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03.18.11 by Widge @ 1:38 am  Who is Jason Williams? You might remember the episode of Weekend Justice in which we discussed the 2010 DragonCon Fun Fest. We also discussed Jason--he not only wound up as the Winner of the First (and Only Ever) Need Coffee Fun Fest Tattoo Contest and became a symbolic destroyer of all sparkly vampires everywhere, but he's also fighting pancreatic cancer. Here's the latest from Jason: I have had a miracle according to my doctors, the cancer has not spread anywhere, in fact its gone as far as they can tell, and I've been accepted to a clinical trial at johns hopkins for a vaccine. Hopefully I can get up there and get the vaccine before it comes back, in which case I'm looking at about 10 years instead of the original 1. Anyways, I've got to fly to maryland every month for the next 4 months and then once every 6 months after that. If you've got some coin you can spare, check out Jason's website here. He's dealing with doctors and medical insurance and all kinds of Fun. He's accepting donations to help defray the costs of his ongoing battle and every little bit helps. Thanks in advance. Update: Jason just advised us via our Facebook page: "if you want to donate and need a tax write off, wait a few more days soon all my donations will be going through Dream Chasers thanks to Lisa Smith Batchen." We've asked Jason to keep us updated. Categorized as: Stimuli
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03.15.11 by R.M. Rhodes @ 11:35 pm R.M. Rhodes, comic creator and friend of French comics, returns to introduce the uninitiated to a classic artist and character... René Goscinny is one of the best-known comic book writers of the 20th century. Born in 1926, he spent time as a junior illustrator for an advertising agency. He was also an assistant in a small illustration studio in New York in the late 1940s, where he meet creators like Harvey Kurtzman and John Severin.  Kurtzman, Severin & Goscinny Categorized as: Stimuli
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03.09.11 by evrwrldBB @ 1:56 am  I like to consider myself a movie buff. My birthday parties are movie marathons. I spend a great deal of money seeing movies in theatres. I watch bad movies just for fun. I analyze movies quite thoroughly. I like to look at every angle of their production and think about they way the filmmakers went about realizing the world. I like to go on long diatribes and rants about how film could be improved--I've even done so, in print, on this site. Heck, I even want to write such things for a living someday. However, it shames me to admit that there a great deal of movies I should have seen. Not just any movies--I'm talking classic movies: movies that define genres and are generally considered some of the greatest of all time. Why haven't I seen these movies when I have seen the Star Wars Holiday Special? To be perfectly honest: I have no freaking idea. Every time I hear one of these movies mentioned and go to talk about it, all I have to contribute is, "Oh yeah...I, uh...really should see that." Which as a movie nerd I find ABYSMAL. There are certain movies I despise not having seen, mainly because I have no idea if anyone else knows what they're talking about. Categorized as: Stimuli
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03.08.11 by Widge @ 4:10 am  The following are rules that we tried out in a game of Triple Monopoly. In other words, if the picture there (click to embiggen--image courtesy of Rox of Spazhouse) doesn't tell the whole story, we overlapped three different flavors of Monopoly. The ones in question were a regular Millennium edition of Monopoly (fairly standard), the Pixar Monopoly and G.I. Joe Monopoly. The first round of rules you see here is what we started the game with, and these are based on a number of different versions of the game that we found elsewhere. Not surprisingly, we're not the first people to want to try this. However, we share these rules in the spirit of giving back to the Excessive Gaming Community. Categorized as: Stimuli
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02.19.11 by R.M. Rhodes @ 10:52 pm  R.M. Rhodes, comic creator and friend of French comics, returns to introduce the uninitiated to a classic artist and character... Hergé was born Georges Remi; the name Hergé comes from the French pronunciation of the initials RG. In the 1920s, he produced a comic strip starring a young adult named Tintin who was ostensibly a reporter and travelled widely. Tintin was an overnight success and Hergé produced several more stories (including the controversial Tintin in the Congo) over the next several years. The best of these books is The Blue Lotus, chronicling Tintin's trip to China. This book was also the best-researched book to date and is markedly better than previous works. This story is also notable for the fact that it includes a depiction of the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. Categorized as: Stimuli
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02.10.11 by Widge @ 4:27 am  To answer the obvious question: no, I'm not an asshole. To answer the next obvious question: yes, I freaking love Edgar Allan Poe. I always have. I have been to the Poe House. I went to Baltimore specifically to partake in his first and only real funeral. I read a poem at his gravesite. I met the curator of the Poe House. I think he's a lovely man. I think what the Poe House and the Poe Society do are vital. But I have a problem with the whole "the city of Baltimore must fund the Poe House or it's screwed" thing. That's an either/or scenario that implies there are no other options. Well, yes, there's a third option, which means following what other museums have done and raising admissions, or renting out the space, or selling souvenirs. I agree with their assessment: it's not feasible. Categorized as: Stimuli
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02.06.11 by Wolven @ 4:39 am  So here we are. Third Episode. We can do this. Deep Breaths. ...Shit. Okay! So, if you're just tuning in, what I was doing here was watching the first three episodes of the American version of Being Human, and reviewing what I saw from as objective a place as possible for someone who's seen and enjoyed the original British series. We can have a discussion about what I've learned about objectivity and fresh eyes later, but for now let's talk about what we saw this week. Categorized as: Stimuli
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02.04.11 by Widge @ 4:17 am  Yes, Sanctum hits today. And it's obvious, given the amount of water involved in the film that James Cameron was going to be involved in some form or fashion. I think that's a law or something. It's also clear from the trailer that I may have some moments of WTF while watching it. That's because I am a recovering aquaphobe. That's right: I'm afraid of water. And before you make a joke about my bathing habits: no, I'm not that bad off. I've heard of some people who literally can't put their heads under the spray in the shower. No, I just have had a problem in the past with deep water. This due to the fact that I almost drowned twice when I was a very small Widglet. It took me forever to learn to swim because of this (you sort of need to get your face wet) and as a kid I learned the hard way that hydrophobia and aquaphobia are two completely different things--introducing your affliction with the wrong terminology can cause quite the kerfuffle. Categorized as: Stimuli
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01.29.11 by Wolven @ 4:18 am All right, so here we are with the write-up of the second episode of the American Being Human. For those of you just joining us, my stated goal is to watch the first three episodes (my write-up of the first one is here), take notes, and give as objective a review as possible for someone who's seen and enjoyed the original British series. Yes, I know that will be hard, but I've acknowledged my likelihood for biases, and I'm gonna do my best to not let them get the better of me. Once again, we'll tackle this in the format of Show Structure first and Characters second, so we can see how each of them has developed, week-to-week. Everybody got it? Good, then let's get into it. Categorized as: Stimuli
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01.23.11 by R.M. Rhodes @ 6:02 pm  We are pleased to welcome comic creator R.M. Rhodes to Need Coffee. He will be serving as our resident French comicsologist. Here, he starts off with perhaps the most recognizable imported product... The other day, my co-worker asked me "What's that?" when I mentioned Twin Peaks, so I'm certain that there are readers who don't know the history of Heavy Metal--only the legends. Some of those who have followed up on the rumors and picked up the current incarnation of the book are perhaps wondering what all the fuss is about. In 1977, the first issue of Heavy Metal hit newsstands (in the days before the direct market). Over the course of the next decade and a half, it presented translated editions of many contemporary BD (bandes dessinée--basically what the French call comics) in a serialized anthology format. This was standard printing practice for French comics at the time: stories were serialized in magazines first and the most popular stories were collected and resold as albums. Categorized as: Stimuli
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