Shout-Outs: October 2004 Archives

Wait, no I don't. It's just pretty hard to remember that, sometimes. Good thing I have Katsushiro Otomo to remind me.

I have never, ever, ever seen a decent steampunk movie. Ever.

Dictionary.com defines steampunk as "a genre of science fiction set in Victorian times when steam was the main source of machine power." I'd supplement that with the comment that the steam power is typically being used in ways it never was in reality; powering robots, for example, or rod-and-piston computers, or big ol' art-nouveau spaceships. It's just an aesthetic, yes. But it's an awful pretty one. And since the closest I've ever seen a movie come to steampunk was the positively vile League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, it's a pretty tough itch to scratch.

Don't think I'll be able to wait until next year to see this one. Might have accquire it myself. Yarrrr.

National Geographic is absolutely erotic this month. I dare you to argue.

Observe the cover.

And observe the first page of the article.

And observe my wild-eyed, unreasoning joy.

Yes, it can be measured in the laboratory. Shut up.

Yes, there is fossil evidence. Shut up.

No, no one claims we evolved from present-day apes. Shut up.

And yes, it's just a theory. And so is that whole "the Earth orbits the Sun" thing. Time out to look up the scientific definition of the word "theory," okay? Go on. I'll wait here.

Got it? All done?

Good. Shut up.

The article didn't tell me anything I didn't already know, but I don't think it was written for me. It was written for the 44 percent of Americans who, through force of will, misinformation, or simple ignorance, don't actually understand evolution, or refuse to understand it. It's for the special class. This issue's for that kid who shit in the study hall garbage can. It's for the Young Earth Creationists among us going through their homeschooled kid's textbooks with black Sharpies, crossing out the blasphemy. This one's for the snake-handlers picketing the Harvey Milk school in New York, and the hysterical Baptists rolling around on the cement in front of courthouses while Ten Commandments monuments are jackhammered out of the lobby floor.

I hope every Billy-Bawb in Dogpatch lets this issue sneak into the trailer, just for the cover. I just wish I could see all their faces when they sit down to read it.

It's thirty years old, today. How about a song for the birthday boy? Lyrics below the cut.

Clutch - 24 Earth Years

If anyone has a better copy of this unreleased outtake, I'd love to get my hands on it. Not often you hear a decent hard rock song about roleplaying games.

And to drive my nerdiness home, a few liner notes of my own.

-- Neil Fallon, Clutch's vocalist, claims he played a "druid wizard halfling" in the 1980 version of AD&D. This was impossible; Druids and Magic-Users (what they used to call Wizards back then) weren't available as a multiclass combination for demi-humans, and halflings couldn't be Magic-Users anyway back then. Of course, he could play that combination with modern rules. But it's not 1980. So Neil's either lying his ass off, or cheating his ass off. Not that I mind. He's probably too busy rocking to care about this nerd shit, anyway.

-- "Gygaxanor" is a reference to one of AD&D's creators, Gary Gygax.

-- "d20" is the bare-bones mechanics of AD&D. It encompasses die-rolling, stats, leveling, feats, etc., and it recently went open-source, meaning anyone who wants to make a roleplaying game using d20, can. d20 stands for "twenty sided die," the standard die used. Am I a loser yet?

-- The old AD&D didn't take place in Middle Earth. It was just a shameless rip-off, as most fantasy settings are. Hobbits appeared in the first printings of the rulebooks, but the Tolkien estate forced AD&D to change the name of the race to "halfling," and change the Ents to "treants." (Strangely, Orcs were okay.) Current halflings, by the way, are nothing like Hobbits. They're scrawny, wear shoes, have wanderlust, ride large dogs into battle, and have these really weird, pointy skulls. I hate 'em. Ugly.

-- Mazes and Monsters Was a super-cheesy, made-for-TV exploitation flick aired at the height of the ZOMG D&D = SATAN-WORSHIPPING panic of the 1980s. It did star Tom Hanks, and he did go insane as a combined result of too much "Mazes and Monsters" and the goofy, magical properties of the cavern he and his friends played the game in. (I am totally serious.)

AD&D was the Harry Potter of the decade; Christian groups claimed it turned kids on to the occult, and distraught parents claimed that the death of their child's character drove their child to suicide. Hilarious. There's still a (dun dun dun!) Jack Chick tract about this threat, and a lol-tastic page about the movie (with sound clips and video!!) is here. To this day, some gamers use the phrase "gone Pardeux" to describe a person way too into their character.

The hysteria was enough to convince TSR (AD&D's publishers) to change any occurance of the word "demon" and "devil" in their rulebooks into "tanar'ri" and "baatezu" for the second edition. We're now on edition 3.5, and they're basically back to being demons and devils again. You lose, holy rollers.

PS: Actually, the kids in Mazes and Monsters weren't roleplaying. They were LARPing. (Live Action Role Playing.) Tabletop roleplayers don't wear costumes. Funnily enough, to the best of my knowledge, There WEREN'T any LARPs back then.

There you have it, folks. TOM HANKS INVENTED LARPs. IS THERE ANYTHING THAT BEAUTIFUL, BEAUTIFUL MAN CAN'T DO.

Wow. This is pretty pitiful, isn't it? My apologies.

Lemme cap it off with a picture of a AD&D character of mine. Slightly NWS, so linky dinky.

That's right. I still do it. STONE ME PLZ.

Bet you were expecting some half-naked, D-cup elf chick, huh? Nah. I got tired of that Pretty Pretty Princess shit when I was four.