes, Lady Jaye, Scarlett exc.) He also mentions that Hawk was the head honcho in the first series, but Hawk was not in the series until the second season in 1986. The head honcho for the first season was Duke; who kept getting captured for the first two mini series, although he more than made up for it by being a fearless leader.
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Things That Bug Me Part 1
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I hang out on certain message boards and there is a certain something thing that bothers me. First is the while thing about putting some cute thing in the location line. Sure it is cute and all, but that does jack squat to tell me where you are from. Sure there are context clues about it with how you might spell the words 'color' or 'rogue' but that only narrows it down so far. I have seen some things like Location: Your Mama's House to someone who put the degrees, minutes and seconds north and east they were. I am not a cartographer; I have no idea where you might be posting from when you put that sort of thing down as your location. As for things like "Your Momma's House," that leads me to think that you are hiding something and might be fugitive from the law. If you are going to be posting on a gaming message board then put your real location so if you are looking for a game people who live in your area might be able to find you and invite you to a game.
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Nerdcore, what's that?
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This link (http://www.newsarama.com/comics/070907-ShopIdeasNerdcore.html) talks about how one comic shop uses a hip-hop style of music called Nerdcore in their store. The article seems to go into some detail about what Nerdcore is so I won't bore you with it. Frankly if I walked into a comic store that was playing some kind of rip off of hip-hop that has nerds singing about how they can't get laid. I would run, I would get my stuff and get out of there. The comic store I go to does not run any kind of Nerdcore and I'm kind of glad they don't. They instead have satellite radio that the owner always sets to a different channel every day. Most of the days it's on music form the 1960's - 1980's which I don't mind because that music I can stand. Maybe it is because I'm in my 30's now, but I cannot stand most "new" music these days. I would rather hear some AC/DC in my favorite comic book store rather than some "Nerdcore."
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Things That Bug Me Part 2
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Why do people insist on buying things like the PSP, IPhone and X-Box 360 just to modify it or have it run on a different carrier? There are a few places where I drive through who offer unlocking of the IPhone so it can be on any other carrier for an obscene amount of money. I know that some of these places are in kind of a swanky part of town, but why crank out $500+ for a phone you can get for half as much if you just buy the talk and data plan. I know there are going to be some of you who say "I like Verizon, T-Mobile (or any other carrier) and want my IPhone to run on it." Well guess what; you are going to probably be cranking out $700 by the time all is said and done for your IPhone to run on T-Mobile. You could have saved somewhere on the order of 2/3rds the cost by just sucking it up and just going with AT&T for two years. By that time the novelty of it would have worn off and you are off to getting the next hot thing in Cellular Phones. There was a big debate on one of the message boards I hang out on about how Sony was trying to control content on "Cracked" PSP's by not offering downloadable content to them. Posters on the boards were talking about how Sony was shooting themselves in the foot because the people who were doing illegal stuff with them already found a way around it. Again, I don't get it. Why buy something that works perfectly well and then void its warrantee by cracking it open and making modifications to it. Sure there are some legitimate reasons for doing so like improving loading times or battery life, but it works perfectly well if you have patience for waiting for things to load, and maybe not playing it the whole three hour trip on your way home from where ever you work is a good idea.
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Ryan Reynolds as Green Lantern
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It was announced that Ryan Reynolds would play Green Lantern Hal Jordan in the Green Lantern movie due out in June 2011. I'm of two minds on this. First, Ryan is a good actor and he has been in comic book movies like Blade Trinity and X-Men Origins: Wolverine where he played supporting parts. My second mind asks the question; does he have the fortitude and the star power to carry a major project by himself with one of DC Comics' flagship characters? There are fans out there that just absolutely love the idea of Mr. Reynolds as both Green Lantern and Deadpool, but something's going to have to give. I don't know if he is under contract with either studio, but Fox has him tied up for a Deadpool spin off movie that is due out in time for the 2011 Summer movie season, and with Green Lantern due out at the same time that means a studio is going to have to either say 'uncle' about their project or they are going to have to work out some way for him to do both projects back to back so they can get them into post-production quickly so the special effects people have a chance to do their work. In the past I have had my doubts about actors playing certain roles in comic book movies. I had my doubts about Robert Downey Jr. playing Tony Stark, but once I saw the Iron Man movie previews, I was blown away by what I saw and eagerly waited for it to come to theaters.
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Things That Bug Me Part 3
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What bugs me are people who post on message boards and in real life call comic books that come out normally rather than in a graphic novel format 'floppies.' Everyone around my age and older remember the word 'floppy' to mean a floppy diskette that came in either 3.5" or 5.25" sizes and went into a drive on our computers when hard drives were not made or were too expensive. I think I even have some in a drawer in my desk. There is also the whole thing about the word 'Tradewait.' First off, it's not a word. Second, would it just be a lot easier to say 'I'm waiting for the trade before I buy it.' I know my older brother uses the word a lot when he's talking about comic books he's going to wait for the trade paperback rather than buying the individual issues.
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Comic-Con Fail
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I was going through my various web sites a few weeks ago and was looking at the coverage of the San Diego Comic Con on the E! Television web site when what did I run into: coverage of a Dexter panel at the convention. Here's a tiny URL of the address because the one on the web site had 122 characters (http://tinyurl.com/n7fxtr). For those of you who don't know, Dexter is a Showtime television series about a Medical Examiner in Florida who is also a Serial Killer. The cast was there to discuss the next season of the show, and hype up some other projects as well. At the same time I found the coverage of the Dexter panel on the E! Television web site I also found this one (http://tinyurl.com/lqb9t5) about the Twilight series of books. For those of you who don't know, the Twilight series of books is about a brooding over 100 year old male vampire who apparently falls in love with a teenager and becomes a crazy stalker of her. He also looks like he's in his teens and is attending the local high school where he finds her. There is all sorts of religious imagery throughout the books and while more closely related to science fiction or comic books, it is still not what I would call family friendly. Also what is it about the lead actor in the Twilight series of movies that sets young women's nether regions all afire when they see him? I'm not a young woman, but I look at him and ask myself, what does he have that I don't have? He just looks incredibly average, and you know sooner or later he's going to hit about 25 years old and no longer have that Brad Pitt starter kit look to him. The female lead I found attractive until she took a role in another movie where she got her hair cut into some half-mullet half some other kind of atrocious hairstyle. She does not need to have her hair cut like that in real life because there are some really good quality wig makers in California and it is a lot easier to get a wig made and maintain it rather than having to go back and keep cutting the star's hair over and over again. I beg of you for the sake of keeping you all sane, DO NOT read the comments section of the link. Apparently some of the posters are trying to play amateur body language interpreters about what the actors are doing in the video. This just showed me a reason why I don't want to go to Comic Con any time soon. Crap like Dexter that has no Comic Book or Science Fiction tie in whatsoever is getting a panel at San Diego while some other more deserving group could have taken that slot.
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