Well, I've already been here for a little bit, but, I might as well come in and formally introduce myself.
My real name is not Mark Skarr, but more people in this world know me by that name than by my real name, so I just stick with it.  I'm actually trained to respond to my real name, "Mark," "Admiral" and "Retard" but that last one is what my family calls me.
I'm a rather insane individual.  The only fora I actually participate in are these and the Steve Jackson Games forums, where I'm the Forum Pervert.  I was in City of Heroes in early beta (actually downloaded the entire client through 56k modem!) but I haven't been on the boards since Statesman left (suddenly, I didn't need to complain anymore), where I was known as Rachel Cross.  I live with a room mate, MonkeyFist (Heartbreaker in CoH; HandofBobb to most of the rest of the universe).  I still have an active CoH account, but I play only once or twice a month, and usually on Champion.
I dabble in 3d rendering and have been doing it for about ten years now.  It's fun, but both time consuming and infuriating.
I enjoy Anime and have a fairly large collection, but my tastes are fairly limited: deadly serious and over-the-top funny.  I don't like day-in-the-life anime or serious-but-with-a-comic-side anime.  NGE, Macross Frontier, GUNDAM 00 great, Full Metal PANIC not so much.  Tenchi no.  Excel Saga and FLCL great.  Puni Puni Poemi, Megas XLR that's my level (my very first 3d render was of an Alex Gundam with a Dodge Viper for a head).  Some things buck the trend, but not much.
I'm into RPGs (predominantly GURPS and Hero), obviously, as I was brought here from the SJGames forums by robkelk.  I understand what it means to wake up somewhere and not know how you got there.
I'm not much into fanfic, mostly because of some horrible experiences involving the internet, a tub of margarine, some toilet-paper tubes, an angry ferret and a deck of playing cards.  That's not to say that I have anything against fanfic, just not much positive exposure to it.  So, with an empty mind . . . er, maybe I should say "cleansed palette," I enter your world.

Title: "321 Hours"
Band: Unitopia
Album: The Garden
Music and Lyrics: Mark Trueack and Sean Timms
Length: 5:34
link.

~*~

Working alone, engaging the stone, our lives went flashing past
No time to think, it was through in a blink of an eye,
With the outside world, watching on, living in silent hope,
Asking questions, theories tested, one of us sings our favourite song.

One way in, one way out,
Pitch black darkness, darker than the night
One way in, one way out,
... One way in...

Three hundred and twenty-one hours, locked inside the earth
Three hundred and twenty-one hours, before we'd see the sun again
Three hundred and twenty-one hours, every minute lasts a lifetime
Three hundred and twenty-one hours... ..

Days slowly passed, no sound at all, locked inside a claustrophobic nightmare,
Hearing sounds from up above, scratching, knocking, moving slow,
Only a matter of time they said, only a matter of faith
Plenty of that from inside and out, but not enough air to breathe...

One way in, one way out,
Pitch black darkness gives way to the light,
One way in, one way out,
Perilous journey, inching closer, moments at a time...

Three hundred and twenty-one hours, locked inside the earth
Three hundred and twenty-one hours, before we'd see the sun again
Three hundred and twenty-one hours, every minute lasts a lifetime
Three hundred and twenty-one hours... ..

‘Til the outside world...
‘Till the outside world...
‘Til the outside world comes crashing in

Three hundred and twenty-one hours, locked inside the earth
Three hundred and twenty-one hours, before we'd see the sun again
Three hundred and twenty-one hours, every minute lasts a lifetime
Three hundred and twenty-one hours... ..

~*~

Effect: While the song is in effect, Doug's temporal state slows down dramatically. From his point of view, while only five and half minutes pass, the outside world progresses 321 hours (or 58 1/3 hours per minute).

I've noted this on the current top page for my site, but chapter 1 is effectively still in preread.  One of Helen's coworkers is a BTVS fan, and is reading the chapter and giving us commentary, albeit a bit slowly.  So far this has resulted in several substantial improvements to the chapter, so I'm not really upset about having to wait as she writes up her thoughts.  However, it does slow down the release a bit.
Just so everyone's informed.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

(Because I decided to make an Infinity "canon"...)

...you dream of nothing but whacking Cimeroran traitors all night before a job interview.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.

For those who care, the Sakura pic I was referring to in tonight's chat:
[img]http://i160.photobucket.com/albums/t187/ecs05norway/1183401770502.jpg?t=1300764656">
--
Sucrose Octanitrate.
Proof positive that with sufficient motivation, you can make anything explode.

So it appears that Prime Focus productions, responisble for previous Discworld mini-series have gotten permission to create a crime of the week television series based around the City Watch of Discworld fame. This could be the greatest television show ever.
Link below, cause Yuku is not cooperating:
http://www.bleedingcool.com/2011/03/14/ ... tv-series/
--
If you become a monster to put down a monster you've still got a monster running around at the end of the day and have as such not really solved the whole monster problem at all. 

'Cause apparently he's http://utena.rightstuf.com/]answering questions from fans. Knowing his track record, "answer" should probably be replaced with "misdirect".

Relatedly, the new R1 Utena release is dated for sometime in June. /fistpump

EDIT: the RightStuf link confirms the following info for the first release:

RightStuf Wrote:Contains episodes 1-12, plus a collectors' art box and a book featuring content from the recent limited-edition Japanese DVD box set, including episode commentary, discussions about the series' updated audio, video, and opening and closing sequences, and the first installment of production notes from the Japanese laser disc release.

Special Features: Clean Opening, Clean Closing, Opening Single Liveaction Video, Opening Single TV Spot, Japanese Remastered DVD Release TV Spots.

Spoken Languages: English, Japanese, English subtitles.

Two links:
From Dr. Kiki's Science Hour netcast:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEpnpyd- ... r_embedded
And a Telegraph article:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comm ... orium.html
Have you guys heard about this?
--Chris

http://www.cracked.com/article_19084_5- ... ction.html
(url says it all)