Happy Birthday to TheOneRing.net!

TheOneRing.net turned 10 years old today. I have been fortunate to be a lot of places, take a lot of pictures, and know a lot of great people in my association with the site. I feel very blessed.

This is a soundslide, used by photojournalists, sometimes to spectacular effect. The music is original from Arjan Kiel www.argankiel.com with thanks to fan film, "Born of Hope".

The images are mine.

Click the triangle play button to make it work and the button in the far right corner makes it bigger and cooler.

The tale of my personal OneRing saga continues

I tend to be a bit wordy. Here is part one. Part two tells the tale of other events during Comic-Con 2001 and takes us through the Line Party events. I think the longer version is a better read.

I have liked comic books since I could read. I was an advanced reader as a child and I read often and in great quantity. Despite the medium's reputation as trash, I loved it fiercely and still do and I had always felt a casual desire to attend the famous San Diego Comic Con but when I knew "Fellowship of the Ring," was on the horizon and that TORn was going to be there, the website I was checking daily for LOTR news, I convinced the wife to take a trip. So there we were.

Like any good Tolkien fan would, I made it a point to see TheOneRing.net's panel at Comic-Con. I have photo of head of Weta Workshops, Richard Taylor, on a stage with Cliff and Jon (Quickbeam and Tookish) and I believe this was during the TORn panel but I don't know for sure. Others may read and remember and I will edit as I can. This pair of staffers was active during TORn's early days, Quickbeam writing his "Out on a limb" pieces and Tookish doing a humor section. They were part of the early content providers that kept me coming back, along with the news team, including Xoanon, and spy Tehanu, putting up notices when somebody so much as broke wind on set.

I even signed up for, and after much lurking, posted on the message board. It is the only such place I have ever remained active despite great interest in a great number of things. I can't define the alchemy, but no other forum has prompted me to do more than lurk.

New Line Cinema had an official LOTR presentation as well. Wouldn't you know it, but when Shannon and I went to the thing, we ran into our friend Heather again. I recall that she was in San Diego alone and also motivated to be there by the LOTR events and probably because she is nicer than me, she called Shannon and I over to some seats she had saved in the auditorium that fit several hundred people. They were close to the front and we were fortunate to have the kindness of a virtual stranger.

Then, Heather did something that mortified me. Cliff and Jon walked in the door and were in our general area looking for somebody or perhaps for seats. She stood up and yelled, "Cliff! Cliff! Jon!" She had more seats and they were intended for the guys from TheOneRing that she met. It is a fault of mine, but my natural instincts are to leave people alone, being a little self conscious. Heather had me help wave the pair down and I felt ridiculous but I did it and they came and sat with us. (I will ask Jon and Cliff if they recall this sometime.)

Cliff is pretty much the opposite of me in regard to how he deals with new acquaintances. Where I am reserved, he is friendly. Where I am stoic, he makes it clear he is happy to meet people. I keep a distance and he is immediately warm and gracious. I am not and was not then, completely without people skills, but he lights up individuals with attention and courtesy. I am perceptive enough to have watched and learned a little, especially when I have represented TheOneRing, but I think Quickbeam was born with this in his nature. I know of many, many LOTR fans that have been charmed by him.

So, Cliff was disarming and charming and Jon was friendly and cool and even gave me a shirt that never had a chance of fitting but was a treasure anyway. Heather facilitated this further meeting that led to me keeping in touch with Jon on occasion and being remembered. I wouldn't have flagged that pair down for money, but Heather made it happen. (Incidentally, I still see Heather at Comic-Con every year. Each of us has a social network there but we make it a point to say 'hi' and we both keep going back. She will always be my first convention friend.)

We ran into Cliff one more time where I got the impression that he had seen enough of the newlyweds from Utah.

After the convention at some point on TheOneRing, they posted a page called the "Line Party page" to facilitate organized meetings for fans to find other local fans and either watch the soon-to-be-released FOTR together or even to meet for other reasons such as the famous California-based Bilbo's Birthday party.

I checked the site to see if there was anything going on in Salt Lake City. There wasn't. I decided that was bad.

I signed up for a Salt Lake City line party and I had the idea that rather than wait in a line for tickets, I should buy a lot of tickets when they went on sale, a few weeks prior to the show, so a large group could enjoy the event together. I didn't know if just putting up the information at TheOneRing would be enough so I picked a theater, posted a flyer or two at a college, visited an anime club in person and before I knew it, things were happening. People were signing up in droves. Utah is a hotbed for not only Tolkien fans but fantasy fans in general. Why this is true would be a whole blog entry, but it is the case. Local columnist Lee Benson wrote about it.

Not only were people Tolkienites, they were trusting! I set up a P.O. Box and had people mail me checks for their tickets. Why they did this in such numbers I will never understand but scads of checks and a few in-person cash transactions came in. I asked for a little more than face value on the tickets, thinking that for so much work we ought to be doing something charitable. During this time we also established a good relationship with a book store which became the future staging place of many events and even celebrity book signings. Salt Lake became a star on the map of Houghton-Mifflin who publishes all thing J.R.R. Tolkien.

Our planned one-theater buyout sold out completely at 512 seats with the front-row empty, so nobody had to break a neck to watch the film. Lots of people were still wanting seats so we directed them to the same theater's auditoriums where midnight shows were playing and they sold out, mostly to our people, as well.

The theater of choice wasn't willing to work a behind-the-scenes deal to buy out the theater so, the morning tickets went on sale I walked up to the counter and asked for 512 tickets to "Fellowship Of The Ring." The counter girl was a little flummoxed and I learned it takes quite a while to print out 512 tickets and they are an awkward bulk that you can't simply drop in your pocket.

I called the local media and while the television stations followed other stories, the newspapers showed up and we had some good coverage. The Deseret News had some great photos and this article.

TheOneRing was very active in California in those days. Owner and founder Calisuri-Chris was in Los Angeles, after leaving Penn State, pretty much following his future wife Amy. News poster-founder Xoanon-Mike was in Canada, webmaster-founder Corvar-Bill in Wisconsin and spy-founder Tehanu-Erica was famously in New Zealand. But, a lot of the in-person energy was going on in California. Chris became connected with Sideshow, making a partnership between the company and TORn that helped establish the Sideshow-Weta brand name as the premier LOTR producer of collectibles and helped TORn pay the bills to accommodate its massive traffic.

Quickbeam was there, eventually partnering with Carlene to eventually make the documentary, "Ringers: Lord of the Fans" where I received my first film credit (so far!) as a unit director. It was natural with all this energy in California and lots of others staffers and friends like Garfeimao, Sarumann and Arwen, that the site would tackle the challenge of hosting an "Oscar Party," in February of 2002.

End of part 2

Ten years! The saga of TheOneRing.net

I know I get a little wordy at times. The quick summary of this post is: I went with Shannon to the San Diego Comic-Con and met a couple of guys from TheOneRing.net and others from the Tolkien fan community. End of part one. I think the longer version is a lot better.



I do some freelance writing for a company I love called Sideshow Collectibles.
The company evolved over the years, matured if you will, and I was asked to write something to help mark their first 10 years, perhaps for a catalog. My copy is on some computer somewhere and the only version found online has been edited to be more commercial, as is fitting, but some of the deeper impact of the words about life is watered down.

I originally wrote that 10 years is a long enough time for significant changes in life. Infants become young humans, pre-teens become adults. Couples marry, some split, people move, some die, businesses start and fail or flourish.

Our Arabic number system, makes any "ten" significant and ten years, or a decade, is quite a big deal. So, about ten years ago I discovered a Web site that I was immediately impressed with. I heard that J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings" book (it isn't a trilogy, its one book in three volumes) was being made into a trilogy of films. It had long seemed amazing to me that somebody hadn't done this already and it was exciting to find that plans were made.

In an effort to scour the Internet for information, I found a place called www.TheOneRing.net which was a clearinghouse for information about the film from people who obviously knew the book. The tone was excited but not absurdly so, and the news and speculation was plentiful.

They had a month, maybe two, of archives and I devoured every single word, probably twice, and later enjoyed their more scholarly writings in "The Green Books." I was an immediate fan of the site and then my admiration grew as I read more over time. There was even a message board, where I would go and browse other fans' thoughts, not feeling a need to contribute, but I used them as a litmus test to gauge other opinions. I visited TORn daily, even though the content didn't yet demand daily visits.

In that same year, in December, I proposed to my friend Shannon that we get married and she agreed so in June of 2000 we tied our destinies together and became kid and wife. A year later we visited my first San Diego Comic-Con, which I still happen to think is one of the coolest events ever. It is a celebration of popular culture that everybody should attend at least once and many should and do attend annually. (Over 130,000 unique visitors in 2008!)

Shannon and I, by nature, aren't extremely outgoing with strangers but we somehow became friendly with a woman named Heather. We also gravitated to a modest booth put up by Sideshow-Weta (a joint venture of Sideshow Collectibles and Weta Workshop that has since split) featuring some design elements directly from the first of the Peter Jackson trilogy of LOTR movies, "The Fellowship Of The Ring". Keep in mind, those movies were still viewed as a gamble by many in the film industry (seemed an obvious "sure thing" to me) and they had not yet made much of an impact on culture and certainly beyond the core Tolkien fans that were significant but not yet a phenomenon. How under the radar was it? While at this booth, still a couple of years prior to it being made up of a giant cave troll, Elijah Wood wandered by to talk with the Weta and Sideshow folks on hand.

He wasn't at the Comic-Con promoting anything, he was wondering around the dealer's floor shooting the breeze and seeing the sights. Like me, he was mighty curious what Sideshow-Weta was up to. As press, I talked to Daniel Falconer who was on hand along with others including Wood. If the heartthrob showed up now he would be mobbed, to the point that there would be a security issue and he would perhaps be in danger along with those who would be trampled by the screaming hoards. Shannon barely knew or cared who he was but we walked up and said hello, talked for a minute or two and had him sign something.

I don't recall any of the discussion but I recall with perfect clarity his shocked reaction when I suggested six months from then, after "Fellowship Of The Ring," hit theaters, that he would never be able to walk around the Con floor like he was then due to his forthcoming popularity.

His naive but seemingly genuine response was to look at me in shock, grab my arm and say, "Oh don't say that!" I knew better than he did that he was going to be, probably forever, instantly recognizable and known for playing Frodo Baggins in Peter Jackson's adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings."

Also met were Cliff and Jon from TheOneRing.net! They were both polite and we either exchanged a greeting or a handshake, partly because Shannon and I were there and because I was "media." I think the Sideshow-Weta-OneRing-Wood contingent went off to dinner and Shannon and I went off to see what else there was to see. We had met Jon and Cliff from TORn, Elijah from the film, the graceful and now late Diane Kamahele from Sideshow, Daniel from Weta and Heather.

I had my first brush with the community around both Tolkien and the films. I didn't know it at the time, but it was to be life changing.


End of part 1

Me, sex, Oprah and kids

First a preamble so nobody can mistake where I am coming from.

For the record I think sex is amazing and healthy and part of the joy of life. It isn't something to be ashamed of and it certainly isn't dirty. Some of the social circles I travel in or grew up in probably cast sex publicly as something "good" people don't do, which is unfortunate. The LDS Church officially believes and teaches that sex is sacred and should be saved for the bonds of marriage. Unfortunately, when this gets filtered through imperfect people it sometimes comes out, especially to teens, that sex is wrong and bad.

I think intimacy serves the purpose of bonding and binding people close together and I think it is a celebration of their commitment to each other, all of that outside of its other important purpose of creating life. I think both purposes are divine. Sometimes religions, or people in religions, so badly want to teach kids that sex is special and should be saved for the right time, they accidentally teach them that sex is bad. Worse, some religious people do think sex is bad. I disagree.

So, I am pro-sex.

Last Thursday Media Queen Of The World, known simply as Oprah, had Dr. Laura Berman on her show to tell parents how to talk to their kids about sex. Berman coached Oprah and her audience on the right words to say, the right attitudes to display to children and what to talk about at different ages. In fact, I downloaded her pdf "The Sex Ed Handbook," so I could read all of her instructions.

Oprah looked pretty uncomfortable during her own show and I am sure you can find clips of it somewhere and decide if I projected my uncomfortableness on the host. In short, I didn't like all of Berman's approach. She advises that we tell our children pretty much everything because they are going to learn it anyway.

I wonder how others feel about some of Berman's advice:

I found this humorous and I know I will not be following this advice: "Celebrate her bodily functions and be positive about them, not negative. For example, when changing her diaper, don't say, 'P-U! That stinks!' Instead, say, 'What a healthy bowel movement!' "

Apparently when I gagged and dry heaved and retched over my first-born's diapers, I was sending him a bad message. Sorry dude!

In the 2nd - 4th grades I am supposed to tell my kids, when they ask how sperm ended up in the woman's body that, "the man puts his penis inside the woman's vagina (anatomy lesson has happened already) and the sperm comes out of his penis in a fluid called semen, and it goes into her vagina. The sperm goes up into her uterus to her fallopian tube, where it meets the egg.

I don't feel like introducing "semen" into my 2nd grader's vocabulary. Am I crazy here? They can also live without "fallopian tube". I took my six-year-old to the body exhibit in town with dissected and naked bodies, but can I cultivate a healthy attitude without naming all the parts? They don't know what a kidney is either but they pee just fine.

5th and 6th grades gets you an anatomy chart. I included the male one here, so enjoy.

This is the age when I am supposed to discuss masturbation and orgasm with my child. Call it a hunch but I am pretty sure that isn't going to happen with a lot of people. It wasn't all that long ago that Bill Clinton fired his Attorney General for saying of the practice at a U.N. AIDS conference, ""I think that it is part of human sexuality, and perhaps it should be taught." I just suspect a lot of people aren't ready to have that talk with elementary kids, even their own.

Then we talk about birth control, including abstinence, and, "You can show them the different options and even demonstrate by rolling a condom on a banana." Really?

Well, the problem children face is that puberty happens younger and younger and sexuality becomes something they will face in school. And, they will be getting this information from somebody so I would rather it come from me. Berman explains that information doesn't equal permission and I will wrestle with her guidelines and my values for a while I suspect.

She says also: "Teach your children that their sexuality is a gift and a joy and that it is something that should not be tossed aside or used and abused by others. Let them know that sex feels great and can be amazing—but only under the right circumstances and with the right person." I fully agree.

What made me a little relieved not to have a daughter was the prospect of this: "You might want to have a candid talk with her about exploring or learning about her body or even offer her a simple clitoral vibrator. (Don't worry, it doesn't have to be a large toy or a toy that is actually inserted into the vagina.)" Oh the "don't worry" part makes it all okay for me to talk about then?

I finally figured out that I live in a society where nothing is sacred. Religious practices and sexual practices don't need to be brought into the light of day and carefully examined and discussed. Some sexual discussions and practices are so special and so rare and sacred, that they should be discussed between lovers. It isn't anybody's business what I do in my bedroom, not even my kids need to know. And, if I teach them correct principals and healthy attitudes, I don't need to know about their sex lives either. I do need to create lines of communication but not everything needs to be hashed out between us.

I hope I can teach them to value their sexual selves enough to save it for that exchange with the right person. I hope that sex isn't a hidden, dirty, taboo but also that it isn't a cake recipe or like dissecting a cat in high school. A sexual experience need not be like the Xs and Os on a coaches blackboard. I hope I can teach that love is the ingredient that makes it truly matter and makes it great.

Still, Oprah's guest gave me a lot to think about and I suspect a lot of parents could learn a little from the "sex talk" guide, found right here. I will ponder her suggestions carefully and evaluate how I am helping my kids often.

Pirates are in the news! Arrrrg?

Pirates have been in the news for years now. Specifically Somalian pirates who live in a chaotic country, lack a lot of the wants and needs of life and so ply their trade of plunder on the lawless ocean.

I don't mean that pirates have been in the news that people are reading, just in the news. These Somali pirates have been taking a ship or ships each day for a while, which the news agencies report but not so much because mostly, people in the U.S. don't care.

Yesterday I was monitoring the wires at work, posting stories of interest, when I came across the latest pirate stories. I knew that this story would be a well read pirate story because suddenly:
A) It had Americans in it
B) The Americans were heroic

It turns out it was popular on the site I work for and became a big story across the country. The captain of the Dutch boat in question is still a hostage and things are very serious. People are dying and killing and somehow people (including me) find it funny that pirates are in the news. Blackbeard and Captain Jack Sparrow are the romantic representations we all conjure when we hear the word "pirates."

And, as a blogger I think its my moral obligation, since every other blog in the universe has done it already, to point out that the demise of pirates is the cause of global warming. Pirates are cool you see. Hahaha. Here is the obligatory funny chart that proves it:

But, really, people are dying. Even though the Somali pirates actually have public relations spokespeople (a high thought of job here in the newsroom) they are stealing, killing and eventually will be killed.

I think the pirates in the news now, made a grievous error when they involved Americans. The news coverage (yes, the press still has power) will shine too bright a light over in the waters surrounding Somalia. The area is near a shipping lane and while we Americans don't like it when our citizens are killed or taken hostage, we hate it when our business interests are threatened. Corporate America will not stand for this and, credit decent people everywhere who like to blissfully ignore the world, neither will citizens. President Obama will need to show rouge states and aggressive profiteers that there is a price to be paid for taking citizens hostage. If it needs to happen, pirate vessels will sink. The symbol of Obama not taking action would be too powerful and along with those business interests, make strong action a certainty.

More proof of the pirate - warming relationship, pirate weathermen:
If the pirates release the captain, there are now U.S. warships sitting there in the water with them. Their long term survival is highly unlikely. While the Dutch business that owns the boat might pay a ransom for the captain, the U.S. military is under no obligation not to attempt an arrest or to sink the vessel afterwards. The joke is over for Americans now that one of ours is a hostage.

The Happiest Place On Earth

So I loaded up my household clan and jumped over to California for some Disneyland and to celebrate the naming and birth of a new little nephew, Baby C. Our trip was just under three days, not including a couple of evenings traveling.

My mind was open to the experience of the Mickey Mouse amusement park and its claim of being, “the Happiest Place On Earth.” (See my previous post.) I couldn’t buy the claim as more than a great advertising slogan and yet I know a great number of people who are infatuated with the place and wouldn’t dream of vacationing anywhere else.

I also received excellent comments from three friends on the blog who leant a little perspective to what might be the happiest of places. An elementary school friend, Jason, has some poignant hardships that provide him a clearer lens through which to view the world than most of us. The scales of the cares of the mundane day-to-day have been lifted and he sees with the sharpest of focus, as if he can peer into the realm of the spirit, the realm of the genuine soul from which most of us are obscured. Read his story on his own blog, but prepare to have your own focus altered. His story is mind altering.

Without the transcendent vision of Jason, this is what I observed at Disneyland:

Not only is Disney carefully prepared to maximize the money that seeps out of your wallet and into its hands, there is an empire of peripheral business that cater to the hoards that descend each day to the theme park. Tens of thousands, perhaps more, make a living because of the reality of this park

According to numbers I found on a website, when the park opened, Anaheim grew from five hotels and two motels with a total of 87 rooms to 150 establishments and 18,000 rooms today.

We were unfortunate enough to choose one of the busiest days of the year at the park, especially of the days when school is in full session. As (bad) luck would have it, the national cheerleading championships were in Los Angeles so joining us on our plane, and on our vacation, were scads of 15-18 year old girls. (The one next to me on our 737 smelled of bacon cheeseburgers and evangelized the film “Twilight.”) This multitude made lines longer, made the park louder and allowed us fewer rides and activities at the park.

But, as whiney as I sound, these were extremely minor issues. As cynical and critical as I was prepared to be, the theme park was and is great fun. I wouldn’t bother going without my kids but we had a grand time and I discovered the reasons why. It turns out the park is canvas for play while my children provided all the color.

I will recall as long as I am taking breath, the simple sweetness of holding the hands of my sons, each in his own turn.

Logan, weeks only away from marking his fifth year, actually enjoys the contact with his father, hand-to-hand. It was a practical necessity because of the crowds, the size of our group (which included seven extended family members) and the need to move together from place to place. The memory of this sweet little boy’s tiny hand clutching mine is flavored by his reaction when all four of my fingers weren’t closed over his. He consciously made the effort with his other hand to reach up and reclose my hand on his. He demanded that all my digits hold all of his soft, gentle hand, not because it was more secure but because he liked it and it felt right to him. This tiny action was endearing and unforgettable to me. I laughed when he did it and we made a game out of it at the time but I knew even then that this was a special moment, one I will recall when he likely grows temporarily imbecilic as a teen.

Dresden was perfectly content to engage in hand holding (more often with is mother) as well because -- and this is the great magic of the park -- we were focused on having fun. A little like friend Jason, the cares of the world were off our shoulders and we were in an 80-acre realm where we were intent on enjoying ourselves as we left behind our cares. The most obvious white trash and the wealthiest patron of the park shared the same experience of just trying to have a good time.

Dresden’s moment for me came while we were riding the train that circles the park with four stops and serves as a quick way to get form place-to-place and offers minor amusements in between stops. He was still energized even though evening was falling and he and I sat together and apart from the rest of our party. At each of the stops the teen-aged conductor speaks to the new passengers and reminds the holdovers of a few simple rules such as not standing up, not taking flash photos and explaining where the next stop would be.

She was mostly impossible to understand because of the sound system and because she had made a similar announcement the 42 previous times the train had stopped. I remarked to Dresden that it sounded like she was eating pudding as she talked. My boy sweetly found this hilarious and made his silly talking-and-pudding-eating motion while giggling and saying, “arg arg arg blah blah arg blah,” and then breaking into hysterics. He did this over and over, entertaining himself every last time.

He has always loved the sounds of words and been amused by those he makes up since he could first make sounds and there on the train I got the full, pure joy of Dresden at almost-seven; a perfect moment at Disneyland.

So in case that wasn’t clear, Disneyland is magical because we go there for the pursuit of fun. We go there to go faster and higher and get artificial scares and thrills and to participate in the illusions offered us. But I don’t think it’s the attractions that make all the difference (although they are smartly designed) but the way we participate in them. We go there to have fun. Sure, kids love seeing scary and yet safe pirates (oh so different from the reality of plunder and murder and boat-living) but I believe too that a good deal of the experience is that parents pursue the fun with them.

How often do I truly engage in the pursuit of fun with my child for an entire day? How often do I allow them to direct where we go and what we do? How often do parents spend eight or nine or ten solid hours laughing or playing with small breaks for cold drinks and cotton candy? I think my children, all children, deserve parents that on occasion make time to pursue fun. I get so busy scolding or “teaching” or following up with my children that I forget how well they respond to fun and love.

Disneyland is a license to focus on fun but I am going to give myself permission to plan and execute more fun days at home. We will vacation elsewhere. We will find other carefree play days close and far. When my sons are older and can put the world in better context, we will explore more of it together. I will be, I am, dedicated to having fun with Shannon and Dresden and Logan. Wherever we do that will be the happiest place on earth.

It will not smell bad on the inside until your kids use it

I know a bit about licensing properties and I know a tad about collecting. So, I think I know a hot property when I see one.

ThinkGeek.com made up a sleeping bag that is pure retail gold. I don't know if the licensing folks at LucasFilm are too protective of their property to allow some harmless humor but what kid doesn't want to climb inside the belly of a Tauntaun? What parent who grew up under the influence of George Lucas doesn't want to buy this for his child? I want two of them immediately! ThinkGeek produced a product page as a joke but the flood of requests for the real thing have moved the company to seek a license. Like all Star Wars items, it will not come cheep.

Read more about it at ThinkGeek.com.

For those who missed it, there are some excellent comments on my blog entry found here on the happiest place on earth. I discovered some things at Disneyland and will post some thoughts soon. I found some (for me) answers.

A thing in a jar

So, I made a "thing in a jar" and brought it to work and set it on public display. Nobody said a word. I tried to make it look like something that could be mistaken for a twisted monster fetus. I added a bunch of tentacles and used green / gray color to make it look inhuman or a bit unnatural.

Not a single soul at my work office has said a single word about it. I have moved it to be more visible but I think the end of the evil plan is near an end.

In the photo posted here, I put it in front of bright sunlight to give a little better view of what is inside. The office environment is less revealing. At the end of the day, I love my thing in a jar. Perhaps it needs a label so I am open to suggestions.

Update: I have been informed that two co-workers thought the contents of my jar were gross and didn't understand the humor, which means it worked. I was also told that it baffled a good number of other co-workers who don't know me all that well and so haven't said a word. Good times.