and I cut me a switch from a long branch elbow

Have I mentioned Nick Sayers yet? He's made an amazing amount of them, and they're all done using found objects, not objects created for the art. Detailed, whimsical, and massively creative.

(My favorites, of course, are the stitched card sphere, the measuring tape sphere, and the one based on bike wheel reflectors.)

Go Oz! There's hope for the Lindens yet.

And back to the grind...I mean, the Escapist thread.

I'm going to eliminate a lot of the controversy that BROUGHT us to this point (at least, in preservation-capture mode), but halfway down page 63, there was a question.

TypeSD: Can someone tell me what the hell I'm being accused of? I am not James from Extra Credits. I'm a jumped up Aussie with a love for the Escapist and Extra Credits.

Hagi responded: I'm fairly certain, although not entirely, that zvate would like you to add in the parts that Alexander omitted from my post which Alexander quoted which you quoted. If that makes any sense?

Maybe. There was also an implication from zvate that indicated he was upset because TypeSD, who uses a Jack O'Neill user icon, was in fact James Portnow from Extra Credits, and...that's just a baffling level of stupid, there.

How'ver, I can't find the original reply, and at this point, really don't care, but if you care to follow the logic, we have a lovely run-down from Hagi:

What I think it means:
- TypeSD's avatar has the name Jack.
- TypeSD seems to be mostly supporting EC, not TE.
- TypeSD quoted directly from Alexander, not taking into account that Alexander only quoted half my post.
- zvate feels that TypeSD should've added in the part of my post that Alexander omitted in order to fairly represent both sides since TypeSD seems to be supporting EC.
- zvate feels that TypeSD not doing this implies that his OP is compromised and giving an unfair recollection of events in favor of EC.

So, there you have it.

Meanwhile, there was another back-and-forth interchange that I came across while searching for zvate's reply. This one started on page 58:

Ramzal: And do all the people who've donated agree with you? Or for that matter, do all the people who voted and did NOT pick that option agree with you? Every single last one of them? And what about the people who went over the donation goal before the poll went up agree as well? If not then there is a flaw to your logic.

To which this was Kian2's reply: Yes, EVERY SINGLE PERSON THAT DONATED AGREED.

You know how you can be sure of that? Because if they hadn't agreed, they wouldn't have donated.

YOU CANNOT DONATE WITHOUT SEEING THE AMOUNT ALREADY DONATED.

If you donated before they hit their required funds, then you can be certain that the money will go to help Allyson. She alrady got the operation, in fact, and will not face any needs in the coming months until she is fully recovered. Exactly what the fundaraiser was for.

If you donated after they hit their mark, but before you were certain what the money would be spent on, then you are implicitly agreeing to have that money go towards whatever cause they choose to spend it on, regardless of your opinion. No one was forcing you to donate, they had already made it clear that they had all they needed.

If you donated after they decided on the cause, then you obviously must agree with the destination. Why donate otherwise?

As for research, the current situation is a matter of who said what, but there's a wealth of historical data to educate yourself and form a more informed opinion. There's the Extra Credits episodes where they talk about the fundraiser, and how they already have the money they need and are deciding what to do with the surpluss.

There's the RocketHub page. Have you actually gone there, and seen how RocketHub works?

There's their Facebook and Twitter posts where they discussed the destination of the funds. Have you gone back to look at them?

That's all free, open, unalterable evidence of the events leading up to this. If you didn't feel inclined to donate, don't hold it against them that they didn't go to more effort to educate the people who didn't care. Those who cared enough to donate and keep up with the issue were kept up to date.

I didn't quote the entirety of Kian's response (that's here if you really want to read it all), but this bit? Sheer perfection, and yes--very well reasoned, indeed.

Of course, as of August 11th, tempers are starting to fray. I present Exhibit A, TypeSD's response to zvate:

It does not. Zvate, link me to what you want added, tell me where you want it put. We'll go from there.

Also don't jump to idiotic conclusions which display a lack of knowledge and sense.

Right.

zvate: Alright, my bad. I'm glad my worst mistakes happen online and not off.... Anyway please include full quotations in your initial post as the partials tend to distort the meaning. I realize that such may demean relevancy but I think its important...

Owyn_Merrilin in response: You don't seem to have spent much time on the forums, so it's understandable that you don't know this, but it was actually Archon who omitted portions of Hagi's quote. The quote system here allows you to edit the text of what you're quoting, partially to allow you to get to the parts that apply to you, and Archon did that. When TypeSD quoted Archon in turn, the parts that Archon had edited out stayed edited out. It's actually a completely fair representation of events, since it was supposed to show Archon's response, not Hagi's question.

(By the way, in case you didn't know, Archon is Alexander Macris' screen name, which is why anything he says is relevant to the thread.)

And zvate's reply in turn: with the re-quotes.... I don't know, maybe it is too hard and I just saw something weird too late night... anyway, sorry for the initial misjump of bile...

I guess that's that.

So this one's kind of short--aheh--but I am trying to speed this unfortunate obsession along, so here you go. At some point in the next couple of days, oh, six, seven posts from now, I'll do another round-up of links, because the gods forbid, we wouldn't want anyone to get lost, now.

Gods, I need a hobby.

Besides this one.

And Second Life.

And all my other hobbies...

I filled me a sachel full of old pig corn

This is far more real life, and real politics, than I usually cover, but I feel it's worth a mention: the West Memphis Three are finally off death row.

Sort of.

What does that mean? Well, if you don't know anything about the West Memphis Three, these boys--well, hells, they're not boys anymore, that's the deeper tragedy--were arrested for the slaying of three Boy Scouts in Arkansas in 1994. Though there was evidence to suggest another party did the killing, this was overruled in terms of the things the Arkansas police knew: that Damien Echols, Jason Baldwin, and Jessie Misskelley, Jr. wore black, were presumed to be Satanic worshippers (they were pagan, not Satanists), and had been arrested for shoplifting and vandalism prior to this event.

Because of the disturbing aspects of the case (the boys in question were eight years old, were tortured either before or after their murder, and there was evidence of rape), the three young men were bound over for trial, convicted, and Echols, at least, was sent to death row. (Even though evidence, suppressed at the time, surfaced that Terry Hobbs had killed the three boys.)

As Echols came in under conviction of child murder and raped, he was immediately seized as a toy by the inmates; after repeated rapes, he was moved to solitary confinement, where he has spent the bulk of his prison time since that date. Baldwin was sentenced to life imprisonment as an accessory, and Misskelley separated from the trial, hoping to get a better deal, but was also sentenced to life imprisonment.

This is where the Alford plea comes in. A little-used legal procedure, it dictates that the accused is in agreement that there is sufficient evidence to result in a guilty verdict, while asserting innocence. It's not well-known, even by most lawyers, and it's a tribute to the minds behind their legal team that discovered it at all. I don't know if it was attempted, and then abandoned, previously to this, or if it was ever attempted at all, but I do know this--if it had not been for the state suddenly moving, after over a decade, to actually execute Echols, none of this would have happened.

But after over fifteen years in solitary confinement, Echols, and his two compatriots are now free. Still under burden of the guilty verdict in Arkansas, and under ten years' probation from that state, but finally, they're not trapped in their cells, wondering when the axe will fall. It's a dark victory, to be sure, but it's a victory nonetheless.

Now, back to the Escapist.

Nuke_em_05 from page 47: Escapist: If you're going to get into a contract, make sure you can meet your end of the agreement.

EC: If you are in a contract, don't meet your end if they aren't meeting theirs.

Contracts are legal business documents. You don't enter contracts "as friends" on "good faith". You enter a contract knowing your obligations and what you are due, and expect it.

I know James was "only trying to help out" the Escapist by saying "no worries" on payments, but what he should have done is said: "pay up, renegotiate, or back out". Right away.

As for the RocketHub business, there has clearly been tons of miss-communication and assumptions.

From what I read here, the Escapist has no say as to what the funds go to, at all. They did not "donate" publisher's club memberships or t-shirts, they expected to be reimbursed for cost.

For the Publisher's Club memberships, the first 50 (with a $15 donation), actually cost the effort $5 each (they got $15, but owed Escapist $20), so the first 50 actually cost the charity $250.

Hopefully the T-Shirts cost less than $20 to produce. If the statements are correct, however, the 1754 shirts over a stated $36,450.00 works out to $20.78 per shirt (actually sounds about right, to be honest), which means the $20.00 donation left EC losing $0.78 per shirt.

241 of the $50.00 donation publisher's club subscriptions would gross $12,050 for the charity, but cost $4,820 to reimburse the Escapist, leaving $7230 for the charity.

So, that's a total of $5,070 owed to the Escapist on that issue (T-Shirts aside).

All the details are fuzzy, though, communication is key, folks.

For future reference, if you are doing an auction or sale for a charity, there are two ways to do it:
1. Have the items donated and sell them below cost/retail (100% profit)
2. Buy the items and sell them above cost with the "doing good deed" be an incentive to purchase through the charity and spend more. Or buy at cost and sell at retail so the purchase incentive is the profits go to charity, while not spending more than retail.

It looks like EC took option 2 and did it wrong.

Scrumpmonkey:

(from the media album)

Hee.

SpaceGhost2K, some hours later (yes, still on the 10th): There are only two people related to The Escapist that I have had any personal involvement with, and even that was on a very limited basis: James Portnow and Susan Arendt. Even with my limited contact with these two people, I can tell you that I'd trust either of them with the keys to my car. I'm not sure how Susan got dragged into this. I saw her name mentioned a couple of pages back, being compared to someone else or something. I don't care. All I know is that if there are shenanigans going on, I refuse to believe she played any part in them.

Having read the point-counterpoint-countercounterpoint posts by the two parties, the fault seems pretty clearly to me to rest on the shoulders of The Escapist. The contract was: EC makes content, TE pays them. EC fulfilled their part of the contract for one year. TE fulfilled their part for one month. After that month, I don't see how that contract could still be considered legally binding. TE had violated the terms of the contract. Period.

It's also clear that TE donated nothing toward the fundraising effort. Did they donate cash? They've not said so. Did they donate goods? No, they were to be paid for the t-shirts that were "donated", although they did agree not to make a profit on them. Did they donate services? Yes, and no. They agreed to donate Publisher Club Memberships, but those are intangible items like donating horse armor. They're not "out" anything. I've read comparisons that point me to the EC video on "piracy" but that doesn't apply here. They are not out the cost of a Pub Club membership if they give it to me, because I wouldn't use it.

Lastly, I read that one site said they would not allow the fund raising effort because they didn't do charity. That means this effort was recognized as a charity. It was created to fund one charitable effort: fixing Allison's arm. The funds that were left over were going to be put toward a second charitable effort: an indie incubation project, from which no one at TE or EC would receive any money. How TE ever came to the conclusion that it would be appropriate to use those charity funds for the non-charity purpose of paying the money they owed to EC for services rendered is beyond me.

And with that, we reach page 55, and a comment from someone that corrected something I'd believed from the first few posts on this topic.

bob1052: It wasn't just [to] get Yahtzee to PAX.

A quick google search taking the first link

http://www.airfaresflights.com.au/flights/Sydney/Seattle-SEA/

Sydney to Seattle
United Airlines Economy flight.
Listed 11/08/2011
09/09/11
14/09/11
fr $1547*

For a round trip it would cost $1547. Obviously this is not how much it cost back then but I doubt it would be off by more than 10 times.

What they wanted to do was get Yahtzee to PAX, as well as a large number of their other employees, and then instead of Yahtzee signing various things at a booth or anything, they wanted to rent out a convention hall to have a party that only people who gave $100 or more could attend.

I'm not sure how to not see it as a working vacation.

Huh. Okay, I did not know that. That puts the Escapist's "fundraising" drive to get Croshaw to Seattle in a much less favorable light. Plus, at the time of this writing, that price had dropped to $1538.

Uszi responded to this, of course: Suffice to say that the cost was not to fly Yahtzee economy, they intended to fly him business class. They are also going to pay him for attending, since he would technically be working and not going on vacation. The additional cost was to fully cater an event including a bar for the people who contributed $100 or more, hence why it was 21+.

Which is all well and good, save for the part where they wanted to raise $20,000 for the total cost of getting him from Sydney to Seattle, and then charge folks extra--in point of fact, double the cost of their PAX three-day pass in the first place--just to have a chance of getting in (not a definite, pay your C-note, you're in deal). If we go by the first link given through the same service, that raises the total cost of a first-class ticket to $6168. That leaves $13,832 free for a suite at one of the seven hotels around the convention center. Let's be generous and--even though no hotel suites are available at this time--book him in an imaginary suite at the Alexis, near the center. They average $418 per night; let's be generous again and book him for a full week. That's $2926. Let's be more generous and toss him $1000 for food, and another $1000 for personal spending funds. $4926 plus $6168 is $11,094, so where's the other $8906 going to go?

FINALLY we get to August 11th, and we start that day off with a personal message from the one who started this thread in the first place.

TypeSD: Ok, here's the skinny. Enough with the personal attacks.

Also, stay the hell on point.

Until the email exchange is published, hopefully sometime today, we'll not be clear on anything. so far it's just I said, he assumed, he said, I assumed, going on.

Save...the emails still haven't been published. Not looking good.

Kian2: Since you haven't been to RocketHub, you might also not know that RocketHub is not strictly speaking a charity site. It's a crowdfunding site. People don't just give out of the kindness of their hearts. They are offered incentives. The cheapest donation (a dollar) gets you mentioned in the credits of an episode. There is cooler stuff offered for heftier donations. Two people put up $5000, which gets them a week with James, for them to decide how to spend (help with advice, game design, or just hang out?).

From this perspective, besides the advertised goal, you get a bunch of goodies with your donation. So even if they spend the money in a way you find objectionable, you are also getting your money's worth in goodies. This is what the offers they mention are, and which they suggested as the main draw to continue donating.

Which handily covers 99.9% of the cases you are so concerned about. They said you could get goodies for your donation even after they had all the money they needed. Can you imagine the outcry if people only heard about the drive after it was over, and couldn't even get a chance to get the goodies? In fact, rewatching the episode, the way they originally framed it is "Buying an extra show for a dollar and helping Allyson [sic] out while you're at it."

If they get the goodies, then the money spent is going towards what they wanted. If someone tells you 'I have all the money I need, but I have some goodies left over you can get if you donate I guess', and you donate, you have to be aware that they are going to be deciding what to do with the money left over.

Which leaves, I suppose, the people who donated between them reaching their goal and their first official announcement. We are, of course, talking about a window that is less than 24 hours. They set up the fund on June 29, and the banners would have gone a bit after that. They raised the 15k they had set out to get on that same day, before the bulk of the community even heard about it. They reached 25k in six hours, and in the time it took them to ammend the video it had continued to grow.

Now, this was obviously in response to someone, that I'm not bothering to quote--you can look it up if you like, I'm just trying to get through this--and I'll also say that the episode itself, past that initial announcement and the link, is actually a pretty good take on race in games. But this particular quote I wanted to draw attention to, because--disregarding the "they're being dicks" reactions post this mention, this was a charity run. Think in terms of SLRFL here--it takes the folks behind the Relay nearly half a year of plodding forward to raise these kinds of funds.

The Escapist community, with only a handful of previous mentions, raised the cost for Allison Theus' surgery in six. hours.

That, as Daniel Floyd said, is insane. Also incredibly cool, because that means a bunch of gamers, who have more than enough reasons to pay out for other things, among them, other charities, saw the plight of a fellow gamer and artist who would literally lose what she knew how to do in this world if not operated on. That's not hyperbole, that's fact. And, because of the way the injury was evaluated by her insurance company (and this is the US, so it doesn't matter which insurance company she has, they're all bastards on this), having it declared a "pre-existing condition" meant that not only wouldn't they fund the surgery, but they wouldn't fund any physical therapy afterwards.

In six hours Allison Theus had those funds. In one-fourth of one day she had her life goal confirmed, and could go ahead with the surgery to save her arm. That kind of turnaround is unheard of in charitable work, and while the swag may have been part of why people donated, that wasn't the main reason.

More on the next entry.

somebody feels the knife and somebody calls the cops

From the SL Freebie Hunters blog, because Shadow recently switched from Phoenix (v.1-based) to Firestorm (v.2-based):

In all seriousness, tho, folks - I had been dreading making the switch, and I was pleasantly surprised that it was not as painful as I had feared. Certain elements blow, and blow badly, but overall I am finding that it loads much faster for me and puts less of a load on my computer than Phoenix did. Almost enough to compensate for the annoying things...such as light settings that don't hold from session to session, or losing all the changes to tabs and whatnot when I crash, oh, and lets not forget the apparent need to change all the icon images so that things in inventory take longer to figure out....not that I am complaining (overly much), Firestorm developers - I think you guys did a great job in trying to make V2 better.

Keeping in mind that I still can't use Firestorm, what I've heard from folks (with the exception of Fawkes, for whom using Firestorm is akin to asking a large, gruff man with dental problems to lean in close and pull out his fingernails slowly with a pair of rusty pliers) tends to reflect this: the structure itself of viewer 2 hurts people, but the Firestorm wrappings make it nearly bearable...save for all the nonsense in new places, the changes that make no sense, and the icon shifts.

Basically, outside of a few staunch adherents (Fawkes, some estate owners, most educators, and nearly all newcomer instructors among them), everyone I've spoken with about v.2 loathes it with the sort of shuddering disregard seen in staunch feminists towards pornography, or millenarian cultists towards anyone not in their particular cult. And I think most of us know now why that is: the Lindens contracted out, to a company who'd never played Second Life before, and didn't particularly care to learn. They put things where they felt they should go, changed things because they could, and held out their hands to get paid at the end of things, and rather than arguing, the Lindens simply paid.

And, despite many protests, both in and out of world, the Lindens aren't budging on this. So what's our best option to cope with this monstrosity being forced down our throats?

My initial choice was to try to adapt. That failed miserably. So I jumped to CoolVL, since I can't use most of the alternatives (and that's not won't, that's literally can't). Only now CoolVL is showing the strain. Namely:

• at least one friend of mine who I convinced to use CoolVL has been unable to load her inventory fully past that date;
• Alpha layers sometimes work, but usually don't;
• on occasion after typing things on the chat bar, I cannot move unless I hit Escape to minimize the bar, and then I can only move with the W-A-S-D keys;
• and there's one terrifying (literally) glitch that occurs in the Search function that I keep meaning to list on the CoolVL forums, but even there, I'm afraid that if it gets out, there's going to be a run on CoolVL by some really bad types we don't want to use CoolVL (and yeah, totally not kidding on that one; it's BAD)

I'm hoping that these problems will resolve themselves as Henri Beauchamp applies patches, but they're enough to get me to drop by the Imprudence blog again, and wait impatiently for an update there.

And back to the Escapist; at some point, gods willing, we will travel beyond the 10th!

knight steel:

Replace the word music with gaming.
We didn't donate for this drama we just wanted Alison to get well.
Can we get all the pride and butt hurt out of the way.
All this was due to miscommunication and both parties are at fault.
Is their [sic] no way you can simply talk this out.
How about you pay for Alison surgery [if you haven't already]
Keep the pay they owe you and then give the escapist the money they want.
And if there any money left over give it to someplace like the red shield.
Please we love you both and don't want you to fight ^_^.

(Also, I should add a note on that--at the time of this writing, YouTubeVEVO seemed to be down, so I grabbed the acoustic version of the song. The original JessieJVEVO piece was linked in the forums, but wasn't loading for me.)

GoddyofAus: Wow, I've walked into a fire here.

Escapist, what the fuck is your problem? You went after Allisons donation money? Seriously? Have you sunk that low?

I would much like to hear Yahtzee's opinion of all this, but it's likely he's not willing to put his word in for fear of being sacked.

(Quoted solely because I really doubt we'll hear anything from Croshaw about this situation.)

xXSnowyXx:

From media

Jabberwock zeno: So, can somone post the emails in a place where people without a facebook can read them?

And in response to that, TypeSD said: They'll go up here.

So I spawned a new window, and...didn't find anything. At all. So I'll keep you posted for when those emails surface...which still isn't now. Disappointing.

On the plus side, that brings us to page 40! ...of 94. Ohgodsthisiseatingmyblog...

Uszi:

(from the media album)

For.I.Am.Mad: quoted Uszi and added this:

(from the media album)

Uszi came back a bit later and linked the Meet Yahtzee at PAX forum thread, for which this was the quotable gem for me:

de5gravity: I'd like to repost here a message from the rockethub comment page which I feel reflects my opinion completely.

"Frankly, it looks to me like you're jumping on the bandwagon of Extra Credits' success in gaining a huge donation for its artist's vital surgery. That was a good cause: there's no reason why a young woman should have to suffer when her fans could combine funds to help her. This seems rather ignoble by comparison. Don't get me wrong: I have donated to people trying to get to PAX in the past (namely, a very talented bunch of Mass Effect cosplayers who, following that exposure, have been hired by Bioware for physical special effects). But people like those are hardly in the same league in terms of money and available resources. Can Yahtzee really not afford to pay for himself - or can the Escapist not afford to send him by itself? Even if not, are we expected to believe that $20,000 is the sum required to send him? Ultimately, no one is forcing anyone to contribute. I get that. People will give if they want to, and won't if they don't. But I can't help feeling that the Escapist is trying to replicate the success of a noble endeavour simply to save themselves money on a normal expense. On the other hand, one last thought occurs to me. I recall that some rewards for making donations to the Extra Credits RocketHub page were Publisher's Club memberships. If these were donated by the Escapist to help Allison, then that reflects very well on the website - though I do wonder, if that incentive made many people donate for Allison's surgery, why isn't it repeated here? The rewards on offer for donations here are rather paltry by comparison to those for the Extra Credits initiative. Not that such things should ultimately be the main motivating factor in cases where a good charitable cause is the main purpose... But since this doesn't seem to be the case quite so much here, one would almost think that further incentives would be in order. Most puzzling. Well, ultimately, I can't claim to understand this move. All I can say is that it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. This does not, of course, reflect badly on anyone who chooses to donate, as each person is free to do with their money as they wish. By Siobhan Mooney"

But trust me, for the supremely interested, there's a lot of good "WTF, Escapist?" moments in that thread.

How'ver, back to August 10th! ...again. But wait--porn was detected (No, seriously--it was modded out nearly immediately, but caused some hue and cry over why it was posted in the first place)! Which caused quite a bit of controversy on its own, until Uszi posted this in response:

(from the main blog's album)

Yeah, pretty much. And the thread remained derailed for about a third of a page. Kudos to all the Escapist commenters, though, for pulling it back from what would have been, elsewhere, a complete loss of structural cohesion.

I picked up again nearly at the bottom of page 47, though, because of a Critical Miss comic someone posted.

Owyn_Merrilin: While reading the thread, I remembered a certain Critical Miss comic:

(from the media album; Copyright, All Rights Reserved, Cory Rydell and Grey Carter of Critical Miss)

I always thought Sharon was a thinly veiled parody of Susan, but this situation, coupled with this comic, pretty much confirms that if Sharon wasn't based on Susan, she was based on one of the other big wigs at Themis. Last night I was willing to hear what TE had to say, and I'm still willing to look at the e-mails when they get released, but this just isn't looking good for TE -- especially not after ECs rebuttal.

Wau. So I went looking.



This is the clearest image I was able to find, and--outside of the hair color--the hair style is dead on, so I may tend to agree, at least tenuously, that Sharon's character is at least influenced by Susan Arendt.

Which makes this Critical Miss comic extraordinarily relevant, if bitchy.

And--especially with all the graphics--that's about as long as I want this entry to get--more later. Unfortunately.

oh Delia, don't go 'round when the devil's loose

So we back in the mine,
Got our pickaxe swinging from side to side
(side-side to side)
This task a grueling one,
Hope to find some diamonds tonight
(night night night, diamonds tonight)

Heads up, you hear a sound, turn around and look up
Total shock fills your body
Oh no! It's you again--
I could never forget those eyes
(eyes eyes, eyes eyes eyes eyes)

'Cos baby, tonight, the Creeper's trying to steal all our stuff again--
'Cos baby, tonight, grab your pick, shovel and bolt again--

Yeah. Even if you don't play Minecraft, Revenge is a masterful little video.

That's a nice life you have,
Shame it's gotta end at this time--

From lyrics to visuals, it's just perfect, plus some really excellent modeling and rigging work to make the animations flow so well. (And if you've never seen the original, check it out--because yeah, many of the movement references are directly from the vid.)

In other perfect video moments, let me introduce you to Goth Blocked. Stevie Ryan is half of the team TheRealParis on YouTube, and is a slowly rising internet celebrity in her own right. Plus, it's a funny song.

The only problem I have with the video? They spend far too much time in the sun for real goths.

Okay, more from the Escapist, but at this point, unless something is really stellar, I'd like to record what happened on days other than August 10th.

This may take a bit to scan through.

Kwil: From where I sit:
1. I donated well *after* the initial goal was met, with the list of what it was going for up on site. I did the $200 level because hell, getting every indie game developed by a fund with James being a mentor is gonna be worth well more than that, even if they only get 3 games out. So all this talk about how people donated for Allison is irrelevant to me. I donated specifically for the indie game development fund. So the money going to that fund I find completely appropriate. I did *not* donate to pay the Escapist's debt -- past, present, or future.

2. If Alexander wants to get pissy about the money for T-shirts and pubclub memberships, maybe he should start thinking how much James has saved him in interest and legal fees by being willing to *not be paid* for basically a year and not suing for it. That said, if The Escapist is too broke to even donate shirts and pub-memberships to the guy for his gaming development fund (which, coming from a place that used to be about furthering gaming is pretty damned sad) then by all means, keep mine ya cheap bastards.

3. Interpreting that the money will be used to save Extra Credits meaning any extra money goes toward paying The Escapists' debt or for future episodes of the show is hardly reasonable, especially when the expectation was likely that there might not even be enough to cover the surgery. The reasonable interpretation of that statement, at that time, is that the money will be used to save Allison's artistry ability, because without that, EC couldn't continue.

4. I find it completely understandable that after almost a year of non-payment, and after being in a serious situation where asking for the back-owed pay only got a thousand bucks, James thought that any promise of "the cheque's in the mail" from the Escapist being totally bogus, and moved ahead in trying to secure his rights to the donated funds.

I do, however, have a few questions left over for Alex Macris:

1. Exactly what form did your "collaboration" with EC take? I mean other than the shirts and pub-club membership that you expected to get paid for?

2. How many pay-cheques have you and Thomas missed?

Okay, so fine, that was from the 10th too. Still looking. Try this on while we're waiting: there's finally a dwarven digging song based on the the Yogscast team. Oh dear.

RSOG, also from the 10th: I think both sides are telling the truth. Both sides are sure that the e-mail exchange will defend them, which means this is a problem of perspective, not one of active deception. I've got a few theories as to how this might be in each case of factual disagreement, but this is all guesswork. The real story will come to light eventually.

Regarding claims to the money
James: "Instead they responded by telling us that they felt that they were entitled to 75% of the Rockethub money, thus their debt was covered and, despite not paying us for nearly a year, we owed them $9500 dollars"
Alexander: "We did NOT ask that James send us $9,500 - we said he should use $9,500 to create more episodes of the show that the money was supposed to be used to save."
My guess: Alexander is saying that the donation money be used to pay for Extra Credits on behalf of the Escapist, thus clearing their debt, and that the remaining 9.5k would be their future pay. In this way, it's "Saving Extra Credits" under the assumption that The Escapist can't afford to keep EC around and would have to cancel the show if they had to pay for it themselves - but it's also going straight to The Escapist in that it's being paid out in lieu of a paycheck.

(Though I will admit, the whole reply is worth reading.)

FalloutJack, still on the tenth: Because of a previous tirade against some of the Escapist's ad-related deallies (The Meebo Problem), I was able to learn quite alot of its working process for finance and so on. I should point out that from a fair and reasonable standpoint, I understand how bloody hard it is to get revenue. Ah, that word... I did indeed give them the benefit of a mature understanding that you have to support your own structure, employees included, when I was told about all this.

And then, I attempted to do that strangest of things: I gave the editors the helpful suggestion of using voluntary donation to further support everything and improve browsing for all. This notion was based upon the idea that if people liked this place enough, maybe they'd get some extra money for it, out of the kindness of their heart. Well, that was quite ignored, and here I stand with the proof that the Escapist is just too clever for helpful suggestions.

Yes, yes. The business ethic here is indeed screwy as all hell. If half of what the Escapist stands accused of is true, they are in perhaps the most trouble they'll ever see (unless something bad goes down with Yahtzee as well). Now, I think plenty of you know where I stand on this. I said as much in big fucking red letters before. The donations for Allison were FOR Allison. Out of kindness and human decency, people pledged well over the necessary and kept on going. And when the EC crew said "Hey, let's set up a non-prof to benefit the creation of indie games!", we the donators of the cash and fans alike went "Cool".

Sgt. Sandstorm: Does this mean that we won't get our shirts if we donated?

That's a really interesting point, actually. Will the people who donated to the Rockethub fund get anything at this point, with the Rockethub funds in dispute? That's yet another ringing call of Please, help us screw our customer base, thank you! What the hell? Does anyone have confirmation of this, pro or con?

Signa: I would like to take a moment and thank the moderating staff for their choices of who to moderate in this thread. I'm 15 pages in, and I've seen tons of rule breaking, but the only punished offenses have been the posters who acted like complete jackasses to another member.

To be ruthless here, the Escapist staff doesn't dare wade in with the Banhammer of Doom, because that would be the fastest way to start a mob riot. Right now they're pulling about 70/30 in public opinion; with 70% favoring Extra Credits against the Escapist in the first place. They have to be very careful in what they choose to do on anti-Escapist forum threads.

That being said, it would be really nice if anyone on the Escapist staff actually stepped up and said something else about this conflict.

Of course, I am still stuck on August 10th, so wading through the replies as fast as I can...

Have a taste of the Woman in Black trailer while we wait. That film's starting to look very, very good.

AnarchistFish: I was wondering what the hell all this was about and then remembered that this is the US and your health care system is about as charitable as Al-Qaeda.

Ouch. I mean, yes, it's America, it's true, but...ouch.

[02:04] IAmABanana (IAmABanana Resident) is now known as IAmABanana.
[02:04] IAmABanana (IAmABanana Resident) is now known as IAmABanana.
[02:05] IAmABanana (IAmABanana Resident) is now known as IAmABanana.

Why am I being told this? She's not on my friends list. Why am I seeing this on my screen? The hell?

And why three times?

TypeSD, still on the 10th but worthy of the quoting:

"Escapist: [points a shotgun at Extra Credits] EC, don't you take another step!

Extra Credits: Now I did a job; and got nothing but trouble since I did it, not to mention more than a few unkind words as regard to my character. So let me make this abundantly clear. I do the job...

[Extra Credits takes the money from The Escapist]

Extra Credits: and then I get paid. Go run your little world.

Griffolion: I wonder if Alex is going to respond to the response of the response?

(from the media album)

AsurasFinest: Why does this remind me of the EA vs Valve stuff.
EA/Escapist clearly do wrong, fingers all point to them being the guys in the wrong and yet idiots still come in and say that Valve/EC are at fault, because of...something.

Nevermind that people have come forward saying they were also not paid, nevermind the fact that they are asking for donation money meant for Allisons arm, nevermind all that lets just say The Escapist is right because of no logical reason whatsoever.

I mean jesus christ people, when other former contributors come forward and tell you they weren't paid as well, that its the reason why they left, how the hell can you think EC are lying?

My take on this--though I have an admitted bias towards Extra Credits--is that both parties are at fault. Why? Because much of this, if not all of this, could have been resolved behind closed doors. And it is precisely because the Escapist hasn't paid other contributors; we haven't heard anything about that from anyone else until the folks at EC said, "Wait a minute..."

Did James Portnow play the sympathy card? Yes, and he should be ashamed of it. Did James also hire a lawyer and a business manager and step things up to the Intense Confrontation Hour we have now? Absolutely.

Did the Escapist pay them in the first place? No.

And, as far as I can tell, it's still ongoing--the Escapist says 'the check is in the mail' and the Extra Credits say there's cobwebs in the mailbox. Something else is going on. We just don't know what it is, yet.

Oh, but here's a fun kicker, on which I think I'll end this patch of the drama: someone from the Extra Credits team responding in the thread, on August 10th, 2011, at 11:33 pm:

Extracredits: I apologize, I have to respond. The escapist put in no money, nor did they ever print t-shirts or give away pub-club memberships. Alex says this as well. Additionally, the 75% was on money above and beyond the cost of printing anything, it was specifically on money that wasn't part of the costs associated with the fundraiser.

And--unless Alexander Macris responds to that at some point--I think that's our answer on whether or not people are going to get t-shirts or Publisher's Club access from donating to Allison's surgery fund/the Extra Credits indie development charity.

(That answer, in case you missed it? They're not.)

So, now we're here, I figure I should sail us out on another non-Escapist bit of news...so hey, there's going to be a fourth Underworld film! Yay!

and if I rise up in smoke around your eyes, you'll know that it's me

I realize comments, once deleted, really shouldn't be preserved, but also, once a comment is made on the JIRA, that comment is sent to everyone signed up for that issue. Plus, things changed based on this deleted comment, so let's follow it out.

First, Dan Linden comments on Aki Shichiroji's build menu change JIRA:

You can enable the Build button by right-clicking the bottom toolbar and checking "Build button".

Then Alexa Linden, based on that comment, changes the JIRA category from "Bug" to "New feature".

But what Dan--and Alexa--fail to understand is that this JIRA is not about behavior in the lower toolbar. This issue has zero to do with that. It's about how this particular build mode is unavailable once the build menu is open, and whether or not the "Build" button is visible on the task bar or not doesn't matter.

Moon Metty commented afterwards--before Dan's comment was deleted--that this was quite similar to her reported JIRA bug, which was subsequently closed. Why? Moon Metty explains it thusly:

Cassandra closed this Jira without comment, so we can only speculate as to why this change was made.
"Not enough room" is not a good reason for this incorrect and clumsy behaviour, it now takes more room.

Soft, we understand if you don't want to reopen this Jira, you being a Linden and all.
However, us residents just want SL to be fast, easy and fun ... and this bug is slow, tedious and annoying.

So, apparently Cassandra Linden feels that it's expected behavior from the new v2 client, and as such, is not a bug, so everything's just peachy. Case closed--literally.

(Amusing side note--in the time spent writing this, Dan Linden has apparently re-enabled his comment, with added brackets:

[ You can enable the Build button by right-clicking the bottom toolbar and checking "Build button". ]

I don't know why the brackets are important, but there you go. So now I'm talking about a published comment that hasn't been deleted--and is still wrong.)

So, let's talk about stores that get it right for hunts. Let's talk about the Epic Toy Factory.

(from the scavenging album)

Part of the Peaster's Hunt is that you have to do it all, if you want the end Vault prize--because you have to come back to the castle at MadPea with all fifty keys. So Fawkes and I made the decision that we were going to stop at each stop on the hunt.

This was stop 2--a magical, amazing place where our first hint was found right at the landing circle. Once we'd talked to that NPC (hee!) we were sent off to find a dragon. The dragon seats two, and off we went, on a slow, lazy circle around the sim.

This particular sim is amazing from the ground, but from the air, it was breathtaking. I've gone on a lot of rides on various things in five years on SL, but this was wonderful.

(from the scavenging album)

Something that made this night a touch more surreal--I've developed this occasional inability to get clothes to rez, which is a) making me freak out as to how other people are seeing me, and b), results in things like this--I left my prims on and wore a full-body alpha cover.

Fawkes, of course, wears LuciA, the newest member of the Autogenica family. I've been very happy that it's selling so well, but really, it's such a fun concept, how could it not?

(from the scavenging album)

The dragon dropped us off, neat as you please, by the docks, where we spoke to an old and amusing pirate, and were given our next paired destination--two golden seahorses waiting in the waters below. Remember to click scrolls, or objects near the NPCs you talk to on your journey--they'll give you prizes! (If you have the Peaster's HUD on and activated, that is.)

(from the scavenging album)

There's a mermaid to see, a wonderful shipwreck, jellyfish--all while you're leisurely gliding past on the glowing golden backs of seahorses. (Hold your breath, you're under for about two minutes!)

(from the scavenging album)

Proving that it's not just their size that makes them magical, they floated from the water to the land, and deposited us in a strand of heart's grass, before swimming back to the sea and the docks, so off we went to talk to the "herb hag". (She's not actually green; she's just green until she fully rezzes in.)

(from the scavenging album)

Her conveyance of choice was a sparrowhawk carrying a gilded swing--and yes, it seats two. Off we went to the heights of the sim, floating airborne once more.

(from the scavenging album)

Did I mention the sim is incredible? There's fun goofy touches (like the cake, or the mad tea party in the treehouse), there's a little bit of steampunk (seen here in the zeppelin and the steam towers), and I fervently lust after their ground texture, an amazing dark-woven patchwork concoction that I'd adore using myself. I will definitely be back.

All in all, all of the stores on this hunt seem to have put in a genuine effort to participate in the sense of fun and play--a far cry from most grid-wide hunts these days! And several of them have been stores I'm looking forward to visiting again, to spend my time--and Lindens--wandering around looking at things.

I'll be covering some of the ones that really stand out later on, because I didn't snap pics of them at the time--I was too busy being amazed! But I definitely believe they should be brought to wider attention.

Apart from Grumble.

Because I'm still banned from her sim.

Also, one last amusing note:

(from the scavenging album)

Cheesecake poses on top of dressing tables really, really don't work when I'm invisible.

and so to lead by example, I had to get out before I was trampled

There's now a TARDIS corset in the world. Make your own jokes.

And what do you get when you cross a fetish convention with superhero costumes? A whole lot of bodypaint. And bodies painted. (Pictures likely NSFW.)

More from the Escapist!

(I don't know if I'll get bored eventually. At this writing there are 94 pages in the thread, and I'm on page 22.

(...Yeah.)

B_Diddy_M: Most people seem to be missing that The Escapist was supposed to pay Extra Credits to do the show. The Escapist wanted them to take money from the donations to fund the show- which is something The Escapist is supposed pay for. Sure, The Escapist community donated the money but we didn't do it for The Escapist; We did it for EC. The Escapist was going to use charity money that was over the limit to stall having to pay for the show since they are strapped for cash.

I know a lot of the people who donated were donating solely for the Surgery. They gave money to make sure it happened- after that, no one thought 'Hey! I want the money you didn't use on the surgery back' because that is not how DONATING to a charity works.

OT: I find it odd that the Escapist asked for 9.5k for the shirts and such when they still needed to pay Extra Credits nearly 20k for the episodes. I also find it odd that, according to Extra Credits, they asked for 75% of the donations. By what the escapist said they asked for, it is much less than 75% but is that really all they asked for? BOTH sides can't be right here unless there was some huge miscommunication.

pyrosaw: I am awestruck. Truly awestruck. I mean I know this site needs to make profit, but jeez. I mean, I am majorly disappointed. I thought you were better than this. I truly did.

Frozengale: It sounds like to me that The Escapist needs to do a bit of downsizing. Trim the fat, get rid of the features that are the least popular. I mean seriously we still have Jim even though more then half the site doesn't like him.... but we aren't paying Extra Credits when almost EVERYONE likes them?

Choppaduel: So that means the overhead on t-shirts is about 75% of $98,628 (at time of checking) thats how much the rockethub thing is worth. Which is ridiculous. Ur telling me that the escapist invested at least ~74K in the rocket hub thing? BULLSHIT. All that money was raised for Allison's arm; any extra doesn't simply belong to the Escapist. Its charity money and any left over MUST go to another charity.

Erana: I don't know anyone who makes Extra Credits.
But I have gotten a chance to get acquainted with some of the Escapist staff.
They work hard, and money is really damn tight.
Knowing that at least some of the staff aren't money-snatching bureaucratic goblins, the Escapist's perspective honestly sounds more believable to me.

Its no secret that the Escapist has had to tighten the belt to a painful degree; Extra Credits wasn't the only people that they've been had slack with payments for.

The thing is, at this point, this is the only way the Escapist has been able to operate because of finances. Yes, its sad to see the Escapist in this state, but these slow payments are at least followed up by excellent publicity for the authors.

Themis Group isn't getting any richer, and its not like they throw money around willy-nilly, so its either this sticky financial situation, or no Escapist whatsoever.

Take your pick.

And okay, fine, inserting a comment from me for this one--yeah, I don't want to see the Escapist fold either, but seriously, the alternative is all their artists work for free, OR there's no Escapist? Those are your two choices?

You should probably go into rehab for that slight drug addiction problem, Erana, because you are hiiiiigh.

Mr Thin: I can't see anywhere in The Escapist's response that they considered the extra money earned through the donations as payment of their debt. They don't explicitly deny it, either, but it seems like an absurd thing to assume. If this turns out to be the case, however, The Escapist is just plain wrong in that regard. They owe what they owe, regardless of how much money the RocketHub donations pulled in.

SpaceGhost2K, some hours later: The Escapist made a mis-step with the Yahtzee PAX Party thing, and offered an explanation that involved a shortage of funds..
The Escapist made a mis-step with the Extra Credits situation, which started with the single issue of not paying them, and which blew up into a disagreement over who had the rights to the fundraising money.
Numerous contributors to the site defended Extra Credits against the allegations made by The Escapist, vouching for the fact that they, too, have not been paid in a timely manner for their content (if they've been paid at all.)

I think that all sides have said enough to come to a conclusion, and I think that anyone who is unable to choose sides with this much information should not get in front of me at a drive-thru. Especially not Starbucks.

Judgement101: Yeah the 75% thing seems a little.....odd. I'm hoping there was a typo somewhere and it was supposed ot be 7.5% but thats probably wishful thinking.

Avatar Roku: I can totally sympathize if the Escapist was having a hard time. However, if they were behind on payments for so many people, why the hell would they take on more shows? That's what really bothers me here. They should have been downsizing, trimming the fat so to speak, so they could maintain quality on the popular shows (ZP, Moviebob, EC, etc) and give what contributors they had the money they deserved. Taking on more shows, then proceeding to not pay anyone doesn't help anybody, least of all them.

Samurai Goomba, some hours later: Let's see...

-Threats of lawsuit
-Admitting they were eight months late in paying their debts like it's a positive thing
-Manipulative legalese wording
-Creative interpretation of what "saving extra credits" means (i.e. they interpret it as "make EC do more free work for us because fans donated money.")
-Claiming that they deserve CHARITY money donated by fans for EC, NOT the escapist
-Claims that grossly misrepresent EC's indie label setup (many here seem confused and don't realize James informed the public about his intentions almost immediately)
-Stating that charity money should take the place of a paycheck (probably not in that response, but they apparently did say it)

I read it before you posted it. It doesn't excuse their behavior.

Also yes, I believe some of those statements made by Alex may be either worded in a creative way or just plain false. The "apology" letter written about Seattle or Bust convinced me not to trust these sorts of letters from The Escapist. It was very misleading and manipulative in the extreme. I have no reason to expect better in this situation.

SpaceGhost2K again: If they paid EC for four shows, that's one month. That means they paid for the first month of shows, and nothing for ELEVEN MONTHS worth of shows since then.

When I hear "DON'T PAY ME YET", I think a few weeks, a couple of months - even six months. We're talking about a full YEAR of not paying ANYTHING and James coming up with the funds out-of-pocket to pay Allison, because this is her day job. At what point do you think it's inappropriate for James to say, that's enough, we need payment now?

Apparently, you think that's never, which is also apparently what The Escapist thought.

Ikyak1986: Well, I think it's quite clear what happened:

Escapist was using contracts, loopholes, legalese, and hazy wording to try and make a money-grab because their only source of revenue is from annoying ads that make the site take longer to load.

I don't really care how escapist tries to defend itself. The escapist doesn't make the content, and the way I *got* here was from watching Dan Floyd's "Hi, my name is *this*, and I'm talking about *these*". I came here for the Extra Credits show, and now that it's no longer here, I have no reason to stick around.

Rather than come to a reasonable, rational, sensible agreement, Escapist busted out lawyers and made a grab for the money donated for Allison's surgery!

You can't go lower than that.

Jumplion, some hours later: The Escapist has quite consistently picked up, then canceled several shows. On a reddit thread, the creator of Unforgotten Realms says that s/he never got payed by the Escapist and had to fight for the paycheck, of which s/he still hasn't gotten all of it. Lisa Foiles was dropped, Creature Caster Masters, ProGamer Gauntlet, some other random shows, picked up them dropped relatively quickly. Hell, didn't they just open a campaign to hire more news reporters? If they can barely pay their video contributors, why are they hiring more staff?

Ads are a big thing for the Escapist. There was a slight controversy with some Gaikai ads that literally took up half the screen, and apparently the Escapist were at the mercy of the ad agencies. Now, I don't really know how ad management works, but isn't it supposed to be that The Escapist has the ad space that the agencies so desperately want? Shouldn't they be at the mercy of the 'scapist? top that off with ads in the goddamn captchas, and the financial situation of the Escapist looks very bleak.

Kadashi on crack: Well, considering Extra Credits and Moviebob are the only reasons I even come here still, and the fact that no official in the Escapist team has made any kind of article about this...

*sigh* Escapist, I've seriously lost faith in you. I'll see how this goes, but don't expect pageviews from me.... Switching out my home page for a new one, and jeez... I hear this right as I'm thinking of purchasing a membership...

Akalabeth: At what point is James going to act like a professional and ask for the money he's due instead of working for free?

Saying I'm going to work for free is not professional.
Publicly broadcasting a private business disagreement to the entire world is most definitely not professional.

At this point I seriously started skimming, because there was an upsurge in just catty, bitchy posts with no real reason other than to stir mistrust on both sides--but I paused at this:

gmacarthur81: You all speak as though the donation period is over... THERE ARE STILL 19 DAYS LEFT.

The Rockethub donation page is still up.

Which...is true. They're still raising money. But now the money is in contention, and now I'm wondering if this entire situation is headed for the courts.

Istanbul: I was all set to take this with a grain of salt.

Then I read further on Twitter.

PEOPLE ARE COMING OUT OF THE WOODWORK to say "Yeah, Escapist owes us money too". And the way they're doing it seems less like a feeding frenzy and more like people finally standing up and making their situations public.

If it was just Extra Credits, I could see this maybe being a big miscommunication...but with half a dozen other creators of content all giving the same story? Something's rotten in Denmark.

C'mon, Escapist. I'd grown to respect you. You still have the opportunity to make this right. Issue a public apology, rebuild the bridge if it isn't wholly burnt, and pay the people to whom you owe money. I know you can do this.

Bruden, in response to some of the insults and mud-slinging: Think of it this way, Never, Anywhere, EVER, was it stated as "Save Extra Creditz" until the letter from Alex. Prior to Alex's comment the drive was always "Save Allison's Arm" which is significantly easier to interpret.

And yes, people DID appreciate what he was doing with the extra money, because as early as 25k mark James was talking about what to do with the excess eventually settling on a not for profit indie games fund with the support of fans.

James was a bit sensationalist in his posts, but that comes from having a tiny twitter blurb to post in instead of a blog. Hard to explain things properly in 140 characters or less.

SpaceGhost2K again: How did James steal the money? James didn't keep any of the money from the fund raiser. Part went to Allison's arm. The rest will go toward the indie fund charity.

The only money James got out of the deal was the eleven months of back pay owed to him by TE, which he'd already spent out of pocket paying Allison's wages for the past year. HE got HIS money. That's all.

I will repeat this from earlier: James stated that the expected cost of the surgery was $15K to $20K.

Why did people continue to contribute the additional $80K to $85K above that, KNOWING it WASN'T going to go toward the surgery? Can those people REALLY make a case that the money is being misused if it didn't go to the surgery? the surgery is over, and people are STILL contributing.

I submit that it's because people believe EC will put it to good use. The definition of "good use" should NOT be "for continuing the production of the show." The Escapist is supposed to do that. That's their CONTRACTUAL responsibility. Just because a bunch of money is left over, unspent, doesn't give them the rights to decide it should go to pay THEIR bill.

It MIGHT have been their right, had they been current on their payments, their CONTRACTUAL responsibilities, but they weren't. The Escapist didn't fulfill their part of the contract (the payment part) but Extra Credits DID fulfill their part of a one-year contract, by providing one year of content. 48/52nds of that with no idea of if or when they might ever get paid.

rankfx: I have worked as head of accounts payable for years at my place of work and you never "don't pay people." It's one thing to let it slip behind for a couple of weeks if they're ok with it, but 7-8 months is a serious issue. Normally people are threatening legal action in half that time.

Why would Escapist think that such a long time without pay is ok? Why do they think that James would have a sense of humour about such a debt?

It's a shame, every single week it seems Extra Credits was the most popular content on the website and now it's gone. It's such a popular show with such a strong following, I can't imagine they'll be without a home for long. I like the free entertainment on Escapist and am grateful for it, but I don't think I'm the only one who will be following EC wherever they go.

Judgement101: The publisher club decreasing money isn't the issue. The issue is people using adblocker. In order to save 15 seconds they make the escapist lose money.

Interesting perspective. And a valid point.

Ipsen, some hours later: Sound input. And I do agree that a separate fund raiser for the indie publishing/donation organization would have been a more legit path.

But the question kind of remains; what was the Escapist doing beyond giving their permission for EC starting the fundraiser? I can understand EC needing permission for a fundraiser, but the incentive the fans had for donation were quite different than the 'free' t-shirts and pubclubsubs that were offered. Hell, I didn't consult the manual for fundraiser etiquette, but I think when you REALLY feel the need to donate, additional 'goodies' as bait are forgettable at best, and degrade the honesty of the fundraiser right after that.

And I pretty much agree with him. And that wraps up part XIII, I think.

woke up in a tin can, don't remember my name

[19:27] Nagash Demina: D/5 at HelaMiyo for Keytar. http://slurl.com/secondlife/JuicyBomb/29/6/25
[19:27] Emilly Orr: So, a "Keytar" is...?
[19:28] Nagash Demina: Keyboard + Guitar = Keytar.
[19:28] Emilly Orr: Ah, silly me. I was thinking a key-shaped avatar.
[19:28] Fawkes Allen: Emi, how do you not know what a keytar is, oh.
[19:28] Emilly Orr starts plotting a key avatar.
[19:28] Nagash Demina: Anyone who grew up in the 80's should else I'm calling Homeland Security to charge you for treason and crimes against humanity.
[19:29] Emilly Orr: Hey, I know guitar, I know sitar, I know gitar, I know mandolin, I know balalaika and I know lute.
[19:29] Emilly Orr: I don't know keytar, so sue me. Even the ones I've *seen* weren't *named* that.

So, I figured it was a lack, and I set off in search of what a keytar is.

According to Wikipedia:

A keytar is a relatively lightweight keyboard (with or without a built-in synthesizer) that is supported by a strap around the neck and shoulders, similar to the way a guitar is supported by a strap. Keytars allow players a greater range of movement compared to conventional keyboards, which are placed on stands. The instrument has a musical keyboard for triggering musical notes and sounds. Controls for pitch bends, vibrato, portamento, and sustain are placed on the instrument's "neck". The term "keytar" is a portmanteau of the words "keyboard" and "guitar".

Okay, so what do they sound like? This, pretty much. Okay. I am enlightened.

I logged in a couple days back, to find that Ajisai had hit the destination guide. I'd never been there, so I went to see.

(from the mysteriously named August 18, 2011 album, which I do not recall making)

There's a ship, on a lake.

(from the mysteriously named August 18, 2011 album)

It has a sign, and a lot of glow.

(from the mysteriously named August 18, 2011 album)

Belowdecks are some lovely leaded-glass inset windows.

(from the mysteriously named August 18, 2011 album)

Not finding much in the way of growing things. From the description on the destination guide:

In this limited-time exhibition, held through August, you'll be transported to a place where you are surrounded by vibrant colors and flowers in bloom.

Hmm. I see some glowing pine trees, off in the distance...

(from the mysteriously named August 18, 2011 album)

Yep. Those would be the pine trees.

(from the mysteriously named August 18, 2011 album)

Basically, there's...not a lot of there, there. If there's an art installation, I never found out how to get to it. But if you want to poke around for yourself, head out to Leroy and knock yourselves out. Maybe I missed something.

Okay, SCRUB? You are officially on notice for this:

(from the aforementioned mysteriously named August 18, 2011 album)

This is ridiculous and beyond all reason. What the hell is wrong with you people? Lower your drug intake, NOW.

I mean, seriously--you have discovered a niche market all your own; I don't think anyone on the grid is doing what you do, you have cornered the tongues-pierced-with-oddities market. Kudos, it's yours. But pulling crap like this? This is guaranteed to lose you customers, and get people (waves) bitching about you. It's childish beyond all reason.

One hundred duplicates, one prize, you have lost your minds entirely.

Finally...I'm sure the Labs mean well, but they should check their language circuits:

(from the Blogger Pictures album)

Because I'm not Portuguese.

I'm nothing but a number, here we are all the same

I did not know goats could smile.

Okay, as promised, the part-by-part roundup! (To date.)

Part I: Wherein you, the faithful readers, read along on the conflict between the Escapist and Extra Credits.

Part II: A couple positive, and several negative, responses to the conflict.
Part III: Ads, scary mesh constructs, and who (so far) has come forward on not getting paid for work done by the Escapist.
Part IV: More on the controversy, along with both the Yahtzee bring-him-to-PAX debacle, and also Yahtzee's bone-deep loathing for Joss Whedon.
Part V: Sex elves and fan rage.
Part VI: The death of Hellboy, strange fan art, hunts in Second Life, weird Disney projects and more fan rage.
Part VII: More from the JIRA That Will Never Die, and more fan rage (along with some direct responses from the actual participants).
Part VIII: Weird captions and even more fan rage.
Part IX: More from the JIRA That Will Not Die, Longbow "shoot-me-I'm-a-target!" costumes, and dear gods, more fan rage.
Part X: More fan rage, and a Meat Loaf song!
Part XI: Cosplay, Minecraft updates, upcoming car engine advances, and more fan rage!

And now we're all caught up. Suffering gods, we're at eleven parts?!?

And here's part XII.

Brockyman from page 20 on the main thread: The Escapist greenlit Jimquistion, No Right Answer and other new shows, and had Moviebob do ANOTHER show AFTER the start of Extra Credits and during the recession. If they didn't have the money to pay CURRENT talent, they shouldn't have taken on extra costs.

Stalydan, some hours later: I can't understand why The Escapist/Themis Group has hired new talent since they went into financial troubles. Yes, I think The Jimquisition has gotten a lot better in recent weeks and it's made me think of it as one of the highlights of this site but it makes me wonder why (or even how) they were able to take on another show to produce and pay for. You'd think that they'd pump more money into paying their already established friends e.g. paying Allison's fees and funding (or partially) Yahtzee to go to PAX.

AshuraSpeaks: And I see no problem with them paying what is due. Whether or not the presence of those incentives led to the donation is...speculative. The reality is that someone has to pay the piper, and a group that so easily told Sony to transform their apology package into something less transparently trying to drum up business, it is expected that they would pay what is due.

HOWEVER, it is up to the Escapist to be truthful and fair and any extra credits that Extra Credits raised is, presumably, Allison's to decide what to do with. There has been no affirmation that this is SOLELY James' idea, nor that such an idea requires the full amount over the amount needed to be raised to save Allison's tissue, and indeed career as an artist.

6-Qubed: You know something I read about on Cracked awhile ago? This thing called the "Monkeysphere." See, any given primate of any given species is only capable of recognizing a set number of living organisms as actual living organisms. Most apes and monkeys in the wild have a limit of a dozen or so, but we humans, with our vastly superior intellects and brain-size, can recognize a whopping one-hundred and fifty individuals.

You may be asking how this is relevant. I shall explain.

Humans are physically incapable of recognizing a large enough group of people as actual people. They get this idea in their head that there might be a people in that group somewhere, and maybe they know of one or two people who affiliate themselves with this group, but up to a certain point, there are limits to the number of people a given person's monkey brain is capable of recognizing. This is why, for example, you may feel it is okay to scream at the teenage kid working the drive-thru at McDonalds, because in your monkey brain you are not actually screaming at Kenny Liebowitz, age 17 and working a job that will surely crush his tiny spirit, you're screaming at McDonalds, and everyone "knows" that McDonalds isn't a person, therefore that teenage kid isn't really a person, either.

Now, to relevance! Extra Credits and The Escapist are both at fault here, in separate but equal ways. The Escapist, for being too poor to pay its outside contractors, and Extra- no actually James of Extra Credits (for those who are confused, James is the long-haired no-talky guy) for taking money that was raised for Allison (make-pretty-pictures girl) so that she could get her arm back, and using it to start his own evil faceless group of not-really-people. However, even though both sides fucked up, your monkey brain can only recognize long-haired no-talky guy and make-pretty-pictures girl, along with preachy-funny-voice man as actual people. The Escapist, meanwhile, is not actually a group of people who are down on their luck financially and had to make a bad decision with worse consequences, because your monkey brain only sees a giant, faceless, stingy, evil, baby-eating dragon that apparently has a pet asshole named Mark.

Brockyman again: My issue with the Escapist is that they continued to green light new material that included more costs, including Big Picture, Jimquistion, No Right Answer, and others AFTER the release and failed payments to Extra Credits (only got paid for 4 episodes). If a business can't pay its current talent, then it shouldn't incur more costs.

TypeSD, some hours later: There is No Tangible Benefit other than removing ads and captchas, that the PubClub provides. Think very hard before committing to a purchase. I did not. I am not renewing my subscription.

lowkey_jotunn: It's not as though James took the extra money and spent it on hookers and blow. As best I can tell, he's using the money to facilitate exactly what the show preaches. And the fund wasn't started with the desire to raise a boatload of money for "personal things."

What exactly would you have EC do with the extra funds? They can't exactly give it back, can they? I'm not too familiar with the inner workings of Rockethub, but I doubt they do reimbursement. I suppose they could have turned off the donation button, but really, that's on the people donating. It's not like they've ever kept the cash-flow secret.

James, and the Rockethub site, were always upfront and honest. If the site says: "We need $15,000 for Allison's surgery. We are currently at $30,000. This is already double what we need," and someone chooses to donate, you should know full well that it's probably not going to be paying for the surgery... that's covered. And the very first day, when they'd already passed their goal, James said something like: We have way more money than we need, and we're trying to find something awesome to do with these extra funds.

I think it's worth noting at this point, for the one and a half of you still reading along, that all of this took place on one night. The past six, seven entries or so? Purely from August 10th, 2011. Keep that in mind.

jumplion quoting 6-Qubed:

6_Qubed: ...and Extra- no actually James of Extra Credits (for those who are confused, James is the long-haired no-talky guy) for taking money that was raised for Allison (make-pretty-pictures girl) so that she could get her arm back, and using it to start his own evil faceless group of not-really-people.

This is not true.

James, Daniel, and Allison all came to a mutual agreement over what to do with the left over money. James did not up and take the money for his own personal gain, it was decided among the group what they would do with it. All the money gained from the publishing project would go directly to funding the project.

Now, there might be some legal mumbo jumbo in there. Alex of the Escapist apparantly interpreted this as having any leftover money contribute to the show, though if they had to contribute to their own show that still doesn't shine a particularly good light on this situation.

Zorg Machine: I am mostly surprised that the escapist is so low on money.

Me too.

Ipsen: Now here's where the questions start. If you're going to be a credible business employer, I would think that, even if your employees were to give you flexibility on when you can pay them, you're always prepared to pay them when they ask for it (provided it's what they owe

I'm finding the part about he fundraiser having the 'save Extra Credits' reasoning to be bullpies as well. As 'save Extra Credits' may have been the slogan, we all knew the situation with Allison, and we did it for her, a part of a show that we have come to love for now just over a year. I'm so unsure about what the Escapists' part in the fundraiser is in this situation; I'll vote virtually no one gave to the fundraiser for a t-shirt or a pub membership here; it was about Allison FIRST, and our love for Extra Credits SECOND. The Escapists' hand in all this was nice, but also very forgettable considering the situation.

But here is the nail in the coffin for me. As stated by Alex Macris,

...He asked for our permission to raise funds through Kickstarter. We more than gave permission, we threw our weight into supporting it. Unfortunately, Kickstarter refused because they don't do charity. I then suggested James try RocketHub and RocketHub agreed. We again collaborated to make it a joint effort. Our agreement was that we would be compensated for the wholesale cost of the t-shirts and Publisher's Club, and that the funds would be used to save Extra Credits. I reasonably interpreted "save Extra Credits" to mean that anything beyond what was needed for Allison's surgery would be used on Extra Credits production. I also Pay-palled James as much money as we had available at that time.

According to this, James needed permission to start a fundraiser, but nothing else was mentioned that was required of the Escapist; it seems they decided to 'throw their weight to support' by adding in the t-shirts and pup memberships. But how do you expect to be 'compensated' from a fundraiser? It strikes me as a rather large risk to make a business decision based leeching off of our goodness and desire to help someone in need. What if we, the fans, DID NOT support the fundraiser enough, or only JUST enough? Also, as much as its clear that the RocketHub agreement was misunderstood, locking one of your show producers into agreement issues because they didn't use the excess funds for production of the show (a show they've made episodes weekly without pay from Nov2010 to Jun2011)....Garbage.

Now, perhaps James is pulling shenanigans by first accepting more than what was necessary for Allison's surgery, and THEN proceeding to start up an indie label, which the Escapist did not find agreeable. But even this I feel can be countered by the fact that this was a fundraiser; and James is starting something game-related, something that may turn out to support the show.

FalloutJack, some hours later:

King Toasty: Yeah, ending the PubClubSub is the WORST THING YOU CAN DO. Hear that, lurkers? DON'T END YOUR PUBCLUB SUBSCRIPTION. YOU'RE HURTING THE SITE.These are sad times indeed.

You DO realize you just told everyone with memberships that they have power over the Escapist now, right?

Another good question, and a good place to stop today's edition of Escapist Gone Wild. Tune in next time when...well, there'll be more of the same.

We start bright and early next entry (or whenever we come back to this next) on page 22!