Act Now! Operators Standing By
Hello, newsletter subscribers!
Kickstarter Ends Friday!
I’m sending this one out on a Thursday instead of over the weekend because the My Name Is Hood Kickstarter has just over one day to go and it’s within $100 of funding. If you know anyone who might be interested, please tell them about it. If you’re a back, consider checking through the add-ons to see if there’s anything you’re missing (most of it is discounted from the normal price).
Vote for me!
The first round of voting for World Anvil’s 5th Annual World Building Awards started recently, and I have several articles, pages, and maps in the running. Unlike some of the other World Anvil events, you don’t need a WA account to vote (though they do require an email so they can eliminate duplicates). I’ve collected the links to all my nominations here and would very much appreciate your vote.
What I’m Working On
Until a couple days ago, I was sure that My Name Is Hood wasn’t going to fund, so I stopped working on it and started putting together the Q3E rules for The City of Ten Thousand Daggers, which I hope to use for some playtest games sometime soon (probably on discord—hit me up if you’re interested).
I’ve also added a few of the boring-but-necessary bits that I skipped during earlier passes of the main QAGS 3rd Edition rules doc. Outside of that and organizing a few folders on my hard drive (I freed up over 50GB of space just by deleting duplicate copies of art from old projects), February has been much less productive than January. I started the month sick, have jury duty (again) next week, and have two doctor’s appointments this month purely to get a discount on my insurance, so I’m just kind of writing this month off.
What I’m Reading
I’m currently reading Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond. It’s one of those books that’s so straightforward and almost textbook-like that it shouldn’t be nearly as interesting as it is. My only complaint is that Diamond uses that “I wrote this book because my minority friend asked me a question” framework that comes across as the author trying to make sure you know they have a minority friend without grasping the kind of “White Man’s Burden” vibe of the device.
I took a break from all that dry sorta-sciency stuff to read The Adventures of Lightning Man Volume 1, by my pal Leighton Connor. If you like comic book super-heroes, exciting action, and/or lightning, you should definitely give it a read. The books just shipped to Kickstarter backers, so I don’t think it’s on sale to the public yet, but keep an eye out for it.
I also read a book called Crowdfund your F#@king Life by John McGuire. He’s a “veteran indie game designer” who’s been been writing games for all of 5 years. In that time, he’s published fewer games than Hex has in our semi-retirement. There’s a list of resources at the end that might be worth the $2 I paid for it, but otherwise it’s mostly him restating things you can find in the Kickstarter help pages, complaining about AI existing, reminding us that he seriously used to be in a punk band, and insisting that people really call him “Hambone” and it’s not at all a nickname he’s been trying but failing to make stick.
Movies I’ve Watched Recently
Saturday Night: I don’t know how accurately this portrayed reality, but it definitely matched closely with entertainment urban legend about the first episode of SNL, and all the actors did a good job of playing the right vibe: Chevy Chase is a dick, Belushi’s a madman, Ackroyd’s the one everyone looks to when there’s trouble, and Gilda Radner is delightful entity who may be from outer space. Of course, something like 60% of my idea of what good comedy is courtesy of the Not Ready for Prime Time Players (and at least 15% is directly from George Carlin, who hosted the first episode), so I might be biased.
Future World: I watched this mainly because (1)I thought it was weird that I’d never heard of a post-apocalypse movie from the last decade starring James Franco, Mila Jovovich, Lucy Lie and Snoop Dogg; (2)I thought it was even weirder that anyone would pay that much for actors and then give the movie a dumb, boring name like “Future World” and (3) I needed something that required no brain power, and this fit the bill. There’s a reason I missed it the first time: it’s not very good.
Hell Baby: I found this one through synchronicity. Tom Lennon was on After Midnight and mentioned that he wrote Night at the Museum. This caused me to look him up on IMDB to see what else he’d written, and Hell Baby kind of jumped out as something I’d probably enjoy. A few days later, I was looking for something to watch, saw Hell Baby and thought, “I want to watch that!” It’s real dumb, but it’s a fun dumb and the cast is full of very funny people.
Baywatch: I skipped this when it came out because “it’s a Baywatch movie” won out over “it’s The Rock.” A week or two ago, I just needed a big dumb movie with The Rock, so I gave it a try. It was better than I expected.
Water World: I went a few decades without seeing Water World, but the curiosity finally got to me. It wasn’t as terrible (or as long, but I think that’s more due to the fact that nobody can make a movie with a runtime under 2 hours anymore) as I’d heard, but it definitely needed less Costner and more Hopper.
The Big Short: I know I saw this when it came out, but couldn’t remember much other than Margot Robbie explaining the stock market from a bathtub so I watched it again. It’s surprising that a movie with this many unlikeable characters is as fun as it is—at least until you remember that it really happened and these dicks got a bailout while their victims lost their homes.
TV Shows
The Decameron: It’s like Masque of the Red Death, but way funnier.
The Millers: Since I’ve already watched most of the Greg Garcia shows on my streaming services twice in the last year, I broke down and bought the first season of The Millers to give it a try. The leads are Will Arnett and Margo Martindale and they’re backed up by Beau Bridges, JB Smoove, and bargain bin Ana Farris, so it would have to work hard to not be funny. It’s a very good sit-com, but it’s a pretty standard sit-com that just doesn’t have the same charm as Garcia’s other stuff, so I’ll wait and catch the second season when someone has it for free. I’ve got a feeling that Yes, Dear is in the same category, but it doesn’t seem to be available even to buy.
Lucifer: I know, Gaiman’s a creep, but that didn’t really bother me here because I had the impression that this had very little to do with Gaman’s version of the character. I was right. It’s basically a cop show, and it’s fun. I particularly like Rachel Harris as California’s horniest shrink.
Resident Alien: I feel a little stupid that I didn’t realize Tudyk was basically doing a Coneheads voice until season 3, but otherwise this is more of the same fun as the first two seasons. Tudyk and Edi Patterson are a great combination even if it’s just for a few episodes. Also, I think I’d watch a show about the cops even if they got rid of the aliens.
Hope this gives you something to read when you’re bored at work on Friday. Back and share the Kickstarter if you can and please vote for me in the World Anvil Awards. See you back in a few weeks.
TYTYVM,
Steve
©2024, Steve Johnson