It smells like Doritos and Mountain Dew ...

"Doctor, there's an infection in my dice-throwing hand."

"Yes, it's ... Gamegrene."

New link added in Gaming, of the pen-and-paper kind. Smart essays without navel-gazing. Some good OGL stuff, and practical guides ot out-of-the-way systems. They're spot-on with a mention that D20 Call of Cthulhu was a well-designed and unjustly discarded system.

Oh, and you'll notice a Creative Commons tag down and to the right. I'm going to start popping up some gaming ideas here soon; some more serious articles on media theory are also due; and some teachers have asked permission to link to and summarize some of the screenwriting articles, so this seemed in order. The CC site itself is very clear and helpful -- I wound up using the cartoons provided to guide me in chossing which variant of license I wanted.

I wonder, although it would take a gamer/lawyer multiclass to be sure (don't allow it, GM's, the Lawyer's front-loaded), whether one could fold the OGL concept of D20 gaming into a specific Creative Commons license. Anyone?

Cool Tools

Mark Waid, I know you're reading this. I know you're indulging your OCD rather than finishing the new issue of Legion. Do NOT follow this link to Cool Tools, a collection of the best gadgets for doing everything, everything including things you didn't know you did. If you follow.

Silly Putty by the pound, people.

It's ... full of stars ...

Skinning/Mining for teh gp, baby.

As I debate more/less/better categories to the right, I'm forced to put Alice's delightful, thorough Wonderland in Technogeekery until I bite the bullet and split off a Computer Gaming Section. London-based tech/gaming writer, a perfect blend of gaming enthusiasm and tight reporting style.

Direct to ... your heart.

There are many, many resources on the Interwebs for aspiring film humans. Many of them are big, popular, and well-linked. Besides providing my own little insight crumbs, I hope to point you at some of the side-roads -- useful side-roads -- for examining the industry.

Bill Cunningham is in the movie business. The direct-to-video movie business. Yes, those. And you know what that means, kids? That means he knows more about making movies than EVERY FILM STUDENT GRADUATE FROM ANY FILM SCHOOL ... EVER.

He doesn't have much content up yet, and he's much less annoyingly pedantic than I. I'm hoping he starts tossing out more hard stats and how-to's, but it's an interesting window into a world of storytelling most of us take for granted. Go look at the working writer-producer, goateed ones,
at DISC/ontent.

Index-fu

The first of the humans who received a preview of LOOK Magazine, EW's sweet new movie-insider magazine, are drifting over. There's a link from my article -- about writing the first draft of a "blockbuster" -- over to here at Kung Fu Monkey.

As the article's in the screenwriting section, I have to assume most of you are here for that sort of thing. Here's a quick summary of the more on-point articles of banging out movies here on the blog. Then, what the heck, some of the other stuff I like.

Writing:

Writing Life
Writing: Beginning
Writing: Whose Viewpoint?
Eternity Has Residuals
Writing: Adaptation (Pt.1)
Writing: Adaptation (Pt. 2)
Writing: Adaptation (Pt. 3)
TV: Corner Gas
Writing: Adaptation (Pt.4)

The True Geek Conversations(tm)

#3892: Batman vs. Punisher
#651: Catwoman Edition
# 5643: Ju-On, Red State Version
#36679: In Which Bo & Luke Duke Kick a New York Jewish Election Worker to Death
#36679 cont'd: Sophie Mae's Choice

Political Humor:

Who's Your Daddy, Broward County?
I Miss Republicans (nominated for a Koufax, spiffy!)
Spongiform Sexuality
Win Kamchatka, Win the World
Oh. Oh, Canada.

Comics and Geekery

Fandamentalism
The famous "Geek Hierarchy" Chart
Moral Advantage: Gamer
Comics: Year of the Bummer
Comics: Womb Crazy!
Wold Newton Universe
Zombie News/ ZOMBIE TALES

... and, just because it was always my favorite:

Top 10 John Wayne Titles That Could Also Be Porn Titles.

Zombie news

Well, this is kinda cool. Now that I've mastered posting pictures to my blog precisely thirty-two months after everyone else has, Ross has asked me to preview my story in ZOMBIE TALES to promo the book. We're going to do a tie-in with my favorite movie website, as I understand, so you can buy the book online.

Starting this afternoon, I'll be posting my story, Daddy Smells Different, here at the Monkey. At the end of the preview, if you dig it, and want to see more zombie goodness from Giffen (and an alt cover bythe Giff), Waid, Cosby, Nelson, Stokes, et al, then we'll have a link and a Paypal button.

From Ross Richie's premiere anthology book at BOOM!, (he's got a blog up until his main website's done) -- the first page of my story for ZOMBIE TALES.

Geek Sunday

Just because I had lunch with Waid on Friday, a link to Ctrl+Alt+Del's take on the Fantastic Four.

And Warren reviews the new Doctor Who. I am giddy. I once dressed like the Tom Baker Doc for Halloween as a kid. Okay, in college. Okay, on my wedding night. Fine.

There's a joke in there about a full-size Dalek costume and a voice-synthed "De-virgin-ate! DE-VIRGIN-ATE!" but I don't have the heart for it.

Coming this week -- a preview of Ross Richie's new anthology book for his brand new company BOOM! Studios. It's filled with such luminaries as Mark Waid, Keith Giffen, Andy Cosby, and a couple of us newbies.