long MMORPG post: LOTRO and the nature of players, plus we drop some SW:G history (HALLO ACRONYMS)

This started out as a comment to scholargipsy in a post I made on my MMO filter (which you're welcome to join if you're not already on it) but I exceeded the 4300-character comment limit (who knew?) and decided to bring the discussion out here, where you may have some extra insight into things. In the filtered post, I talked about creating a new character in Lord of the Rings Online. He is a captain by the name of Spaulding; a man with bushy black eyebrows and mustache whose bio reads "One morning I killed a warg in my pajamas. How he got into my pajamas I'll never know." You know me. I'm an MMO goof. I'll never let a good laff go by.

scholargipsy, however, was disappointed with what he'd seen of LOTRO, as he absolutely loves Tolkien, loves the lore and is an admitted Tolkien purist. The game doesn't live up to his expectations with regards to fully committing itself to the game world and the canon, and neither do the players. And he made some good points when he commented:

MMORPGs are interesting in large part because everyone can play them in their own fashion -- but Tolkien's world is for me a pure one. It has a certain aesthetic texture that is fragile and too easily broken. During the preorder, my hobbit Tolbras had to share space with Spartanguy of the race of men. That, along with the horrific character models and animations, really bugged me.

So I guess for me LOTRO would never work, Spatch, because you're one of the clever, witty ones, but even your playstyle would break "my" Tolkien.

( Okay, here's the thing as I see it. )

Stay tuned for Dragnet on most of these stations. The rest of you will get bupkis.

After listening to old-time radio for three hours straight last night, as part of our Halloween show prep, I believe I am now sufficiently qualified to make the following observations:

1. It can be quite difficult to distinguish between the voices of little kids in certain family situation comedies.
2. The more a kid whines in a family situation comedy, the more Spatch wants to turn down the volume and "pretend" he's listening.
3. If your kids won't eat our sponsor's hot cereal, tell them Hopalong Cassidy eats it and they're sure to shovel it down by the bowlful.
4. Jack Benny's valet Rochester has a brother named September. They were both named in the same fashion: Rochester was born in Rochester; his brother in September.
5. Ozzie & Harriet had a real clever way to plug their sponsor, International Silver. The Nelson family lived on 1847 Rogers Road. This is a great coincidence because International Silver made a line of silver called 1847 Rogers Silver. It's all over eBay nowadays. You can look it up.
6. According to the American Meat Institute, it's perfectly okay to pronounce the word protein with three syllables ("protean") instead of with two. At least, that's what their announcer thinks. I was trying to figure out what the hell he meant by protean meat.
7. During "the duration", everybody had at least one point in the day where they'd stop in mid-conversation and just start pontificating on how we all have to do our part and send a message to "those guys" that we don't want them ever picking a fight with us again.

BUY WAR BONDS

Epitaph for "Drive"

"Drive" was a show broadcast on the FOX Network.
It starred Nathan Fillion and was produced by Tim Minear.
Previously, Nathan Fillion was on a FOX show that the network ignored into oblivion.
And Tim Minear had produced a show for FOX that was cancelled four episodes into its run.

So when the two got together for a FOX show of their own, the network behaved exactly as you'd expect: It ignored the show, then cancelled it four episodes into its run.

I am reasonably sure there are high-level broadcast executives who never even knew this show existed.