It's where I talk to myself. Gaming, politics, and links I don't want to forget about.
Worthy of note: Kip Manley’s City of Roses kicked off today. If you don’t recall, it’s a piece of “urbane fantasy” (his coinage as far as I know, and a lovely one) provided to us with webcomic pacing but not in webcomic form. I.e., we’ll get a piece of it on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays; and it’s text, not pictures. Eloquent text.
The setting is Portland. The magic is indeterminate. I expect it to be very good, because Kip can write.
It’s an early morning Monday Mashup today, since I’m going to be non-bloggy most of the day. This week’s source material is the Oscar-winning Silence of the Lambs. Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, what’s not to love? Other than the rumors about a prequel focusing on Lecter, of course.
Dear Brother #13 was pretty harrowing to write, and if I’ve written well, it should be tough to read. I can only hope I’ve done justice to the emotions of the session.
In this Dear Brother letter, we find out why Ben was hung on a ferris wheel and how Black got laid in Las Vegas. It’s always the other PCs getting lucky…
I dare say your local baseball fans aren’t building a replica of their ballpark in Iraq. What an amazingly goofy and magnificent idea. I’d like to see a picture of that. For that matter, they ought to see if they can find an Iraqi team.
By the by, this entry is courtesy of the Grand Coffee House in lovely Union Square, which has good free wireless. And couches.
Jay Allen is writing something named MT-Blacklist to fight MovableType spammers. I get a couple of people posting spam comments every week, and it’s getting dull, so I’ll be pleased to have this.
I’ve been chewing over these two posts from Kevin Drum about the Texas Republican Party platform. First off, I agree with him: the platform as a whole is pretty damned radical. I would certainly be interested in hearing President Bush, who presumably has signed a similar document, talk about whether or not he supports all those positions. And much of the platform is way the hell out of the mainstream.
However, it’s wrong to say that the platform has no place in American politics. For example, there is absolutely no reason to recoil from the sight of a politician who wants to return to the gold standard. It might not be a bright thing to do, but it hardly signifies the destruction of the republic. Most if not all of the economic planks fall into that bucket. Dumb ideas? Maybe. Radical? Sure. Shouldn’t be discussed in polite company? Uh…
Now, when you get to creationism being taught in public schools and eliminating separation of church and state, there I’m more or less in agreement. But even the anti-abortion plank isn’t something you can just sweep away with a magisterial comment or two. Democrats should realize that whether or not they like that position, it’s a position which is fully in the mainstream. Sure, it’s disturbing that the Texas wing of the Republican Party has so much influence, because their platform as a whole really is scary. However, when you point at it and say “look, radical ideas!” you just alienate a pretty big section of America.
And it’s healthy to be able to discuss ideas. Just about any idea. You can’t gain consensus by squashing dissent, even wacky radical right wing dissent. The country’s better off for having dissenting voices, even those we really don’t like.
The implication of this Metafilter post is that someone is providing soldiers with pre-written letters which they simply sign and send to newspapers. Or, according to this article, someone is signing the letters for them.
This kind of thing has been nicknamed astroturf — i.e., a fake grassroots. The Republican Party is fairly fond of it.
I think it’s more than usually repugnant when it’s used to misrepresent what our soldiers think, however. The men dying in Iraq deserve better than to have their views hijacked by a public relations flack.
Nobody but Tarantino could have made Kill Bill. Which, if you have a taste for the coppery scent of Tarantino’s oeuvre, is about all the review you need. It helps to have seen Switchblade Sisters.
Um.
OK, so it’s insane grindhouse cinema turned up a few notches. The extended Japanese scenes are an homage to Japanese samurai flicks. The Texas scenes taste like Sergio Leone, just a bit. There’s a touch of blaxsploitation. She’s wearing Bruce Lee’s jumpsuit.
There is no plot. Apparently all the plot comes in the second volume of the movie. That’s OK, because there’s plenty of kickass fight scene in this. There’s also a lot of blood, and by a lot, I mean “more than you think.” Like a lot of other people, I seriously don’t understand how this movie avoided an NC-17 rating.
Four months till the second half is the suck.
The schedule for discovery in the White Wolf v. Sony case is currently as follows:
Each party can serve 5 interrogatories and 4 document requests. Responses are due within 15 days of the services. Following that, White Wolf can take depositions from Wiseman, Grevioux, and McBride; Sony can take depositions from authors of the copyrighted works. Depositions have to be completed by 10/24/03. (Perhaps the cause of the recent subpoenas on White Wolf authors?)
White Wolf has till 10/31/03 to file a new or supplementary brief based on the depositions, and Sony has till 11/19/03 to respond. White Wolf has till 11/28/03 to respond to that. The hearing on a preliminary injunction is to be scheduled after 11/30/03.
Underworld will be out of theaters by then, but since Underworld 2 has been signed, the matter is still of importance to Sony. And, of course, there are DVD revenues.