Category: Around the Intertubes

Trisha’s Quote of the Day: The secret to Christina Applegate’s success

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The way I like to operate is to always be professional, period. It’s not that I’m trying to act professional, it’s that I really do believe that you don’t show up late to things. That’s just rude and it ruins everybody else’s operation. There are set [production assistants] PAs who’ve been there for hours before you even get there at four o’clock in the morning. Don’t complain and don’t be late. That’s just respect. Each and every person is such an integral part of what you’re doing. … Nobody’s job is less important than anyone else’s because you take one piece out of that puzzle and the whole thing collapses. For me, it’s about always being kind and loving. It’s much nicer to be happy and have a loving set than it is to have some dick running it. And I’ve been there too and it’s very uncomfortable.

—Christina Applegate, on her first major movie role in Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, via Buzzfeed

Just before reading this article, I was listening to the most recent episode of the Magnum Rewatch podcast from the folks at Loading Ready Run because it’s interesting to me to hear folks who are younger than I am talk about things I remember experiencing first-hand while I was growing up in the 1980s. The movie Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead is one of those thing I also remember watching, probably in the theaters because we had a great second-run theater near our home and my parents enjoy light-hearted movies.

In reading this article, I realized that this attitude that Applegate has towards work is one of the reasons why she’s been in show business for as long as she has. Like several other ingenues of the age, she could have flamed out or fallen on hard times, but as Jarett Wieselman writes about her work after this movie came out, Applegate “was nominated for a Tony award, three Golden Globes, and four Emmys (one of which she won in 2003 for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy on Friends).”

Kinda makes me wonder what she’ll be working on now and how soon I can get to see it.

Trisha’s Quote of the Day: Reaping the consequences of being a dick

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As a geek of the new age, most people know that the first law of writer/actor Wil Wheaton is “Don’t be a dick.” However, if you’ve ever wondered what Wheaton does when someone he personally knows and likes violates that law, you need to start reading his Tumblr ask responses.

Click to embiggen © Wil Wheaton
Click to embiggen © Wil Wheaton

In a follow-up response, Wheaton stated that he wouldn’t be participating in any future Acquisitions, Inc. adventures and encouraged people who wanted to see him introduce a continuous RPG campaign to his web series Tabletop to start watching the Geek & Sundry channel on June 9, when the IndieGoGo-funded campaign called Titansgrave: The Ashes of Valkana will start airing weekly on Tuesdays.

At least this answers the question of, “Will we ever get to see Aeofel and Viari have a contest over who is prettier?” But what I think Wheaton’s response to Kurtz’ actions also does is introduce a model of what other people can do whenever people in their lives are behaving in ways that make them extremely uncomfortable. I doubt Wheaton came to that decision very easily, but it does seem as if he and the people in his life who were hurt by Kurtz’ actions are better off for it.

Trisha’s Quote for the Day: How Penny Arcade’s Robert Khoo is more evil than mastermind

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[You] know what’s … rare? A guy who can write excellent code in several disparate languages, manage multiple different server installs, administrate databases, and configure office firewalls. All while being motivated to do “tedious” work and manage his own projects while not caring about his work/life balance and being solely focused on the job.

That’s not a unicorn, it’s something more like a deity, and it doesn’t actually exist. There is no one out there who can realistically meet that job description. What they will get instead is a jack of all trades who has mastered very few or none of them, and who will have to scramble like crazy just to meet the base requirements of the job, let alone excel at them. You know why? Because as they readily admit, it’s a job that should require four people. You get what you pay for, guys.

and

You don’t want that job. There is no upside to taking it. You’ll be worked like a dog and paid like shit while you’re doing it, while Khoo, Krahulik, and Holkins continue cashing their trade show checks.

Robert Khoo is a brilliant businessman, and such businessmen excel by finding the sucker and exploiting him or her.

Don’t be that sucker.

—Web designer and writer Christopher Buecheler lays it out to the potential applicants for a job working at Penny Arcade.

When my husband first expressed his outrage over the job posting, I didn’t think too much of it; however, reading this, I understand his anger a little better. At the same time, however, I doubt that any of the people who currently have full-time jobs (like their first employee Mike Fehlauer or most recent new hire Jamie Dillon) there are being terribly exploited.

So, my advice to any and all of the applicants out there when if they’re called in to a final interview where they start talking salary is to ask what the top person is taking home, and then maybe increase that by 50% or so. Because for a web-based company, if your electronic infrastructure breaks down, you definitely don’t want to be underpaying the guy or gal you’ve hired to maintain it.

As a side note, wouldn’t it be ironic if stories from their current web and Internet infrastructure team started appearing in The Trenches?

Trisha’s Quote of the Day: Letting artists be artists

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In the olden days, producers knew what visual effects were. Now they’ve gotten into this methodology where they’ll hire a middleman – a visual effects supervisor, and this person works for the producing studio. They’re middle managers. And when you go into a review with one of them, there’s this weird sort of competition that happens. It’s a game called ‘Find What’s Wrong With This Shot’. And there’s always going to be something wrong, because everything’s subjective. And you can micromanage it down to a pixel, and that happens all the time. We’re doing it digitally, so there’s no pressure to save on film costs or whatever, so it’s not unusual to go through 500 revisions of the same shot, moving pixels around and scrutinizing this or that. That’s not how you manage artists. You encourage artists, and then you’ll get – you know – art. If your idea of managing artists is just pointing out what’s wrong and making them fix it over and over again, you end up with artists who just stand around asking “OK lady, where do you want this sofa? You want it over there? No? Fine. You want it over there? I don’t give a fuck. I’ll put it wherever you want it.” It’s creative mismanagement, it’s part of the whole corporate modality. The fish stinks from the head on down. Back on Star Wars, Robocop, we never thought about what was wrong with a shot. We just thought about how to make it better.

—Legendary visual effects artist Phil Tippett wants many visual effects supervisors to get out of his office and go back where they came from.

Be sure to check out the rest of his AMA (Ask Me Anything) on Reddit right now!

Trisha’s Video of the Day: “The Night of the Doctor” prequel short

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It’s been a great year for fans of Doctor Who (aka Whovians) as the series approaches its special 50th anniversary episode. After Peter Capaldi (“The Thick of It,” In the Loop) was revealed as the newest incarnation of the Doctor and the announcement that the anniversary episode would be simulcast in theaters and select television stations around the world, we’re just a week or so away from fangirls and fanboys exploding with glee.

However, just to whet the audience appetites, the BBC released a mini-episode which is a prequel to the “Night of the Doctor.” And even if you’re not a rabid Whovian, there’s enough in the short to make even me lament the fact that I don’t have cable TV anymore. Click the jump to watch.

Trisha’s Quote of the Day: What do Muslims and Mormons have in common?

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I don’t recognize the Orson Scott Card I see today, but I refuse to believe that the author whose stories helped me navigate my teenage years has disappeared entirely. Others may hate him, but I’m still struggling to understand him. That’s the least I owe him for gifting me with an ethical compass when I needed one. How strange and how sad, then, that Card’s compass pointed me in one direction while he strode off in another. But maybe that’s what he had given me: a gift so sacred that even Card himself could not be allowed to understand what it meant.

—Rany Jazayerli, a sportswriter who is also Muslim, explains why he’s going to see the Ender’s Game movie despite original book author Orson Scott Card’s various problematic personal opinions.

Trisha’s Quote of the Day: When “viral” is a dirty word

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You say you want to go “viral.” I’m gonna tell you that you actually might NOT want to go legitimately “viral” and here’s why: About 90% of videos that go viral are a trap for their creators. Tay Zonday made Chocolate Rain, and regardless of the fact that he’s a talented singer and songwriter, he will forever be known as the Chocolate Rain guy. Chris Crocker isn’t known as a smart social commentator and sketch comedian, he’s known as “Leave Britney Alone.” The list goes on. The trap of going viral is that you will forever be compared to your original viral work, and viewers will be largely uninterested in anything else you have to offer. It’s like how Matthew Perry will play Chandler the rest of his life, you don’t necessarily want to blow up super-quickly… better to build an audience with a few really solid, moderately popular videos, and then continue releasing consistently good content within a specific concept or brand.

—Musical comedian Brent “brentalfloss” Black tells a fellow YouTube artist some harsh truths about how to play the “famous on the Internet” game.

I have to say that this is the most nicely critical piece of writing I’ve seen in a while. It’s easy to “go mean” when someone comes to you for advice like this; I appreciate that Black went into teacher mode instead.

You can learn more about Brent Black by visiting his website or checking out some of his YouTube videos. (Also, the video on his subscriber page that auto-plays where he explains what his channel is about for new viewers? Why don’t more YouTube artists do that?)

In Russia, game tests you!

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“Epic game development” – A development process where a lot of important information (location of critical resources, build-in cheat codes, status of some sub-systems) never gets written down, but instead is passed by the word of mouth from developer to developer, like a folk tale. Most game development in Russia is Epic.

—Anonymous, explaining some terms unique to Russian video game testers.

How to win the “hearts and minds” of dickwolf-loving folks

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That was absolutely beautiful, and actually changed my mind about the Dickwolf shirts.

Internet confession: I was the one who yelled “bring them back”. I didn’t do it because I hate feminists. I didn’t do it because I hate women. I did it because I felt like those shirts were a justified “fuck you” to a section of humans that were rallying, unnecessarily, against a good joke. I didn’t know how wrong I was until right now.

Thanks for helping me straighten that out in my head.

—Penny Arcade fan Justin Winzey gains a level in Sensitivity, thanks to MC Frontalot. Read MC’s essay first, then scroll to read this comment.

Trisha’s Cosplay Pic of the Day: Princess Leia at San Diego Comic Con

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Princess Leia at San Diego Comic Con // Picture by Carrie Goldman // Click to enlarge
Princess Leia at San Diego Comic Con // Picture by Carrie Goldman // Click to enlarge

A long time ago, on an Internet far, far away, Carrie Goldman’s parenting blog “Portrait of an Adoption” was swarmed by Star Wars fans who wanted to show her daughter Katie that it was totally okay for girls to like the movie and series.

Now, Goldman is at San Diego Comic Con to moderate the con’s first-ever panel about “anti-bullying” on Sunday at 4:00 pm in Room 4, featuring panelists like NOH8 founder Adam Bouska, TV writer Jane Espenson (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Once Upon a Time”), and voice actor and entrepreneur Ashley Eckstein (“Star Wars: The Clone Wars,” Her Universe). She’s also there to promote the book she wrote, Bullied: What Every Parent, Teacher, and Kid Needs to Know About Ending the Cycle of Fear, which grew out of her work with Katie’s school to address the “bullying” problem.

And like most people who go to Comic Con for the first time, Goldman posted a selection of her favorite photos of people in cosplay. But what strikes me about her selection of photos and captions is that Goldman emphasizes how much fun everyone in her photos is having or how great they look, not how “hot” or “sexy” or whatever.

(Also, this Princess Leia? So much gravitas!)

It’s a nice, refreshing change, and if her panel goes well tomorrow, I hope to see more of this kind of refreshing change when viewing cosplay galleries.

Trisha’s Link of the Day: “The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage”

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If you were to ask me where you could find a webcomic which tells the tale of Charles Babbage’s self-proclaimed war against street musicians, I wouldn’t have had any recommendations for you… until now.

The Organist part 1 (c) Sydney Padua // Click to enlarge
The Organist part 1 (c) Sydney Padua // Click to enlarge

With its tongue lodged firmly within its cheek, I present to you this short story arc out of “2D Goggles or The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage,” lovingly entitled “The Organist” by Canadian illustrator Sydney Padua.

Much thanks to Jane Irwin and her comic Clockwork Game for the hat tip.

Trisha’s Quote of the Day: Why joke-thieves will never prosper

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But why is it—and this only seems to apply to comedy—that some people so deeply resent those that can write jokes, can invent new perceptions of the world that actually make people laugh? Resent them so much that they have to denigrate the entire profession, just so they can feel better about themselves? Do they really think they’re less of a person if they can’t make up a joke, or be funny in the moment? Why is it so crucial to them? Is it because all of us, at some point of darkness or confusion or existential despair, were amazed at how absurd a thing as a simple joke suddenly lit the way, or warmed the cold, or made the sheer, horrific insanity that sometimes comes with being alive suddenly, completely, miraculously manageable?

Those people—the public and, sadly, a lot of journalists—those people were my target, in all of my seemingly “unmeasured responses” to thievery. Because I can’t stop joke thieves. They’re always going to be there.

But what I can hopefully stop—or, at least, change for the better—is the public (and media’s) response to joke thieves, by hammering away at this same, exhausting refrain every time I see some thumb-sucking “think piece” by a writer who should fucking know better, cyber-quacking away about “cover songs” and “vaudeville” and a million other euphemisms and deflections away from the simple fact that an uncreative person took a creative person’s work, signed their name to it, and passed it off as their own for their personal glorification, monetary benefit and career advancement. There’s no wiggle room there. Even the thieves know that, better than the dullards who are rationalizing and defending them.

—Comedian/actor Patton Oswalt, educating the media on why he’ll never be sympathetic to joke-thieves. The other two parts on heckling and the ongoing discussion about rape jokes are worth reading as well.

Trisha’s Video of the Day: GODDAMNIT, Neil Patrick Harris!

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Why the fuck can’t the people who put on the Oscars have this much fun with opening numbers?

Also. while not as epic as his closing rap number from 2011 (check out how it was written!), his closing number with singer/actress Audra McDonald as also quite sweet.

Trisha’s Music Video of the Day: “Might Get Up Slow”

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In the same vein as Punks Not Dad, I present to you No Small Children, composed of three schoolteachers from Los Angeles, California named Lisa Parade (lead singer, lead guitar), Nicola B. (drums), and Joanie Pimentel (bass). I totally love their look and sound, and I wish that I had the confidence that they seem to exude from their pores and hair follicles.