The most interesting thing on television today is the 30 hour Senate debate on judicial nominees. It’s not going to change a thing either way, but both the Democrats and the Republicans are tossing their best speakers up there to chew up time and sling rhetoric. Good for those fascinated by process.
Author: Bryant
Mom, who has informed me that she is not to be referred to as “a family member” anymore, is doing good. (“But Mom, it was for privacy… oh, OK, fine.”) The surgery went well and she’s recuperating as quick as she can, although it’ll still be a while. If anyone feels inspired to send a card, I’m sure she’d greatly appreciate it:
Priscilla Durrell
c/o Cape Cod Hospital
27 Park Street
Hyannis, MA 02601
She’s in the ICU for a couple of days, after which she’ll be back in the normal ward to keep healing up. She also thanks (as do I) everyone who sent kind thoughts.
Mike Sullivan’s Magipunk concept is deeply cool and I want to play in it. GMs, take note.
I’m going to miss Monday Mashup this week (and be light on general on blogging). A family member is in the hospital with something fairly serious and I a) can’t focus on blogging and b) don’t have as much free time anyhow.
Because when it comes to terrifying home exercise marketing material, nothing beats the Gazelle Power Plus. I don’t even know where to start with that picture, other than observing that it caused me to break my self-imposed restrictions on low humor.
“You’ll believe a man can fly!”
Now, this feels good. It is my great pleasure to — well, let’s be honest, to brag — that I will be in Austin, Texas on the weekend of December 5th to attend Butt-Numb-A-Thon 5.
It’s a 24 hour movie marathon, programmed by Harry Knowles. I made it to the second one after reading the report on the first one, and I had a hell of a time. I was sad to miss number 3 and I was mournful about missing number 4.
But I made the cut for BNAT 5. Can’t even begin to express how pleased I am. 24 hours of new movies, old movies, weird movies, freaky movies, and bad movies. A chance we’ll see Return of the King.
It’ll be the second geekiest thing I do all year (hey, I went to GenCon), but it’s gonna be a great time.
Not a lot of interesting new filings in White Wolf v. Sony this week. Lots of paperwork to get all the lawyers accepted in the court. The only real scrap of interest (and it’s only tangential) is the joint certification of interested persons, which lists those people who are either a) a party to the action or b) have a financial interest or other interest which could be substantially affected by the outcome of the case.
a) White Wolf, Inc.; White Wolf Publishing, Inc.; Nancy A. Collins; Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc.; Lakeshore Entertainment Corp.; and Screen Gems, Inc.
b) Stewart and Stephen Wieck; Mark Rein•Hagen; Sony Corporation; and Subterranean Productions, LLC.
From time to time, people ask me why I link to and read right-wing bloggers. The simple answer is “Because I want to see other viewpoints.” However, Tacitus just provided us with a clear example of the kind of integrity and honesty I find deeply valuable.
How could I not read a conservative thinker who’s that honest? That’s not an enemy, that’s a fellow human being who happens to disagree with me.
So this means that the RNC is going to be as critical of the Jessica Lynch TV movie as they were of the Reagan miniseries, right?
Fairly dull, but here’s Sony’s initial disclosures in White Wolf v. Sony. If you didn’t already know the basic argument Sony will be using, here it is:
To the extent any similarities exist between Plaintiffs’ works and Defendants’ Underworld movie, any such similarities concern material that is not original, not protectable expression, lies within the public domain, and/or constitutes unprotectable ideas or scenes a faire.
(I define scenes a faire here — “ideas that are inherent to the conventional telling of a given sort of story.”)
I should look up the cases Sony cites as precedent, but I’m lazy.
Let’s see. It looks like Sony will be using one Patricia Altner in some capacity during the trial, although apparently not as an expert witness. Maybe she was a consultant on the script? She wrote Vampire Readings: An Annotated Bibliography, which is an annotated bibliography of vampire material.
Oh, and I don’t mind posting this PDF because Sony politely obscured the home addresses of their people by saying “contact them through their lawyers.”