Current Post On Trae’s Blog:
So it was literally more than twenty years ago that I first put one of my dumbest creations on the internet: The Steven Seagal Movie Generator.
Like I seriously publicly launched that dumb thing back in 2004, and for those of you who were unaware, it assembles a title, cast and plot of a fake Steven Seagal movie from elements of his (real) bad films.
I honestly got the idea from a former-friend, who in high school wrote a comedic piece about how you could mash up the titles of Seagal films in the weird underground "newspaper" that got handed out for a few years. But I took it a few steps further, and made a whole thing.
Mostly it just sat there though, a thing I made once and never went back to. I followed it up with the Sci-Fi Channel Movie Generator (later retitled the Syfy Movie Generator) in 2008. I spent more time on that one, doing a later design update that made the "Syfy" movies show up on a fake DVD back cover.
But the Steven Seagal generator just sort of sat there, untouched.
And Steven Seagal kept making (terrible) movies with (predictable) titles. Like a lot. But the generator still only spat out movies culled from the nineties and early 2000s, ignoring all of his new stuff. There was a whole library of awful movies that just weren't in there, and it made the generator feel less relevant.
So, uh, I went and did something about that today.
First off, I redesigned the page. Now it looks like the back of a VHS tape box. Then I loaded the elements of about twenty-five additional films into the generator. And that was harder than I thought it would be, since some of the films are so obscure that they're not well documented. I literally had to do some deep research to figure out a lot of the basic plot details that are now in the generator.
But I did it.
And it's done.
And the generator is now fully loaded.
It's still useless and dumb, though.
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I don’t think it’s physically possible to get a (clear) picture of John Barrowman in a hotel lobby. My experience is that he’s surrounded by several concentric rings of handlers, security, and shrieking fans at all times.
Ew, Brew-Con is a nickle-and-diming for-profit con? I can’t stand those kind.
I can understand the no-hallways-photos rule. It can lead to massive backups and blockages and all. But I hate when cons charge you to take photos or get autographs from the guests.
Rhode Island Comiccon is partially there. If you want a photo taken with yourself at a celebrity’s booth, it’ll cost you. And you can’t take a picture of the main celebrities (who get a separate area on a podium!) BUT if you take a picture of a celebrity on the main floor, no one says anything. One celebrity (Vic Mignogna) actually had to have a handler at his table to make certain he charged since he liked posing and would do it for nothing.
Dessa as someone who works very hard at multiple conventions I feel that I can speak as to the charging for pics and autographs. In today’s world it is absolutely necessary as there is no way today to get a media guest without those monies involved.
Nobody stops me from John sexysexysexy Barrowman. NOBODY! *fangirl max level*
But yeah, I seen this rule. It’s very Wizard, isn’t it?
This rule has driven me bonkers for years. Unless you’re a celeb-level guest, and I’m talking HOLLYWOOD HERE, I don’t understand the need of you super-charging for pictures.
Weill wait, if you’re ridiculously popular and get swamped at every con if you don’t, I understand then. There’s such a thing as over working a guest and some cons do the charge-per-autograph with some guests due to their popularity, not necessarily as a overall rule.
Others do it to cover the guests fees. Some are super skeevy about it (hello current con in arch).