August 31, 2004
Mercenary Plugging!entry,
In just 39 short days, Linucon opens. I'll be there with Steve Jackson, Wil Wheaton, Eric Raymond, and Eric Flint. It turns out that each of us has been given a promotional registration code allowing our fans to save $5.00 on pre-registration. It occurs to me that the Linucon folks may be able to TRACK who registers under which code. It THEN occurred to me that one way or another, somebody is going to get bragging rights, and that I want it to be me, rather than Wil Wheaton.
I mean, I'm sure he's a great guy and everything, but he's a published author and a recognizable face, and I'm a lowly webcartoonist. Hello, underdog!
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to register for Linucon using the word "ovalkwik" in the 'Coupon code' field. That's "ovalkwik" with a 'kw', not a 'qw.' That's for $5 off the $35 pre-registration fee, or a savings of 14.285714(repeating)%!
(Incidentally, the $10 T-shirt will have my artwork on it, and the $15 banquet ticket gets you a fancy-schmancy dinner with me and the other Guests of Honor. You don't HAVE to shell out extra money to enjoy the 'Con, but you know you want to.)
Okay, that's the first plug. The second is to go get your filk on. A fellow web-toonist named Rob Balder of Partially Clips has produced a CD of filksongs, and I'm pretty sure they'll speak to you. You can go have a listen at the Rich Fantasy Lives website, but what you REALLY need to do is just order the filking CD. It's $17.50, which is probably $17.50 more than most of you young Napsterites and Kazaasses ever spend on a music CD, but I assure you that THIS time not a single dime of what you spend is going to a fat-cat record company. In fact, every dime past expenses is going straight into feeding Rob Balder, who is out on a long limb between paychecks right now.
I've loaded the music into my personal iTunes library, and I love it. The lyrics are delightful, and Rob's singing is quite good. The musical production is a little below my usual standards, but I used to be a record producer, and I've got a hypercritical ear in that regard. Besides, overproduced pop-crap is NOT What this album is about. It's about having a laugh at yourself, and telling some stories that really can't be told outside of a good folk song.
The title track, "Rich Fantasy Lives," is about the lives many of us lead inside our imaginations. If you've ever wanted to play a Schlock Mercenary RPG, or lost yourself in a novel for a day, this song will grab you.
Okay... that's TWO plugs. The third is the Warehouse 23 shirts for Schlock Mercenary. I've gotten several emails from folks now saying that Warehouse 23 has been easy to work with, the shipping was fast, and the shirts are awesome. Join the ranks of fashionable Schlockers!