Pixar has been making feature-length computer-animated films since Toy Story in 1995, and all of them have been artistic and popular successes; the latest is Brave, which is notable for being both Pixar’s first “fairy tale” (in other words, a magic-based story set in a mythic “once upon a time” past) and first female lead role. Like its predecessors, Brave is notable for the filmmakers’ dedication to detail and quality; every element is carefully researched and designed, and the crew-members took multiple trips to Scotland to study the environment and history. In early April, I spent three days in San Francisco as Disney/Pixar’s guest, where I saw several demonstrations of various aspects of this process. Over the next couple of days, I’ll be sharing these stories with you.

We met with story artist Louis Gonzales for a presentation called “From Page to Screen,” in which he explained the process by which a movie is developed. The process does not begin with a written script. “Everything is a work in progress,” Gonzales explains. “Everything is always moving forward, and we’re trying to build this thing. We explore ideas that never make it into the film, because it seemed like it was something that had potential, whether it was really funny, and we decided that we don’t need funny at that moment. We might feel like we need a heartfelt moment, so we cut that funny scene in order to get something that makes the story work as a whole.” The story is developed visually by a team of artists drawing a series of sketches showing the “beats” of the story as they might appear in the finished film. Brave had over 110,000 such drawings created, illustrating about 100 possible scenes; only about 35 of them made it into the final film. Most scenes require between 200 and 500 drawings, though some short segments may only need 15 or 20. The story artists each produce about 100 drawings a day.

Once the basic story is worked out, attention turns to research, which sometimes adds new elements or changes existing ones. Research can take many forms, from bringing in books, movies, or experts to teach the staff about particular skills or traditions. Gonzales says, “we try and gather as much information as we can. You know, we’re good students around here.” Sometimes the research includes visiting the locations where the story takes place; for Up, the crew visited the jungles of Venezuela, while for Toy Story 3 they went to the local dump. For Brave, they went to Scotland. “What we’re looking for is to soak up as much of Scotland as we can, everything, from the smallest detail to the biggest castle.” The crew studies “architecture, things of that nature, old castles, new castles, vast landscapes, very particular landscapes.”

The research trips provide more than just landscape; the real benefit of visiting these locations is the intangible qualities, the culture and people. Gonzales told of one incident that occurred, and then showed the scene that resulted. “One of the most special things happened on my birthday. I know everyone says that; ‘my birthday is special,’ but for real, a night happened that actually even found its way into our film. I mean it’s something that affected all of us, really, not just me. We were having my birthday dinner, and we come to find out one of the waitresses that was helping us was this award-winning Gaelic singer, lullaby singer, more specifically. You know, I didn’t know that existed. It’s not in my culture. And we begged her and begged her, please, would you sing to us? And she was very humble, and she was like okay. So she finally broke down and sang us a Gaelic lullaby. And it was the most amazing thing ’cause, you know, it’s kind of the thing that makes these trips really important; it’s the unexpected stuff sometimes that is more hard-hitting than the expected stuff. Castles, we know we’re gonna see. We could see that in a book, but it’s good to walk around, get an idea how they work. Landscapes we can see pictures of, but it’s this kind of cultural stuff that we saw that affects the film – the kind of the honesty of what we’re trying to bring to the film.”

There is a scene in the film in which Queen Elinor comforts a young and frightened Merida during a thunderstorm by singing a Gaelic lullaby. It’s a very sweet little scene that helps to define the relationship between mother and daughter, which is the core of the story.

If you’ve ever shared the grief of getting destroyed by diseases while playing Pandemic, consoled a friend over continuously bad dice rolls during an entire campaign of Dungeons & Dragons, or done a victory lap around the table after finally winning a marathon game of Puerto Rico, you know that games have the power to create incredibly strong bonds between friends and family. Those bonds are evident every week on Geek & Sundry’s wonderful gaming show, Tabletop.

The show’s host, Wil Wheaton, has written and spoken extensively about gaming’s ability to bring people together and when you watch him play Ticket to Ride with his wife, Anne, you can see the truth in his words. Obviously we at GeekDad are also huge fans of tabletop gaming. So it made sense for us to team up with the good folks over at Tabletop to do something special for Father’s Day.

We’d like to give you and your family the chance to appear in a Father’s Day Bonus video on the Geek & Sundry channel. All you have to do is grab a camera – anything from a Scarlet-X to your mobile phone – and record a video. In 60 seconds or less, tell us what board games mean to your family.

Maybe you have a great memory of passing the hours during a winter storm by playing Axis & Allies, or perhaps your dad always let you win … every game you ever played together, or your house rules included a provision that dad always went last. Whatever your best memories are about gaming with dad, we want to know about them.

Upload your 60 second videos to YouTube and send us the link by noon PST, Friday June 8th. All of the submitted videos* will be included in a special TableTop Father’s Day video Playlist on the Geek & Sundry Channel and our five favorites will be compiled with an introduction from Wil, which will be linked to the June 15th TableTop show and featured as our Bonus content on Thurs June 21! Have fun, include the whole family, be creative, and be sure to tag your upload with the words “GeekDad”, “Tabletop”, and “Father’s Day” so we can find it!

*Geek & Sundry and TableTop are rated PG-13 so please make sure the content of your videos appropriately reflect our family-friendly nature.

Is this what D&D Next will look like? (Image courtesy of Wizards of the Coast)

If you’ve been following role-playing game news, you know that the fate of Dungeons & Dragons is somewhat in peril. Many younger gamers flock to video games, not table-top games. Some old school gamers have abandoned the hobby entirely, or else they play outdated (but perfectly playable) versions of the rules. Others prefer Pathfinder and other fantasy RPGs. Factions squabble over what edition of D&D is the best.

Getting fans of the various rules — Original D&D, Basic D&D, AD&D, 2nd Edition, 3rd, 3,5 and 4.0 — to all agree on how to run a run-of-the-mill combat with a band of hobgoblins, how magic is used, or how much authority the Dungeon Master has to improvise when your character want to do something not explicitly covered in the rules  … well, good luck with that.

Against this complex backdrop and into an uncertain future, Wizards of the Coast, which makes D&D, has embarked on an effort to redraw the rules once again. As was widely reported in January, Wizards is giving D&D a makeover, its first overhaul since 2008, when 4.0 was released and, some say, further fractured the fan base.

The project to create D&D 5.0 — or what Wizards is calling “D&D Next” — has been a cause for both bickering and hope. But the company has promised to listen to players. They hired game designers from previous editions, such as Monte Cook, Bruce Cordell and Rob Schwalb, in an effort ”give a voice to the different generations of D&D.” They initiated a multi-phase playtest. Some months ago, I had a chance to play an early version of D&D Next, Dungeon Mastered by none other than the man heading up the revamp, Mike Mearls, senior manager of Dungeons & Dragons research and development. Then came a “Friends and Family” play test phase this winter and spring for a select group of D&D players.

Now, this week, the general public playtest will kick off, beginning Thursday, May 24th. You can sign up to play here. On the eve of this new phase, I had a chance to ask Mearls some questions about the state of D&D‘s evolution, if he could reveal any sneak peeks into D&D Next and what challenges remain.

Gilsdorf: Please bring readers up to date (especially any newbies reading this) on the process to date — the previous “Friends and Family” playtest, the overall schedule, and where in the process the game design revision stands now.

Mike Mearls, senior manager of Dungeons & Dragons research and development (Image courtesy of Wizards of the Coast)

Mearls: The first concepts for the game arose about a year ago in a series of limited tests and proofs of concept. We also played through each edition of D&D to get a sense for how the game has changed. In the fall, we started to do more work in earnest, with that material making up a closed playtest that began around the start of 2012. We used feedback from that test, along with games run at the D&D Experience convention and PAX East, to shape the next round of design. The game right now is functional within a limited array of levels. There are a few things we know that will change in short order. For instance, monsters still need some work, and the starting character hit points are a bit inflated to account for that. At this point, we’ve created a few different scenarios we can follow for new content based on player reaction to the first round. Depending on how that goes, we can figure out if we should debut new content or go back and revise classes and races that have been tested before. The big thing is that we’re ready to take as much time as needed to get this right.

Gilsdorf: Can you characterize the general sense of where the game in progress stands now? Is it more like classic D&D, more like 4.0? How have the rules and philosophy changed?

Mearls: In general, we’re pushing more power into the DM’s hands to run the sort of campaign that he or she prefers. For instance, we just talked today about a rule that lets DMs hand out bonus hit points at first level. The DM gets to determine if adventurers in the campaign are lucky, blessed by the gods, or otherwise destined for greatness. I’d say that in general, the game has the open-ended nature of AD&D, the character flexibility of 3e, and the clarity and ease of DMing of 4e.

Gilsdorf: I imagine you did a lot of reading into D&D‘s history to think big picture stuff. How far back did you delve to get good ideas/best practices?

Mearls: We started at the very beginning, looking back at the original version of the game and even what information we could find on the games that inspired D&D. When we played each edition, starting with the original, we had a chance to see how the game evolved. The most interesting thing we learned was that the original game held up very well, and the best parts of D&D — creativity at the table, the DM’s ability to create a unique game — were consistent in all editions.

Gilsdorf: Can you talk about which older editions were most inspirational and what about them did you like or try to incorporate into D&D Next?

Mearls: Basic D&D, the version released in 1981 and assembled by Tom Moldvay, is a big inspiration. It’s a complete game in 64 pages and covers the essence of D&D in a compact package. The original game has the basic concept of an RPG, with the idea of the DM as a combination world builder, storyteller, and umpire. AD&D added more flexibility to characters, 3e created a logical framework of rules, and 4e created a math framework for the game. All of those things are steps forward for D&D and every edition has contributed to this new iteration.

Gilsdorf: I think a lot of older gamers expressed concern about the direction 4.0 was headed vis-a-vis the balance of combat vs. storytelling and role playing. Do the new rules dictate how much role playing should be incorporated into the game? How much storytelling? How much combat?

Mearls: We’re very hands off with that stuff, instead leaving it up to the DM. We tend to give characters a mix of combat, exploration, and interaction abilities so that players feel that all of those areas of the game are important. The big thing I want to do for DMs is create a flexible core of rules that they can apply and modify as they wish.

Gilsdorf: In the new rules, will there be any fresh instructions on how to role play and tell stories, to help inexperienced players who might come to D&D from video games understand how to play a character, or how to DM? Or at this point is it just the rules framework you are focusing on?

Mearls: That’s the kind of thing we’ll tackle as we start thinking about final products. For now, we assume that players and DMs are at least familiar with the basics of the game.

Gilsdorf: So you have this feedback from the “Friends and Family” playtest. How did you tabulate and incorporate all of it? It sounds like a monumental task.

Mearls: We have a great team of people at Wizards who have tabulated everything, making it much easier for us to zero in on issues. We also rely on surveys to collect information, so we can take a look at the raw numbers. There are two ways we’ve looked at feedback so far. Sometimes, specific issues leap to the top of the to-do list because we see less than stellar feedback. In other cases, we use the results to help shape our discussions for revisions. For instance, if we have an idea for a new way to handle magic items we can check on the playtest data and see what players had to say about the current rules, then use that information to help us make our revisions.

Gilsdorf: How much feedback did you get? In the thousands of responses?

Mearls: That’s hard to tabulate. We kept our closed playtest small, with a little over a thousand people participating. They were given survey questions but also submitted written feedback. The real test will come when we begin to receive feedback from the public playtest.

Gilsdorf: My understanding is the next phase is the public open playtest. So really anyone will be able to play?

Mearls: That’s right, though as in the case of any public beta there is a play test agreement you have to agree to.

Gilsdorf: How is this handled? Do folks download materials from the D&D site?

Mearls: The materials will be available online via the D&D web site at www.dndnext.com. All you need to do is create an account on the site – if you already have one you can skip that step – and agree to the playtest terms. Once you do that, you can download the files and start playing.

Gilsdorf: How will you solicit feedback and what form will it take — surveys? Open comments on forums?

Mearls: We’re are focusing on surveys as the primary method but also hosting Live Chats, continuing playtests at key events, panels, and also paying close attention to the conversations that are coming out of our weekly articles. Surveys make it as easy as possible for people to contribute. A survey also lets us focus in on the key issues we want to examine, though of course people will have a chance to write out their thoughts and impressions. We want to give players as many outlets as we can to give us feedback.

Gilsdorf: There’s been a lot of talk about the the departure of Monte Cook from the team working on this project. I’m sure you’re restricted on what you can say, but I wonder if you care to comment or respond to some of the internet chatter about what this might mean for where D&D Next is headed. What did Monte bring to the team and has he been replaced?

Mearls: Nothing has changed in terms of big picture ideas. The core concept behind the game was in place about a year ago, so our direction remains the same. Monte has a good sense for what makes for a fun RPG, and his big role was providing his experience on third edition. We’ve also been relying on other team members to provide the same kind of expertise in all editions so that we can put together the kind of game that all D&D players will enjoy and appreciate.

Gilsdorf: Can you tease some of the major changes for D&D Next? (e.g. Is combat super complex with feats and super powers, or is the system more streamlined? Class? Races? Spells?)

Mearls: Here’s something people might like — we’ve created a new mechanic for rogues called schemes. Schemes tell you what sort of rogue you’re playing. You might want to be a thief, the classic D&D rogue who can sneak, steal treasure, and disarm traps. Or, you might want to play a charlatan who excels at deceit and, through trial, error, and practice, learns how to use scrolls, wands, and other magic items.

Gilsdorf: Biggest challenge thus far?

Mearls: The biggest hurdle has been trying to make sure that we can encourage more creativity, immersion, and flexibility in DMs and players. We want to have a solid set of rules, but at the same time I think D&D is at its best when the game is about the DM’s rulings rather than the actual rules. The rules are a tool that a DM uses to keep the game moving and inform decisions. The rules don’t make decisions for the DM, unless that’s how the DM wants the game to work.

Gilsdorf: Any other cool surprises in the new rules you can share now?

Mearls: I mentioned the rogue schemes earlier, but here’s another tidbit. Character backgrounds dictate the skills you receive, rather than your character class. Right now in the rules you could play a fighter who is also a thief, a wizard who is also an explorer, or any other combination you want.

Gilsdorf: When I contacted you last fall, you and your colleagues at Wizards spoke about how the major goal for this rules revamp was big picture, brand and relevance stuff — how to unite all the warring tribes; end the editions wars; get older, lapsed players to play again; and get younger generations excited about D&D. The changes you’re talking about here seem a little smaller-scale. Can you point to some bigger-picture ways you are addressing these issues?

Mearls: The really big questions are, in some ways, still up in the air. Right now, we’re sort of heads down, focusing on small details for the playtest. We have some fairly big ideas we’re working on in terms of RPGs as a whole, but that stuff is still fairly far off on the horizon. Right now, we really are down in the weeds in terms of details, and you’re right that the stuff we’re talking about right now is fairly small in terms of the big picture. However, that big picture still isn’t in focus. I think a mistake we made in the past was to try to make these big, grandiose statements, but in doing that we lost track of the core elements of what people enjoy about RPGs. We also ended up touting things that we couldn’t actually execute on, and no one wants that to happen again.With all that said, we’re definitely thinking big picture. That work is taking place, but it’s not ready for prime time.

Gilsdorf: How are you holding up, personally? Leading this rules revision for D&D Next must be exhausting and stressful. Lots of folks wanting this to go right. I can only imagine.

Mearls: It’s definitely stressful, but it helps to have a great team of designers and editors. Plus, my wife and our menagerie of pets – two dogs and three cats – help to keep me grounded. The best thing, though, is actually playing the game. It feels good to play through a new iteration and have a good time, or spot issues that we know we can fix. In some ways, there’s some security in having a public test. If people hate it, we are listening and make changes along the way. The biggest thing I have comes down to my attitude toward whatever my current project might be. I’m sort of like a parent who pushes a kid way too hard and expects straight As every term. I just want the game to be absolutely awesome!

Gilsdorf: Anything else you’d like to add?

Mearls: We’re really looking forward to having people try out the playtest materials and give us their feedback. People have asked why they should care about this version of D&D when there are other versions out there. This is your chance to play a role in the development of the rules. If there has ever been anything about D&D that bugged you or some new thing you wanted in the game, now is the time to be heard!

The D&D Next general public playtest begins Thursday, May 24th. Sign up to play here.

Should you, Paris, shoot from the ramparts or the tippy-top of Priam's palace to best reach far-off Achilles?

That darn Achilles has been joyriding around the walls of Troy again, and with Hector stuck to his bumper, no less! The city’s best archers have hit Achilles with a thousand errors, but cocky Achilles doesn’t seem to get wet in rainstorms and certainly isn’t bothered by Troy’s rain of arrows. But you have a feeling you might be different. Yes, Paris, something tells you if you could shoot an arrow far enough, it would have a simply divine chance of finding its mark.

You have the luxury of launching either from the ramparts above the Hesperian Gate at a height of exactly 8 meters. Or you can stand atop Priam’s palace. This gains you another 7 meters of launch height, but it costs you 15 meters of horizontal distance. If the arrow leaves your bow at a somewhat modest 70 meters per second, are you best taking your pot-shot at far-off Achilles from the ramparts or the palace? Which perch offers the farthest reach?

Submit your answer to Geekdad Puzzle Central by Friday for your chance at a $50 ThinkGeek gift certificate!

Our good friends at Google run a daily puzzle challenge and asked us to help get them out to the geeky masses. Each day’s puzzle will task your googling skills a little more, leading you to Google mastery. Each morning at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time you’ll see a new puzzle, and the previous day’s answer (in invisitext) posted here.

SPOILER WARNING:
We leave the comments on so people can work together to find the answer. As such, if you want to figure it out all by yourself, DON’T READ THE COMMENTS!

Also, with the knowledge that because others may publish their answers before you do, if you want to be able to search for information without accidentally seeing the answer somewhere, you can use the Google-a-Day site’s search tool, which will automatically filter out published answers, to give you a spoiler-free experience.

And now, without further ado, we give you…

TODAY’S PUZZLE:

A graphologist might determine that you’re strongly emotional if he finds slants that go in which direction?

YESTERDAY’S ANSWER (mouseover to see):

Search [world’s largest food fight] to find that it occurs at the festival known as La Tomantina in Buñol, Spain. Search [thrown in Buñol food fight] to learn that crushed tomatoes are thrown. So your shirt will be covered in red (or orange/tangerine, depending on the tomato).

Homepage photo: kevinzim/Flickr

The NPR news quiz show Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me! has long been a favorite of mine, so I was pleased when I heard there was a new quiz show coming to NPR called Ask Me Another. I began to get excited when I heard it was a trivia- and puzzle-based quiz show, as I’ve been addicted to trivia and puzzle since I was a kid — heck, I was on Jeopardy! years ago. When I heard who was handling music for the show, I decided that someone had clearly looked inside my head, determined what kind of show I would like best, and then produced it, because they could not possibly have chosen anyone closer to my geeky heart.

Yes, the show’s house musician is none other than geek music icon and geek dad Jonathan Coulton! Many of the segments on Ask Me Another have a musical component to them, and JoCo applies his voice and guitar in support of them. This provides some slightly surreal moments for fans of his, as you get to hear him sing things you likely never expected (or possibly wanted) to — such as Queen’s “Radio Ga Ga” or Starship’s “We Built This City.” But he also plays bits of some of his own pieces in between segments of the show, so have no fear, he’s still the same JoCo you know and love.

The rest of the show is great fun, too. It’s played in rounds, each with two contestants vying for a spot in the final “Ask Me One More” round. While the trivia isn’t very obscure, the puzzles around it are generally clever enough that nobody is likely to reach the final round without some effort. They also bring on a “mystery guest” each episode, providing periodic clues to his/her identity leading up to a chat and puzzle round with said guest. In the first episode, I should mention, the guest is someone also near and dear to many geeks’ hearts.

Three episodes of Ask Me Another have aired thus far (all of the episodes for this run were taped some months ago, but they seem to be planning to do more soon), and can be listened to on the show’s website or downloaded from the podcast feed.

Proposed floor layout for MindGear Labs courtesy Rob Adams. Please don't mock my drafting skills.

I am starting a new public accessible prototyping lab in Huntsville, Alabama, called MindGear Labs based on the fab lab model. I’ve dreamed of becoming an entrepreneur and have done a fair amount of research on the topic. But this is my first attempt at starting a business. Here is where I document weekly my mistakes and successes in creating a business from the ground up.

I have big news to announce today. The bank approved my loan request. So MindGear is going to happen. I’ll be honest: when the bank called me my first reaction was stunned silence. It was pretty overwhelming to get that news, and I spent that evening thinking “What do I do now?”  The next morning I woke up ready to take on the challenge again. I wonder if other people who’ve started a business have felt the same way.

The bad news is that I don’t yet have all of what I was going to contribute. I was going to borrow the majority of my contribution from my retirement plan, but unfortunately they have an arbitrary cap on what they allow folks to borrow. I’m able to pull about half of my share. I have some options to raise the other half, but it will be tight. This situation drives me to look again at doing a crowdsourcing campaign, either with Kickstarter or RocketHub.

If I go the crowdsourcing route, which is looking more likely than not, then I need to have a few things in place first. I need my website to be informative, something that I can point people to after reading/watching the crowdsourcing page. Unfortunately my website is in a sad state right now. I used WordPress and had played with XHTML/CSS in the past so I thought I would be able to put together a functional website pretty quickly. Wrong. I’ve spent the better part of last week struggling mightily with WordPress … and losing.

On a side note, the editors at GeekDad can attest to my inability to handle WordPress. Jonathan in particular seems to have to fix several things every time I post. People like him, who can enforce the rules while remaining helpful, are the difference between an easy-to-read and professional-looking site and something that looks slapped together. Hopefully I’ll be able to get this post right and lower his workload a little. More likely I’ve just given him something to snicker about as he changes my weekly boo-boos.

Since my time working on the website has proven so unproductive I moved on to one of the many other critical, do-now tasks on my plate. Creating a store layout is one of them because I need to get quotes on the work to be done. It seems strange for me to hand draft the layout of a fab lab that will use computer equipment to design parts. But there is a method to my madness. One, I don’t have exact measurements on the space so I needed a sketch more than an exact drawing. Two, I was able to draw on 24×36″ paper which makes it easier to show others what I want. Three, every time I sketched in Google SketchUp or a CAD package I couldn’t see the entire floor space, even on a 24″ monitor. That last one makes it awfully tough to move things around and try different layouts. Now that I have a layout I could draw it in exacting detail on the computer, no problem. At the risk of sounding like a relic I think paper still has its uses, especially when you’re roughing out or sketching an initial concept.

The layout itself had a bunch of constraints that I had to manage. I’m trying to fit in as many places to work as possible, while leaving good lanes for walking and reaching the various exits. I’m rather proud of the gear-shaped area in the center of the room. It’s the checkout area, and where the vinyl cutter and 3D printer resides. Those of you that have read my earlier posts will see I made significant changes to the kids’ area, which right now we’re calling the Lightbulb Lab. I’ll have to get my son’s approval on the layout again. I’m considering swapping the sales and lounge areas, but otherwise this is what I’m going with for now. That is assuming I don’t have to economize to a smaller store. I’d appreciate any comments on the layout; I can go into more detail on the issues and restrictions if there is any interest.

Getting back to the website, I’m getting quotes from local PR firms on doing the design as part of a marketing effort. Also I am considering doing my initial hiring through a temp agency; contracting out hiring duties appeals to me for several reasons. If someone doesn’t work out, they can send me another person quicker than I could hire a replacement. They do the paperwork which is a load off of me. And I can establish a relationship with an agency so that I can use them when I need extra folks in a hurry, such as to support events I organize and if I see peaks in demand, like retailers see around Christmas.

These agencies cost a lot, however. They have a markup based on the employee pay rate. Let’s assume that I do a work to hire with a duration of 500 hours. In other words I pay the employee through the temp agency for the first 500 hours he works, and then I can hire that person directly. Let’s also assume that they have a 50% markup rate above and beyond payroll taxes (Social Security, Medicare, Workman’s Comp., unemployment, etc.) Finally let’s say the employee makes $10/hour. Therefore I’ll pay $10*500*50%=$2500 to the employment agency for each employee. Is that worth the time I save? I think it might be.

To recap, I have enough funding to start MindGear, but not quite enough to do the full lab pictured here. I’ll look at my financial options and probably at doing a crowdsourcing campaign soon. My attempt to economize by doing work I could farm out to others (website design, hiring efforts) is taking too much of my time. I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion that I need to farm out whatever I can to people who are passionate about and highly skilled in what they do. That way I can concentrate on what I’m competent and excited about doing, making this business a success. But until I can hire someone I have to go back to dueling with WordPress. Sigh.

“This is pretty freakin’ lame,” I said.

He simply smiled and pointed out a Dinobot. He’s three. Dinosaurs are an easy sell. As are robots. Particularly when they’re brightly colored.

Pat Benatar sang that hell is for children, and so, I say, are poorly conceived re-imaginings of classic toy franchises.

That’s not to say that even our beloved Transformers: Generation 1 was without fault. In fact, far from it. Each iteration of the titular “Robots in Disguise” has seen its share of missteps. Even after suspending our disbelief to allow for talking androids that turn into cars, the Transformers universe still managed to throw us some unapologetic curves, some wholly ill-conceived characters.

Don’t believe it? Allow me to elucidate.

Cosmos (Transformers: Gen 1)
In a rush to head off some sort of high-tech gas crisis, the Autobots crash landed on prehistoric Earth. After being reawakened some 4 million years later by a volcanic eruption, the indestructible TRS-80 that served as their heap’s intergalactic GPS chose alternate forms for these space robots to assume so as to blend in with contemporary Earth machines. And yet somehow Cosmos ended up transforming into a flying saucer. ‘Cause, y’know, that’s totally inconspicuous.

Waspinator (Beast Wars)
The mid ’90s saw a Transformers relaunch of a different kind. The Beast Wars series recast Autobots and Decepticons as the more organic Maximals and Predacons. Moreover, it saw the introduction of Waspinator, the robot equivalent of South Park‘s Kenny McCormick. He existed simply to be blown up, maimed, crushed, mutilated, and occasionally possessed. It’s hard out there for a quasi-literate bug-machine.

Hit the jump for more technological tragedy.

Kup (Transformers: Gen 1)
Kup, for those lucky few who have forgotten, was the grumpy old fart of an Autobot that transformed into Cybertron‘s answer to the Sanford and Son Salvage truck. He was introduced in Transformers: The Movie after a planning session that, I imagine, went something like this:

Guy #1 – “Our data indicates that the Transformers have yet to capture that key octogenarian demographic. Maybe we should add an old robot to the mix.”

Guy #2 – “Okay, but only if we can name him after an athletic supporter.”

Arcee (Transformers: Gen 1)
Another vanity character from the original Transformers movie was Arcee. She was the Autobot with simulated lipstick and metal Princess Leia hair. I can only assume female Transformers were worked into the mythos because the animators desperately wanted an excuse to draw metal bosoms. Their inclusion brings up a number of questions that best remain unanswered.

Deszaras (Transformers: Victory)
This obsession with robo-boobs would not be fully realized until the release of 1989′s Japanese spin-off Transformers: Victory. The Decepticon leader in that series was Deszaras, a monstrous robot bird that hated adult humans but had a soft spot for kids. Creepy. Deszaras further differentiated himself from the Megatrons of the world by commanding the ultra-elite Decepticon Breast Force, and I’m totally not making that part up.

Heinlad (Beast Wars Neo)
The Japanese series Beast Wars Neo produced some of the strangest characters in Transformers history. But in a world of robot giraffes, mammoths, ammonites, bunnies, and penguins, Heinlad stood out as the most laughable. Part magic raccoon, part alarm clock, part… oversized testicles, Heinlad still holds the dubious title of being the only Transformers action figure to ever come with a jug of wine in his accessory kit.

Huffer (Transformers: Gen 1)
Why did someone name an Autobot after your college dorm mate with a thing for airplane glue? (We can safely assume this was from the same brain trust that gave us “Kup.”) Huffer fulfilled an important role in the Transformers universe as the consummate pessimist, teaching children that no matter how well crafted your latest project may be, it will surely be destroyed by renegade Decepticons. The more you know!

Ultra Magnus (Transformers: Gen 1)
While touted as the model solder and paragon of Autobot virtue, Ultra Magnus is better known as the jackass who lost the Matrix of Leadership, and then, once it was recovered, decided it would be a pretty cool idea to just let some teenage punk keep it instead. Those, my friends, are what we call leadership chops! It is also of note that Ultra Magnus taught a generation of children that swearing is cool.

Fire Convoy (Transformers: Car Robots)
In the States we called the Transformers anime of the early 2000s Transformers: Robots in Disguise. In Japan they called it Transformers: Car Robots. And the gross oversimplifications didn’t stop there. While we called the Autobot leader, this time in the guise of a fire engine, Optimus Prime, they called him Fire Convoy. Yep, there’s surely no better vehicle for fighting the forces of evil than a fire truck. Assuming that these “forces of evil” operate entirely within the realms of arson and trapping unsuspecting cats in very tall trees.

Shockwave (Transformers: Gen 1)
Remember that kid on the playground that no one liked but you had to play with because your mom told you everybody needs a friend? Remember how you’d always leave him at the monkey bars to “guard the base” while you and your real friends went out to raid the super-fast slide? Yeah, in Decepticon circles they call that kid “the Shockwave.” He turned into a giant laser pistol, which sounds wicked cool in theory, but when you consider the fact that he spent his 4 million years as the supreme Decepticon commander of Cybertron doing nothing save steadily burning through the planet’s remaining power reserves, you sort of get a feel for how unmotivated a robot he really was. But he did go on to help Megatron create the Space Bridge used to transport Earth-made Energon back to the motherland, so at least he was able to secure a sweet job in the Shipping and Receiving department.

Ratbat (Transformers: Gen 1)
For the record, Soundwave only had three cassette tape minions of note: Laserbeak, Rumble, and Ravage. All the rest were robotic Redshirts. The chief offender amongst these miniature malcontents was Ratbat, a character so superfluous as to lack even a proper name. The sole reason for his existence seems to be to bump Kup and Huffer each one slot down on this list. Congratulations, Ratbat, your full potential has been realized.

Frenzy (Transformers)
When rumors of a live-action Transformers movie began to surface, the first thing on everyone mind was that all-important question: Will Soundwave be in it? The second thing on everyone’s mind being: Oh hell, Michael Bay is directing it; this can’t end well. And it didn’t. Producer Don Murphy let it be known early in development that the type of drastic shift in mass demonstrated by Soundwave’s original transformation (to that of the aforementioned cassette recorder) wouldn’t fly due to concerns over realism. And honestly, who wants a film about English-speaking robots from outer space to be dogged with unrealistic special effects? Instead it was leaked that Soundwave would transform into a helicopter. A negative fan reaction led to this character being renamed Vortex, who was later rechristened Blackout. The Soundwave character was then recast as the late Estelle Getty, then as a sack full of marbles, and later retooled as a cardboard cutout of Spuds MacKenzie the Original Party Animal. (No, not really.) Eventually the character was dropped altogether in favor of Frenzy, a four-foot tall over-caffeinated collection of tin foil and mechanical pencils that served the vital role as the film’s Jar Jar Binks. Additional suck-points have been awarded to the character, Bay, Murphy, and the film’s script writing team for saddling this CGI mistake with the recycled name of another of Soundwave’s second-tier tape-bots, better known as “the-one-that’s-not-Rumble.”

[This post originally ran in 2008.]

For your shot at this week’s $50 ThinkGeek gift certificate, send in the count of counting numbers less than 2 million that are carets and vees. Carets are numbers that increase initially and then decrease, increasing and decreasing for at least one digit, and only “bouncing” one time. Repeated digits are acceptable in determining an increasing or decreasing sequence, i.e., 12231 is a caret, as is 1221, but 1233 and 1335 are not. Vees are the mirror image of carets, save that they initially decrease and later increase, with the same ability to utilize repeated digits, and the same restriction on having exactly one “bounce.”

In the set of numbers from 101 to 2,000,000, there were 118,636 “carets” and 87,429 “vees” for a total of 206,065 “carets or vees.” While technically correct with respect to the question as written, a solution stating “there are zero numbers that are carets and vees, as carets and vees are distinct groups” was not chosen as the random winner. The winning solution chosen that of Tim Hurst — congratulations, Tim, you are soon to be the proud owner of a $50 ThinkGeek gift certificate! The rest of us can use the code GEEKDAD59MJ to get $10 off a $50 order at ThinkGeek. Many thanks to ThinkGeek, and to everyone reading and participating in the Puzzle of the Week feature.

Our good friends at Google run a daily puzzle challenge and asked us to help get them out to the geeky masses. Each day’s puzzle will task your googling skills a little more, leading you to Google mastery. Each morning at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time you’ll see a new puzzle, and the previous day’s answer (in invisitext) posted here.

SPOILER WARNING:
We leave the comments on so people can work together to find the answer. As such, if you want to figure it out all by yourself, DON’T READ THE COMMENTS!

Also, with the knowledge that because others may publish their answers before you do, if you want to be able to search for information without accidentally seeing the answer somewhere, you can use the Google-a-Day site’s search tool, which will automatically filter out published answers, to give you a spoiler-free experience.

And now, without further ado, we give you…

TODAY’S PUZZLE:

What color will your white t-shirt be after you participate in the world’s largest annual food fight?

YESTERDAY’S ANSWER (mouseover to see):

Search [world’s youngest ocean] to find that the Atlantic Ocean is the most recent ocean to form on planet Earth. Search for [Atlantic Ocean tides recorded 600 AD] to learn that medieval monks started recording the ocean’s tides in 600 AD on the coastline of England.