Fango, The Stand and The White Rabbit

The Sexy Olga has finished her tentative pass on the design of “The Stand” web page. The site created for the World of Warcraft guild, The Stand. Click on the above pic to experience the brilliance.
So far only the main page and forums are up. Tom and Jeremy (Ladbury and Mandala) are in the process of working their magic to implement Olga’s design. Soon to come are the News, Info, Profiles and Tutorial pages.

This is clearly a tutorial I suggest all members of The Stand as well as various members of the human race take part in.
14 members of the former White Rabbit Guild joined our little rag tag band, boosting our numbers to nearly 50 accounts. We made Mokoto an officer and based on the raids we have ripped through so far, their presence has truly strengthened our guild. Nearly fifty players spread across the Earth. All extremely skillful players. They are mature and considerate. I’m sure we may see our small challenges along the way as can be expected from a gathering of strong personalities, but I’m not worried. Our officers are simply a thing of beauty. I’ve seen each of them go out of his or her way to make sacrifices and work unpraised in the background. I can’t imagine the challenge that our members and officers can’t overcome.

Dean and I met at his place and made our way to the Burbank Airport Hilton for this year’s Fango Convention. Of course, no convention is truly complete without some cheeseburgers.

The convention is put on by Fangoria Magazine which focuses on horror movies and the gore that makes them unnatural. Needless to say you get the more interesting of the human race in attendance. I would like to think that I fit right in.

This year was celebrating 30 years of Friday the 13th and Dean and I were there to speak to the crowd from the panel of Friday the 13th screenwriters.

Tony Tempone, Fangoria Mag’s leader in all things bloody and evil, started out by introducing Peter Bracke, perhaps the foremost authority on all things Friday the 13th due to both his passion for the series as well as his writing the upcoming book, “Crystal Lake Memories”.
Peter led the panel by making introductions and asking questions. First up was Barney “part 4” Cohen (the furthest away in the above pic). Followed by Dean “Jason Goes to Hell” Lorey (the bald, grumpy looking one), then Todd “Jesus Christ: Superstar” Farmer (not pictured and finally Mark Swift of Freddy vs. Jason (seated between Barney and Dean). And that’s Peter, closest to the camera, listening intently.

I started the panel out by tossing my camera to my good friend who I lovingly refer to as “Front row, third from the left” and asked him to take a picture of us.

He kindly obliged although he cut out Mark and Barney Part 4 from the pic. Peter ran us each through the ringer of questions and although we weren’t the most life altering of convention moments, I certainly had fun.

I just recall, looking into the crowd and thinking to myself, “Of all conventions you can go to, it is within this convention, more than any that you can bet someone in the crowd has killed before.”

I had understood from Tony’s email that it would be nice if we hung around for autographs after. But we were never really told where to go after, so we wondered around, checking out the sights. Besides, it ain’t like the autograph of a Friday the 13th screenwriter brings bank on eBay.

Got a pic with what I think could be the star of High Tension…at least she was standing near the poster packing a big stick wrapped in bloody barbwire.

Dean was like a six year old in a candy store. Fango Security kept a close eye on him as we found out later that several of the women present were complaining that he was a little creepy.

I ran back in to get a shot of Sean and Adrienne’s big reunion. Sean created and directed the first Friday and Adrienne was his heroine. Of course, I was too far away and my flash was on so the pics came out crappy.

Dean pointed this one out and he’s right. It perfectly sums up a Day in the Life of Fango. An adorable little girl sitting beneath the “I Fuck Nuns” sticker. Need we say more?
Of course.

On the way out we grabbed a quick pic with the Sad Clown and relax folks…yes…I got her number.
Mark Wheaton grabbed us as we were leaving and introduced himself. Mark is the current writer on Scarecrow. Seemed like a very cool guy and clearly he did a ton of work on Scarecrow for the powers that be. He mentioned nearly a dozen outlines and at least six drafts. But he says they start shooting on the 30th. Shortly after I assume he, Stuart and myself will start the arbitration process.

Took a quick screenshot of my Six Demon Bag. I mentioned it to Carpenter, who was aware already. But next time we meet I’ll show him the pic.

I guess some find it a little odd that Mel and I are still tight but then we never did anything like normal people. Why should we split up like normal people? Notice her attire as Purity. You can rest assured that not every piece of the armor she is wearing is actually the best piece of armor she owns. Nosir. In the world of Ms. Purity, style and fashion go a long way.

A lizard has taken up residence on my deck. He shall henceforth be renamed, Shaft. I expect we will share many wonderful adventures together.
F.J. and I met with Tokyopop last week concerning “Sleepers”. It was a great meeting and we worked out the storylines for books one and two as well as most of the meat and taters of book three.

Dean (as Primo) purchased the leatherworking dragonscale pattern for the Chromatic Cloak last week and passed it on to one of the newer members. There are several materials needed to make the cloak, one being Red Dragonscales. This required a trip to the Wetlands. Purity, Ladbury, myself and Primo met under a stary sky to kill dragons.

We killed several but in order to continue we had to remove the named level 62 elite who was simply a threat and in the way. The four of us, with the help of two mechanical Yetis were successful. I was looking forward to skinning the big dummy but my maxed 300 skill wasn’t high enough. I needed 310 something I can’t accomplish without finding a particularly uber rare skinning knife. So, sadly all that work and we had to leave the corpse to rot.
This week promises to be a busy one. I need to finish the treatment for “Grave’s End” as well as tweak the outline for “Sleepers” so that the Tokyopop boys can pitch the concept to their team. Dean and I should probably do some work on our little comedy and I still haven’t finished the rewrite on “Past Tense”. Boesky ran an idea by me concerning a Godzilla flick which made me chuckle so he’s setting that meeting. Gotta follow up with Nicole about “Riddle” and I gotta find time to hook up with Patrick so we can implement Tommy Jane’s notes on Narcosis before Patrick tears out of here on his European vacation with the family.
Not to mention I have couches to be delivered, artwork that needs framing, a cat to pick up from the vet, a shopping spree for new dress shoes and T-shirts…yes…it promises to be a very busy week.