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“There’s a hell of a lot of suffering and ‘injustice’ in the world, but no one besides Muslim Arabs (and non-Arab Muslims they’ve recruited) seem to be responding in this way.” Ah, Steven (original). Shining Path, Aum Shinrikyo, FARC, the Basque terrorist groups, Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the Tigers of Tamil, 17 November, and of course our own homegrown militia groups. Oh yeah. And I heard there was some kind of terrorist group operating out of Ireland these days. ...

OK, now I know what that protective order was. Here’s the PDF (original). It’s just the procedure the parties need to use if they want to protect portions of their evidence from public view. Sony, for example, may not wish their script for Underworld 2 to be available just yet. Now they can introduce it into evidence without pesky people like me getting their hands on it.

I’d been thinking it wasn’t a great year in film, but looking back on it I was dead wrong. It was, in fact, a superb year in film. The disappointments of the Matrix sequels and The Hulk (which I liked, but it should have been so much more) kind of cast a pall on the summer for me, I think. And I wanted Demonlover and Bubba Ho-Tep to be excellent, and neither of them really made me get up and dance. Metaphorically speaking. So I started putting together my favorite movies of 2003 list. I wound up this kind of decent list, but I wasn’t all that excited about it, and then I went back to look at my reviews from the blog. That reminded me of what I said in February and what I said in August and I got a lot more cheerful. This is the list of my ten favorite movies of 2003. I didn’t see every movie I wanted to see, so I can’t claim it’s the ten best movies of 2003. I’m also being a little liberal about foreign flicks; if it was made in 2002 but was released in the US in 2003, or if it hasn’t been released in the US yet but I saw it in 2003, I’ll count it as a 2003 movie. Foreign movies from 2001 and earlier don’t make the cut, though. (Apologies, thus, to Vidocq, Battle Royale and Audition.) Enough preamble; on to the lists. It’s my personal favorite ten movies, plus other movies I thought were really worthwhile but not quite good enough to crack the top ten, plus some movies I wish I’d seen but missed.

The Charles W. Cushman Photograph Collection is why one should be in the habit of saving one’s photographs. Well, if one is Charles Cushman, at least; most of us don’t have his eye. Amazing collection. (Via Electrolite.)

In this week’s WISH, Ginger asks: What do you think the value of contributions to a game is? Do you think it’s fair for the GM to give out experience or character points for contributions? If so, what qualifies? What about the informal value of contributions? Do they balance or unbalance a game? I think contributions can add a lot to a game (he said modestly). They’re not essential, but they can really help set tone and feel and they definitely make players feel more of a stake in the world. That’s not always a desired effect, but it’s an effect I happen to like, so I’m all for it. It takes a certain willingness for the GM to let go control, but that’s OK. ...

Anyone else had weird problems with Kung-Log in the last couple of days? Like… since the new year? And I can’t download a new version because the guy who wrote it is doing a new for-pay version called Ecto, which I would happily buy but it isn’t out yet. Zempt hasn’t been ported to the Mac yet. NetNewsWire is good, but you have to pop up a modal dialog box to edit your extended entries. I am beginning to feel very edgy; I’ve grown addicted to saving drafts and working on posts over time. (Just wait till you see my favorite movies of 2003 post.) I need my fix.

WISH 79 (original) asks: What do you think is the best cast size for the games you’ve played? What are the factors that go into your answer: genre, play group, gaming system, etc.? Well, once upon a time I would have said “three, maybe four.” But the Unknown USA campaign had, what, six regular players and worked like a charm. Not all of ‘em showed up every time, of course. ...

Daniel Keys Moran has another story up on his web site. It’s not really all that; it’s just social and technological extrapolation without any plot. It’s firmly in Greg Egan territory without breaking new ground. But, you know, if you still hold out hope that A.I. War will show up at some point this is your bi-yearly fix.

Tired. Synchronicity of the night: “Hey, what’s Leon Marr’s name doing on that mailbox?” “Oh, he’s in California.”

“Why is there a Mashup there?” “I’ll tell you later.” This entry, by the by, will probably not become a googlewhack (original), but only cause all of you are gonna use “Buckaroo” and “mashup” on your pages. C’est la vie. Where was I… ah, yes. Mashup #21 is Buckaroo Banzai, goofy flagbearer of 80s sci-fi pulp. All the men want to be Buckaroo Banzai, and all the women want to look at him misty-eyed across the floor of Artie’s Artery. The movie is really a revamp of Doc Savage; you’ve got the mysterious ultra-competent leader and his henchmen, each of whom has a different specialty. If you dial down and focus on the movie’s plot, you’ve got a fairly standard alien invasion plot mixed with a kind of a pod people riff and some multiple dimension stuff which doesn’t entirely matter. More important, though, is the deranged hipness which permeates the entire thing. You could say that Buckaroo Banzai is a mashup itself: Doc Savage plus 80s style. You wouldn’t be far wrong.