Caseymalone

Sleepaway Camp Finally Explained (Almost but No):

jknox00:

How Did This Get Made listeners lose their minds over the convoluted plot of 'Sleepaway Camp'

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Okay I want to settle everything here:

- We actually open with the ‘present aftermath’: An abandoned campsite, tragic ‘funeral’ music and…

Advocacy groups are criticizing a vote by South Carolina legislators to cut the budgets of two universities that recommended gay-themed books — including Alison Bechdel’s graphic novel Fun Home — to incoming freshmen as an attack on free speech and academic freedom. “This kind of censorship not only threatens the core of academic freedom but […]

A year after the murder of Army Sgt. Kimberly Walker, her family has resolved their dispute with a Cincinnati cemetery about the SpongeBob SquarePants monuments commissioned to mark the grave site. Their disagreement drew national attention last fall after the family was told the two 6-foot-tall, 7,000-pound statues — one for Kimberly Walker and the […]

Earlier this month we mentioned that Ashley Wood’s company 3A planned to follow its 12-inch Invincible Iron Man figures with more Marvel collectibles, and at Toy Fair in New York City they delivered with the debut of Doctor Doom. Or, rather, an incomplete version of the ruler of Latveria, courtesy of Action Figure Fury — […]

Another new set unveiled at ToyFair in New York City this morning is 21108 LEGO Ghostbusters, featuring the iconic Ecto-1 car and the four main characters from the first movie. The final design in the official set retains the level of detail that Brent Waller built into his proposed design.

The set includes four unique minifigs with all their gear:

21108 LEGO Ghostbusters will be released in June 2014 for USD $49.99.

Read the official announcement on the LEGO CUUSOO Blog for complete details.

Starting from its humble beginnings in the early 1990’s, online poker has gone from strength to strength, achieving its most significant breakthrough in the mid-2000’s and now enjoying tremendous popularity among online gamers.

This article looks back at the early stages of online poker -- the first websites that brought the game of poker into people’s homes on their computer monitors.

Some background

You could play free poker online as early as the latter years of the nineties and it was only natural that internet poker rooms offering games with real money would be the next step. In 1996 there were only 15 gambling websites, a number which shot up to 200 barely a year later.

Online poker was quick to establish itself on the scene as one of the most popular games among players. The impetus of the online gambling industry in a time where regulation still wasn’t strict, fuelled also by the enthusiasm of players, meant that poker websites soon became a hit among devoted poker players who were also computer users.

IRC Poker (late 1990s)

Image credit: PokerListings.com

To the untrained eye, the first ever games of online poker were more likely to be mistaken for a piece of software code rather than gambling. By way of example, IRC poker was a form of poker that was developed by Todd Mummert and Greg Reynolds to be played over the popular IRC chat protocol.

These early games were played with imaginary money, and to participate in a game you had to download a computer program that connected you to an IRC server. You could then play against other players by typing a series of commands that let you call, raise, check or fold.

Despite requiring more computer knowledge than the average user would need, IRC poker still attracted a sizeable and passionate following. Even real-life poker experts were joining in the online games and five-time World Series of Poker champion Chris Ferguson got his first break by honing his poker skills on IRC chat rooms.

IRC poker offered online players a variety of poker variants, such as Texas and Omaha hold‘em, and the system was flexible enough to allow user to create and run their own poker scripts with the IRC client itself. In fact, one of these scripts was called r00lbot -- a small computer program that could keep track of one’s winning record during play and also display funny quotes.

Planet Poker (1998)

Image credit: poker.wikia.com

Soon after the first online gambling licences became available in the mid-nineties to betting operators, the first-ever real-money online card room officially opened shop in January 1998 to offer poker enthusiasts worldwide the opportunity to earn real cash from their wins.

Planet Poker was founded by Randy Blumer, who in many respects was a pioneer exploring uncharted territory in the history of online gaming. The first Texas Hold’em games were held with betting limits between $3 to $6, and the website attracted a modest number of players at first. Hold’em, despite the growth of PLO, remains the most popular and well known online poker variant.

By Summer 1998, Planet Poker became a huge hit and credit card companies started allowing payments to be made by players to transfer money to and from their bankroll more easily. Back then, nearly all the players were depending on dial-up internet to play online and the website had to grapple with several problems due to poor connectivity.

The technical problems that Planet Poker was facing, coupled with a lack of sophisticated game features, cost the website its position as the predominant online poker outlet in the late 90’s. The same week that rival online poker room Paradise Poker was launched, Planet Poker suffered from several days of downtime which prompted users to switch over to its new competitor. Although the site still exists, it has retained operations as a free-to-play game only.

Paradise Poker (1999)

Image credit: Cruzino.com

When it opened in 1999, Paradise Poker cause quite a stir among the online poker community because of its smooth gameplay and impressive graphics. It delivered on the features that Planet Poker lacked, such as in-game animation, music, better chat options and even the ability to order virtual food and drink to your table.

The website offered players a wide variety of online poker games, includes 7 card stud, hold ‘em and 5 card draw. Some of the most unusual features on Paradise Poker was ‘Pineapple’ mode, where you could draw three cards at the beginning of the game instead of the usual two and later discard one of them, and ‘raise/fold hold’em’, where your only options at the table was to either raise the stakes or fold out of the game.

Although the website was very successful, this didn’t prevent it from falling in dark times due to changing gaming regulations in various countries and newer online poker platforms that offered a better gaming experience. You can still play online poker on Paradise Poker today, however the website is very different from what is used to look and feel like back in the early 2000s; something which prompted even veteran players, cheated of their nostalgia fix, to abandon the site.

Poker Room (1999)

Image credit: Lidholt.com

For nearly a decade, Poker Room was one of the internet’s premier online poker destinations. With its motto: ‘Meet them and beat them’, the website grew exponentially from its humble beginnings as a the brainchild of two Swedish poker players and a computer programmer to become one of the world’s biggest poker sites.

The distinguishing feature of Poker room was its innovative and superior software. Poker Room broke new ground in the online poker arena by being on the first sites to make available a Mac-compatible client, as well as Linux applications and later on mobile phone apps.

The website eventually was integrated within the PokerNetwork (later known as the Ongame Network) and this further boosted its reputation as one of the most recognisable poker sites on the internet. Unfortunately, after being passed along from owner to owner and running into several regulation difficulties, the website was shut down in 2009 by its final owner, bwin, a decision which came in the wake of big losses from Poker Rooms once massive player base.

Cards on the table

The meteoric rise of online poker in the mid-nineties foreshadowed the second wave of popularity that the game experienced in the mid-2000s. In both cases, the reasons behind the success were advances in technology that allowed people to connect more easily and quickly, as well as enjoying realistic games thanks to better graphics, sounds and controls.

The future of online poker is now brighter than ever; internet poker rooms account for the biggest share of revenue in the online gaming industry.

Game developers and betting companies are working together to create a more interactive and exciting online poker experience, one that is virtually unrecognizable from that driven by the software that existed during the early forays of online poker.

The progress of online poker seems to have no end in sight and with all the possibilities that mobile and 3D technology opens, online poker companies may still have several cards up their sleeve.

 

This birthday cake was assigned to the side of the family whose dessert preferences can be roughly summarized as chocolate + anything else, but if that “else” were cheesecake, coffee, peanut butter or raspberries, all the better, thank you very much. Non-chocolate desserts are regarded politely, like curiosities at a zoo; perhaps something another family might enjoy? Their dessert formula can be thanked for all sorts of archive wonders, such as the Chocolate-Caramel Cheesecake, Double Chocolate Layer Cake, Espresso Chiffon Cake with Fudge Frosting, Brownie Mosaic Cheesecake, Double-Chocolate Torte, Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake and Cappuccino-Fudge Cheesecake.

And now this, too, which is like the last two cakes got together and made an even better version of themselves for the next generation. If you remember seeing this in the 2013 year-end roundup, it’s true, I did make it over six months ago, but nothing about summer through early winter screamed a cake that looks like a Reeses peanut butter cup to me. A blizzard on the day before Valentine’s Day? I say that since we’re inside anyway, bring it on.

... Read the rest of chocolate peanut butter cheesecake on smittenkitchen.com

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© smitten kitchen 2006-2012. | permalink to chocolate peanut butter cheesecake | 260 comments to date | see more: Celebration Cakes, Chocolate, Peanut Butter

This elegant rendition of Minas Tirith by lisqr strikes a nice balance between detail and simplicity, managing to instantly capture the iconic style of the fortified city while not overwhelming with unnecessary minutiae.

It’s not actually the character McGruff the Crime Dog, just an actor who formerly portrayed him — though I’m not sure that makes this story less ironic. In a surprising twist of fate, CBS Houston reports McGruff actor John R. Morales has been sentenced to 16 years in prison for possession of 1,000 marijuana plants, [...]

Mondo will release Tom Whalen’s new poster for The Lego Movie today. It’s an 18″ x 24″ screenprint, has an edition of 475, and will cost $45. These go up today (Friday, February 7th) at a random time. Visit Mondotees.com.

dorkly:

Epic Iron Giant Costume

You are what you choose to be, and that guy chose to be a kickass robot.

You may recall Paolo Rivera’s incredible Herge-inspired wedding invitations and save-the-date cards, to say nothing of the Psylocke and Wolverine cake-topper that would put some of the competitors on Food Network Challenge to shame. Now the Eisner Award-winning artist is revealing how he sculpted the characters in a video that condenses the process from about [...]

Ghostbusters will be the next official Cuusoo set, LEGO announced today on the blog for the Cuusoo site. Cuusoo is a LEGO website that allows fans to submit ideas to LEGO. If an idea garners 10,000 votes, LEGO will examine if they are able to turn the idea into an official set. Several sets gained the requisite votes in the last review session, but thus far only fan Brent Waller’s Ghostbusters project has been confirmed for transformation into an official set. Another Ghostbusters project also reached the 10,000 vote mark, but LEGO has decided to only pursue Waller’s project, since it reached the vote threshold first, and the model designers liked the car better.

We don’t know yet what the final set will look like, since, as is the case with all Cuusoo projects, it is the idea, not the specific model, that LEGO has agreed to produce. Pictured above is Waller’s Ghostbusters model.

Meltdown Comics & Collectibles on Thursday became the first brick-and-mortar comic store to accept Bitcoin, the much-discussed digital currency transferred from person to person over the Internet. The news arrives courtesy of the cryptocurrency website Spelunk.in, which participated in the Los Angeles store’s first transaction (for the record, it was for The Death-Ray by Daniel [...]

This week, it’s an all-new War Rocket Ajax with comedian Mike Lawrence! You may have seen him on Conan or heard him on Marc Maron’s WTF podcast, but now he’s in the big leagues on War Rocket Ajax  — you know, no big deal. We talk about doing comedy at conventions, how the Clone Saga is his cocaine, and just how much glint you can get away with when you’re referencing the cover to Wolverine #1.

Plus, we’ve got another installment of Every Story Ever, plus our usual checks and recs!

War Rocket Ajax #190: Pokémon, Give Me A Hell Yeah with Mike Lawrence

(WARNING: Contains NSFW language)

We are available on iTunes! Click here to find War Rocket Ajax in iTunes, where you can subscribe and leave us a review if you enjoy the show!

You can also stream the show using the player above, or download it in MP3 format from WarRocketAjax.com.

Show Notes:

• Follow Mike on Twitter, buy his album, and visit his website to see when heâ€s coming to your town!
• Country singer Mike Lawrenceâ€s “Watching Freedom Ring” has a hell of a cover.
• In case youâ€ve never seen that panel of Dr. Doom crying, here you go.
• Listen to how embarrassed Patton Oswalt and Jerry Seinfeld are talking about Superman.
• Chris†check and rec: Charlotte Mini-Con, The Anatomy of Castlevania and The Anatomy of Zelda
• Mattâ€s check and rec: Copernicus Jones: Robot Detective, True Detective
• Music used: IchiBaN, “Pot Roast”

French Lego fan Jimmy (6kyubi6) made a working pinball machine with lights and working flippers and ball launcher. I’m sure it’s just what the Empire needs to keep all the stormtroopers entertained during downtime on the Death Star. How many points do I get for hitting R2-D2?

Check out the video to see it in action!

Cartoon Network has withdrawn a variant cover for IDW Publishing’s The Powerpuff Girls #6 following criticism that the art sexualizes the comic’s young protagonists. ICv2.com reports that Dennis Barger Jr., owner Wonderworld Comics in Detroit, singled out the cover on Monday, writing on his Facebook page, “Are we seriously sexualizing pre-teen girls like perverted writing [...]

After teasing it in August, Garth Ennis has reaffirmed his inevitable return to the world of Frank Castle. In an interview with Comic Book Resources promoting Titan Comics’ “Battle Classics” collection, which Ennis is curating, the writer dropped some new details about his as-yet unscheduled Punisher miniseries. “I finished it last summer,” Ennis said. “I [...]

Mondo will release some really pretty new posters today. Ken Taylor’s Where the Wild Things Are is a 21″ x 36″ screenprint, has an edition of 350, and will cost $50. The variant has an edition of 150 and will cost $75. Matt Taylor’s Brick poster is an 18″ x 24″ screenprint, has an edition of 185, and will cost $40. These go up today (Thursday, January 16th) at a random time. Visit Mondotees.com.

Marvel and Wizard World have revealed Greg Horn’s exclusive variant cover for Wolverine #1, which will be given to VIP attendees at the inaugural Wizard World Sacramento Comic Con, held March 7-9 in Sacramento, California. It’s part of a new variant cover program that launches Jan. 24 at Portland Comic Con with Neal Adams’ Miracleman [...]

Globes:
@iamrashidajones & I right before we got in a fist fight over cheeseburgers with the cast of Downton Abbey.

A while ago, Nick Sweetman (MinifigNick) built a vignette of a butcher’s shop…

…Two years later, he revisits the idea after obtaining some custom pig heads.

Don’t miss the minifig anatomy poster featured in the vignette!

Look, I know it’s prime resolution time. I realize that outside the 10 percent of you who have understandably succumbed to the explicit demands of the polar vortex with salted caramel brownies, the remaining 90 percent of you out there are swearing off carbs, gluten, fat, sugar, things that your grandmother wouldn’t recognize as food or things that even had a mother, while sweating off the holiday’s demons on stationary bikes. (Although I’m sure no matter how bad you may think things got over the holidays, surely none of your children announced at preschool’s circle time that his mommy was going to have a baby, which was news to you? Which led to you having to make an awkward joke about too many cookies in December? Nope, surely none of your angels would do a thing like that. Not unless they wanted to go to boarding preschool next year, right?)

Ahem, so I realize that for most people, dessert is not an option in January, but I’m just not among them. I think that measured quantities of not excessively decadent desserts are exactly the key to resolution sanity and that there are few better vehicles of moderation-friendly desserts than pudding which is why in previous winters we’ve tackled everything from Chocolate Pudding (recently updated, even easier now), Vanilla Bean Pudding, Caramel Pudding, Almond-Vanilla Rice Pudding and Arroz Con Leche. This year will be no different, except for the fact that this is the year that I come out as a tapioca pudding junkie, no matter how weirdly old-fashioned that makes me. (… She types while dreaming of being huddled under an afghan in a granny cardigan with tissues stuffed in her sleeve.)

... Read the rest of coconut tapioca pudding with mango on smittenkitchen.com

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© smitten kitchen 2006-2012. | permalink to coconut tapioca pudding with mango | 179 comments to date | see more: Coconut, Gluten-Free, Mango, Photo, Pudding, Winter

Mondo has once again teamed up with Japan’s Rockin’ Jelly Bean, this time for a really crazy Kill Bill poster. It’s an 18″ x 36″ screenprint, has an edition of 520, and will cost $55. It goes up today (Thursday, January 9th) at a random time. Visit Mondotees.com.

One of the first stories I ever wrote was for an American Lit class my junior year of high school. I can’t remember the book we read, but it was by a woman? took place in the south? After we finished the book everyone had to write a paper. I don’t remember there being specific instructions—the teacher probably intentionally left it open-ended.

I was terrible in this class. I was not good at writing in high school, and I was not good at remembering what the symbolism of Moby Dick was when the teacher called on me and waited for me to answer, and I was definitely not good at writing essays about falling actions or why the denouement added something important to the story.

So I didn’t know what to write. I had enjoyed the book, liked the protagonist, but couldn’t even begin to tell you what was motivating the antagonist and why the knife is the same color as her door or whatever. And then I thought: maybe I could just write more of the story. Like, what happens after the last chapter. What are the characters doing 6 months after the end of the book.

(This was the early 90s. It makes sense and all seems so obvious now but I didn’t have the vocabulary for fanfic then. The idea of doing something with someone else’s characters wasn’t handed to me, it was just the only thing that made sense to me at the time, based on my options.)

I decided to write a story for my essay. Like, actual fiction. But was that dumb? I told my plan to some of my friends (who got better grades and were actually good at school). A friend of mine from that class, easily one of the smartest people in our grade, looked straight at me and said: “I would not do that.”

But I had no Plan B. So the night before it was due (¯\_(ツ)_/¯) I sat down to write this story and had no idea what to even write. Like where do you even start. It was totally overwhelming. With no plan or ideas and my panic rising with every passing second along with the sense that I had better start writing SOMETHING, I started writing a list of the questions I was stressed about:

• What happens in the story
• Where does it take place
• What does the room look like
• Who are the characters
• What are they doing at the beginning of the story
• Who else do we meet
• What is the problem that needs to be solved
• What happens at the end

I filled a page with questions like this and then two things happened:

1. as I started asking myself these questions the story started appearing as an image in my mind, and
2. I realized writing the story was just a matter of answering these questions.

So I wrote the answers as best as I could and then I wrote the story.

A great ending to this anecdote would be the teacher being blown away and me getting an awesome grade (And I do have a story like that! But this isn’t it.). I probably got a B for the paper. I remember the teacher being more interested in my process than the end result. I showed her the list of questions I’d asked myself and she held it up to the class and said “This was a good idea”.

(Sounds like a great teacher, right? She was hateful, one of my least favorite teachers ever. You can’t choose your moments.)

Writing this out now I realize how similar this is to a method Lynda Barry teaches. Start with a single word. That word conjures an image. Ask yourself questions about that image:

• Where are you
• What’s to your left and right?
• What’s beyond what’s to your left and right?
• What time of year is it?
• What do you smell?
• Who’s there?
• Who’s on their way there, who just left?

and then after you answer those questions just start writing.

You don’t have to know what you’re doing before you start moving your pencil or your cursor. When you don’t know where to start, just start anywhere. Directly addressing what you don’t know makes it safe for you to not know it.

I mention this now because I unlocked this secret about writing my first time out of the gate, and then promptly forgot about it for 20 years. I would like to not forget it again. (I will.)

Looks like the fine folks at Intellectual Property Prints keep rolling out the impressive releases. J.A.W. Cooper’s “Siege, 2013″ is an 18″ x 24″ screenprint, has an edition of 50, and costs $75. Visit IntellectualPropertyPrints.com.

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