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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Garner redemption arc?
Possibly, but he might go back to his original mindset with Lynn. I think he knows damn well that dressing like a Nazi is wrong, and disrespects the US, Jewish community whom possibly have members at the said con, and everyone who even lived in the time frame of when Nazis were in power and witnessed their crimes against humanity.
Garner and Lynn have so far been on the same side during the actual con in general. I’m not sure if this is them putting aside their differences to work together when it counts, them actually learning to tolerate each other in general, or just Garner having a line he won’t cross even to oppose Lynn.
Hooooo boy. Here’s where I 100% agree with Garner but 100% go ‘Well, this busts chain of command.” Which is.. ooof.
This is where as Lynn or Ruth I go “I’m sure as heck not gonna stop you.” but step back and let Garner make his call to overrule the conchair.
I’m not sure Garner’s action busts the chain of command. We have Lynn and Ruth at the bottom of the chain, yes they’re staff, but they’re relitively new staff. When action needed to be made, they followed the chain and went to Jim, bypassing several levels of chain along the way, which given the importance of the situation and need for quick action, is perfectly acceptable.
Garner, independently, sees the same situation, and takes action. He’s a vetted staff member who’s been around a while, and thus is high enough on the chain of command to take action himself. This does not break the chain.
The break comes at Jim, who should have taken action himself, but Jim is the failed link who’s lack of action breaks the chain.
At least that’s my take on it all.
Do it, Garner. Take advantage of the loophole. Boot the Nazi.
There are times you have to say “Hell with it, morality moment” and go. Job or no job. Anything else leads down a pretty dark road eventually. For anyone sane, these moments are not common, maybe a few times a lifetime. Make sure they really ARE that hardcore important – people’d better be doing some bad stuff. But those moments are there sometimes. And for the record – yeah, this would be one of them. Big time.
I think I should point out, that we don’t know Garner’s rationale for booting the Nazi. It may have absolutely zero to do with his moral beliefs and more to do with how bad it would affect the convention and it’s bottom line. Thinking a guy dressed as a Nazi is morally wrong is not the same as realizing it’s going to effect the economics and future viability of the convention.