In the first week since we opened RSVPs and registration for the 2012 international meetup we’ve seen almost as many RSVPs as we had in all of last year. Clearly it’s gonna be a kick-ass time, as defined by the fact that some of the coolest people in the world (GWCers, natch) will be there. As always we’ve been receiving quite a few questions about the events, the locations, and general what-have-you surrounding the event.
To that end, Juan and I will be doing a live question and answer session this Tuesday (Feb. 7) starting at 8:00 p.m. It’ll be a live podcast, which means it’ll work just like an episode of Eff This Week. Juan and I will be on the mics at 8, and you can listen in via GWC’s live page either here (click the link at the top of the page) or over on UStream. If you’re going to be out somewhere (like at work) and want to listen in on the sly, you can tune in with your smartphone via UStream’s Android and/or iOS apps.
Just like during Eff This Week, there’ll also be a live chat running, which we’ll be watching interactively. We’ll answer/address questions asked there, so if you have concerns, feel free to share them. And hell, you might want to stop by just to listen. This is Juan and me, which means you never know what we’ll end up talking about in addition to the Q&A. Maybe we’ll share some tales of meetups past. Or take requests.
Anyway, hope to see you there, and we definitely hope to see you at the meetup.
A while back, I came across StarWarsUncut.com, a site that divided Star Wars (A New Hope) into 15-second segments and encouraged Star Wars fans to take one of the clips, shoot it however they deemed fit, and upload the sequence back to the site. The end result includes some pretty well-crafted shots and, well, some equally… interesting ones. Ultimately, the goal was to encourage people of all ages and cinematic aptitude to exercise their creative skills, recreate their favorite scene in the Star Wars, and show it off to the world.
Now the site has released “Star Wars Uncut: Director’s Cut,” an assembly of the wildly varying versions of each movie segment into a two-hour-long, full-length version of the original film. While this masterpiece of crowd-sourcing isn’t exactly screen-worthy, it’s a great display of the sheer volume and variety of creativity Internet crowd-sourcing taps. From live-action tinfoil renditions of C-3PO to action figures on the beach and even simple cardboard cutouts taped to straws these clips show just how much people love Star Wars. (My favorite so far is the purring cat-Jawa, by the way.)
I think it’s clear how much fun people had creating these clips, and it just goes to show how sites that encourage user-generated content are worth protecting. And hey, if you have time check out the full-length cut above.
Happy new year, everyone! I’m pretty excited about where GWC’s headed this year and thought I’d share a few bits of news and happenings.
First, we’re making some SERIOUS progress on our plans for the 2012 International Meetup. We announced the date (March 16-18, 2012) on the forum back in November, but it’s taken us a bit longer to work out the nitty gritty details. That said, we’re getting close to locking down the major happenings. In fact, we expect to have those out to you in the next week or two. A few things I can tell you already: We’re planning events starting at noon on Friday and all the way through Sunday evening. This year will definitely be more event-laden than previous years — not that there won’t be plenty of time to just eff off and hang out with friends (new and old). The process will be similar to previous years (don’t worry, we’ll announce it with the schedule), but you’ll definitely need to RSVP for a few of the events. It’s gonna be great.
Also, I wanted to thank those who’ve donated to GWC both on an ongoing basis and over the holidays. Like a lot of you, we found ourselves short of cash after the holidays, and that plus some unexpected personal expenses left us, well, the best way to say it is flat broke. Remember how I mentioned on the podcast that we generally operate the podcast as best we can on our own and save up for “oh s***” moments where we’re screwed? This was one of those. And you came through. Saved up donation money saved the day and kept GWC on the air when it would have gone dark yesterday. You rock. Thanks again. GWC means as much to me as it does to you, so I’m indebted.
Oh yeah, it’s Thor’s Day (as GWCer Keir reminded me this morning) which not only means it’s time to add additional upper body work to your gym day (you know, in honor of the recent movie), but also time for EFF THIS WEEK! We’ll be Effing live tonight at 9:00 p.m. CT (or “crappy time” as Juan calls it — that’s 7:00 p.m. “proper time”) and we’d love to see you at the party. You can join by clicking the Live link at the top of the page. If you’re at work or elsewhere, you can hear the live stream via the UStream app for iOS/Android.
We’re also scheduled (if all goes well) to record a Save Eureka tonight, so if you have any calls for the show, be sure to get ‘em in before 6:00 p.m. CT.
Have a good one.
When it comes to anime, I am more of a mech-style anime viewer. My favorite series is Robotech, followed closely by Starblazers, Voltron, and Transformers. Truth be told, I was not really a fan of the original Thundercats cartoon that aired in the 1980s — but the newly animated 2011 version of the Thundercats is simply some of the best cartoon storytelling I have ever been privileged to experience. The first nine episodes that aired earlier this year were riveting and wonderfully crafted, and they kept me acutely interested. This series has shown that in 2011 cartoons can indeed be for the entire family. The best part is, after a short hiatus, Thundercats resumes its Friday evening Cartoon Network run on November 4th. I highly suggest you “toon” in and catch this amazing series.
I was feeling a bit under the weather, and for once it was raining all weekend so I was stuck inside. When this occurs, a rather grumpy monster forms inside my brain that craves new media. Be it movie, anime, or game, I must consume something. I happened to have some Microsoft points gifted to me (as I tend to hoard all gift cards and points for explosive spending binges like this) so this seemed like a good time to spend them. After seeing an ad for Crysis on the Xbox 360′s feature link for instant download, I decided to take the plunge and see if it could amuse me for a while. There are no words for what I’ve been missing since 2007.
Most of you have prolly seen this hotness already. If so, please just shake your head at my slowness and move on. For the rest of you — check it, you’re gonna want to see this if you dig first-person shooter games with a story — you know, at all.
Continue reading »
Seriously, folks, if you’re Portal fans — or if you just enjoy an incredibly fun laugh at everyone’s expense — you owe it to yourself to check out this vid. I’m not quite sure yet whether it’s something put together by Valve or whether it’s just a brilliant piece of fan work, but either way it’s a great way to, as Joel Johnson of Kotaku said, “lose the next 21 minutes of your life.”
Aperture: A Triumph of Science [YouTube]
I’m a tech geek. I love my gadgets. But tech comes at a cost, and a recent Modern Geek Podcast on how geeks communicate got me thinking: how much does all this newfangled technology really cost us? For a household of six, my family’s monthly entertainment/communications costs are outrageous (cue the “Get off my lawn!” sound byte). I know — I’m getting older and I’m complaining about things like the cost of a gallon of gas or a carton of milk. But I wanted to find out if there was any truth to my increasing sense of expense fatigue, so I did a little research. In the end, I found I was right: all this new technology does indeed cost us more per month than it used to. However, the real question isn’t how much we’re paying for our devices — it’s whether the increased cost is worth it.
It’s been over a year since we’ve seen any significant developments regarding Slingers, the Firefly-meets-Ocean’s Eleven television show from UK writer Mike Sizemore. The last anyone heard, Slingers was in a developmental holding pattern, existing only as a “sizzle reel.” But now it seems that the show might be moving forward sooner than anyone realized. Jose Molina (fan-favorite writer of sci-fi gems Firefly and Dark Angel) revealed in a tweet that he was prepping to start writing Slingers with Sizemore. Follow the jump for all the details.
Continue reading »
I just returned from my first Dragon*Con and my head is still spinning. I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t think any event could match Comic-Con for geek impact and intensity, but I was wrong.
A lot of people like to compare the two Cons in a heated exchange. I think this is unnecessary. Both are fantastic events with vast and varied programming, cosplay opportunities, and star gazing. It’s important to understand the key differences between the two if your time and budget limitations allow for only one event each year.
The votes are in: FemShep will be a kick-ass ginger. This week at the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX), BioWare unveiled the final image of the female Commander Shepard for the cover of the upcoming Mass Effect 3 (to be released in March 2012). In two heavily debated rounds of voting, fans on Facebook voted for facial structure and hair color on various versions of “FemShep” (or as Chuck and I call her, “Shep” — the other Shep is “ManShep”). Here’s the voting breakdown, according to MSNBC:
Blonde FemShep: 5,434 votes
Brunette FemShep: 5,573 votes
Black-haired FemShep: 12,834 votes
Red-haired FemShep: 19,571 votes
Interestingly, before voting Round 2, blonde FemShep was way ahead in the polls, much to the chagrin of Kim Richards at PCGamer.com. However, some speculated it was the hairstyle that pleased the crowds rather than the color. So FemShep kept the hairstyle, and in the end it was the cut that won out — except this time a redhead – and with quadruple the votes of the blonde.
The acclaimed actor Jennifer Hale, who voices the female Shepard in ME1 and ME2 (as well as, incidentally, lady protagonist Samus Aran in the Metroid Prime game series) spoke at PAX after the announcement:
“I want to say a huge thank you to everybody out there who plays FemShep who spoke up and said ‘we want to see FemShep,’” Hale told the cheering audience as the results were announced. “You have no idea what that means to me.”
Indeed. It’s about time we see a female Shepard get some props. Even if only 18% of ME players chose to go peen-less, how many more might have gone with a few role models paving the way?
GWCers are no strangers to tattoos. However, the strange tattoos in SyFy’s Haven are far from just a sign of camaraderie. The tattoos were first introduced near the end of Season One and have been prophesied to be the harbinger of death for Haven’s Duke Crocker. In this past Friday’s episode, “The Tides That Bind,” the tattoo re-emerged as an integral part of the plot, along with the seemingly sinister acts of Reverend Driscoll and the newly-introduced Mrs. Duke Crocker, “Evi” Ryan.
If you’re a Hubble Space Telescope fan, odds are you will REALLY be a Webb fan. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), previously known as the Next Generation Space Telescope (NGST), is in the assembly phase. The Webb team is targeting a 2018 launch date. Webb offers several (forgive the pun) astronomical advances over the Hubble. For starters, the aperture, or eye through which the telescope looks into the universe, will be about five times larger than the Hubble’s. Webb will also be parked in a gravitationally stable point in space called the Lagrange Point two, or L2, that will always keep the Earth and the sun to its back — so not only will it be technologically able to see farther into the universe, but the light pollution from the sun will be minimized by keeping Webb in the shadow of the Earth.
GWCers on Flickr
Recent Blog Comments
on #42: Juan Chooses a Tablet { Looking forward to the reasoning behind the Ipad, in a similar position but so far I can't justify the price + data contract despite a... } – May 09, 4:26 PM
on #321: Avengers Pt. 4, Thor { First off - it is great to be back. I have been away for a couple years. I was listening during the original run of... } – Apr 24, 7:23 PM
on #28: Nyan Nyan Nyan Nyan Nyan (Cat) { I would like at least one episode where Audra doesn't try to "beat" along with the intro. It gets old. Thanks. } – Apr 21, 12:50 PM
on #31: Sight Unseen { The episode commentaries seem to becoming less about the show and more about everything else. You guys get off track easy, and tend to stay... } – Apr 04, 11:19 PM
on #37: Draw Something/360 Cloud Sync Fail { I was sick too! You and I might be carrying around each others germs. } – Mar 29, 6:39 AM