thebitterguy

Some people were (okay, james_nicoll was) curious about what had happened to Pierre Savoie, revered Usenet lunatic and the strychnine of many an RPG mailing list.

Well, rumours of his death aside, Pierre is alive and well. He seems to have eschewed the gaming subculture entirely, in favour of electronic music and writing nutty letters to the editor to Eye Magazine on his pet topic, that being the superiority of the secular white man. Here’s one from last October.

HOLY WAR CONTINUES
Theresa Smyth, in responding to another letter, claimed that "the West's Christian inheritance" led to freedoms (Letters, Oct. 12). I once debunked claims of Christianity leading to progress in a most public way on Citytv's Speaker's Corner -- and I won the weekly prize! I pointed out that in the Middle Ages with European society in firm religious control, there was no progress to be seen. How is that consistent with the claim religion promotes freedoms? It was secularism, arising while Catholics and Protestants were busy weakening each other and leaving everyone sick of religion, that led to massive social progress in the Age of Enlightenment. PIERRE SAVOIE

He won a prize on Speaker’s Corner. Awesome. I think I won a prize on SC once.

zenten posted this post, which led me to this post about gamer/GM tension. Now, naturally, other people's pain makes for good reading, but then I saw it was Larpers, and that's even better.

Here's a line taken out of context!

I am inclined to defer to the Storytellers because they are the ones who are putting a ridiculous amount of time and energy and money down in order to make the game happen.

If they decided that only players who donated $30 a game and arranged for the STs to get lap dances at BareFax could have more than 3 in any Trait or Discipline, that would *still* be a codified system for justification, and I would still defer to their decision.

Man, that's the greatest thing ever.

It's like Christmas! And apparently, his problem is a complete dedication to taking everyone completely seriously, even people who post in livejournals titled "The Bitter Guide to the Bitter Guide." I think he's confused a broken compass for his sarcasm-meter.

It's good to know how important I am to people. How they hang on my every word. Oh, Miss Nova, do tell me mine is prettiest!*

Wait, that made no sense. Feh. I'm really very tired of this, so whaddafuck. I did get to spend a stupid amount of money at Dragon Lady yesterday on my way to game.

That Brave New World 80 page special for a dollar? Rip off (and, once again: DOLLAR). Three half good stories and a few more lame ones, and a final reveal that came as only a mild surprise to anyone who has even a passing familiarity with the original Crisis (which, really, probably excludes, say, comics columnists who didn't start reading until '88, not to name names) and saw the front page.

Civil War continues to be a better read than I'd hoped. I'm cherry picking what to get, this week getting Front Line 2 and ASM. The big reveal of CW 2 gets an aftermath here. papajoemambo posted a few pages of it, which were interesting. I'm personally disappointed that JJJ didn't have steam venting out of his ears. The villain reactions were brief, but Dr. Ock looked so very, very disappointed. "He was almost my nephew!" his slumped shoulders scream.

Frontline was almost interesting, but even the story fragments we got in it felt padded out. So, SHIELD is recruiting Normal Osborne? That reeks of bullshit. The Speedball story, as well, is painfully bad. The bit with Iron Man contrasted to Ceaser crossing the Rubicon was neat, more interesting than the painfully sincere.

Ultimates 2: 11 just reminded me why I should be getting it as a trade instead of a single. Jesus, didn't I wait four months for this issue? How the hell did Hawkeye get back to the states? At least he has bandaids on his fingers. I mean, the gap between issues could allow them to release an entire miniseries inbetween, and do a quick recap at the end, much like Lost only more morally ambiguous. I swear, next time I skip the issues and get the trade. Fuck 'em.

52: Okay, they win. I'm gonna buy it. This week's felt kind of thin, compared to previously (Where's Egg Fu!? Where's the Legion of Chinese Super Heroes?! Where's Black Adam's Axis of Super Type People Who Do Stuff Proactively? Gimme some more of that!) but was okay. And shouldn't Booster be, oh, looking into the time issue? I think the main problem was that too much of this issue was dedicated to Irons & Luthor, which just aren't as interesting as the other stories.

Action 840: Oh, sweet. Superman takes down Luther, and makes him his bitch. And confirms that he don't put his Kal Hancock on body parts (which is dumb, really. I think that chick was looking for a little Krypto-lovin'. What about babies? Will he sign babies?). Man, I hope the Super-Books continue to be this super. I love Busiek so very, very much.

And I also got #5 in the Y: The Last Man trades. Oh, it just gets better and better. How much better? Ninjas. It was more enjoyable than #4, since the story got to an interesting part.

papajoemambo recommended WE3 to me last weekend, and l picked it up before the Serenity screening. Man, you know, I'm a bit of an animal lover, so that was a great story, even if I did get a little weepy at the end. Not "Rose and Bernard together again" weepy, but misty.

*Comic geek joke. It's funny. Just fuckin' trust me.

Let me say this about whatsisname at that place. He got off EASY compared to Gleiberman.

I tend to enjoy Comics Should Be Good very much. But this review of Infinite Crisis was just... disappointing. Especially after the enjoyable reviews of the preliminary miniseries.

I mean, really. No one should be reviewing comics who doesn't know enough to recognize the awesomeness of the purple death ray. I'm sorry; call me a pedant if you will, but that’s where I draw my line.

If you can't recognize the Purple Healing Ray, you officially can’t be a comics reviewer.

Man, between this and the previous column, it looks like CSBG will just be the UL column from now on. Shame, but nothing lasts forever.