 |
1 0000 0000
Posted on October 7, 2008 by Tim Because of a minor software bug, I got hosed out of the opportunity to celebrate 200 updates last July.  So being the patient soul that I am  I plodded along until tonight when I can make a big whoop-de-do out of my 0x100th update. Now for the non-computer geeks out there (and for the so-called computer geeks that don't know what something like LD A,(0x100) means), I should explain that 0x100 is a short hand for the binary that is today's headline, which works out to be 256, something of a magic number amongst the Robo-American population.  Plus if I were to write it like this: 100000000 some might assume I'd been here a really long time. A really, really long time. Like since about 273,776 years BFE (Before Futurama Era), and that's just silly - we all know that a certain Futurama guest star didn't invent the Internet until 8 BFE.  The Madhouse may be the Oldest Living Futurama Fan Site, but it's not THAT old.
So, anyway, leading off update number 100000000 is this sweet Wallpaper from Cx. And it'll only be another month until Bender's Game comes out and we can find out what that's all about. 
And what would an update be without some Fan Fiction? It would be a really unusual one, that's for sure.  So just to make sure that update number 100000000 isn't a really unusual one, here's the long awaited part 3 of Deja Vu from fry+leela4eva.  Since it's been so long awaited, let me refresh your memory - remember when Fry and Leela were briefly married during the times slips? Well in part 1 we found out that there had been a little ... um ... fallout from that marriage, and in this, the concluding part of the story, we find out how Fry and Leela are going to finally deal with the problem.  |
No Shirt?
Posted on October 6, 2008 by Tim Looking for that perfect give for your personal Leela or Fry? Or maybe you're the worlds #1 Futurama collector. Or whatever. In any case, here's some rare and unique Futurama items up for grabs on Ebay. There's a PE bowling shirt signed by the cast, as well as some autographed comics and other stuff. And it's all to benefit a charity called McIntyre House. Check out www.ebay.com/mcintyrehouse for details. And if you score any swag, send us a picture.
 Depriving me of the fun of playing my favorite game, confuse the snot out of the webmaster, CosmicF went to great pains to explain exactly what the Fan Art he sent is was for. This one's a promo pic for Hammer87's newest fic, Phil. This is a parody of the NBC television show Chuck. After the opera, Leela has finally decided to give Fry a chance and they are now dating.  The Professor gets a contract from the DOOP Intelligence Agency to construct a device to store all of their sensitive data as images. While delivering the device, Fry starts messing around with it and inadvertently ends up with the information in his head and completely erasing the machines memory.
And in another "after the opera" encounter, Fry, Leela, and Bender get arrested by Zapp and held on the Nimbus where they have to figure out how to escape. But at the same time, Leela has to come to terms with her feelings for Fry before it's too late.  It's all in Savin' Me, a new Fan Fiction by Frosty.
|
How about a Bender's Game wallpaper for your desktop?
Posted on October 5, 2008 by Tim So there's just about one month to go before the third Futurama movie, Bender's Game, comes out ... wait a sec, has it really been *counts on fingers* five months since BWABB was released? Man, time flies when you're having fun. Anyway, it'll be out soon, so to get in the mood let's do some Bender's Game Wallpaper. Cx whipped this up, and he says he'll have two more - Leela as a centaur and Amy as Gynecaladriel - real soon now. 
And speaking of the movies, we now have the transcript for 5ACV07, also known as part 3 of The Beast With A Billion Backs, courtesy of moi and my lunch hours all last week.
 And according to my Futurama zodiac, it's the year of the Fan Fiction so of course we have to have at least one in every update, so today we'll feature the sixth and final segment of xKathyx07x's fic The Fry Family in which everyone lives happily ever after, except for the tragic accident.  |
The torrent of fan fiction just won't stop...
Posted on October 3, 2008 by GrahamNot that we're complaining, nor are you... I hope. In fact, I can categorically claim that we've not had an email asking us for less fan fiction, even by those who don't read such works. So, until we get some complaints, the fan fiction torrent will have to continue. It sure does continue, because I, quite obviously, have something for our Fan Fiction section. All hush for the second part of MC's intriguing fiction, Ghost of Xmas Past. Helpfully, MC has come up with a summary for the second part: "After Fry's revelation, things start to go further awry in his personal life and he tells Leela where he's been and what he's been doing there during the last 8 years." Hopefully, those eight years will be more interesting than the thousand years he went missing in the cryogenic tube. Best read the fic to find out.  |
Lost in strange lands
Posted on October 2, 2008 by Tim Oh! Oh! Fan Art! It's been so long that section of the Madhouse almost seems like a strange land.  It's also been a while since Joey has been about, but now schlee* is back with this pic called Lost. It's based on a Fan Fiction the schlim is working on and I'm told we'll see more real soon now.
* One of the good things to come out of The Beast With a Billion Backs is that we now have some Futurama specific words for ambiguous gender situations and that saves me an awful lot of work tap dancing around the nomenclature.
And speaking of Fan Fiction, which I've been doing an awful lot of lately, we've got two more.
First off is La Belle Leela's Stranger In A Strange Land Part XIII (I put that in Roman numerals for the superstitious).  Anyway, it's the conclusion to Zapp Brannigan's court-martial. It gets a little sad, and a little shippy, but ends with a high-action twist! 
Und dann there is the final and concluding part of Back To The Galaxy Of Terror from that cranker outer of time bending crossover fics, Hammer87. And I want you to know I didn't mis-spell those two words as the beginning of this section, I was just brushing up on my German - I though I might need it for this segment. |
Bender Shreds
Posted on October 1, 2008 by Tim Brettbear, who hails from Sydney, Australia, bashed this Bender Futurecaster guitar and sent in a couple of photos of it. And to go with it he supplied a narrative worthy of a small Fan Fiction, so I'll just let him tell the story:
Originally, this was a Squire Strat. I also have a Roland G-707 that I never play because the shape is not conducive to playing sitting down and I really don't like the guitar that much. I removed the MIDI electronics from the G-707 and put them in the Strat.
This required that a large section of wood be routed out, and a custom pick guard was required to cover the cavity, mount the extra pots and the MIDI Hex pickup. Being lazy, I just wanted someone to make the guard for me. I stumbled across Aurora Project and they do custom metal guards, which just so happen to have LEDs in them and glow. It runs from a 9V battery, but as I had power going there from the Roland GR-700 Midi controller I thought I could power the guard from that.
WRONG! The anodes from the LEDs connect to one of the metal sides of the guard, and of course the metal is grounded via the pots. I found this out the easy way (checked first) before I tried it, otherwise some irreplaceable Roland MIDI electronics would have been fried. Oh well, more routing and put a 9V battery in the guitar.
They usually supply a switch to turn the LEDs on and off, but I didn't have much space left in the guitar for a toggle switch (not only that, leave the switch on and battery goes flat rather quickly, the LEDs reportedly draw 300mA). I couldn't think what to do about it, so I'd come back to it.
The GR-707 has a massive 24 pin connector, and this was mounted at the base of the body with the 1/4" jack socket. Lot's of drilling and chiseling to get that bugger to fit. It sits a little proud of the body, but the effort required to get it to fit flush was too much for my lazy ass; I'm happy enough with the result though.
The neck on the original Strat was rubbish, so I got a new 70's style maple neck from All Parts; much better. Also got some locking machine heads from them to keep the guitar in tune as best we could.
A mate of mine had some Tex Mex pickups which he gave me for the project, and they sound awesome! (Big up to Julius Chan for the PUPs). I simply can't explain how fantastic they sound on this guitar.
Of course as it was quickly becoming a new guitar, and it needed to be setup (and have a nut installed). I took it to Sydney Guitar Setups as they have a Plek machine and as you can tell, I like geeky stuff like that. It played nicely, but the action was a little high and I wasn't happy with the neck/body angle so I adjusted it a little. Must say, though, I love the neck, and once the neck is plek'd it probably won't have to be done again for 5-10 years depending on how the maple settles as it continues to dry out.
The only thing I wasn't happy about was the blank headstock, it looked naked. I found decals on the web for a 70s Strat and ordered them. I couldn't bring myself to put these decals on, it wasn't a Fender, it was more of a Bender (hmmm, I have an idea!). I love Futurama, so the connection wasn't that much of a stretch, and everything seemed to fit.
1) Shiny Metal Ass Scratch plate
2) 70s retro neck, 80s MIDI electronics, 2k body and high tech scratch guard
3) Matt Groening is a Zappa fan (so am I)
Yep, Bender it was going to be; Bender, Bender, Bender... how am I going to turn the glow plate on and off... AH HA!
I went to Jaycar and picked up a small momentary switch, put some surgical tubing on the end of it (about 20mm) and mounted the switch so when you use the tremolo it activates the glow guard. The surgical tubing is strong enough to activate the switch, and flexible enough so that if you dive bomb the tremolo the switch doesn't cause the tremolo to bottom out first.
 Finally, the guitar really earns its name 'Bender'.
I downloaded the Fender and Futurama fonts from the Internet, did some mock ups and supplied them to Signwave at Artarmon . They did a great job, and the decal went on really easily.
BTW; the whole reason for doing the project in the first place for the MIDI side of things. I'm happy to say that the Bender Futurecaster plays better than the G-700 ever did and tracks better (well, as good as it can, the GR-707 is well known for finicky tracking). The reason I still persist with it is I adore the old Roland analog synth sounds.
All up, Bender probably took me 4 months to complete in my spare time, and about AU$1500 (including the original G-700/GR-707). Worth it, maybe not; though I have probably saved that amount by staying sober and working on the project. The unique factor is through the roof, I love playing the guitar and that's something that's priceless.
And there you have it - how to build your own Futurama inspired guitar in one easy lesson. Isn't it amazing what you can learn from Futurama and The Oldest Living Futurama Fansite? Hey, Brett, send us a recording of you playing the Futurama theme on it!
|
Oil up your imaginations (you're going to need it)
Posted on September 30, 2008 by Tim You aren't going to believe this, but we have *drum roll* more Fan Fiction! The first delivery tonight is a brand spanking new one from Trenton Sands. Imagine if Mom came up with a mind control oil and her three inept sons were on a space train to spread it throughout the Universe. Imagine if PE we trying to stop them. Imagine if it were called Twilight Oil ... oh, wait a sec, that is what it's called.
 Remember this shippy little scene? Remember how a bumbling Dr. Zoidberg spoiled it a moment later? Imagine what might have happened if some time traveling robot (and I'm not mentioning any names here) just happened to pop in a moment before and drop a brick right between the crawdad's cloacal vents. Imagine Roman Legions somehow being involved.  Imagine yourself reading part 5 of Rush's Fry and Leela's Happy Ending From Bender. |
The No Fan Fiction Update!
Posted on September 29, 2008 by Tim Yes, you read it right. No Fan Fiction tonight! That doesn't mean I don't have a whole pile more of it to get put up - I do - But tonight we're going to do some different stuff. So first up, you may recall that a couple of weeks ago Flounder had some window decals made of our URL (the web address thingy, not the cop from the show). He very kindly sent me one and here it is. So if you happen to be a new visitor to the Madhouse because you saw it on a brown van or a red truck, honk and wave! Or maybe send us a note. Or some cash. Anyway, you can see both in the Fans Photos section.
And over in Episode Transcript land yours truly has finished grinding out the text of 5ACV06, the second part of The Beast With A Billion Backs.
 Ok, If I'm trotting out a picture of Cubert, it must be time for some more Cubert's Rants where in we tweak the nose of the whiny little clone who, despite being a self-proclaimed genius, doesn't get some of the simpler rules of life, the universe, and everything.  So here with a few more answers is Snorlax422, who probably thought I forgotten about these, but no, I didn't - this is just the first chance I've had time to do them. So anyway, check out the new answers in 1ACV02, 1ACV04, and 4ACV11. |
Sal does a big dump! Dump as in delivery...
Posted on September 27, 2008 by GrahamYep, more stuff for our bursting Fan Fiction section, all delivered by our friendly, easy going Sal. Seriously, when he's not acting in Futurama, he's a big softy with a heart of gold. The first fic I have (yes, I have more than one) comes from MC, who some might know as Marloc Clownface. He said that MC is "shorter, and takes a lot less explaining", seeing that everyone on Earth knows what MC is all about. For me, it's the nifty console file manager that you'll find on various Unix OSs and their variants, which I use a lot (even used it to upload the fic via FTP, as well as edit a few of the files there, too). However, Midnight Commander doesn't sound like Marloc Clownface, so let's scrap that idea. See, everyone knows what and who is MC. Getting on track, the fiction he's sent me is called Ghost of Xmas Past and will come in parts, this being the first part. He says that the fic can be found on our forum, but that he's tidied it up, correcting grammar, spelling and punctuation errors, and other stuff. See, this is a person who cares for their fic and wants to treat his readers with the respect they deserve. It doesn't matter that his name is known by everyone, it doesn't matter that his name isn't Midnight Commander, what matters is that he wants to improve his work and make it easier for the reader to read said work. Now, that's the obsequious stuff out of the way, so let's give a brief summary about what you can expect in the fic. Well, he sent in a summary, so I'll just paste that here and save myself some work: "When his last best chance to win Leela fails, Fry runs away and starts over. But a lot can happen in eight years. What happens when his past starts catching up with him?" You still here? That was the cue to go and read the fic. Please pay attention.
Oh, wait... hang on! Ignore what I just said, or at least come back here after reading MC's fic, because I have another. This fic comes from Dissy_Future, who apparently is a friend of AmZ_Future, who sent in a fic recently. She says that AmZ and her might be doing some joint fics in the future, so that's something to look out for. The fic is called So Long, Old Friends, and, let me say that this is The Smiths of all fan fics.  "When Bender kills Professor Farnsworth, things go rapidly downhill... especially for Fry." See, that's the description for this fic. It starts on a happy high and things then get bleaker. Heaven knows I'm miserable now. Where's the noose smilie? |
Annnd the hits just keep on comming ...
Posted on September 27, 2008 by Tim Hey, Guess what? We've got more Fan Fiction. I've been doing this for well over two years now and I've never seen so much fan fic - even those first days when Graham had Sal back the dump truck up and deliver all of the accumulated stuff. These are the best of times. So lets get down to business - first up, a new one by Singer1108 called Project Fry. And when you read it, you'll find out why Fry has an "oh crap" moment like the one pictured here. You see, Professor Farnsworth builds a holo-shed - one that supposedly can't malfunction and create real characters - and Fry gets a brilliant idea for a birthday present for Leela. Do you see where I'm going with this? Nowhere, that's where. I didn't write the fic. Gotcha. But Singer1108 did, so go see where she wandered off to.
 And nextly is Part 3 of Hammer87's fic Back To The Galaxy Of Terror. And speaking of boldly going where no Fan Fiction writer has gone before (except that they have) before reading this one you might want to brush up on your Spaceballs and Hogan's Heroes. Neato promo pic by CosmicF.
|
|
 |
