Poolhall Junkies is top of the line fare, as Christopher Walken B-movies go. We’re talking The Prophecy quality here, albeit in a completely different kind of flick. The star of the movie is a guy named Mars Callahan, who also wrote and directed the thing. His sister is America Martin, which is completely irrelevant but I thought it was cool. Anyhow, he overdirects about half the time — it’s way too stylized in places, and some of the jokes are dead corny — but when you get right down to it what you’ve got is a hustler movie with some good dialogue and an excuse for Walken and Chazz Palminteri to swagger around and do that macho cool thing they both do so well. ...

In 1972, Munich was awarded the 18th Summer Olympic Games. It was the first Olympics in Germany since the propaganda-inflected Games of 1936; as is always the case, hosting the Olympic Games was a matter of some national pride. There were 7,173 athletes from 121 nations present. Mark Spitz won his seven gold medals at that games, with seven world records. Ulrike Meyfarth became the youngest person to win a gold medal in an individual event, in the high jump, at age 16. Olga Korbut became a media star and ushered in an era of gymnastics obsession. ...

Simple Game WISH question (original) this week: Name three gods or religions that have appeared in games you’ve played in. Were they good, bad, or indifferent? What made them so? Off the top of my head, I can only remember one campaign in which deities played a significant on-screen role… no, wait, maybe two. OK, two. First off, the easy one. Carl’s Babes in the Woods campaign is based on Bronze Age Celtic culture, but the gods are Roman, because the Roman culture in that world was the elves and they conquered everything. I played a cleric of the Traveller (Mercury), Cian, and his restless roguish nature was very defining for the character. Another PC was a paladin of Kore; at one point in the campaign, the gods argued about who would get this new champion, and she got to choose the god she wanted to follow. This sounds like a twinkfest unless you know Carl, in which case you’d be remembering that Greek gods get really petty when mortals deny them something they want. ...

Informative reading for the day: David Niewart debunks the “Bush’s family supported the Nazis” meme. He also nails the reasons why it’s important to look into the reality of the connections between Nazi Germany and American industrialism. It’s a fairly lengthy article in four parts ( 1, 2, 3, 4) but well worth the time.

Well, this is a dangerous site. Book Sale Finder is a lengthy list of upcoming book sales across the United States. Probably better avoided if you’re prone to book-buying, but it’s too late for me.

Turns out the Brits agreed with those dire warnings that the collapse of Iraq might result in the spread of chemical weapons: “The JIC assessed that any collapse of the Iraqi regime would increase the risk of chemical and biological warfare technology or agents finding their way into the hands of terrorists, not necessarily al-Qaeda.” Mind you, since it turned out Saddam didn’t have WMD after all, they were wrong. Still, you’ve got to wonder why Blair (and Bush) denied any such possibility pre-war.

Jeremy Zawodny makes the observation that I’ve made a couple of times; namely, Google’s PageRank is broken. (OK, he’s said it more than once.) In the comments, Phil Ringalda defends Google on the grounds that Jeremy’s page is as good a result for the search terms in question as anything. He discusses the issue further on his own blog. I would just like to note that I am currently the top result for google://population+of+indianapolis.

Yeah, I thought the first rush of news in the White Wolf v. Sony case was done too — but I was wrong (original). Sadly, I’ve missed the first court session. White Wolf wanted a restraining order to prevent Sony from releasing Underworld, but they got an expedited discovery period and a preliminary injunction hearing in a month. My favorite bit of the press release is the bit where the judge denies White Wolf the restraining order because they can’t post a big enough bond to protect Sony from potential damages.

I read lengthy messageboard threads so you don’t have to. The only useful post on the White Wolf vs. Sony RPG.net thread is a summary of the Nancy Collins story. Probably not a substitute for reading the damned story yourself, but for those us who don’t want to go digging through used bookstores for some old White Wolf anthologies, this is the next best thing.

Okay, sure. “Two years ago, I told the Congress and the country that the war on terror would be a lengthy war, a different kind of war, fought on many fronts in many places. Iraq is now the central front.” — George Bush “Don’t you tell me not to worry about bin Laden Have you forgotten?” — Darryl Worley For the record: no, I haven’t forgotten. I remember quite distinctly where I was and what I was feeling that day. I remember thinking that we needed to find the people responsible and do something about it. I still think that. I hope that, someday, we remember that Osama bin Laden was behind the 9/11 attacks. I hope that the White House will someday devote some time to reminding people who our enemy was and is. ...