I was going through some old e-mails, and I uncovered a dream I had totally forgotten about.

I dreamt I was writing for a TV show, and all the writers were sitting around, pitching episode ideas.  As I slowly awoke, I thought about a brilliant story one of the other writers had pitched.

In my sleep addled state, I was disappointed, because it was someone else's idea, and I couldn't use it. A moment later, I realized, "No, wait, I can use that...

"Who will know I stole it?"

Fonte: Esta.

Há coisas que fazem você pensar em como você era quando adolescente. Creio que nunca fui tão nerd. Conheço gente que tinha uma tabela periódica de estimação. Eu, mais normal, só pregava fórmulas de geometria plana atrás da porta. Nunca adiantou: eu tinha que torcer meu pescoço para ler as fórmulas.

1. What is the first RPG you ever played?

Dungeons & Dragons - the big black box from around 90'/91' or so, I believe. Soon reverted to Moldvay B/X edition.

2. What RPG do you currently play most often?

I currently split time between AD&D 2nd edition and Labyrinth Lord.

3. What is the best system you’ve played?

I've only had very brief flirtations with 'classic' D&D as a player, but I still believe it to be the most fun, stylish, and simple system to play with.

4. What is the best system you’ve run?

As for GM'ing, I'll go with Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. It's hella fun, and I would've loved to be able to play in it as a PC.

5. Would you consider yourself an: Elitist/ Min-Maxer/ Rules Lawyer?

Out of those three, I suppose I'm an Elitist. I certainly don't give a damn about min-maxing, and although I do like to get the rules right when I play or GM, I don't disrupt the flow of the game like a rule lawyer would probably do.

6. If you could recommend a new RPG which would you recommend? Why?

I would recommend you try out Mutant Future. Why? It's free to try and it's a breath of fresh air.

7. How often do you play?

I'm fairly active in my PbP game. I hadn't played a proper tabletop game for years until Jennifer and I started playing LL recently.

8. What sort of characters do you play? Leader? Follower? Comic Relief? Roll-Player/ Role-Player?

I've played many different types of character -- I like to sample them all. I don't really stick to one stereotype.

9. What is your favourite Genre for RPGs?

Wow... tough one. I suppose I'd have to give the nod to medieval fantasy, but I do like science-fiction and cyberpunk games.

10. What Genres have you played in?

Medieval fantasy, sci-fi, cyberpunk, post apocalyptic, western, horror, steampunk, and... cartoon? Well, I don't know exactly what genre Steve Jackson's Toon RPG would fall into!

11. Do you prefer to play or GM? Do you do both?

Eh, it's good to mix it up. If you stick with one for too long, you'll lose your grasp of the other. I would suggest to anyone who runs characters but has never GM'ed to give it a try sometime, and vice versa for GM's who never run characters.

12. Do you like religion in your games?

Sure. I'm pretty much an athiest swine in real life, but that doesn't mean I don't like a dose of religion in my games. Especially with the medieval fantasy games, it's no fun without some deities added to the mix.

13. Do you have taboo subjects in your games or is everything “fair game”?

I'd say everything is fair game.

14. Have you developed your own RPG before?

No. Unless doing heavy modifications to existing systems counts (I've messed around with a couple of GURPS games before).

15. Have you ever been published in the Gaming Industry? If so…what?

No. I'm probably not clever enough.

Apologetics is unfortunately needed more...than it should be. [I]t is a very good thing that there are people who...are doing something about this major need...[like] sharing knowledge and doing research...instead of just sitting back and letting other people do it, or completely hiding themselves from the subject. The [teaching of] apologetics is a crucial point in 'planting the seed' in unbelievers.

I believe his words should resonate with all who have examined the state of Christianity. We need apologetics.

So I said all of that to say this: please welcome our new staff admin, Zacharias. He will serve under me as a co-admin, with the same basic powers that I have. If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, or if you see a post that you think needs updated or fixed, feel free to email him: rev717.life@gmail.com

We're still accepting applications for contributing writers, although now I can afford to be more picky! :) If anyone's still interested after this past sentence, email me (jfoxe1@gmail.com) or Zacharias.

"Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves..." - Ecc. 4:12

A Bra's Tale: Detour on a Daughter's Trip Abroad

The integration isn't an issue, but where I want to host the main pages is.  I enjoy the layout options of MSN Spaces, but the flexability to have different "pages" on Wordpress I like even more. 

I'll take the next week to think about how I want things presented and hopefully have a decision and a working plan come next weekend.  Until then, thank you to my small viewing audience!

Mas ainda falta ler a Dicta & Contradicta inteira, e o livro do Tyler Cowen que ganhei do Leo Monasterio há uns seis meses...

Haja livros!

Por eso, os recomiendo que os vayáis de rebajas, a hacer locuras similares a las que aparecen en este sorprendente vídeo de Mango y os gastéis la paga extra en trapitos. La economía nacional os lo agradecerá.

După cum suntem obişnuiţi deja din ’91, EA ne tratează anual cu câte un simulator sportiv bazat pe hochei. 1992 a fost singurul an în care EA nu a binevoit să ne bucure cu prezenţa pe piaţă a unui astfel de joc. Aşadar NHL a ajuns la fantasticul număr de 18 (optsprezece) variante. Aşa că poate vă întrebaţi ce îmbunătăţiri ar mai putea aduce, încât să se justifice an de an lucrul la această serie. Ce îmbunătăţiri s-ar putea aduce încât să fie necesară an de an munca la acest joc? Dacă stai să analizezi, ai putea spune că în materie de gameplay nu prea mai ai ce aduce nou. Jocul nu s-a schimbat deloc, sunt aceleaşi reguli, aceleaşi crose, aceleaşi pucuri. Evident se poate vorbi despre îmbunătăţiri grafice, având în vedere că tehnologia evoluează, calculatoarele noastre devin din ce în ce mai bune şi mai ieftine, dar parcă ne pusesem de acord de acum doi sau chiar trei ani asupra faptului că modul în care NHL arată este cât se poate de real. Aşadar nici acolo nu prea mai ai ce face... Gheaţa tot gheaţă rămâne fie că suntem în 2005 sau în 2010. Aşadar ce îi poate face pe cei de la EA ca an de an să scoată un simulator de hochei? Dacă până acum nu este destul de clar care este politica EA, vă voi spune eu: REGELE BAN. Cei mai mulţi bani care se fac acum se obţin din serii de jocuri deja consacrate şi nu din inovaţii menite să schimbe soarta lumii. Inerţia consumatorului este piatra de bază pentru o companie care deja se bazează pe un nume şi nu pe calitate pentru a-şi vinde produsul. Exemplul cel mai concret nu poate fi decât SIMS.    (Va urma!)

Sursa: level.ro

Ever since I read For Kings and Planets, pressed upon me by a dear friend and brilliant woman, I have been smitten with Ethan Canin. Okay, so I've never met him, but clearly I am highly susceptible to the Author Crush. I hope for his well-being so he can continue to write amazing novels. His most recent is America, America, and I haven't read it yet. But you should read this amazing interview with him, or read this very interesting one. Or read both -- that's probably the best course of action. Then, pick up one of his novels, and read that, too.

If you're in the courthouse tomorrow, I'll be the angriest of the twelve angry men.

I'm just not sure which argument I should make in the jury room-- A) Why would the police go through the trouble of arresting the guy if he's innocent? Or B) I've seen enough procedural shows to know that all criminals leave indisputable forensic evidence at the scene of the crime; if it's anything less than 100%, he must be not guilty.

I usually post from work, partially because I have nothing to do, but mostly because at home, I bootleg the interweb from my neighbor's tube, and the connection's a little bit spotty.  If there's nothing new here tomorrow, why not try a friendly game of Risk, instead?

I talk about recent events and projects.

http://www.youtube.com/postmodernartist

Podeis comentar lo que querais que pa eso están los comentarios eee... jejej.

Un saludo

More pertinently, I had professors proclaim there is a discipline to working with film. You can't just roll and roll and roll. Film costs too much.  Tapes (and now, memory cards) are cheap.  I've worked for some directors who never call, "Cut!" They'll just say, "Do it again," without giving anyone a break. It's exhausting, for the actors, for the camera operators, for everyone.  I've heard of boom operators fainting under those conditions.

There's bound to be irresponsible people misusing technology, but I figured this "film discipline" thing was just blather from Luddites fearing new-fangled gadgets.

Then, a few weeks ago, I caught myself doing it.

In school, I was given 1200 feet of film to shoot a short movie. The final product barely fit on a 400 foot reel. That's a 3:1 shooting ratio. Not bad.

A few weeks ago, a shot three spec commercials on HD. At the end of the shoot, I asked my editor how much footage we had. He told me it was 80 minutes.

For a total screen time of 90 seconds.

For those of you too lazy to do the math, the shooting ratio was 53:1. That's, um, pretty bad. Maybe my professor was right.

These are the kinds of lessons I want to remember when I become a real director. So many people forget what it was like when they were just starting out. This website is about not letting myself forget.

Or, if you've already forgotten, maybe it will remind you.

"Senhora dos Afogados, by Antunes Filho" -- Digestivo Cultural (São Paulo) reviews the play we saw the other evening, "Our Lady of the Drowned," by Nelson Rodrigues, produced and directed by Antunes Filho of Teatro Macunaíma.

Teatro Macunaima being one of the redeeming signs of intelligent life in the southeastern megalopolitan Tupiverse.

The fascinating possibility raised by the reviewer is that Antunes has chosen an extremely bad play from an inexplicably revered Brazilian author and recast its hysterical melodrama as snickering theater of cruelty replete with Brechtian alienation effects.

Não é uma obra-prima a montagem de Senhora dos Afogados, de Nélson Rodrigues, por Antunes Filho — mas é, como diria Paulo Francis, provavelmente o melhor Nélson disponível, sendo, talvez, Antunes Filho, quase octogenário, a última reserva do teatro brasileiro.

This Antunes Filho production of "Our Lady of the Drowned," by Nelson Rodrigues, is not a masterpiece -- but it is, as Paulo Francis might say, the best one available, and Antunes Filho, who is now nearly 80, the last best hope of Brazilian theater.

I have to confess it: I loathe Nelson Rodrigues and his fervid, turgid, endless rewriting of the endless configurations of Kraft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis, as cribbed from the Cliff's Notes.

But this is an inconvenient fact to mention at cocktail parties people who have been brought up to think of the guy as some sort of Brazilian Ibsen or Tennessee Williams (from both of whom he cribs, badly, constantly, left and right) or something.

Como afirmava e reafirmava o mesmo Francis, o texto é de grande poesia — para ele, a maior em Nélson (mas, possivelmente, não maior do que em Álbum de Família) —, Antunes Filho e o Grupo Macunaíma, porém, acrescentaram trechos, criando seqüências inteiras, às vezes alongando cenas, já que o público da televisão (majoritário, ainda hoje) talvez não suporte a tragicidade plena, os desvios comportamentais incuráveis e o destino impiedoso na história da família Drummond.

As Francis said again and again, the piece is great poetry -- in his view, the greatest in the Rodrigues oeuvre (but possibly equaled by Family Album) -- but Antunes and the Teatro Macuaima add passages to it, creating entire new scenes or extending others, given that the television audience (most of them, even today) may not be able to handle the full-blown tragedy, the incurable misbehavior or the pitiless destiny of the Drummond family.

Whose paterfamilias in this production is transformed into something of a Pére Ubu figure: grotesque, clownish, shuffling, and prone to break out into an astonishing, drawn-out, ribald snicker, rising from the depths of his rotten guts, at exactly the wrong moment.

Ler Senhora dos Afogados — como ler as maiores obras-primas de Nélson Rodrigues para teatro — é uma experiência brutal, para quem justamente tem sensibilidade literária — mas, hoje, os espectadores, mesmo no cinema, não suportam a tragédia sem concessões, guardando um riso de canto de boca, para o momento da abertura à comédia, transformando o sério em ridículo e suspendendo toda a gravidade. Nos estertores do pós-modernismo, "tudo é relativo" e nada poder ser completamente "sem saída" — mesmo Nélson Rodrigues; e Antunes Filho, nesta montagem, não foge disso.

Reading "Our Lady of the Drowned" -- like reading most of Nelson Rodrigues' major works for the theater -- is a brutal experience ...

Amen to that.

... for those who come to it from a purely literary perspective. But nowadays, audiences, even film audiences, cannot support tragedy without concessions, a snicker out of the corner of one's mouth, a moment of opening to comic possibilities, of transforming the serious into the ridiculous and suspending all sense of gravitas. In the wake of postmodernism, "everything is relative," and nothing can be left with "no exit" -- not even Rodrigues, and Antunes Filho, in this production, does not shrink from that fact.

I see it very differently: What you have added to the play is this figure of "the neighbors," taking the place of the classical Greek chorus but behaving like the mob, the canaille, the hell that is other people.

A Greek chorus of mourners who have caught a bad case of schadenfreude like the clap, and who have a hard time keeping a straight face and observing the niceties during the funeral and wake that frame the action.

It is only against this backdrop that the play manages to achieve some tragic catharsis in spite of the cartoonish absurdity of its text, I think.

Because the text of the play as written simply IS brutally unbearable, from a literary point of view.

It reminds you of the plot of a Jack Chick comic book or the cheaper variety of Jacobean revenger's tragedy.

To some extent, the audience's proxy up there on the stage, "the neighbors" in Greek chorus, is simply inviting you to give in to what you were already feeling but were afraid to say.

My wife was remarking about this: That you find yourself laughing guiltily at moments of high melodrama in the play because this troop of clowns is up there, vying for your attention and engaged in low hijinks.

Such was her response, anyway. Neuza grew up on this stuff.

My response at certain moments -- I came to the play blind, without having read it first -- was, "Jesus god, what heinously boring, sophomoric Freudian dreck this is!"

The Mob ("And who are you again?" [In chorus]: We're the neighbors!") is the play's most interesting character, which makes sense: the Ensemble seems to be the heart of the Teatro Macunaima approach to theater.

O núcleo da família Drummond, obviamente, está bem representado, com destaque para a filha remanescente, entre uma mãe corretamente hipnotizada (por vezes, um pouco sonsa) e um pai distante (em algumas situações, um pouco robótico). Rindo na hora errada (é para rir em alguma hora?) e jamais relacionando o que acontece com o seu próprio inconsciente (Nélson tem soado apenas exótico, ultimamente), o público deve ter sustentado a temporada mas não está à altura de um clássico Antunes Filho. Ainda há tempo, contudo, para revisitar Nélson Rodrigues, segundo um de seus mais ardentes representantes.

The nucleus of the Drummond family, obviously, is well played, with the spotlight going to the surviving daughter, caught between a properly mesmerized (almost robotic) mother and a distant father. Laughing at the wrong moment (and should we be laughing at any moment?) and never relating to its own unconscious ....

This reviewer should stick to relating to what is in his own unconscious and leave mine to me.

... the play seems to have found an audience, but is not up to the standards of a classic Antunes Filho production. But there is still time for a man who should be one of his most ardent interpreters to revisit Rodrigues.

And restore his literary mediocrity to the delusions of grandeur it thinks it deserves.

According to this review, then, the house was packed to the rafters the other evening because its MTV-generation audience has no taste, and so has managed to blackmail the director into indulging its desire to snicker at the hysterical pretentiousness of the Greek tragedy according to Nelson Rodrigues.

Contempt for the groundling -- the help should not even be allowed into the auditorium -- is the trademark of a certain sort of Brazilian intellectual.

No wonder most of the theater here is still state-subsidized.

The Teatro Macunaima, on the other hand, is the real deal: Its production of A Pedra do Reino was full of those Aristotelian moments of suspension of disbelief where you unfold your arms and find yourself thoroughly engrossed in the spectacle.

So who is he? No one really knows for sure. There are mentions that he is Snorri Whitebeard, the last king of the Dwarfs to gain the respect of the High Elf king. The only problem is that if he is Snorri, the he has become immortal and that in itself would be a story worth reading. He is called Grombrindal in Dwarf-speak, which means "The White Bearded".

He has shown himself in numerous occasions when the fate of the Dwarfs was at stake and literally inspired them to great feats thus preserving their race for another day. He always hides himself and does not let it be known he is there until the time is right. It is also known that if and when he appears, no Dwarf has lost a battle no matter the odds.

Some of what Grombrindal wears is also a thing that many Dwarfs hold dear. On his head rests the Rune Helm of Zhufbar. His armor is said to be made of the metal Glimril and as no Dwarf has been able to completely identify it. He also wears a mighty cloak on his back, the Rune Cloak of Valaya. While his weapon of choice is the Rune Axe of Grimnir, a weapon of many speculations on exactly how powerful it is. The only people that could tell you that would be its enemies but they usually die before giving out a good description.

So there you have it in a nutshell. It isn't much I know, but there isn't much known about this guy. He shows up when needed and usually turns the battle back to the favor of the Dwarfs. Hopefully he is in the game at some point as little extra to give us something to look forward too.

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