The soundtrack advertises a significantly Wagnerian sensibility as well.

Gygax certainly gave hat-tips to Burroughs — "White Box" D&D includes an optional Desert Encounters chart packed with Barsoomian creatures (though they're not actually statted anywhere). But definitely as the default setting crystalized through the AD&D days (in contrast with the DIY ethos of the Original game),…

It all depends on one's players, and the game system, but D&D definitely remains the Lingua Franca of RP Gaming, and pseudo-Tolkienian polytheism with Elves, Dwarves, and Halflings remains the standard cultural setting. In the current "OSR" environment there's definitely a trend toward "gonzo" games with prolific,…

It certainly seems like the sort of fate that might be in store for Michael Bay.

Even if it's for art?

I call Epiphany!

I'd expand that to pretty much the whole southern interior of the state — the "Pine Barrens" — partial inspiration for the notorious Valkenvania/Nothing But Trouble.

I recall seeing it not in complete ignorance, but I guess fairly early in the hype, and still found it enjoyably creepy. There were a number of inspired vital components to that: the "punchline" standing-in-the-corner ending; The documentary elements from the beginning of the film (including the wonderfully…

Central Pennsylvania is notoriously much like rural Alabama and Georgia. It's different primarily in being much less humid.

I'd been skipped ahead into first grade from kindergarten. My parents were approached about putting me in an "enrichment" program some time in second grade. My Father's response was: "This would be in addition to his regular school work?"
"Yes."
"If he's getting good grades now, why should I handicap him with extra…

I'm no epicurean, and I roundly mocked salt mills when I first saw them start turning up in restaurants, but they'd make perfect sense to have in restaurants in humid climes — far more sensible than the old "put in some dry grains of rice to try to stop it clumping up" trick.

That'd make for a good Office-in-space type comedy, but I fear they're more likely to go with the Captain being a grim authoritarian, and the First Officer "giving the ship a heart".

It'll be interesting to see whether they can sustain such a thing convincingly, or whether the demands of narrative are going to naturally twist this into the First Officer effectively running the ship.

It made perfect sense, and didn't even have to make the Captain into a background figure, but I suppose having so much interaction by video instead of face-to-face was considered weak from a direction and writing perspective.

The bigger deal is that "First Officer" is generally a position, not a rank, and implies that someone else is the Captain/skipper she's serving under. She's therefore probably not the "lead", unless they're making the odd choice of focusing the narrative on a subordinate officer.

If Lacuna, Inc. existed, I suspect disastrous romances might not be as big a source of customers as would moviegoers.

Do you remember how well she did?

The Fackland Islands?

I remember that TV Powww game from its WPIX (New York channel 11 cable "superstation") incarnation in the early '80s. The lag clearly hamstrung a lot of kids trying to play it. Must just resorted to jabbering "pix!pix!pix!pix!" as fast as they could and going for volume of fire instead of accuracy. That didn't usually…

You owe it to yourself to go back and watch the other two seasons (not a long binge, in the grand scheme of things). The callbacks to things like the post-apocalyptic dimension and the bodies buried in the backyard were really part of the joy of this.