This week: We discuss leadership’s role in the Return of the King. We draft teams for our upcoming fantasy sci-fi game. And Audra and the Tolkein Professor speculate on why fantasy literature gets the shaft among the cognoscenti. We also run down the week in geek, including the critics response to Avatar’s opening (and Sigourney Weaver’s awesome Daily Show appearance), SF’s free streaming release of Caprica, Alien screenwriter and Return of the Living Dead director Dan O’Bannon’s death, an incredible gift we received from GWCers (visit http://www.gwc200.com to see it for yourself), and our announcement of dates and hotel information for the 2010 GWC International Meetup: March 19-21, 2010.
First laugh!! Ha-ha!!
Here’s a draft similar to what you guys did that I’ve seen on another forum. We could probably do something similar over here.
http://boards.theforce.net/census_and_games/b10264/30405078/p1/?851
And now that I listened to your picks, I’m really surprised Spock didn’t get picked.
Sam Carter and Data weren’t surprises though. Chuck kind of got a handicap by picking last in 3 of the 4 rounds.
Haven’t listened to all of it yet. But the fantasy footballesque requirement from Solai was BRILLIANT!
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Big ups to BKitty and StevieSpin, who did a kick-[SorryBar] job creating GWC200, producing a great product on a short turnaround, at a busy time of the year.
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A friend says – and I agree – that ALL workplaces should conduct drafts, not just sports leagues. Restaurants, garages, shops, everything. That’s how it oughtaa be.
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Here’s a funny radio bit from Pittsburgh’s WDVE morning show. A sportscaster recalls a time a bunch of sportswriters conducted a mock draft. Rules were, they could draft anybody who ever lived.
We’ve been getting some of the most beautiful music playing in the background of this LotR arc.
First it was that haunting cello music. Then it was that John Dowland-ish renaissance music. Kevin McLeod rocks…in that medieval way… tell us where we can get his music please? 
Only about 30mins into the cast, but had to stop by an say I cant wait to hear your favorite GWC moments. Thats going to be awesome!
Fantastic job! Kudos to all involved.
You know, Audra’s interview with P. Olsen reminded me of when Steven King won the National Book Award in 2003. He gave a wonderful acceptance speech in much the same vein regarding the Literati and its prejudices. It’s no longer free on Audible, but maybe you can hunt it down somewhere.
He also gave an interesting interview on NPR’s Morning Edition at that time.
You can find the NY Times article about it here.
This cast’s portion of the interview really rang a bell for me, I guess.
Ossim followed by more ossim.
Thanks a bunch, Crew!
Sauron should have contracted Wolfram and Hart, defending evil is their specialty.
I was really expecting someone to take R2-D2 or Optimus Prime.
Bwaa-ha! “After the Third Age, Wolf, Ram, and Heart saw a clear need for precise legal advice in the supernatural fields…”
Sean! The reviews for Avatar are really positive! The “Top Critics” on Rotten Tomatoes have it rated at 94%. What reviews have you been reading, buddy? 
My own opinion: Amazing effects, deeply resonant story, I personally liked the dialog, incredible action… My only critique is that I thought the characters weren’t very deep and were a little 2-D. Was never really sure what motivated Jake Sully… wish they’d established his character a little more before throwing him into the main story. But Cameron’s movies have never been much about deep characters, and they’ve been totally awesome anyway, and this one’s no exception.
I apologise for not getting my hands dirty for this; work is picking up during the november-december period. :o
Great job on the album guys! It did take an effort on my part NOT to spill the beans on this because it’s so awesome! 
The early figures are usually high. It’s down to 84% now, which is still pretty damn good.
You’re right… it’s 84% overall, but I was talking about the “Top Critics” rating, where it only includes the opinions of the most respected critics. That’s the only rating I personally pay attention to on RT. You can get to that by clicking on “Top Critics” at the top of the window. It’s still 94% on that tomatometer.
Ah. Interesting. The early (pre-release) reviews were up in the nineties as well. (Although, I imagine the top critics were the ones invited to those screenings.)
Quick feedback, the music playing over the first half of the interview with Tolkien professor dude made it very difficult to concentrate/hear what he had to say. Might just be me, but I ended up having to fast-forward to where it stopped.
Good point!