I got this from my sis, who got this from the following link:

The A-TEAM Movie

If you've been holding your breath for The A-Team movie, well, we feel sorry for you.

But help is on the way for you and your oxygen-deprived brain. So just hold on. Until June 12. Of next year. Feel better? You should, actually.

The release date, as reported by Variety, is the first for the long-discussed, long-suffering project.

John Singleton, who last yelled cut on Four Brothers, will direct; Michael Bandt and Derek Haas, who helped shoot the lights out with 3:10 to Yuma, are writing the screenplay.

As reported, the movie will follow the basic recipe of the 1983-87 TV series: Take four ex-military men; add one war crime they didn't commit; mix in chases, pursuits and more chases.

TubeWatch: 30 Rock

I follow the TV Show 30 Rock. It appeals to my sense of humor, and the characters are somehow both archetypal and unique. The situations usually start somewhat plausibly and in grand network TV tradition spiral into silliness without sacrificing my viewer engagement.

I also like the occasional breaking of the fourth wall to do some serious entertaining while still pushing the storylines forward.

Check out this YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uU8PED5JF8s

It's no secret that I'm a fan of the Hero System, especially the Champions super-heroic setting.

Recently, there have been two announcements that promise to shake up the Hero System fandom:

1. Hero Games is coming out with a 6th Edition set of its rules in 2009;
2. Cryptic Studios is coming out with an MMORPG based on the Champions setting in 2009.
   

According to the Hero Games website, the reason they're coming out with the 6th Ed is to take advantage of the marketing opportunites that the MMORPG will provide them. They want to revise the rules to make it easier for fresh blood to jump onboard to the pen-and-paper RPG bandwagon (with the Hero System as the prime candidate for initial gameplay). It's also been mentioned that the Champions and Dark Champions intellectual property has been purchased by Cryptic Studios:

"Cryptic bought the Champions and Dark Champions intellectual property from us — the characters, places, events, and so on — and licensed back to us the right to produce Champions RPG books."

Interestingly, the RULES of the Hero System still belong to Hero Games.

To me this implies that if things go all crappy down the line, Hero Games doesn't own the settings that they created in these genres, but still retain copyright on the ruleset. It also means that Hero Games can technically use all that nice art in their 6th Edition books.

The Cryptic Studios website has a link to the Champions Online MMORPG website and there you'll find the general level of art that I hope to see in the Hero Games books come 2009.

Those Awful Green Things...

Just recently, my wife and I found ourselves looking to overcome boredom (and a potential onset of pregnancy-fuelled nausea), and after enduring several card games that are somewhat boring with two players, I pulled out my copy of "The Awful Green Things from Outer Space."

This is a classic boardgame currently published by Steve Jackson Games, and is surprisingly fun.

The Awful Green Things (played by me) were ultimately defeated by the valiant crew of the ship ZNUTAR (played by my wife). The captain of the ship did extremely well, as did the Robot (before it was destroyed by three adult AGTs). One of the pilots managed to evade them until the showdown in one of the rooms, where he and his fellow pilot were finally eliminated.

Gameplay has interesting choices for the AGT side (which AGTs do I grow this round, and where do I place them) and for the Crew side (which weapons do I use/test, what crew members do I send out). The only problem we really had was handling the counters, which were small and tended to slide on the uneven bed.

The Internet, Computers, College, and Guido

That's not his real name, but this guy's an old classmate and roomie of mine from college.

In fact, as on the occasions that we've briefly exchanged e-mail o'er the internet, I was reminded that my initiation to complex world of the Internet, electronics and computers began in those years.

I was, of course, a dabbler in computing - having cut my teeth on Basic and messing around with the old Apple II clones - but I was no where near the level of knowledge and sophistication of Guido. In fact, he introduced me to some of the folks at the Computer Engineering lab and we stomped around in MUDs and I slowly learned about TCP/IP and e-mail and the early HTML uses. I can still remember the lab TAs and some of the students discussing the performance of the early Mosaic browsers and how it compare to Lynx.

Now he's here, visiting along with his girlfriend, and I hope he enjoys his visit (and maybe we'll find a slice of time to meet up, even for a few hours at the airport)!

Philippine Speculative Fiction III Book Launch

My short story "The Death and Rebirth of Nathaniel Alan Sempio" appears in Philippine Speculative Fiction, Volume III. PSF III was launched last Friday, and pictured are the authors who attended and, of course, the editors and hosts of the event!

Go out and buy a copy to see what all the fuss is about, hehe.

Stopping World War III

Folks from my generation (and my parents too, of course) grew up in fear of a Nuclear War. There's a term you all might be familiar with: Mutually Assured Destruction. This theory posited that if both sides of a war (let's say, oh, the U.S. and Russia) knew that starting a war would end up with BOTH sides effectively losing, then no one would start a war.

There were movies that fanned the flames of our fear: The Day After showed us what the effects of such a war might be, War Games argued one possible start of that war, By Dawn's Early Light depicted the possible start and hopeful end to such a war.

But those were just movies, some might say. Nothing like that could really happen, right?

In a world that's seen the towers of the World Trade Center crumble on live TV and many subsequent retellings of the triumphs and tragedies on that day, is such a thing so far fetched? How many people have performed heroically in an effort to stave off World War III?

Here's one such person: Stanislav Petrov.

When his systems told him a limited nuclear strike from the U.S.A. had been launched, for various reasons based on fact and on instinct, he bravely refused to acknowledge the computer system's warnings. Had he been wrong, Russia would have been hit by several nuclear missiles. Had he followed protocols and reported the incoming American missiles, his superiors might have launched a catastrophic assault against their enemies, triggering the start of WWIII.

In the end, he was proven right: the system had malfunctioned.

However, because he had not followed protocols or had perhaps embarassed his superiors by exposing flaws in the Soviet military machine, his promising military career was ended.

Here's another such person: Vasiliy Arkhipov.

Here are twenty other "almosts".

It's good to be alive.

Snippets of Philippine History

Those Sneaky Japanese

Before the Japanese invaded the Philippines, they did their spadework. Imperial Japan had the very sneaky tactic of sending immigrants into our young country, and having them work as different types of shop owners. They were very friendly, constantly asking questions like, "how's business?" and "how old is your son now?" and "aren't you related to...?" and "any news from your father who's in the armed forces?"

When they finally invaded, many of these unassuming spies were contacted. They provided lists and some even oversaw the rounding up of scions from the prominent families, family members with ties to the military, and people with important jobs and useful intelligence.

Interestingly enough, this little bit came from an American who lived in the Philippines at the time and experienced this first-hand.

Benjo-Boy

My grandfather's nickname was "Benjo" which is Japanese for bathroom. He knew its meaning, being quite well versed in Japanese (he had a gift for language), and wore it with pride. During the war, he had been assigned as the "benjo boy", the one assigned to clean up the bathroom. Apparently, the Japanese felt sorry for him and so gave him greater latitude than the other prisoners in that Fort.

Naturally, he used this surprising relaxation of rules to send messages back and forth between the imprisoned soldiers to their families (and perhaps other interested parties), endearing him to many of them.

From my father and ninong's recollections of my lolo's history.