Dork Tower is an online comic created, written and drawn by John Kovalic. It chronicles the lives of a group of geeks living in the fictional town of Mud Bay, Wisconsin. Mud Bay's design is strongly influenced by the author's home town of Madison, Wisconsin. Topics have included role-playing games (RPGs), comic books, video games, and fandom in general. The comic strip began in January 1997 and has made appearances in publications like Dragon magazine, Shadis, and Comic Shop News. Starting in 2000, the strip began web publication roughly three times a week and is featured in Pyramid. The bimonthly comic book made its first appearance in 1998 and features continuing storylines. It has recently gone to full color with issue #32, and it is collected in trade paperback.
Apples to Apples is a party game originally published by Out of the Box Publishing Inc., and now by Mattel. Players start with a hand of seven "red apple" cards, which feature nouns. A player is selected to be the first judge, and that judge plays a "green apple" card, which features an adjective. The round is won by playing the "red apple" card that the judge determines to be the best match for the "green apple" card. The role of the judge rotates, and the number of rounds is determined by the number of players. The game is designed for four to ten players and played for 30–75 minutes.
The Ballon d'Or is an annual football award presented by French news magazine France Football since 1956. Between 2010 and 2015, in an agreement with FIFA, the award was temporarily merged with the FIFA World Player of the Year and known as the FIFA Ballon d'Or. That partnership ended in 2016, and the award reverted to the Ballon d'Or, while FIFA also reverted to its own separate annual award The Best FIFA Men's Player. The recipients of the joint FIFA Ballon d'Or are considered as winners by both award organisations.
Decipher, Inc. is an American gaming company based in Norfolk, Virginia, US. They began with three puzzles called "Decipher" then moved on to party games and Pente sets, but since 1994 produced collectible card and role-playing games. Their longest-running offering is the How to Host a Murder Mystery series. Other popular works have included many different card games. Since 2002, Decipher has released two licensed role-playing games: Star Trek RPG and The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game.
Mark Farmer is a British comic book artist. He is best known as an inker, often working with Alan Davis.
Game Designers' Workshop (GDW) was a wargame and role-playing game publisher from 1973 to 1996. Many of their games are now carried by other publishers.
The State of Origin series is an annual best-of-three rugby league series between two Australian state representative sides, the New South Wales Blues and the Queensland Maroons.
State of Origin results and statistics have been accumulating since the 1980 State of Origin game. Every game played under State of Origin selection rules, including the additional 1987 exhibition match and the matches played between New South Wales and Queensland for the Super League Tri-series are detailed below unless stated otherwise.
The Latin Grammy Awards are an award by The Latin Recording Academy to recognize outstanding achievement in the Latin music industry. The Latin Grammy honors works recorded in Spanish or Portuguese from anywhere around the world that has been released either in Latin America, the Iberian Peninsula, or the United States. Submissions of products recorded in languages, dialects or idiomatic expressions recognized in Ibero America and the Iberian Peninsula, such as Catalan, Basque, Galician, Valencian, Nahuatl, Guarani, Quechua or Mayan may be accepted by a majority vote. Both the regular Grammy Award and the Latin Grammy Award have similar nominating and voting processes, in which the selections are decided by peers within the Latin music industry.
James Daniel Lowder is an American author and editor, working regularly within the fantasy, dark fantasy, and horror genres, and on tabletop role-playing games and critical works exploring popular culture.
Eden Studios, Inc. is an American role-playing game publisher founded in 1996 by George Vasilakos, M. Alexander Jurkat, and Ed Healy. Currently run by Mr. Vasilakos, Eden Studios is best known for Conspiracy X, the Buffyverse role-playing games, All Flesh Must Be Eaten, CJ Carella's WitchCraft and most recently for the City of Heroes Roleplaying Game, an unreleased adaptation of Cryptic Studios' MMORPG City of Heroes. Although there has been no activity or news from the company in over a year, with their Facebook page's last post in November 2020. It is unknown at this time if the company is active.
Cooper Patrick Cronk is an Australian former professional rugby league footballer who played in the 2000s and 2010s. An Australian international and Queensland State of Origin representative halfback, he played most of his club career for the Melbourne Storm, though finished his career with the Sydney Roosters, both in the National Rugby League.
Richard Borg is a game designer who has designed many wargames. In 2010, he was elected to the Charles Roberts Awards Hall of Fame.
Middle-Earth Play-By-Mail, or Middle-earth PBM for short, is a turn-based, strategy play by email and play-by-mail game set in the world of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, including elements from ICE's Middle-earth Role Playing under licence from GSIL. The game is now run as Middle-earth Strategic Gaming by Middle-earth Games, Ltd.
Nebula Awards Showcase 2001 is an anthology of science fiction short works edited by Robert Silverberg. It was first published in hardcover and trade paperback by Harcourt in April 2001.
Rob Daviau is an American game designer known for creating legacy board gaming.
Paul Grabowsky Trio were an Australian jazz ensemble founded in 1983 by Paul Grabowsky on piano. By 1989 he was joined by Allan Browne on drums and Gary Costello on double bass. They won Best Jazz Album for Six by Three (1989) at the ARIA Music Awards of 1990 and for When Words Fail (1995) in 1996. The trio disbanded in 2001. Gary Costello died in December 2006, aged 54; Browne died in June 2015, aged 70.
The following are the winners of the 27th annual (2000) Origins Award, presented at Origins 2001: