Nerdy Girl Beats Guys Up At The Gym

Muy Thai Champion Germaine Yeap went to a gym pretending to be a nerdy girl who couldn't throw a punch. Actually to be more specific the owner of the gym brought her in specifically to prank his new Muy Thai trainers. It's not like she just goes around duping poor unsuspecting bros at the gym. Then again maybe she does. I don't know anything about Muy Thai.

Smells Like Hard Drives and Floppy Disks

Murder Mystery Dinner: The Review

The company my wife works for always does a big end of the year, start of the next, company party. They spend a decent chunk of change on them, last year everyone went bowling, the year before was a casino night, one year it was 3 day cruise to Victoria. This year they rented out a room at Ivar's Salmon House and had a MURDER MYSTERY DINNER!

Now my knowledge of Murder Mystery Dinner Theater begins and ends with what I've seen on sitcoms. Quite frankly I was a little bummed when someone didn't actually die in some sort of hilarious irony. Did I mention it was an 1980's themed Murder Mystery Dinner? Everyone was encouraged to wear their best 1980s outfit. I went for preppy movie villain with my Aviators, a pink polo with popped collar and my acid washiest jeans.

The evening began like most company dinners of this type do, with everyone making small talk while waiting for the food to arrive. The twist was that a few of the MTP (Mystery Theater Players) were walking around the room, very much in character, interjecting themselves into conversations. Plot points were coming fast and furious. In retrospect it was cool but at the time I thought it was weird, we were already playing? Does someone have to say "go" first? Anyhoo, as the evening went on they went over the rules, someone died, we all got clues, it was more or less what you would expect from a Murder Mystery Dinner. There was a lot more audience participation than I had expected. Early on they picked out 10-12 people to randomly be the suspects. Each suspect was given a list of facts about them and secrets, then we were assigned teams and it was up to us to ask them all questions to try and figure out who the murderer was.

A few people were obviously uncomfortable given their roles in the show but the actors really handled it well. A couple people really hammed it up so I guess it all balanced out. Overall the show turned out to be a lot funnier than I had imagined it would be. All credit due to the MTP.

Of course the big highlight was that I figured out who the killer was and our team won. Finally, watching all those episodes of Castle paid off.

I give the whole thing a 9/10, would solve murder again.

6 Ways Gamers Have Taken the Fun Out of Gaming

A couple weeks ago cracked did this video on ways that Gamers have taken the fun out of gaming. I'd argue that it's more the video game publishers that have taken the fun out of gaming but by buying and playing those games I guess Gamers are equally culpable. Either way the video is funny, enjoy!

Why Loot Crate?

Hey kiddos, here's a video of the Screen Team unboxing last month's Loot Crate. Why? I don't know, why do I write about anything? Loot Crate has been popping up on my Facebook and Google ads a bunch so I thought it was high time I rambled on about it.

Loot Crate is a service that for a low monthly price delivers random geeky toys to you once a month. Prices vary depending on how long you sign up for but it's about $20 a month and they promise at least $40 worth of nonsense. I'm 100% completely on the fence over it. On one hand I like stupid geeky stuff like action figures and tribbles. On the other hand there's no way I would go to a store and actually pay for anything I saw in that box. Trips to my local comic book shop are kind of like that. Outside of comic books they have a big focus on toys and figures. A lot of them are really cool, but as much as I like it I'm never paying $19.99 for a Funko dancing Groot.

I guess that's the appeal of the Loot Crate. Random crap you will kinda like but wouldn't purchase on your own. It's the Harry and David basket for nerds.

Epic Nerf War claims to be Most Epic

Here's a bunch of guys, with only the kind of free time that comes without children, having an epic Nerf war. Is it the most epic Nerf war of all time? Yes? I don't know, we're still a good 3 years away from Logan being allowed to play with Nerf guns. It's hard enough to keep him from hitting his sister with stuff as it is. If I give him a Nerf gun all he would do is shoot her in the back of the head all day. Once she's old enough to shoot back THEN we can play with Nerf guns.

If Geek Girls Acted Like Geek Guys

As loathe as I am to post anything from Buzzfeed this video that's been making the rounds is pretty funny. I especially liked the cosplay jokes. She is right, If you dress up as sexy Khal Drago you're kind of asking for it.

This sort of dovetails off something I said last week. The amount of shit some ladies have to go through to enjoy something that's supposedly "for boys" is awful. I certainly have never understood it at comic book shops. Owning a comic book shop isn't exactly a license to print money, they should be bending over backwards for ANY customer that walks in the door.

The 5 Posts You Will Never See on Social Media

... The Blurst of Times: Halt and Catch Fire

Having finally caught up on all those episodes of Total Divas that have been sitting on my DVR has provided me with ample opportunities to explore the depths of hip cable network's summer programing (spoiler: Comedy Bang Bang is awesome). With "..the Blurst of Times" I'll tell you all about whatever show I watched the night before, preferably at 2 in the morning while feeding baby girl.

Halt and Catch Fire is AMC's newest effort to cash in on some of that Mad Men skrilla. It's a fictionalized retelling of the power struggle between IBM and the PC clone pioneers of the 1980s. Until they come up with a TV show about the comic boom and crash of the 90s, I'm not sure there will ever been a show more in my wheelhouse. Too bad I found the pilot episode sooooo disappointing.

The three main characters in the show (pictured above) are such 2-dimensional stereotypes I'm surprised this wasn't written by Michael Bay. In fact 2-dimensional might be giving them too much credit. Basically the show stars Dickhead Steve Jobs, Family Man Steve Wozniak and Angelina Jolie from Hackers. It's almost cartoonish how clearly each characters personalities are written on their sleeves and how the writers are going to beat them into your thick PC using skull (I assume this was written on macbook airs). The plot follows Dickhead Jobs as he moves from IBM to some fictional computer maker with the intent of cloning the sacred IBM bios and revolutionizing the PC industry. Of course the only two that can help him are a sexy/punk rock know-it-all computer engineering drop out (who he screws in the first 10 minutes of the show) and a beaten down genius who's afraid to rock the corporate boat because he has a mortgage and kids.

I could feel my DVR unprogramming the show on its own when we're introduced to the plucky young engineer. Dickhead Jobs is questioning a room of students about the future of computing and LOW AND FREAKING BEHOLD SHE HAS ALL THE ANSWERS INCLUDING PREDICTING THE INTERNET AND SHE HAS A SWAGGER ABOUT HER THAT SAYS SHE DOESN'T CARE ABOUT SOCIETIES EXPECTATIONS.

Yes, the scene was acted in capslocks.

On a scale of Sandra Bullock's The Net (1) to PBS's Triumph of the Nerds (10), I'll give Halt and Catch Fire a Windows 2000. Yeah it's better than NT but none of your drivers work, so have fun with that.

Last Friday's Links (that I'm finally getting to)

Chloe Bennet In ‘Esquire’ Is A Good Reason To Catch Up With ‘Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.’ Chloe Bennet is definitely not unattractive, but the best reason to catch up with Agents of SHIELD (I refuse to use all that punctuation) is because the show got really good near the end. SHIELD kind of pulled a reverse Heroes. Heroes had tremendous build up and then just shit the bed with a terrible season finale while SHIELD stumbled and bumbled its way through the build up but had a really excellent final act that they were smart enough to stretch over the last 5 or 6 episodes. If the season had been 10 or 12 episodes I think everyone would have considered it an outstanding debut season. As it was, there was so much filler in the first 15 episodes that I'm afraid a lot of people wrote the show off completely.

Empty THQ Building. File this under weird but interesting. When THQ went out of business they left a bunch of stuff in their corporate office, a reditors company is moving into the offices and he took a bunch of pictures of all the things they left behind. Including what looks like a 7 foot Warhammer statue. Why would they leave all that stuff behind?

Under Armour makes X-Men compression shirts. A couple of these are pretty awesome. If they weren't $60 I'd think about getting one for winter soccer games. The compression shirt I wear now has this giant hole in the armpit and that's not comfortable. Of course the scam of compression shirts has kept me from replacing it. Seriously.. lets add some spandex to cotton and we can charge 5 times the cost of a regular shirt!

Your Princess Is in Another Castle: Misogyny, Entitlement, and Nerds. Last week there was A LOT of talk on the internet about Misogyny, Harassment, Feminism, etc. That lunatic who shot a bunch of people and stabbed his roomates because he was a nice guy and ladies didn't like him sparked a lot of discussion. This article by Jeopardy super contestant Arthur Chu does a great job of pointing out how media has sort of let a generation of introverts down.

I believe that everyone is responsible for their own decisions but recently I've felt like books, movies, tv shows, even music have set up a lot of introverted kids for failure when it comes to connecting with the other sex (ie. I'm talking boys and girls here). There's an unrealistic expectation of what relationships should be and how a successful one even starts. The example he gives from Revenge of the Nerds is probably the worst thing ever and is mind bottling that it ever made it into a popular film.

Bring Reading Rainbow Back for Every Child, Everywhere. If you were on the internet or even watched any local news last week, you probably saw that Levar Burton and Reading Rainbow put out a Kickstarter last week and completely blew the doors off their expectations. It took all of 2 days for them to be at 2 million dollars. Well, the Kickstarter is still going and their long term goal is 5 million so if you want to donate there's plenty of time. If you didn't watch the video and just heard about the story you should check it out, it's both heartwarming and funny. Make sure you stick around for the Brent Spiner cameo.

Roll Again

RIP, Star Wars Expanded Universe 1991-2014

Way back last year when the new Star Wars movies were announced you could feel a disturbance in the force when millions of fanboys declared the Expanded Universe dead. Oh sure, some held out hope that the new movies might include Grand Admiral Thrawn, Mara Jade and Cade Skywalker but most accepted the fact that the new movies would trump any books, comics, and video games set post ROTJ.

Last week it became official that Disney/Lucasfilm was hitting the reset button. Kotaku has a nice article outlining what Star Wars fans are losing, and in a weird way what they're gaining. If you have a few minutes I'd recommend checking it out.

It doesn't matter how many lists you read on buzzfeed, if you didn't live through the late 80s it's hard to imagine the lack of Star Wars merch during that time period. About 3 years after Return of the Jedi was released the toys dried up and that left what? Plastic promo cups at Dairy Queen? Fitted sheet sets you could only get at Sears? This was all reportedly on purpose, due to a divorce settlement between Lucas and his ex-wife that gave her a big chunk of the merchandising profit. At least that's what I heard back in the 90s, I could google it but that's way too much work.

Of course this all changed with the release of Heir To The Empire in 1991. Written by respected sci-fi author Timothy Zahn, Heir To The Empire was the first officially licensed Star Wars fiction published since the Marvel Comic series was canceled in 1986. What would become known as the Expanded Universe started slowly, with just one book a year but that quickly expanded to well over 200 novels. Dealing with everything from Luke Skywalker trying to rebuild the Jedi order to Zombie Stormtroopers. All of which was labeled as "in cannon" by the folks (mostly Lucas) in charge of the Star Wars brand.

I've dabbled my toes in the Expanded Universe but the unevenness in quality and the sheer number of books snuffed out the fire the Thrawn Trilogy had lit way back in 1991. Frankly, I'm not sure anymore where I'm going with this post. I understand that the fact that the death of the current expanded universe doesn't really change my enjoyment of the dozen or so expanded universe books I've read. It's all fiction anyway, Han Solo never fought real zombie Stormtroopers in space so how is the fictional book I read any less real? Still, some of the expanded universe stuff was really good. There's a nerdy little part of me that's sad that it doesn't count anymore, much less the fact that we won't get to see Boba Fett escape the Sarlacc pit (twice!) on the big screen.

Maybe later tonight I'll pour out some blue milk for my homey the Expanded Universe. Then I'll try and find out why all my milk is blue...

Every NES Title Screen.. ever

In Alphabetical order no less!

This video is almost 3 hours of NES title screens. 3 hours. I can barely make it through Return of the King, how on earth am I supposed to make it through 3 hours of title screens? Good on you whatever crazy youtuber put this thing together. You're truly doing Gods work.

Captain Stone: Paramount Stage 9 Interloper

Back in 1988 a couple fans broke into the Star Trek the Next Generation set with a video camera and made their own behind the scenes documentary. Although to be fair to set security, one of the fans had worked on the show briefly as special effects tech. So I'm guessing they had some sort of credentials that helped them get onto the lot. It's not like they jumped a fence and chloroformed a guard or anything.

I don't know, it's 30 minutes long. If you have that kind of time to watch a couple nerds geek out at being able to turn on the lights for the warp drive display knock yourselves out. Me, I'll be on the Seahawks subreddit. GO HAWKS!

... The Blurst of Times: Fangasm

Having a 6 week old baby has provided me with ample opportunities to watch garbage TV shows during 3am feedings. With "..the Blurst of Times" I'll tell you all about whatever horrible reality show I watched the night before.

Fangasm like Jersey Shore or the Real world before it, is one of those shows where producers throw a bunch of strangers together in a house and hope something happens while the cameras are rolling. The only difference with Fangasm is these strangers are nerds and in place of hot tub hook ups and Stephen slapping Irene we're stuck with what felt like a 6 hour commercial for Stan Lee's Comikaze.

What is Stan Lee's Comikaze you ask? Well it's a comic book/pop culture convention in Southern California that I had never heard of before this show. So you know.. it's huge. These nerdy strangers have all been given temporary internships with Comikaze so every episode follows their zany adventures as they do intern-like things such as passing out flyers and cleaning out Elvira's storage locker. At the end of the season the "winner" gets a permanent internship with Stan Lee's Comikaze.

I'll be honest with you ('cause usually I'm full of lies here) this show is terrible. But don't take my word for it. Comics Alliance and Topless Robot have their own, much better written, takedowns of the show. Just know this, I have a very low standard for entertainment as long as feel like I have a personal intrest in the subject matter. Beauty and the Geek? Loved it. King of the Nerds? Couldn't get enough! Heroes of Cosplay? Sure why not! Comic Book Men? ok, even I have standards... My point is, this show should have been right in my wheelhouse but it was SOOOOOOO contrived the best I could do was hate watch it while making snarky comments on Twitter.

On a scale of Game of Thrones to Big Bang Theory, I'll give Fangasm a D+. I wish all the geeks on the show well, but I hope SyFy never returns to this specific concept of reality show garbage. It made Beauty and the Geek look like the Wire.

A Capella Science: Bohemian Gravity

Here's string theory explained via a cappella cover of Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. I appreciate this one a couple different levels. The main one is that Freddie Mercury actually used multiple layers of his own vocal tracks for the studio version of Bohemian Rhapsody. So not only is the science sound, the musical theory is too.

To quote one George Costanza "I'm back baby, I'm back!"

Build that Iron Man armor son

Here's Nick Selby, a sophomore at Georgia Tech welcoming incoming freshman to Georgia Tech. It might be the greatest speech I've ever heard. I swear after listening to it I was totes motivated for like a good 5 minutes.

Man those 5 minutes were really productive.

What if Episode II: Attack of the Clones was good?

Every once in a while I'll get into a geekument with someone over which Star Wars movie is the worst. It's one of those things that totally confuses me because I feel like Attack of the Clones isn't just the worst Star Wars movie ever made, I feel that it's one of the worst movies ever made, period. But it didn't have to be. Michael from Belated Media breaks it down for you.

I know this video is 16 minutes long and that's like a year and a half in internet time but trust me this is totally worth it. Someone hook this guy up with JJ Abrams because I want him working on the new Star Wars movie.

San Diego Comic-Con Cosplay: YouTube edition

I'm not doing a traditional cosplay round up this year, which is fine. This video is a thousand times better than what I normally put together. Most of the people featured here are in my cosplay folder so it's pretty much the costumes I would have posted anyway.



also Zatara cangetit

Welcome to Comic Standing in Line-Con

Honestly this doesn't look as bad as Emerald City Comic-Con was this year, except I know those tent areas off to the right side of the picture are also filled with people waiting in line.

via Samuel Jackson's twitter machine