Rawk the Vote

As most of my fellow nerds know, this time of year is Gaming Con season - a magical time when all the manufacturers of structured make-believe books and expensive toy soldiers break out the goods to sate their slathering fans for another year. It's great fun, and a good time for business before the darkness of winter sets in (financially and physically).

A big component of that time for publishers is fan awards, and the EN World GenCon Awards (or "ENnies for short) are the biggest and most legitimate of these fan awards. Unlike the Origins awards, which have been somewhat compromised by their commercial aspirations, the ENnies are pure democratic fandom at work and a meaningful statement of a product's popularity (if any gauge aside from sales can be counted in this industry).

That said, Spycraft 2.0 is up for 4 major ENnie awards this year - Best Game, Best Rules, Best d20/OGL Product, and Best Product. These are arguabely the most prestigious of the ENnies awards, and the most Spycraft has ever received (last was best d20 which we lost to Call of Cthulhu d20 back in 2002). An ENnie win would not only look good on paper, it would legitimize in a sense the work my partners and I have put into Spycraft and help solidify Crafty's reputation with another important segment of our ideal audience.

So I ask you, friends and fellow bloggers, to help us rock the vote for Spycraft. Even if you don't know about the other awards or much about gaming in general, your vote will make a difference for us. If you're rushed for time, there's only 4 votes that matter to us. If you're not or are already voting in the ENnies, we'd appreciate your consideration. Voting closes July 30 - vote now! To those of you who plan to support us, and to those who have already voted for us, my partners and I thank you for your support and consideration.

Brick

So, it's been another crappy year for movies. As in, at this time 2 years ago I used to go to the theater every other week to see a misguided-but-entertaining cinematic epic and not entirely regret the choice. But now, we have drek after drek appearing in the cinema, with only the occasional thing worth paying 8 bucks to see (this year, only V for Vendetta and Munich come to mind) and Spiderman 3 and Hellboy 2 are still a year away, dammit. But I think I just saw my favorite film of this year - Brick.

In the simplest terms, Brick is a classic film noir set in a modern day high school. Our "detective" - a thinly disguised Mike Hammer and just as two-fisted - is a troubled kit on the lookout for his ex-girlfriend. The femme fatale is a hip girl who seems to be in with everyone. The sidekick is a brainy kid who spends most of his time solving Rubik's Cubes and studying in the library. Vice principals replace the cops, and small-time drug dealers replace organized criminals. But all the elements of an old-time noir are there - the moody jazz soundtrack, the ominous visuals, the hard-bitten dialogue and 60 year old slang, everything.

I appreciated this film not just for its commitment to style, its genre or its execution, but for its clever insights into suburban life and the way the filmmakers bent that to fit a style that has been considered comatose for over half a century. The high school is turned into a microcosm of a noir's metropolis, where statements like "She knows where I eat lunch" and "meet me at my locker...come alone" make perfect sense while paying homage to that which came before. Genius. Joseph Gordon-Leavitt (yeah, that kid from 3rd Rock from the Sun) is awesome as the principal character and easily gives the best performance of his career to boot. IF you get a chance, I'd highly recommend catching this little gem, whereever you can.