I’ve been emailed this story roughtly 800 gajillion times now, so I guess I might as well do a post about it.  The story’s that Uwe Boll, director of such video game-based masterpieces as Postal, BloodRayne, and House of the Dead, will quit making movies if a petition reaches one million signatures. Of course, the basis for the story is a throwaway response he gave in an interview with FEARnet:

FEARnet: Are you aware that there is a petition online, signed by 18,000 people, requesting that you stop making movies?
Boll: Yeah, I know that. 18,000 is not enough to convince me.
FN: How many would it take?
Boll: One million. Now we have a new goal.

In response, many blogs have been circulating a new petition, which TotalFilm claims reached 69,000 signatures in 24 hours.  People think I’m going to be onboard with this because I posted Boll’s personal email address awhile back in an attempt to goad him into fighting me.  But look, people, I don’t want Uwe Boll to stop making films (not that I plan on watching any of them any time soon…), I’m just tired of hearing how he "faced his critics" because he fought a bunch of people that all happened to be smaller and less experienced than him.

So please, do not sign the petition.  In fact, send him an email telling him you love his work and to stay in the game as long as possible.  He still hasn’t fought me – if he stops making movies now, it’d just be like me beating up a homeless guy, and that lost its thrill for me a couple years ago when a mysterious stranger from the wrong side of the tracks taught me how to love again.