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.
![Nerd & Tie[dot]Social Forums](https://www.nerdandtie.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/natsocial-nicepreview-square-300x300.png)
You know that old saying: “Don’t shit where you work.” With the advent of social media, it’s more relevant than ever.
Calling up Jim to taunt him is one option. Another is for Maggie to call up her VGR friend at Unagi with “Hey, just a heads up, your boss is insulting Bork Con online and associating with a dude who stalked some of our staff. I don’t think I’ll be able to get our board to renew our equipment sharing agreement this year.” Let Unagi learn about it from someone other than Jim so he can’t spin it, and let him stew for a week before you actually bring the hammer down.
I got the impression that she’s going to enjoy telling him that Bork Con will no longer work with them under the circumstances, but not necessarily taunt him. Heck, calling someone up to tell them, “Hey, I know what you’re doing and as a result, I’m no longer interested in doing business with you. Goodbye,” is gratifying on its own.
That said, I’m pretty sure Ruth and Sarah say that Jim and Terrence didn’t do anything to hide who they are the Facebook page and are obvious admins, meaning that there isn’t much Jim can do to spin it. The evidence to the contrary is already out there and even if he deletes the page, the Internet never forgets. Someone’s definitely taking screenshots and documenting the whole thing, especially since information about con drama spreads quickly among conventions.
Which is funny, because the creator’s Nerd & Tie has a section for reporting on public con news and incidents. And it’s hard to argue with a site that seems to have a pretty good reputation for honesty and thorough research.
Bork con had every reason to cancel any agreements with Unagi Con after Jim’s attitude at Wakame Con. There’d be no way I’d want to trust him or his con with Bork Con stuff.
Jim has a year to come up with other arrangements, however, which means a lot of out-of-pocket expenses for Unagi con in addition to replacing Lynn and Garner. It doesn’t bode well for Jim that he has willingly gotten sucked into moderating a FB group dedicated to hating on Bork Con. He has a crap ton more work to do this year than probably in the previous 5 years to get Unagi con ready for next year. If the Unagi con is a disaster because Jim spent his time trying to get even with Lynn, his long reign at Unagi con is likely to be over.