Lore Sjöberg

Lore Christian Fitzgerald Sjöberg (born June 27, 1970) is a noted internet humorist, co-founder of the Brunching Shuttlecocks humor website and author of "The Book of Ratings".

Early career

Sjöberg attended college at UC Santa Cruz, and posted on the Internet as the alter-ego (Velcro of) Samsara Vagabond.

Sjöberg first entered the public eye as one of the Brunching Shuttlecocks in 1997 along with David Neilsen (the Self-Made Critic) and a number of other, minor contributors. This online humor magazine picked up a considerable following during its run, but was, ultimately, terminated after a long period without updates in May 2003. The Brunching Shuttlecocks gained notoriety when "Newsweek" magazine mentioned the [http://www.brunching.com/alanislyrics.html Alanis Morissette Lyric Generator] . Lore's largest contribution to Brunching was "Ratings", in which he would give a short commentary and a letter grade to a handful of items in a particular category, such as "breakfast cereals" or "Scooby-Doo characters". In 2002, Sjöberg published a collection of these ratings (as well as a few quizzes from Brunching Shuttlecocks) as "The Book of Ratings".

Post-Brunching career

Sjöberg then moved on to start a number of other projects, under the moniker of Seven Deadly Productions. He had already been operating a blog, "The Slumbering Lungfish Dybbuk Hostel and All-Night Boulangerie", and created independent sites based on his most successful projects at Brunching: Lore Brand Comics and The Book of Ratings.

Over the next year he started Little Fluffy Industries, an attempt to provide links to as many Flash games as possible (he has now passed executive editorial control to Joe Yuska), and made an attempt to revive Bandwidth Theater, another former Brunching feature consisting of short Flash movies. During this period he also had an internship at Wired News.

Since February 1, 2006, Sjöberg has become a regular writer on Wired News, in the form of video game reviews and reports from conventions like the San Diego Comic-Con. He also writes a weekly column for Wired News, titled "Alt.Text", including reading his work aloud in the Wired News Podcast. Lore contributed to the Blog 'Table of Malcontents' (which he ceded sole control of in October 2006) for Wired News until January 2007. He presently contributes to Wired's "Game|Life" blog--mostly linking to flash games, a la Little Fluffy Industries. Sjöberg currently lives with his significant other in Berkeley, California.

In 2007, Sjöberg was awarded the Angele Gingras Humor Award, Honorable Mention for his work in Wired News.

Beginning in 2008, Sjöberg began releasing new video "Capsule Ratings" as part of his "Alt.Text" column on Wired.com and on YouTube. These short videos generally consist of Sjöberg reading aloud his ratings as he sits in the Wired offices, with the video portion intercut with humorous illustrations and animations that accompany his comments.

Sjöberg is known for his dislike of furries and has made somewhat controversial efforts to marginalize them within fandom circles with his [http://www.brunching.com/geekhierarchy.html Geek Hierarchy] schematic. When [http://www.brunching.com/geekhierarchyfpq.html asked] , "Who died and left you the boss?", his curt reply was simply, "Isaac Asimov." An earlier copy of the diagram can be found on a wall at the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society.

Published works

*

References

External links

Active sites by Lore Sjöberg

* [http://www.lorebrandcomics.com/ Lore Brand Comics]
* [http://www.wired.com/commentary/alttext Wired]
** " [http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,70670-0.html The Wikipedia FAQK] "
* [http://slumbering.lungfish.com/ The Slumbering Lungfish Dybbuk Hostel and All-Night Boulangerie] – Personal blog
* [http://www.badgods.com/ Bad Gods] – A site featuring open-source Flash cartoons and gags

Previous sites by Lore Sjöberg

* [http://blog.wired.com/tableofmalcontents/ Table of Malcontents] – Lore's web-related blog at Wired News
* [http://www.brunching.com/ The Brunching Shuttlecocks]
* [http://www.bookofratings.com/ The Book of Ratings]
* [http://www.littlefluffy.com/ Little Fluffy Industries]
* [http://www.bandwidththeater.com/ Bandwidth Theater]
* [http://www.untitledstates.com/ Untitled States] – Generates custom images from blank templates
* [http://www.namedecoder.com/ Name Decoder] – Generates amusing acronyms from name entries, in the following varieties:
** [http://cyborg.namedecoder.com/ The Cyborg Name Decoder]
** [http://monster.namedecoder.com/ The Monster Name Decoder]
** [http://sexy.namedecoder.com/ The Sexy Name Decoder]
* [http://www.evilurl.com EvilURL] – A functional parody of TinyURL

Other sites featuring Lore Sjöberg

* [http://www.brunchma.com/forum/index.php Brunchma] (a message board that began as a fan site for the Brunching Shuttlecocks)
* [http://www.geek.org/press/95-08-30/ A 1995 Los Angeles Times article mentioning him]
* He also used to be a contributor to [http://www.shrovetuesdayobserved.com/ Shrove Tuesday (Observed)]
* He seems to have been associated with this page – [http://www.nicedog.com/works/ Nicedog.com]
* [http://www.angelfire.com/pa3/lore2000/ Lore's 2000 Presidential Campaign]