Hello, loyal Spwug readers!

Katy and I apologize for not posting much recently, things have been crazy at home.

This is not a post saying that Spwug is ending, because it’s not. Nor is it a post saying that Katy and I will be posting more, because that’s in the air.

However, it IS a post saying that in a week or two, there will be a call for writers! If you’ve ever wanted to write for a geek culture magazine, here’s your chance!

Just keep an eye on this space, and I’ll have the details up as soon as I can.

Thanks!

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As many people know, the earthquakes that happened last month in China have been devastating. We have seen the reports, and know of the horrors that have happened.

But I believe that this page of comics (http://www.paulgravett.com/articles/133_china/133_china.htm) shows us some stories that we haven’t seen here in the U.S. (and possibly in other countries as well)

Warning: The stories are very moving, so if you’re someplace where you don’t want to have people see you cry, you may want to wait until you’re home.

Our thoughts go out to the people in China affected by these tragedy, and to all of those people in other places (like Burma) who are dealing with their own tragedies.

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So Katy and I went to a Jonathan Coulton concert last night, at the House of Blues in Los Angeles. The concert was incredible, but I’ll leave the concert reports for more dedicated bloggers.

What I want to talk about is the opening band.

The comedy music duo known as Paul and Storm were the opening act, and they started with a hilarious song sending up their own status as an opening band called “Opening Band”. And from there, things just kept getting funnier. There were points where we both were laughing so hard we were tearing up.

Their songs run the gamut from parodies to satire to plain old comedy. From a Schoolhouse Rock parody about counting to ten (“Count To Ten”) to their idea of what a theme song for the Lord of the Rings would sound like if it were written by Randy Newman (“Randy Newman’s ‘Theme from The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King’”), their songs all had the audience laughing loud and long. They also sang several fake commercial jingles that they come up with, covering products from kitty litter to Necco wafers.

I have the feeling that a lot of Jonathan Coulton fans (including myself and Katy) became Paul and Storm fans that night as well.

Check them out, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. (Warning: They do swear in their songs sometimes.)

So, dear readers, do you have any favorite comedy musicians (beyond Weird Al, Jonathan Coulton, and Paul and Storm)? Do they have any specific shticks that set them apart?

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And thus, no post this week, either. My apologies, folks.

Hopefully I’ll have this figured out soon.

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I was watching a preview of the upcoming episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender, and there’s a conversation between Zuko and Sokka that caught my eye ear.

Warning: POSSIBLE SPOILER

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POSSIBLE SPOILER:

Sokka: My first girlfriend turned into the Moon.

Zuko: *thinks for a second, then completely seriously says:* That’s rough, buddy.

This is one of the funnier and more unexpected things I’ve heard recently.

So, have you ever run into a line or lines in a show that made you stop in your tracks, thinking, “Did they just say that?” What was the line? Do you use the line yourself?

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Sorry for the constant delays, folks. Things have been a little on the crazy side.

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Sorry, folks. Have a stomach flu.

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Late again. Sorry, folks.

How many of you play video games? And how many of you care how good the games you play look?

As I’ve looked at the video games released in the past few years, there have been two trends that I’ve noticed when it comes to graphics.

One is the ‘we need to push the envelope as hard as we can’ trend, where games like Crysis require the absolute best possible machines to run them in their full glory. Games where it is not uncommon to hear, “I’m upgrading X on my PC so I can play Y,” in reference to that game.

On the other hand, though, there is also a movement of ‘let’s make it so this game can run on as many machines and consoles as possible’. Games like World of Warcraft and many of the games that are fully cross-platform, which garner comments like, “Well, it’s not the prettiest game out there, but it still looks pretty good.”

I understand the desire to have the most badass, beautiful game out there, but at the same time, as a member of the game industry, I’d rather have my game being purchased and played by as many people as reasonably possible.

It raises the question of how important graphics are to the average user these days. Is it worth satisfying one segment of the buying population to lock out another?

So, which camp, if either, are you in? Do you think games should always be on the bleeding edge of technology, or do you think games should be playable by the largest number possible?

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I’ll have my post up tonight or tomorrow, folks. Sorry for the delay.

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Like many geeks of my generation, I have a special place in my heart for old shows, cartoon and live action, from my childhood. And like many geeks with a reasonable amount of disposable income, I have tried watching some of these old shows again.

They don’t always hold up. The years have not been kind to the quality of film, to the acting, to the writing in the show.

But sometimes they do. And do so well. I think so, at least.

Two of my all-time favorite shows from the 80s were the Centurions and the Bionic Six. I had a discussion about old shows with a friend recently, and decided to look for footage on YouTube. I was not disappointed. (Warning: My opinion on these shows is positive, but your mileage may vary.)

The Centurions was about three (then later, five) rugged men, all built like barbarians, who used special suits that fused with various weapon systems. These weapon systems allowed Ace McCloud and his friends to fight the forces of the evil ‘Doc Terror’, and his cyborg lackey, ‘Hacker’. The show was kind of hokey, and no one ever died, but the action was neat, the ideas were interesting, and they even had ‘science lessons’ at the end.

Most importantly, the toys were pretty cool. (I had Jake Rockwell and his base weapon system.)

The Bionic Six was also set in the near future, and centered around the Bennett Family; an unusual group that, through adoption, covered much of the ethnic rainbow. Through a fairly strange contrivance, the family, sans the father, falls comatose due to the influence of an alien device. Only by ‘bionic-izing’ the family, as the father already has been, can they be saved. Once the family was made bionic, they ended up fighting Scarab, a mad genius bent on world conquest, and his twisted minions.

Neither of these shows have been released on DVD yet (not officially, at least), but if they ever are, I will be one of the first in line to get them. I’d be behind a remake, too, just to see how they treated the licenses.

So, what are some of the special shows from your childhood? Have you watched them again recently? Do you still love them, despite the passage of time? Do you think they would be good fodder for a remake? And will I ever write anything interesting again?

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