CONvergence: Doctor Who fan repairs his timeline

I’m going to try to write about a few of the thousands of little interactions I had while attending the SkepchickCON science/skepticism track at Minnesota’s annual CONvergence — the continent’s largest entirely fan-run sci-fi/fantasy/fandom convention. This year’s convention had just shy of six thousand attendees, and practically every panel in the Skepchick track, in convention rooms that seated ~125-150, was packed and in many cases standing-room-only.

During a convention of this size, you overhear lots of conversations about lots of different things, most mundane, but some truly interesting. During a group lunch, I learned the tale of a man who, eighteen years ago, missed a chance to meet Sophie Aldred — Ace, one of the Doctor Who companions of the 7th Doctor. He had gotten an aluminum baseball bat of the same style as Ace’s signature, and though he had it at a convention where Aldred was doing signings, was too shy to ask.
Continue reading “CONvergence: Doctor Who fan repairs his timeline”

CONvergence: Doctor Who fan repairs his timeline
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Geek Pride, Towel Day and Glorious 25th of May!

Pulling yet another overnight for work tonight, but I have every intention of taking my towel with me. Today marks three distinct geek holidays all wrapped into one!

Kylie has a post with an infographic up to explain Towel Day, a day to celebrate the life and works of Douglas Adams of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. What about the other two, though? Well, Terry Pratchett’s Discworld marks the day as the Glorious Revolution, when people rose up to overthrow Lord Winder and succeeded, very temporarily, until history was rewritten shortly thereafter. You celebrate by hard-boiling an egg.

And Geek Pride Day celebrates geekery in general, but was timed to represent the release of the first Star Wars film. Star Wars is, of course, not the first major sci-fi event to develop a cult following as well as make it big in the mainstream, but it’s certainly one of the largest franchises in geek history.

How are you going to celebrate the geek trifecta today?

Geek Pride, Towel Day and Glorious 25th of May!

Jed Henry’s video game samurai: Edo pop for gamer nerds

Ever wanted some artwork you could hang on your wall that would please both art connoisseurs and video game fanatics alike? Jed Henry has you covered. On his tumblr, he’s released three pieces of art rendering classic video game characters in ukiyo-e style, reimagining their most recognizable traits as the accoutrement of great samurai warriors.

To wit, Samus’ blaster is a severed dragon head tied to her arm:

Samus Aran from Metroid in ukiyo-e (Japanese wood-cutting) style

The other two characters he’s done so far are Link and Megaman, both of which are incredible. Can’t wait to see what’s next. He’s evidently planning a kickstarter in August, to which I’ll almost certainly donate what I can. I would love the hell out of large bamboo scroll versions of these.

Jed Henry’s video game samurai: Edo pop for gamer nerds

Mock The Movie: Zombie Apocalypse subtitle files

Pursuant to the previously stated motion to convert our Mock The Movie transcripts into a format useable by certain media readers, I hereby authorize the immediate dissemination of the following two files as relates to the mission entitled Operation Zombie Apocalypse:

File The First: Mock the Movie Zombie Apocalypse transcript with colorized tweeters

File The Second: Mock the Movie Zombie Apocalypse transcript in monocolor, for media players that can’t handle colored subtitles

I further hereby authorize the immediate promotion of CompulsoryAccount7746 to the rank of Sky Captain for meritorious conduct in movie mockery, by building the infrastructure so future mockery can be converted to these formats quickly and easily.

Signed this 38th year of Our Lord Zardoz.

Instructions: Right-click the files and and Save As. They are uploaded as .txt files, so you’ll have to rename the file. Make its filename match the name of the movie you’ve downloaded exactly, only instead of whatever file extension it is (e.g. .avi or .mpg), make the extension .srt . If you need a player that can handle subtitle files, try VLC. And if you’re having problems getting this to work, by all means, let me know in the comments.

Mock The Movie: Zombie Apocalypse subtitle files

The Oncoming Storm, The Destroyer of Worlds, The Bringer of ROCK

The Cybermen have met their match, because here comes a full metal Doctor.

I just about burst into tears of joy when he hit the I Am the Doctor theme at 2:24. I hadn’t read the video description before listening and had a complete geek-out moment. It was epic. Undignified to the casual observer, I’m sure, but epic nonetheless.

Be right back, I’m going to go buy every single one of his covers, since he also does Castlevania, Megaman, Skyrim, Transformers, Ninja Turtles, and hell, even My Little Pony.

Hat tip to Phil Plait, who pretty much got the best title right out of the gate. Way to wreck it for the rest of us.

The Oncoming Storm, The Destroyer of Worlds, The Bringer of ROCK

I’m Elmo And I Know It

Something that recently had me LMFAO — at least, closer to actually laughing my ass off than the original.

Though Mr. Noodle is very slightly less awesome a cameo than Ron Jeremy, at least this video pulls it out at the very end with the Jamie Foxx weird-smile moment from Nutcracker Mash.

Wait. Wait. I just watched it again and realized it had a misplaced apostrophe in the captions! Gah! Arglebargle! This can’not STAND!!!!

I’m Elmo And I Know It

Of Skyrimming, overzealous Christianity, and reading comprehension

One of my absolute favorite theist parody sites is ChristWire. They are, for all intents and purposes, a proving ground for Poe’s Law. There, the most ridiculous parodies of fundamentalist or evangelical Chrsitian reactions to everyday occurrences or aspects of pop culture are mimicked to such a high degree that, all too often, real Christians believe the parody and act according to their consciences.

In this case, ChristWire took aim at the recent Bethesda game Skyrim.

Right off the bat, the gay supporting software company Blizzard, shows the player images of decapitations and after the third of forth head chopping, a necromatic dragon appears and sets the player free from righteous punishment. Now that the player is free, they will spend the next 400 hours robbing people, killing villagers, crafting sexual items, fornicate with elves and other Harry Potter style animals and also learn how to conjure up black magic.

Emphasis mine.
Continue reading “Of Skyrimming, overzealous Christianity, and reading comprehension”

Of Skyrimming, overzealous Christianity, and reading comprehension

Fan-made Thundercats movie trailer kicks all sorts of ass

You have to admit, whether you’ve seen the original Thundercats or not, this fan-made CG movie trailer has everything it would take to be a box-office success. It would certainly get me to watch. I mean, never mind the fact that I watched Thundercats regularly as a kid, and this probably breaks a dozen bits of canon — the CG is surprisingly excellent, fan-made or no, and the concept is pretty much exactly what Thundercats would need to become to make it in this particular all-action superhero movie environment.

(All of my above text can be boiled down to: “No Snarf! Perfect!”)

Fan-made Thundercats movie trailer kicks all sorts of ass