When we say we are the friendliest frakin’ people in scifi we mean it. We are a community of people who respect each other, share with each other and have fun with each other. We are clever, we are occasionally insightful and almost always hi-larious. One perfect example of our friendly hivemind leaping into action happened over two years ago on Twitter and interestingly involved of all things: kidnapping a snowblower.
Part of what I love about our GWC community is that it is a place to share and learn about things you may have never heard of or would never have given a chance unless someone you knew recommended it. In that spirit I want to share with you something that I find outrageously awesome: Music Mashups.
The highest compliment I can give is to say it is clever. To be clever is to find and explore a nuance in such a way that one creates something new and unexpected. Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is an incredibly clever telling of the story behind the story of Hamlet. Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman is clever for its effortless weaving together of history, myth and literature. Joss Whedon’s Doctor Horrible’s Sing-a-long Blog turns the concept of a musical on its head and creates a brand new genre.
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“Are you reading that for the first time?” a stranger asked me on the New York City Subway.
“Yes” I responded somewhat cautiously looking up from my book. As a New Yorker, I am not used to unsolicited literary commentary in public or any kind of interaction with strangers, ever.
“I envy you” he replied simply and in a moment was gone.
At first I was tempted to brush off this exchange. I closed the book for the first time in two days and considered what had just happened: A person was so moved by a book he felt obligated to engage a stranger in the subway to share the importance of the novel. I glanced at the cover which really didn’t give anything away of the plot, just standard sci-fi ships flying in space. The story was becoming with each passing word my absolute favorite science fiction novel of all time. In the coming years when asked what my favorite book was I would name this one and every book I read after this would be compared to it.
That novel? Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card.
For the next few weeks please call in with your personal high school stories! Funny, poignant, memorable, ridiculous, whatever your fancy we want to hear it. 214-296-9229. Remember to keep it under 2 minutes!
Not that there is anything wrong with that.
My man crush for Chris Hardwick started about a year ago. Like every geek the first thing I did when after signing up for Twitter was to follow Wil Wheaton…because really, the dude was Wesley. One of Mr. Wheaton’s first tweets was that he was having lunch with his good friend @Nerdist. “Nerdist?” I thought to myself, “that is a sweet name.” Being strong in web-fu I located Mr. Nerdist’s blog and was greeted with this:
The Best/Worst Tattoo I’ve Ever Seen
After I picked myself up off the floor from laughing I made a mental note: Seek out more of this Chris Hardwick fellow.
A man named Will walks down a dim school corridor. His shoulders slightly hunched, he marks time in the same dull routine. He derives no real pleasure from what he does, even though he is exceedingly good at it. He glances absentmindedly towards a dusty trophy case overfilled with forgotten awards and as he pauses his eyes fall on a plaque. Engraved with the name of a former teacher who passed away, the inscription reads:
By its very definition, glee is about opening yourself up to joy.
Thus opens Glee, a show you — and you’re not alone — may have rejected out of hand. (““A show about a Glee club?” you think? “Seriously? No thank you.” Or possibly: “What the hell is a Glee club?”) If this describes you, I’d like to let you in on a little secret: This show isn’t about a glee club. This show is about you.
Podcast 205 will be delayed one week due to Sean’s new status as a Father (no, not Reverend, but a Daddy).
Please join us in congratulating him here
A funny thing happened on the way back from the Apple Store… I confronted myself from 1999, and me from ten years ago was horrified at what I had become.
Today I set up an appointment with the Genius Bar on my iPhone. The time was 11 a.m. and I was frustrated to see the next available appointment was for 12:10 p.m., a whole hour away. I managed to pass the time by queuing up a playlist on my iPhone that I made the previous night of the best songs from the television show, Glee, which I had purchased individually on the fly from iTunes.
I arrived for my 12:10 p.m. appointment at 12:20 p.m. and was told politely that I missed my spot and would have to sign up for a new appointment, which would be in twenty minutes. I was annoyed and stomped off, trying to figure out how to spend twenty minutes with nothing to do. I flipped through various iPhone apps and checked NY Times headlines, read a few reviews on Flixter, and wrote a few emails after texting my wife and playing Ninja Ropes.
Renaming the SCI FI channel to Syfy is proof positive that the management of the network are a bunch of booger-picking morons who wouldn’t know a phaser from a frisbee.
…at least, that is what I thought until about five minutes ago.
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The formal part of the birthday party had finished. Most of the boys went home; only a few of us stayed for the sleepover. We ate our hot dogs, drank our soda, and sat down to watch a movie on the VHS.
“What are we watching?” I asked
“Some movie called Tron” the host replied.
…and I was never quite the same again.
Dead Like Me stars a girl named George — yes, you read that right — who’s a bitter slacker not really engaged in life. Within the first ten minutes of the pilot George gets killed by a meteoric space toilet. Mandy Patinkin (Princess Bride, True Colors, Law & Order) shows up and tells her about her new job: she’s now a grim reaper who removes the souls from those who are about to die before they die so that in the afterlife they are not eternally mangled disfigured messes.
So your DVR is empty. You’ve probably re-watched a DVD of a favorite show and have added an extra movie to your Netflix subscription to fill the void, right? Why on Earth wouldn’t you want to catch fresh new content in the form of one of the funniest and new shows out there?
On a random Tuesday night in 2007 a show called Eureka premiered on Scifi to an audience of 4.1 million. Following the classic, “fish out of water” archetype the show features Colin Ferguson as the everyman Sheriff Carter, a normal beer-and-cereal-for-breakfast kind of guy surrounded by frakkin’ geniuses. He finds himself in a town called Eureka, which is home to the best and brightest scientists in the world who are given free reign to do what they do best: create mind-bending inventions, reinvent the wheel, and try not to alter the timeline, blow stuff up, bring the world to an end, or other such nuisances.
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on Star Wars Uncut: Director's Cut { I didn't skip ahead, but when the scene came up, I filled in what they failed to include.
} – Jan 27, 5:06 PMon 20 Favorite Ships Called Enterprise { I recently visited an exhibition here in Melbourne, Australia and on show was a three foot replica of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701 from the original... } – Jan 27, 1:38 AM
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on Star Wars Uncut: Director's Cut { Anyone else skip ahead to see if Han shoots first or if there is a "Look a Penny!" reference? } – Jan 26, 10:22 AM