All the world is waiting for her.
Apr 14I think I’ve found our Wonder Woman.
Her name is Missy Peregrym. Her credits are thin. Some minor TV work, including a role on the short-lived ABC series Life As We Know It. She’s in that silly gymnastics movie due out later this month.
And she’s Wonder Woman.
Mickey Hates Downloaders.
Apr 13While we’re on the subject of the paranoid folk at Disney, it should shock maybe a few that the corporate monolith soon to consume the souls of every living being on the planet (and I LIKE Disney) hates illegal downloading.
So much so, in fact, that they used the occasion of a random episode of their series The Proud Family to send a “Stealing music is BAD!” message to all the impressionable kids out there. See, there’s this program called EZ Jackster (ooh, clever!) and kids use it to get music, but it’s free, but it’s stealing, and blah blah blah. The evil kid who turns the good kid onto the program even has a line like, “I know you are afraid I am trying to show you a world without rules.” To which the good kid of course replies, “Yes I AM! Kids need rules. And rich music artists like Metallica need more cash to wipe their ass with.”
I can only assume that this went into production during Eisner’s reign of terror, and that Bob Iger wouldn’t be caught dead sending such a message, since he’s betting the farm that today’s kids want to buy his shit off iTunes.
WikiWikiWhack: The Walt Disney Company, Robert Iger
Disney to create Pirate MMO – Chris is dubious
Apr 13Disney has announce they’re doing a massively multiplayer video game based on Pirates of the Carribean – the game will be free to download and install, but there will be a monthly subscription. This is in the wake of Toontown, an MMO where you got to be a toon. I played Toontown and it was fun, but it has some catches. The first was names were heavily censored, which is fine. I didn’t need to see a cartoon rabbit named “j3w-h8r” running around (I actually saw that name – and H1tler. Because people are fucks.)
The second catch is that being a Disney game, they are very paranoid about people being able to talk to one another, their rationale being that this is a slippery slope to child molestation. And they’re not half wrong, though there’s certainly a large amount of protecting themselves from litigation behind it, not just protecting kids. So, the solution was that there was a fairly robust set of canned talk. I think if you were friends (a system I don’t properly recall – it was four years ago), you could chat, but here’s my point: talking to a handful of people normally while everyone else runs around going “Arr!” is fun for about 15 minutes, then it starts to suck. So, I’m curious how it’s going to work.
In the meantime, why not play Puzzle Pirates? Same idea, only you interact through puzzles. Jobs on a ship? Abstracted as a puzzle. Want to have a sword fight? A puzzle very much like Super Puzzle Fighter. It’s free to play (there’s more personalization if you play), and it’ll run on systems that will burst into flame if they tried to run a 3D game, I’m telling you.
Scorpy Alert!
Apr 13‘Scapers take note: the awesome Wayne Pygram, aka Scorpius, appears on tonight’s episode of Lost!
(A few small details about what he’s playing on Spoiler Fix, but don’t look if you don’t want to know — there are general SPOILERS for the eppy as well.)
Man, Lost is good at finding perfect geek god actors for the guest roles. I mean, Mira Furlan? Clancy Brown? Damn! How about a part for Armin Shimerman?
Return of the Grups
Apr 12What’s this? Within a week, I’ve come across two fairly mainstream uses of the term “grup” — yes, as in “grown-up,” as in Original Trek. First, the writer of this article used it to define a new breed of adult, also known as yupsters, yindies and alterna-yuppies. Then, April, Luke’s nerdy, kind of annoying plot device of a daughter used it on this week’s ep of Gilmore Girls.
Is “grup” the new hipster-nerd word (ie, used by people who fervently insist they are “nerds,” yet still know in their heart of hearts that they are way cooler than you)? Or perhaps merely the new insider nerd-cool word (ie, something nerds use to show they are in the inner circle of nerdiness — see also: frak, frell)?
