There seems to be much debate on what the word chode means and why it is funny that the captain on Tripping the Rift answers to Chode. The Urban Dictionary has a raging debate of 333 definitions for the term. Most people, meaning those who do not spend all their time engaged in flame wars on UrbanDictionary.com, agree that chode refers literally to the perineum, the location between a gentleman’s scrotum and testicles. In colloquial use, calling someone a chode tends to mean you think they are an unsmooth idiot or at least acting like one. Some men find it comfortable to use various commercially available powders in the chode region in order to prevent chafing. That is all you all need to know about what Stephen Root meant about what a chode is. You can all stop emailing now. Future debate on the definition should be directed to UrbanDictionary. Thank you. (via Urban Dictionary)

Home Media Retailing, the trade magazine for the DVD market, just ran an interesting article about how Stephen Root got involved with Tripping the Rift. Root is probably best known, at least to SexyFandom readers, for his Have you seen my stapler? character in the movie Office Space, but he is one of our most accomplished voice actors. On King of the Hill, he voices regular characters Bill Dauterive and Buck Strickland, as well as a variety of additional animated Texans. Root has given sound to cartoons on Kim Possible, Ice Age, American Dad, and Buzz Lightyear of Star Command and more. When he saw the five minute demo for Tripping the Rift, he tells HRM, ““I thought it was beautiful,” he said. “They asked, ‘Do you want to play Chode?’ I said, ‘What’s Chode?’ They told me it’s the name of the space between your … ‘Oh, that’s the name of that!’”” Root also told HRM that he is big into sci-fi and enjoyed comic books from the 60’s.

I don’t usually post about the trade magazines I read for my day job, but Home Media Retailing often provides interesting insights into the DVD and related products market. You may also be interested to know that cyperpunk level evil overlord online corporation Netflix is suing cyperpunk level evil overlord brick and mortar corporation Blockbuster to keep them off the internet. (via Home Media Retailing)

Tonight Sci Fi Channel will be running the You Want to Put That Where? episode of Tripping the Rift. YWTPTW is a sensitive and daring study of how sexual identity can be a personal prison and the power of a really great sexbot to arouse beyond the usual constraints of gender and preference.

Today Lucasfilm announced the licensing of a new line of “Adult” Star Wars novels.

“While the movies were still an ongoing project, it was important to portray all aspects of the Star Wars universe as wholesome family entertainment,” said Lucasfilm spokesmen Dirk Merdespieler. “However, now that the cycle of films is done, we can finally broaden the Star Wars franchise into marketing niches we’d heretofore avoided, and adult entertainment is at the top of our list.”

One of the first new licenses was awarded to longtime Star Wars novel publisher Del Rey Books, who will be putting out a line of Star Wars adult novels. Del Rey announced that the first book in the line would be Slave Girl of Tattoine by Barry Malzberg and Mike Resnick.

“Yeah, Barry and I had an old porn novel called Arab Slave Harem we’d never managed to sell, and it was pretty easy to alter so it fit in the Star Wars universe,” said Resnick when the two authors were reached for comment.

In the background, Malzberg could be heard laughing maniacally as he typed away at the updated manuscript.

“Instead of an Arab slave caravan, she gets captured by the Sand People and sold to Jabba the Hutt.”

“Hahaha! Banthas!” exclaimed Malzberg.

“Anyway, after some 200 pages she gets rescued by a young Luke Skywalker. All in all, its probably the easiest $50,000 Barry and I ever made.”

Del Rey’s publicist indicated that they were willing to look beyond traditional adult themes, and were willing to pay top dollar for works to fill what were previously considered niche markets. As proof, she cited the hiring of Pulitzer Prize winner E. Annie Proulx to pen Brokeback Falcon, a novel which explores the forbidden love between Han Solo and Chewbacca.

“The Star Wars universe is almost 30 years old,” said Merdespieler. “It’s high time our fans learned there’s more to life than comic books and action figures.” (via Locus)

The Museum of Hoaxes has a listing of the top 100 April Fools Day pranks. Included are the BBC convincing people that spaghetti grows on trees in Switzerland or Discover Magazine describing the new hotheaded naked ice borer species in Antarctica which could bore through ice using the heat of the blood vessels near the bony plate in its head.

It is pretty common for people to forget it is April first and believe various peculiar stories printed by their favorite, usually accurate publications. So I’m only amused and not disturbed that so many of you believed that Sexy Fandom was acquired by The Science Fiction Channel. I’m a little disappointed, however, by how many people wrote and told me essentially to stay strong against any sell-out criticisms because, no matter how much the blog got sucky, the important thing was that I was making a lot of money.

While I’m touched by your concern for my finances, I already make a lot of money. I do this blog for fun. I’m a TV writer, so obviously I’m for sale on some level, but it would take a whole lot of money for me to sell. This is supposed to be my venue to explore things I couldn’t normally. So, while I’m not wholly closed to being showered with cash, I would hope my readers would care if the character of SexyFandom.com changed. Money is nice, but it is not an excuse for bad behavior. If it were, then we wouldn’t have laws to put bank robbers in prison.

Once the sale of Sexy Fandom to the Science Fiction Channel goes through, I’ll be doing a lot more coverage of stuff like what I’d like to put through a Stargate and how Rose McGowan has matured as an actress on Charmed and a lot less coverage of where to find robot sex slaves and holiday-themed photos of freaky girls. I think the move in a less mature audiences direction will be fine. I never showed nudity on this site anyway. It will still be me writing the blog, just for a whole lot more money.