Monthly Archive for March, 2009

Minutes for March 25, 2009

Published on March 25, 2009 in Minutes. 0 Comments

Date: March 25, 2009
Meeting Start: 10:01 and pie cake
Attendance: 15

News

Committees
Recruitment and Relations: Elly’s here. Other people showed up here. 15th anniversary is coming up next year.
Movie: Mongrel. Where the Wild Things Are? trailer is on Apple.com.
Office Resource: Office is still there.
Trivia: Stephen has it? In the Fallout universe, what year does the nuclear apocalypse war take place? 2077. Erik has trivia.
Discussion Group: Mike will be there. Themes for a superhero? (eg. Aquaman, etc.) Motivations for being a superhero? Villain backstory? Abby’s going to LaBamba’s.
Fundraising: A guy sold a certificate of “blackness” on Amazon. Forrest is winning with boring items. Buy stuff.
No Report: Fluffy has a job and is teaching kids how to use programs. (Jon bursts out laughing.) Game design and programming. (Jon is still laughing.)

Officers Reports
Constable: Break was not very exciting, got to go home and relax. Fixed a computer that was choking on itself. Installed The Orange Box, beat Mass Effect, Portal. Browning meat for chili–1lb of buffalo meat, sausage, combined with spices.
Com Officer: Had a pretty lady on her lap and you all ruined it. Has to lie to Kelty so he wouldn’t put pepper in her eye.
Chief of Operations: Is boring. Went home to California. Everything was nice. Was allergic to shirt his parents brought back from Israel. Allergic to Judaism and nerve gas.
Grand Nagus: Spent spring break with Monica. Watched Wyatt Earp. Figured out what his unknown western was. Playing Neverwinter Nights.
First Officer: Has a quiet break.
Captain: Decided not to tell his friends that he was coming home. Spent all day in his friend’s basement. Beat Diablo 2 in 5 hours straight with Forrest. Also managed to write two papers without thinking about it. Spent one paper watching Forrest play a Korean mmorpg.

Old Business: Zombie-fest is on the way. Jon is still an officer.
New Business: Sci-Fi channel changing its name to SyFy. Maybe we should trademark our name to save our asses. Need a new logo. Start thinking of things and draw them!

Other Organizations
Anime: Resuming watching Soul Eater.
Other: 1984 is opening in three weeks.

Ending Time: 10:41 and cake pie.

Quotes
Adam: So… remember that discussion a couple weeks ago?
Erik: What happens when bats achieve escape velocity? They become heroes.

Abby: It’s mostly about a guy who thinks he’s an attack dog and he starts killing people….
Erik: It sounds like a great movie!
A-Mike: Or a really bad porno.
Abby: …he barks before he starts killing people.
A-Mike: A REALLY bad porno.

Erik: My friend and I are writing a children’s book based on Left 4 Dead called The Lonely Boomer.

A-Mike: I was up there until I remembered I had to do something and then I left.
Jack: That was a great story.
Jon: Good talk, Mike. Good talk.
Jack: How much money did you find at the end of it?
Adam: I hope it was $10 at least, so that story could be exciting.

A-Mike: It came from the bottom of the fridge.
Jon: I don’t open the bottom of the fridge. It scares me.

Jack: And if it wasn’t for that, Freeport, IL would blow ass.

Sarah: I’m not going to get spontaneous applause or anything–
APPLAUSE.
Sarah: I’m just going to stop it there because it won’t get any better.

Adam: No, I don’t want applause, fuck you!
APPLAUSE.

Jack: I want a giant phallic symbol.
Adam: We could make a rocket ship, with two large planets.
Elly: I like the rocket ship idea, but without the planets.
Adam: Why does PsiPhi have to be castrati?

News for March 25, 2009

Published on March 25, 2009 in News. 0 Comments
  • The name “Colbert” has beat out NASA’s four suggested options in the space agency’s effort to have the public help name the new addition to the International Space station launching later this year. Colbert urged viewers to write in his name. And with 230,539 votes that clobbered Serenity, one of the NASA choices, by more than 40,000 votes. Nearly 1.2 million votes were cast by the time the contest ended Friday. NASA reserves the right to choose an appropriate name. Agency spokesman John Yembrick said NASA will decide in April, but will give top vote-getters “the most consideration.”
  • Mythbusters exploded 500 pounds of ammonium nitrate for an upcoming episode half a mile north of Woodland Avenue in Esparto, California, Friday afternoon. The explosion, caused by a quarter of the same material used in the Oklahoma City bombing, was large enough to be picked up as a “small event” ground tremor by National Geographical Survey sensors, said scientist David Oppenheimer. Most Esparto residents didn’t know the MythBusters were in the area let alone going to create such an explosion.
  • On a cool spring eve, March 15th, 2009, a bat, crippled and wistful, clung to the Space Shuttle Discovery as it was thrust toward the great beyond. Bereft of his ability to fly and with nowhere to go, a courageous bat climbed aboard our Discovery with stars in his weak little eyes. The launch commenced, and Spacebat trembled as his frail mammalian body was gently pushed skyward. For the last time, he felt the primal joy of flight; for the first, the indescribable feeling of ascending toward his dream—a place far away from piercing screeches and crowded caves, stretching forever into fathomless blackness. Whether he was consumed in the exhaust flames or frozen solid in the stratosphere is of no concern. We know that Spacebat died, but his dream will live on in all of us.
  • A Finnish computer programmer who lost one of his fingers in a motorcycle accident has made himself a prosthetic replacement with a 2 gig USB drive attached. The finger is not permanently attached to his hand, so it can be easily left plugged into a computer when in use. Mr Jalava says he is already thinking about upgrading the finger to include more storage and wireless technology.
  • Kiefer Sutherland will be back to play Jack Bauer for an eighth season of the hit counter-terrorism drama “24,” but the show’s longevity will depend on its writers, the actor said Tuesday.
  • A playwright is on the hunt for a Preston family who invited Doctor Who star Tom Baker into their home to watch an episode of the cult sci-fi series. The star arrived at their front door on November 13, 1976, as he was travelling back from a fan convention in Blackpool. He could not wait until his return to London to see the latest episode and so found himself sitting alongside a stunned family as they watched him on screen. Now, Scottish writer Simon Farquhar is researching the incident for a new production he is penning for the BBC, titled Teatime with Tom Baker, and is asking for the help of Evening Post readers.
  • Cameron’s Avatar, due in December, could be the thing that forces theaters to convert to digital. Spielberg predicts it will be the biggest 3-D live-action film ever. More than a thousand people have worked on it, at a cost in excess of $200 million, and it represents digital filmmaking’s bleeding edge. Avatar is filmed in the old “Spruce Goose” hangar, the 16,000-sq.-ft. space where Howard Hughes built his wooden airplane. The film is set in the future, and most of the action takes place on a mythical planet, Pandora. The actors work in an empty studio; Pandora’s lush jungle-aquatic environment is computer-generated in New Zealand by Jackson’s special-effects company, Weta Digital, and added later.
  • A Thai fireman turned superhero when he dressed up as comic-book character Spider-Man to coax a frightened special needs eight-year-old from a school balcony. The firefighter said he keeps the Spider-Man costume and an outfit of Japanese television character Ultraman at the station in order to liven up school fire drills.
  • A mission by the town of Vulcan, southeast of Calgary, to beam in the new Star Trek movie on opening day May 8 appeared to have failed this week when Paramount Pictures said it couldn’t work out details. But now Spock himself, Leonard Nimoy has stepped in. “The people of my home planet of Vulcan are not happy about this. I won’t say they’re sad or upset because that would express emotion but they think it’s illogical that somehow Paramount could not arrange to get a screening of the movie up there in Vulcan,” he said, laughing.

Minutes for March 11, 2009

Published on March 11, 2009 in Minutes. 0 Comments

Attendance: 17
Start Time: 10:05 and 5 seconds before Jack got here

News

Committees
Recruitment and Relations: Elly is here.
Office: Office is still there. No redo to the grid yet. Continue wiping off the grid.
Movie: Peepers. Went to go see Watchmen. Go see more movies over Spring Break. Jack is interested in going to see Haunting in Connecticut.
Discussion Group: Sort of happened.
Fundraising: Only Forrest buying. Please continue buying.
Trivia: Xeen still has it. Name the first six Mega Man robot masters? Stephen got four.
No Report: Erik was watching Intervention: The fattest heroin addict ever. “He is now homeless and uses heroin” ending line.

Officers’ Reports
Chief: Learned that, in the correct amounts, Kiss and LARP can solve any problems. Been sick. Planning on giving his lung to Forrest, who made him sick. Going home to CA. Has a Twitter now.
Com: Suggested Repo! as an extra-credit movie to the Film Appreciation teacher and got an email back that essentially said I’m awesome and my class is stupid.
Constable: Been in a strange mood all week. Flowing oddly. Linked torrenting is a lot of fun. Igor was interesting. Gamerz: Scottish, awful, and no one to like. The closest character to being likable was the heroin dealer.
Nagus: Had an excellent weekend since Monica came to visit.
First Officer: Had an eventful past few days–no grenades. Got an interview with the SCC–could get an unpaid internship in DC.
Captain: B-Con was a lot of fun. Probably was a bad idea to have B-Con on the weekend before break, since he didn’t get anything done on the weekend. Started torrenting the other day–downloading 80s from Estonia. He downloaded and has been playing Typing of the Dead.

Old Business: Zombie-fest is on the way. Jon is an officer.
New Business: Selling the older games to a collector? Replace things in the office. Get rid of crap. Send out an email to the mailing list to see if old members want the old games?

Other Organizations
Anime: Not having a regular meeting, but will have a random watching.
LAN: Maybe no LAN this week?
MCS: Still going on.

Ending Time: 10:36

Quotes
Adam: I’m not going to wait for Jack because he’s probably dead…
Jack: [from the hall] Why are you not waiting for me?

Forrest: I’d like to make a note that my passive information check is better than Jon’s active information check. I only didn’t know two this week.
Jon: I rolled a two.

Several: [about Illinois' Pluto ruling] YAAAAAY. [about Pluto Day] YAAAAAY.
A-Mike: Doesn’t our government have something more important to do?
Everyone: NO.
Adam: We just lost our governor and we don’t know what to do, so we’re going to give our people back their nine planets.

A-Mike: How do you know these things?
Erik: I watch commercials.
Jon: They only run one new one, everything else is reruns. You can still watch Gargoyles–
Adam: NO! They’re still making new ones!
Jack: Don’t be like my grandfather please… who thinks Red Skeleton is still alive because he’s on TV.

Jon: Hey–if I were God, I’d let the glowworm hang out.

Jon: Bacci’s is just not conducive to discussing.
Erik: Or digestion.

Xeen: We had GutsMan, Fireman—and, crap!

Erik: So, trivia committee hasn’t done anything for the past six weeks?
Jack: It doesn’t usually do anything… but, yes.

Sarah: They will kill you if you do things wrong with your accounting.

A-Mike: ..if we had some sort of cheesecake grenade.
Erik: The shrapnel has to go somewhere. So… there’s a chance you could die.
Adam: I would take this chance!

March 11, 2009

Published on March 11, 2009 in News. 0 Comments
  • Vin Diesel and David Twohy have been working so hard on the next The Chronicles of Riddick game that they forgot to mention the new Riddick film. Diesel says that around the release of the game they’ll have more information. All he could say currently was Twohy is finishing up the script.
  • Ira Glass’ “This American Life” will be simulcast live to 400 screens for one night in April in a program that will include “a special musical performance” by Joss Whedon. The April 23 broadcast will originate from New York University’s Skirball Center for the Performing Arts. “This American Life – Live!” will be sent live via satellite at 8 pm EDT to more than 400 movie theaters and performing arts centers nationwide. The two-hour show, with the theme “Return to the Scene of the Crime,” will also include performances by Dan Savage, Starlee Kine, Mike Birbiglia, David Rakoff and Dave Hill, plus a cartoon by Chris Ware. Tickets and a list of participating theaters are available at Fathom Events.
  • Morena Baccarin, aka Inara from Firefly, will play a lead in the ABC re-imaging of the “V” mini-series. Baccarin will play Anna, the leader of the Visitors who is remarkably knowledgeable about human culture and media manipulation. Nina Dobrev has landed the lead in the CW’s drama pilot “Vampire Diaries.” and Eliza Coupe has been tapped for a lead in ABC’s comedy “No Heroics.” “Heroics” revolves around four B-list superheroes living among us. Coupe will play a bad girl who can turn invisible.
  • There’s a rumor circulating that Warner Bros. is looking to replace Christian Bale in the next Dark Knight picture, with his Terminator co-star Sam Worthington. Highly doubtful.
  • The Illinois State Senate has resolved that not only was Pluto’s 2006 downgrading to a dwarf planet unfair, but that they’re revoking it, and it will regain “full planetary status,” as awarded by the state. And that’s not all; March 13th has been officially designated “Pluto Day” in the state, to celebrate the date of the (dwarf) planet’s discovery in 1930.
  • Director George Miller is returning to his most popular creation, Mad Max… but without star Mel Gibson. Or, for that matter, any live action actors at all; Miller’s new future vision is entirely animated.
  • Hollywood production company 1492 has acquired the rights to blood-soaked comic Welcome to Hoxford, by renowned horror madman Ben “30 Days of Night” Templesmith. Welcome to Hoxford is about an asylum where all the most violent inmates wind up, but never leave. When a psychiatrist investigates, she discovers the asylum has been privatized by a mysterious corporation and won’t give up any information about its wards – even to their former doctors. Gradually, we discover that the asylum is being run by a pack of werewolves, whose lust for carnage matches the inmates’.
  • Long-lost Doctor Who episodes thought to be hidden away in Zimbabwe may never be recovered because despot Robert Mugabe hates the UK. Zimbabwe is understood to have bought the first season of the show when it was still a British colony known as Rhodesia. Despite years of searching, the BBC is missing 108 of 752 episodes of the television classic.
  • With Daredevil already getting the once over and Planet of the Apes also in the running for a new start with a prequel in the works, Fantastic Four is joining the reboot gang.
  • The long running action/adventure franchise Power Rangers, which rose to unprecedented heights in the 1990s, will be coming to an end in it’s present live-action format. The decision will leave several New Zealand film, stunt, and effect crews out of work.

News for March 4, 2009

Published on March 4, 2009 in News. 1 Comment
  • The British version of Stan Lee’s reality TV series Who Wants To Be A Superhero is under fire for sending many hopeful super-kids in tears. So far two children have broken down on camera when their characters were cut or “powered down. Not surprising for Channel 4, who has previously been accused of “corporate child abuse.”
  • Former Wonder Woman Lynda Carter has given her blessing to Dollhouse’s Eliza Dushku to take on the satin tights and red boots of Wonder Woman if the movie ever happens.
  • “Family Guy” will extend its full-episode “Star Wars” parodies to the third film in the George Lucas series, “Return of the Jedi.” The show’s cast completed a table read yesterday for a “Jedi” spoof script, which is tentatively titled “Episode VI: The Great Muppet Caper.”
  • Daft Punk might be writing the original score for Tron 2.0, Disney’s sequel to the 1982 evil computer movie. Tron 2 will be directed by Joseph Kosinski, written by “Lost”‘s Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, and stars “House”‘s Olivia Wilde. Jeff Bridges will also reprise his original role as super genius Kevin Flynn.
  • The words “Who Watches The Watchmen?” have begun to appear spray-painted on walls around New York City. There is no evidence that Warner Bros is paying underground street marketing teams to tag the catchphrase around the city.
  • This year’s Belfast film festival has stirred up a minor controversy. A screening of 1974′s Flesh Gordon, an erotic spoof on Flash Gordon, will be accompanied by a live translation in broad Ulster-Scots from three local comedians. The event, titled Shockin’ly Spaiked O’er Smot (Badly Dubbed Porn) Live, has been criticized by some local politicians, who say funding should not have been handed over. Ulster-Scots is spoken by an estimated 35,000 people in Northern Ireland.
  • British newspaper the Daily Mirror is reporting that the interior of Doctor Who’s tardis will be given “a radical new look” when the show returns for its fifth season in 2010. The decision was, according to the paper, made by incoming showrunner Stephen Moffat, in part to make sure that the time machine will look good in high-definition. An anonymous source told the paper that the new look will be “the most hitech, intricate Tardis ever”.
  • After the recent rumors about Evangeline Lilly leaving ABC’s time-tossed island drama Lost and auditioning for fall pilots, the actress herself has spoken about the situation. Short version: Kate’s back on the island to stay.
  • Starting this July, a new Magic the Gathering core set will be released every year, and each set will be named for the year after the year it comes out. Therefore, the July set will be called Magic 2010. Each core set will be tournament legal the day it comes out, but it will remain legal for 15 months. Half of each new core set will be made up of totally new cards. You can read the full official explanation from Aaron Forsythe at the official MtG site.
  • ABC has decided to end the show “Life on Mars” but in an unusual move, the net will keep the show on the air through the end of its full run. That will give the series a rare opportunity to sign off with a proper finale, wrapping up the series’ core mystery. Network insiders said they were fans of the show and pleased with its creative chops but that the ratings ultimately didn’t warrant a second season.