How nerdy are you?This week Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons, died. A whole generation of pasty dice-obsessed nerds owes him big time. Me included.
So, in his honour, how nerdy were you? Are you still sunlight-averse? What are the sad little things you do that nobody else understands?
As an example, a B3ta regular who shall remain nameless told us, "I spent an entire school summer holiday getting my BBC Model B computer to produce filthy stories from an extensive database of names, nouns, adjectives, stock phrases and deviant sexual practices. It revolutionised the porn magazine dirty letter writing industry for ever.
Revel in your own nerdiness.
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chthonic, Thu 6 Mar 2008, 10:32)
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Deliberate mistake?I spotted the punctuation error in the QOTW... oh, and I've been involved with a few home movie projects with a couple of friends (not that sort!).
The movie thing started when we were 6th formers (aged about 17 for any 'Merkins out there), and my friend who we shall call "G" started to reminisce about the film he made when he was 7 years old. It was called "The Robbery" and was pretty much what you'd expect of a 7 year old (i.e crap in an endearing sort of way). Skip forward five years to when G was 12... he made "The Robbery 2".
The idea came about - more than likely due to the consumption of shitloads of alcohol - that we should make "The Robbery 3". And so we did. And it was shite, but we had great fun writing, filming and acting in it... thanks to more alcohol...
The more perceptive among you will have spotted that a five-year cycle of film making had been happening; sadly this stopped when it would have been time to make "The Robbery 4", we were all too busy with finishing uni and trying to blag our first proper jobs (not strictly true, we made another couple of films over the intervening years, so the cycle was already messed up, although the "The Robbery" franchise, for want of a better word, was left untouched). Let's face it, on previous evidence none of us would ever make it as actors/scriptwriters/producers/directors.
However, 2009 sees the 20th anniversary of G's first film. Frankly, it's an opportunity we can't let go of. Other friends have heard about our plans and are surprisingly keen on being involved. This fact concerns me, as it means that our other friends are as nerdy as us - possibly more so.
A couple of points...
- The Robbery 3 (or TR3 as we sadly call it when we talk about it - which is surprisingly often) was filmed mainly on location at G's house. The scenes in his bedroom - stop sniggering at the back - feature a Star Trek Next Generation wall clock.
- Part of the soundtrack was ripped off from a Quantum Leap CD
- We Photoshopped a picture of me (badly) to fake a past identity for my character*.
- The obligatory death scene made use of obscene amounts of Tomato Ketchup. Which didn't even show up on the camera we were using. Bah.
- The obligatory shoot-out scene just before the end features me getting shot in the head*; the effect was achieved using tomato ketchup again, and the entry wound was remarkably clean. It looked more like the red dot more usually witnessed on some Asian ladies' foreheads (called a "Bindi", I believe)
- The bullet causing said gunshot wound must have had time-travelling abilities, or proved to be lethal at approximately 0.09735 MPH. Thanks to the complete lack of proper editing equipment (an early minidisc deck, and 2 VCRs) meant that we couldn't sync overdubs very well, the result being that the gunshot was heard about 5 seconds before it killed my character off.
- G and "B" (the other friend involved) have made an extended DVD including all 3 existing robbery films, and featuring optional commentaries for each.
- I have watched said DVD (including commentaries) at least 3 times, and as I type this I can see it (resplendent in its specially-designed DVD case) staring back at me from the shelf.
*Apologies for the plot spoiler.
Length? About 55 minutes for all three films plus commentaries...
(, Wed 12 Mar 2008, 21:16, 2 replies)
we did stuff like that as teenagersmy favorite was a soap-opera written in latin......with commercials. Thankfully we had a super-nerd, who also worked for a local TV station, do our editing so it looked good.
Content wasn't so hot, but it did *look* good.
Have you ever thought of posting your trilogy anywhere for the viewing pleasure of others?
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flirting with badgers What? It sounded good at the time., Thu 13 Mar 2008, 0:43,
closed)
Well...... G wants to put the upcoming fourth one on YouTube or something but it's not decided yet - in the meantime there's a couple of trailers that he's made (forgot to drop that into the main story) which I reckon could make their way onto there. Only problem is, I don't have copies of the trailers - next time I speak to him I'll let him know that the world demands we do this*.
* may contain traces of exaggeration
--EDIT--
badgers, I just re-read your reply - Latin?!? I'm hugeley impressed and out-geeked at a stroke!
(, Thu 13 Mar 2008, 7:57, closed)
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