Del Toro and HobbitThe June 1st issue of Time, our friend and director of “The Hobbit,” Guillermo del Toro, talks about TheOneRing.net. In the magazine’s regular feature “Short List,” (page 63) where the movers and shakers of the world talk about what folks do in their spare time, he says, “TheOneRing.net is a great community where intelligent, articulate dissenters argue about fascinating minutiae–and not just about fantasy.”

Thanks GDT! We happen to agree and coincidentally a bunch of us were saying the other day that we think you are intelligent, articulate and a dissenter when it comes to following old, tired movie formulas, so now we are even except that Time freaking magazine will not be quoting us about you. Sorry! That really is mighty kind praise from a guy who made cool flicks like “Cronos,” “The Devil’s Backbone,” and “Pan’s Labyrinth.”

Not only did our message board folks post about it here but Ringer spy ToroFan wrote in to our news desk about it. The deep undercover spy asked if its the first time to make it into . . uh . . . Time. That is a pretty legitimate question ToroFan, thanks for asking. The equally legit answer is: Nope! There are at least three other occasions.

One happend in a story about how directors are opening up access to films-in-progress and used TheOneRing.net and sister site KongIsKing.net as examples of Peter Jackson’s openness with fan communities. If you haven’t checked out the Kong production diaries, you only think you know stuff about movies.

Another was when one of our classic shirts appeared in a great article called “How to Nerd an American Quilt“. It seems likely to be the greatest mention of a TORn shirt ever, although perhaps not the greatest TORn shirt ever.

A third mention came when ‘The Hobbit,’ was finally given the green light as explained in an article that went on to define just how troubled it looked back when Jackson announced through TORn that New Line Cinema told him it no longer needed his services. If you aren’t familiar, it was quite a saga.

I thought I remembered another instance, at least one, but I couldn’t find a trace of it online. If anybody knows of others hit us up at Spymaster@TheOneRing.net.