Painting With Shotguns XIV

  • Cash and Bullets

    That Roman numeral is pronounced “zheev.”

    This is gonna be a short one, I think, but here goes –

    Ch-chak.

    It’s Painting with the Shogun! Er, I mean, shotgun.

    • Holy shit, I have news, but I can’t tell you about it. This news is bad-ass. It’s nuclear. I mean, it’s not global thermonuclear war, but it would destroy a small city on the Eastern seaboard. Portland, Maine? Miami, Florida? Say goodbye, coastal cities. Foom. I hope to be able to share the news in the next couple weeks. Watch this space, nerds.
    • Come. Tumble with me. Tumble in the meadow. Tumble in the dale. (A roll, roll, roll in ze hay.) For instance, you might see Velma from Scooby Doo as a monster hunter. I’m just sayin’.
    • You ever go to a high school reunion? Did it. First time. The 15 years have come and gone and there came the reunion, and there went the reunion. It was a fine time, though I don’t know it was so good I’d be hungry to do one every 30 days (“It’s our 185 month reunion!”). It was just like they said in Grosse Pointe Blank: “It was just as if everyone had swelled.” (Myself super-included.) Caught up with some good people, failed to catch up with a bunch of others, failed to recognize other still. It amazes me how some people — people I knew — seem to have literally changed faces and forms. As if they are imbued with some kind of Native American Shapeshifter spirit. The “catching up with good people” part is interesting, too, because in catching up with people I didn’t really know well in high school, I’m learning that they are currently rad-as-hell, and probably were then, too, had I stopped to notice. Then again, maybe not. A tiny part of me theorizes that everybody is basically a jackass in high school. Must be in the water. Funny thing is, though, Facebook and social media helps to make high school reunions almost entirely devoid of value. More than one person came up to me and was like, “I already know everything about you through Facebook and Twitter.” And then they’d just… stare at me. Blink, blink.
    • Up In The Air looks… I mean, it looks great. Maybe I’m being subtly affected by the waves of positive buzz radiating over the whole thing. (NBR just named it best film of the year, since we’re talking about hot, fresh buzz.) Something about the preview connects with me on all levels. Part of it is George Clooney, sure. Put someone lesser in that role, and I’m not sure. We don’t have many classic movie actors these days — not stars, but actors — but Clooney still fits that bill in the Cary Grant, Rock Hudson, Paul Newman, Robert Redford mode. Plus, director-wise, Reitman is a child of Reitman, but has the vigor of youth and art behind him. I am very excited for this one.
    • I’m also excited for Sherlock Holmes, though — maybe I shouldn’t be, given Guy Ritchie’s track record. Still. It looks like a bucket of good fun. I guess Sherlock Holmes purists are up in arms about it? Is it really worth being agitated? Just don’t see it.
    • Speaking of agitation, hey, roleplaying game industry? Man, just calm down a little. (Be aware, I’m linking to a thread on RPG.Net, which is a little like handing you a mysterious cup whose mouth smolders with a greasy haze of odd yellow smoke — sure, you can drink it, but I can’t promise it’s going to be good for you.) I’m not suggesting people should not want Diaspora on PDF, and I’m not suggesting that some good discussions about the process and the business can’t come out of it. But people get up-in-arms. They fail to remain civil. They make bullshit arguments. They sacrifice their own arguments on the pyre of righteousness, even if they had a good point to begin with. Everybody stop, towel off, be friendly. You’re all in this together. The game community should see itself as a single tribe and not give into the pointless urge to fracture into various Nerd Clans battling for meaningless supremacy. Succeed together or intellectually masturbate alone. Oh, that there Fred Hicks has some interesting chatter about Diaspora (though the post serves you better if you’ve read the game, which I have not). I’ll pick up Diaspora at some point soon; right now, I’ve no time to read games. Though, for the record, I’d like to play D&D4 finally. (I’ve also heard whispers of Hunter: The Vigil over Google Wave, which makes me all juicy.)
    • Speaking of games — I do not play Aion, much as I’d like to. This game-blog reminds me that it is a super-beauty of a game.
    • Oooh, I’m now hearing that the good news from earlier may be compounded by more good news. It’s crazygonuts!
    • Maybe you come here for my crazy bounty of writing advice. Well, let me link out to another good’un — 11 Stupidest Writing Mistakes. I dunno that these are the stupidest, as the title dictates, but they’re good things of which to be mindful. Moreover, the author uses the phrase “comma vomit.” I know I’ve mucked these up from time to time just out of swiftness or laziness.
    • Daniel O’Shea — Santa Redux. A priceless Christmas memory. Hilarious and crass. Perfect. Go.
    • Jeebus Christmas, you saw my Abby-from-NCIS Pauley Perrette joke experiment, right? I had 60 hits yesterday from Abby-related search terms. That is redonkulous. (And worthless for building audience, mind — but a fun and festive experiment.) That’s just silly, people.
    • Finally — you did see that I have books for sale, right? Right? Huh? Hmmm? Go! They make lovely Christmas presents. They also put food in my belly.
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    December 4th, 2009 | terribleminds | 18 Comments

About The Author

ChuckWendig

Chuck Wendig is a novelist, a screenwriter, and a freelance penmonkey. He's written too much. He should probably stop. Give him a wide berth, as he might be drunk and untrustworthy. He currently lives in the wilds of Pennsyltucky with a wonderful wife and two very stupid dogs. He is represented by Stacia Decker of the Donald Maass Literary Agency.

18 Responses and Counting...

  • Julie 12.04.2009

    I am a Sherlock Holmes freak, and I own the Complete, Annotated Sherlock Holmes. It weighs about the same as a manatee stuck in the Delaware River.

    I am BEYOND excited. Robert Downey Jr? Brilliant. The man can do anything, which a whole passel of people forgot when he took his little trip into the career Deadlights. Plus, Sherlock Holmes is also badass. He fought. He drank. He injected questionable substances into his body. He wasn’t some namby-pamby, emasculated wanker who was afraid to get dirty.

    I’m not sure how the actual movie is going to turn out, but I know at least that Downey is going to kick some serious tail.

    I think my next blog post will contain an entire toilet bowl’s worth of commas. Just because I can.

    I am dying to hear your news.

  • Chuck

    Was a Manatee ever stuck in the Delaware? I know we’ve had sharks there, and a whale or two.

    Also: nice Stephen King reference. :)

    Sweet.

    – c.

  • Scionic

    Much agreed with Julie, I am highly anticipating me some Holmes, yo. I am still of fan of Downey, Jr. and have been even through the bad times (I’m looking at you, “Back to School”). I think this adaptation has all the chance to be great, but I don’t know that it will make it sexy for the new generation. I love Doyle, but he is fairly dry compared to most modern fiction; if they change the conversation prose too much, he stops being Holmes and I see that as alienating Generation WTF.

    As to the nerd rage (especially at rpg.net), I have low expectations of unification. It would be like the borg having a baby with the cylons; instead of bringing Trekkies and Galacticies(?) together, it would just cause a geekpocalypse where the survivors must live on nothing but animal dung and survival tips from Sarah Connor. “Wave” some of that Hunter love at me, also (see how clever? See how clever?)

    Anyway, my urethra swells with pride over the promise of your monumental news and somewhat related news! Is congratulations in order, even without knowing what it is? Cause if so, conga-rats and all that!

  • Chuck

    Thank you for the premature conga-rats! I shall dine on their rodent meats.

    Nerd rage will forever be amonst us, it’s true. I just wish the game community would find its own “nerd tribe” rather than fragmented geek clans.

    And Downey, Jr. could read me a placemat and I’d buy a ticket.

    – c.

  • Paul DeLaurentis

    QUOTE: “But people get up-in-arms. They fail to remain civil. They make bullshit arguments. They sacrifice their own arguments on the pyre of righteousness, even if they had a good point to begin with.”

    For a moment there I thought you were talking about the Republican party! -ZING-

    I agree with you, though, on all points. Funny thing…I was thinking about Grosse Point Blank during the entire reunion.

  • Julie

    Couple years back a wayward manatee ended up there. Poor thing.

    I might have to “borrow” Generation WTF. Man, that’s appropriate.

  • Fred Hicks

    You can’t make me look at that RPG.net thread. I already stepped in one of the ancillary messes spun off by that shit, and I’ve had to amputate my whole fucking foot.

  • Chuck

    Fred: Terrible, innit? Not helpful, not productive, and yet all too emblematic of nerd fury and clannish geekfulness.

    – c.

  • Chuck

    Paul –

    ZING, indeed, sir. ZING, indeed.

    Grosse Pointe Blank is really one of my top 10 favorite films. And any reunion has to have that as a part of it — it is the essential reunion film.

    I’ve never seen War, Inc, of course, which is supposed to be a half-almost-kind-of-spiritual sequel to GPB.

    – c.

  • Josh

    I too am excited for Sherlock Holmes. RDJ is quickly becoming one of my favorite leading men.

    I might be getting back into Aion, as I mentioned previously. It’s just a matter of acquiring a second PC that can handle its blatant gorgeousness.

  • Scionic

    I am going out and saying the absolute best line from Gross Pointe Blank was:

    “What am I going to say? I killed the President of Paraguay with a fork. How are you?”

    As far as rpg.net is concerned, I tend to avoid it due to the exact reasons I’ve seen mentioned here, but I will say that when an actual productive thread gets going, it is a great conversation point until it gets the inevitable geek version of Godwin when someone invokes the Holy Gygax or Eternal Arneson – especially when it comes to White Wolf players. That being said, more often than not it is the “play what you want, explore your imagination” types that instigate and fuel those conversations to the point of complete idiocy, while the supposedly less sophisticated power-gamers go with a more moderate approach. I find that single seeming paradox to be of massive entertainment when I read those threads, simply to watch the posters who come off so high-brow contradict themselves post-to-post.

    But I want to stress again that the site has merit also. It is a lot like the Exalted Compendium community (or Redux, as you will). Any spot where people are sure to get passionate, there will be mindless antagonism and few things in my experience evoke passion like gaming, whether it simply to gain bigger numbers or unlock the childhood terrors of your character. I have seen people I wouldn’t trust to think their way out of a non-branching maze come up with the most insightful and powerful characters, and people I would consider brilliant performers balk at character so they can master the crunch over the fluff. It’s all in how you look at it, you know?

  • Chris

    That Velma picture is my wallpaper at work.

    And the shirt is in the mail from Threadless.

    It is the awesome.

  • Chuck

    Whuh? There’s a *shirt*?!

    – c.

  • John

    If I see a thread on RPG.net that has gone beyond six pages, I don’t generally bother looking at it. Odds are too good that the thread has devolved into NERD RAGE!

  • Fabio “Sooner” Macedo

    Thanks for sharing the 11 Writing Mistakes article, Mr. Wendilaniuk!

    Not being a native speaker of English, it was very enlightening and encouraging – in fact, I was somewhat surprised about how much of it also applies to writing in my own language (Portuguese). I’ve never noticed how similar proper comma usage is in both languages.

    Rock on!

  • Chuck

    Glad to help, Fabio. Sometimes, if I’m writing without my coffee, I’m pretty sure *I’m* not a native speaker of English, either. :P

    – c.

  • Dan O’Shea

    Thanks for the plug Chuck, but you’ve actually linked to the touching, confessional Santa story — the hilarious and crass story is here.

    http://danielboshea.wordpress.com/2009/11/28/never-fuck-with-santa-a-christmas-memory/

    I know what you’re thinking — TWO fucking Santa stories on your blog in the same week you pantywaist? Why don’t you shave, get a clean shirt and sober up for your guest slot on Oprah? I know, I know.

  • Chuck

    I had the wrong link? I like both, but around these parts, the hilarious and crass story is the one we want. :)

    Thanks, Daniel!

    – c.

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