- The Guardian newspaper has reported that author J. G. Ballard has passed away after a long battle with prostate cancer. His agent, Margaret Hanbury, announced that Ballard died on the weekend. He was 78.
- Chris Pine wrote to his Star Trek predecessor William Shatner to make peace after hearing about bad blood among the studio bosses and the original Kirk. “I wrote William Shatner a letter and explained who I was because I heard there was bad blood between him and the studio. I said, ‘I’m just an actor who happened to get a role that happened to be James T. Kirk, and I’m not trying to usurp your status or anything’. He replied, ‘Thank you very much for the letter. I wish you the best of luck.’ I have it on my fridge.”
- It has also been revealed that JJ Abrams first choice before Chris Pine was Matt Damon.
- A Dune “reboot” may be in the works thanks to Hancock director Peter Berg and Fighting producer Kevin Misher. The work is still in the writing stage but already the team is scoping actors and locations.
- Pushing Daisies has gotten a 12 issue order from DC Comics. The canceled Emmy-Nominated TV show about a pie maker with the power of limited resurrection, will itself see new life this fall. There is also some speculation about a Comic-Con giveaway as a preview comic was a giveaway in 2007 before the show debuted.
- Zac Efron is looking to bring Luke Skywalker to the small screen after toying around with Star Wars props at George Lucas’ California mansion. The High School Musical star filmed scenes for his new movie 17 Again at Lucas’ museum-like home, Skywalker Ranch, and now he’s begging for a leading role in his Star Wars TV series.
- Veteran actor Graham Greene has joined the cast of the Twilight sequel, New Moon. The Canadian performer appears as Harry Clearwater, an old friend of Bella’s father and a Quileute tribal leader. Greene appeared in the films: Dances with Wolves, The Green Mile, Die Hard With a Vengeance, and the TV show, Northern Exposure.
- The Warner Bros.-based horror label Dark Castle has picked up rights to Devil’s Due graphic novel The Nye Incidents, from sci-fi and horror novelist Whitley Strieber. Todd Lincoln will direct. Inspired by true events, the comic book revolves around a medical examiner on the hunt of a killer of alien abductees.
- Hostel director Eli Roth has discussed two of his upcoming projects. The first was an unnamed project that he didn’t give too many details on but said it will be a huge sci fi piece in the theme of Cloverfield and Transformers, lots of action, lots of explosions. He also discussed his “Thanksgiving” project, first seen originally as a fake trailer in 2007′s Grindhouse (1, 2). Roth boldly claimed: “I want to make the highest body count slasher film I can.”
- Constantine 2 is still in the makes. Producer Lauren Shuler Donner commented on the potential for a Constantine sequel, remarking “Looks very good. Thinking about it. Looking for a writer.”
- “Syfy” and Will Smith are going to make supernatural crime-procedural magic together. Their first collaboration is a TV movie called Unfinished Business, and focuses in on a cop who can see the memories of the deceased. It will air as a two-hour movie, and it could lead to an ongoing series.
- Online game publisher NCsoft has been Steamed, with all of its online titles available today for purchase and play via Valve’s Steam service. All current NCsoft titles should be available via the Steam service today, from the recently released City of Heroes Architect Edition to the Guild Wars series. This also covers upcoming NCsoft games, including the eagerly anticipated Aion: The Tower of Eternity.
- Online store ThinkGeek is selling new Dreamcasts in the box for $99.
- Bethesda has announced that a new Fallout title, Fallout: New Vegas (note the lack of a number, we’ll get to that later), will be released next year for PC, PS3, and Xbox 360. Bethesda is not developing the title. Instead, Obsidian Entertainment, the studio behind Knights of the Old Republic 2 and Neverwinter Nights 2 (and its expansions), will be working on New Vegas.
- 4 edition D&D’s Arcane Power just came out.
Monthly Archive for April, 2009
Attendance: 15
Meeting Start: 10:02 Mike’s not in blue and that rhymes
Committees
Recruitment and Relations: Abby brought Lauren. She and Erich signed the log book.
Movie: [Item deleted for security reasons?] of the Animal People.
Office Resource: The office is still there.
Trivia: Jack has trivia. In Gargoyles: The Animated Series, who made Demona and Macbeth immortal? Forrest answers The Three Sisters.
Party: Forgot to bring total tally and forgot to bring Taia’s cup back. About a third of the way there. Hasn’t counted the change yet either. Needs more money.
Discussion Group: Jon’s death will be brought about by some naked bird. New topic: How we can make Pokemon: The Post-Apocalyptic Game a reality?
Fundraising: Anti-Mike is on the ball somehow. Couple of new things: Arcane Power, a Canon zoom pack, portable notebook computer lock.
No Report: Alex’s report is about mold. Pickle juice is not a natural ingredient to paste. Made a rare, dangerous mold.
Officers Reports
Chief of Operations: $80 terrabyte harddrives. Bought a couple. Has been healed by major harddrive space. The perfect cure for depression is mini-snickers. May not be able to take class at ICC and then would have to stay another whole year.
Constable: Started playing Pokemon Platinum and has a new theory of Pokemon economics. Poke-Apps are dumb. Perfect use for Pokemon calculator: Call up Pokemon in the grass. Saw the Mythbusters episode that made Psi Phi news: They were trying to make diamonds from coal.
Com Officer: Probably failed the chem test; her own fault. Watched an awesome movie that made her and Adam decide that they will only marry someone they MIGHT drink drugged coffee for.
Grand Nagus: Story time. Has been wasting time doing a whole lot of nothing. Been infected with the DS emulator. Woke up at 6:30pm tonight. Post-Apocalyptic Pokemon was probably his idea. Jon made Jack remember two stories. Jack used to beat catfish in the head with shovels. They would still be flopping around after 5 hours. Jack hates Swords Hall. He’s actually screaming now. Had pretend quickcash for a while and now has negative balance on his quickcash. More yelling. Actual yelling. Flipping over a table.
First Officer: Knows a girl without a filter. The girl accused her of being half an alien. Didn’t realize that was an offensive thing.
Captain: Playing Pokemon as well. Having a really good time in Japanese history class and learned two lessons: 1) The Japanese are human, 2) Make sure you win the war. Yelling at Fluffy: GET OFF HIS [item deleted for security reasons] CD KEY. It’s his. He paid $40 for it.
Old Business: Zombie-fest is on the way. Jon is still an officer.
New Business: None.
Other Organizations
Anime: Stuff. Adam is betraying Forrest.
MCS: Jack will be remembering the best lamb in town.
Theater: Stuff. Death Trap opens tomorrow.
Other: BPA on Thursday at 8:30pm.
Sunday 3pm, Bradley Concert Band, is playing musics. Band afterwards is playing all five symphonies from the Lord of the Rings.
Meeting End: 10:47 PM 4/22/2009 and Mike is in white.
Quotes
Anti-Mike: Star Wars: The High School Musical.
Anti-Mike: I’m selling a Dreamcast, out of the box, $99.
Forrest: I don’t want to buy your Dreamcast. I could buy a new one! Fuck you~
Forrest: That’s the news and I’m not going to fall out of my chair.
Adam: We gained a real new person.
Ashley: Erich signed the log book too.
Adam: He’s a fantasy new person.
Adam: That’s the reason he didn’t want you to wear polyester in the Bible; you’d kill off all the sasquach.
Anti-Mike: We walked in and he was very surprised.
Jack: You weren’t the people you were supposed to be.
Jack: I have trivia?
Adam: You named a character off of Collier’s shirt.
Jack: Oh! Right! That was dumb.
Jack: In Gargoyles… because I don’t know about anything else!
Forrest: More money in my pants is a good thing.
Anti-Mike: As I am Psi Phi’s Amazon representative, I will answer your question with another question.
Adam: Hey! Mike gets to hang out with me. Hi Mike!
Abby: I need more Pokemon in my life.
Fluffy: Red was better.
Alex: It’s the same game! One just has different Pokemon.
Jon: Both have different Pokemon.
Anti-Mike: No. Just one of those games has different Pokemon. Figure that out!
Forrest: They’re not pancakes. They’re little things you stick in peoples mouths and they’re made of berries!
Jon: You evolve the Pokemon bigger so you can harvest them for food.
Jack: I’m going to save the rest of this for discussion, because Uncle Jack is out of stories.
Jack: If I came up to you and told you that I lost $20, and could I have some. And you asked why. And I said, The money needs to come from somewhere. And I would be fine with you punching me. Very hard.
Lauren: How did you feel being called an alien?
Sarah: I was pretty fine with it. Aliens are pretty cool.
Anti-Mike: Nice cover for the alien.
Sarah: If I actually was an alien, I could probably kill you and that would be all right!
Adam: Your turn.
Sarah: I know. I’m taking a moment of silence… after that.
Forrest: You bastard. How dare you make him feel relevant.
Adam: I include people. Yay.
Alex: Look, I can do it backwards.
Jon: I think that’s upside-down.
A-Mike: It’ll be interactive since I can throw things at you when you’re stupid.
Attendance: 14
Meeting Start: 10:03 and not only can I tell the time, but I can tell you the seconds: 35
Committees
Recruitment and Relations: Bring new people. Dan is back.
Movie: Because the internet is dead at his apartment, there is no bad movie. Went to go see Dragonball. It was dumb, but enjoyable. Nova has an amazing soda selection.
Office Resource: Office is still there. There are new chairs in there, thanks to Fluffy and Collier. Found the box of pencils he bought two months ago; left in office for gaming needs.
Trivia: Jon: Name one character on Collier’s shirt? Jack: SPIDERMAN! A-Mike: And without even looking.
Party: Initiated contact with Dave about reunion next year. Will be working on that. Has $14 so far. Has since doubled his money; now a third of what we need. Party will be in the same place, unless someone gives him a new idea.
Discussion Group: Didn’t happen. Topic tonight: How do you kill Jon while he’s awake?
Fundraising: New rules: You can find a weird item and pay half value to the club to enter it into the competition.
No Report: Alex no longer has his left big toenail. Discussed how many engines we should put on a rocket full of thermite: 5 is the appropriate number? He is going to be making model rockets?
Officers Reports
Chief of Operations: Is getting viruses. Getting a feather branded. Jack is offering to brand him. Hates Action Script 3.
Constable: Up and down week. Set curve on Ed’s test. Had wall attacked with hammers (Fofo: We’re under siege!).
Com Officer: Made brain cupcakes. Is also convinced that teacher put pot into the charcoal during the chaotic BBQ.
Grand Nagus: Has a $7 cigar he needs to smoke.
First Officer: Has something to report. Got the internship. Going out to DC and may or may not get paid. Put Psi Phi on her resume, and attributes that to getting the internship.
Captain: Week has been busy. Has lost both of his big toenails three times. No ingrown toenails anymore. Has been playing Diablo 2, thanks to his brother’s influence. As an Amazon, does no damage with spear; all damage comes from the lightning bolts that shoot from it.
Old Business: Zombie-fest is on the way. Jon is an officer.
New Business: Start thinking about the freshman binder?
Other Organizations
Anime: Two blank slots for anime. (Jon: Can we watched the banned episodes of Pokemon?)
MCS: Friday at 5.
Theater: Rock Star project this Friday, 3:30pm in the upstairs of Hartman. Donations wanted. Death Trap starts next Thursday.
Other: BPA at 8 or 10pm.
Meeting End: 10:48 PM 4/15/2009
Quotes
A-Mike: Do they get launched into the sun? Or sent to another planet where they get resurrected…?
Jon: You have to pay extra for that.
Forrest: It’s in all caps. I figured it needed to be in a robot voice.
Forrest: No amount of flapping makes it work.
Forrest: There’s a lot of hair in there… a significant amount. If anyone wants to give me non-hair money, that’s okay too.
Jack: Taia’s secretly a cat!!!
Ashley: You looked something up?
A-Mike: …yeah.
Ashley: Holy shit, you’re on the ball.
Jack: He likes the ball.
Forrest: By the way, does anyone know what a grindstone is in sexual terminology?
Jack: I waved at him. That makes him real.
Jack: I don’t know if you could kill Jon with a chalkboard.
Dan: You have found something I’m not willing to do.
Jack: Hey Dan, sex with a panda?
Dan: …is she cute?
Jack: I’m going to say yes, but any way you tried to have sex with a panda, it would probably kill you.
Dan: On the other hand, I could be like one of five people to have sex with a panda. But I don’t know what China’s like.
Adam: You should stop going to porn sites.
Jon: His real problem is that he’s watching viral videos.
Jack: No. He went to the deepest core of the internet and sucked on it.
Jon: Don’t lick the internet.
A-Mike: I watched it this week!
Ashley: And that’s the most exciting part of your day. Can we move on?
Adam: Grenades?
Sarah: In a way, maybe…
Club: [applause]
Sarah: I wish I could be that excited.
Jon: You just have to tell them that Psi Phi is an official ambassador to Djibouti.
- NASA bypassed all voting and chose Tranquility as the new Node name. They are instead naming a treadmill after Colbert.
- John Sotos, an inspiration and consultant for House, M.D., wants to test Lincoln’s DNA for a rare genetic cancer syndrome called Multiple Endocrine Neoplasia 2B.
- The new Star Trek movie’s release date has been sped up to Thursday, May 7th, at 7pm. Not a huge change, but nice.
- A funeral supply store is now selling Star Trek photon torpedo coffins and Star Trek urns. You can find them at eternalimage.net.
- Area 51 has been declassified. The unidentified flying objects have been identified as experimental planes under the codename OXCART.
- Dan Aykroyd has vowed to sign Sigourney Weaver to the upcoming Ghostbusters sequel.
- Director/Producer McG is trying, but so far failing, to get Ah-nold to cameo in Terminator Salvation.
- Disney is denying rumors that Tron 2′s budget is rising over 300 million.
- Writer Declan O’Brian has optioned Little Shop of Horrors and says, “I have a take on it you’re not going to expect.” If there’s no singing piranha plant or at least a Mario reference, I’m not interested.
- Universal Studios has confirmed a 5th installment of The Fast and the Furious.
- Joss Whedon evaded the pressing issue of who would win: Buffy vs. River Tam. All he would say that while Buffy is stronger, River is programmed to kill.
- IMDB has reported Matthew Perry is starring in the two-part finale of Lost. The actor had previously stated it was a dream of his to join the island.
- The blaster gun used by Harrison Ford in Blade Runner is set to be auctioned. This so-called holy grail of Sci-Fi weapons is expected to go for over $100,000.
- Joss Whedon still has a small glimmer of hope for a second season of Dollhouse, despite Fox not even airing episode 13 domestically. Episode 13 stars Felicia Day of Dr. Horrible infamy as a post-apocalyptic fighter girl.
- The crew for The Sarah Connor Chronicles also claims they’re not dead yet and point out that the people claiming so did the same thing last season.
Attendance: 14
Meeting Start: 10:02 and he can tell seconds
Committees
Recruitment and Relations: Erich is here. We lost the people who brought people.
Movie: Spacehunter: Adventure in the Forbidden Zone. Dragonball Evolution opens in theaters Friday.
Office Resource: If you’re killing time in the office, try to inventory pieces from the war games collections.
Trivia: Forrest has trivia. It involves a lot of screaming. Jon: What is Dynasty Warriors: Strikeforce? The actual question is: What is one of the three Sci-Fi/Fantasy series that Piers Anthony has written? Erik flails at the actual question and wins.
Party: Forrest has started the party money collection committee. Has $8 out of $80.
Discussion Group: Anti-Mike is not here to talk about it.
Fundraising: Just walked in from watching Magnolia. No one has bought anything yet.
No Report: Erik went to his persuasion class today. He has to name 5 social movements that ever happened by next Wednesday. 2 page take home essay final about social movements. Can resubmit his first or second paper and he did 100% on his first paper, so he’s just going to get another 100 points easy.
Officers Reports
Chief of Operations: The BBQ was fun and delicious. His Travellers moved a planet… accidentally. Pisses off the OCD space cartographers. The movie was freaky.
Constable: Jon has bubbles! Continuing to make characters in the D&D Creator. Found a Level 1 item allows you to teleport 2 squares in Dragon Magazine. Barbarian has more AC than a Warlord with a heavy shield and platemail(?). Barbarian is wearing animal skins.
Com Officer: Discovered the joy of blowing bubbles in the house. Report has been shanghai’d by the discussion of starfish porn. Ate elk. Was good. Now feels more manly because of it.
Grand Nagus: Visited Monica over the weekend; she got a job with the highway department and got shocked by a groundwire for an electric fence. Saw the Haunting in Connecticut and it was good and creepy. RPing Gargoyles. (Today is a big day for report shanghai’ing.)
First Officer: Is not disclosing whether or not she threw a grenade. Hopefully will still be alive next week. Is depressed because her life revolves around school. Hopefully she will never have to carry a keg.
Captain: Got all his work done that’s due tomorrow. Thinks he’s being schizophrenic: Half of his brain wanted to put it off, the other half continues working while the first half is still confused.
Got candy from the nursing teacher to calm the female rage. Adam ate all the Peeps. Ate 20 peeps. Can only open the peeps 10 at a time. His tongue is bubble gum pink. The Williams cafeteria is much like Cheers: Everyone knows his name and when he complains, shit gets done.
Old Business: Zombie-fest is on the way. More logos have been stuck on the website.
New Business: None.
Other Organizations
Anime: Last Soul Eater.
MCS: Friday. 5pm.
Theater: 1984 is on Friday and Sat at 8:00pm; 2:30pm on Sat. $3.
Meeting End: 10:44 PM and he can still tell seconds
Quotes
Adam: Attendance is 6… 7… and Alex is fat.
Adam: There is something terribly wrong with the Enterprise crew watching over you while you sleep.
Erik: Oh no! Don’t change Crabbe!
Forrest: …good. I’m glad you feel so strongly about this.
Fluffy: And three people walked out with a seizure.
Many: …”walked out”?
Erik: *gets up and starts shaking violently, staggering out of the room*
Adam: RC had thunderthighs, she was hilarious.
Erik: It’s kinda creepy… watching Jon watch a movie.
Alex: This is worth $4!
Alex: What is he doing? Is he double retarded?
Alex: I have a pocket full of dreams, but dreams don’t pay…
Erik: If you can throw a frog at terminal velocity, you need to join the MLB.
A-Mike: No one’s put an order in yet.
Erik: I ordered a bunch of frogs…
Fluffy: What’s the name of that item?
Jon: [Deleted for security reasons].
Sarah: Leave a little mystery… that’s all I’ve got.
Many: [Discussion of people putting Sarah in a keg.]
Sarah: This is why I don’t come to your BBQs.
Jon: As long as you don’t start talking about Hobbitses, we’ll be fine.
A-Mike: I’m going to pair the time with the Vegeta crushing a scouter… Please tell me it’s after 9.
Erik: It’s after 5:30~!
Erik: This democracy tastes like a roofie.
Jon: The republicans would be like: “This chocolate could be poisonous. Find out at our next meeting.”
Jon: Dragon Magazine is like the annoying little brother that tries to one-up you.