No Need for Speed
May 14I’ve done this before and you probably have, too. When someone professes to dislike a piece of entertainment that you happen to enjoy quite muchly, you come up for some excuse specific to the disliker that explains their dislike. For example, I’ve heard that I do not like The Phantom Menace not because it’s shitty, but because it’s “a kids’ movie.” Similarly, when a friend and I professed our general hatred for Into the Wild, we were told by various people that we did not enjoy it because 1) we’re too young! and 2) we’re girls and 3) we hate camping.
I’m having kind of a similar thing with Speed Racer. A lot of folks in the geekscape have come out heavily for this movie, rallying against the mean ol’ critics who didn’t get it.
Dudes, dudettes, fellow geekly brothers and sisters, I’m sorry, but Speed Racer was SO FUCKING BORING.
And here are a few rationales folks might offer for me not liking it.
Grok #2 Wants You!
May 08That’s right! That thing we did? That really cool thing? We’re gonna do it again.
The first issue of Grok, our PDF ‘zine, was packed with awesomeness and the second outing should be no different. Therefore, we need clever people such as yourselves to contribute.
To reiterate the basic mission statement: we want an electronic magazine dedicated to sharing stories, examinations, and opinions of geek culture. That means stuff like fun essays, fiction and the like focusing on the nerd experience. For further explanation, wander your little eyeballs to the sidebar on the right. And for examples of the kinds of ideas we’re looking for, peruse the dang issue.
Each issue also has a theme — #1 was pon farr. For #2, it’s all about…SECRET ORIGINS.
(Insert spine-tingling music and/or whooshy Lost flashback sound effect here!)
Also, this time, we’re also looking for artists to contribute. Otherwise, we’ll just be including more photos of Matt drinking from the punchbowl. No, seriously.
So what’s next? Well, if you’ve got something you want to write (or draw/paint/composite), drop a line to fangirl@earthlink.net. We’ll pool these ideas together and let you know if it’s a go (this is mostly just to make sure we don’t end up with a bunch of same-y articles/stories). Copy deadline is June 9 and the issue will be out in July. It should be released before that OTHER big thing that happens in July and will surely make great plane or between-panels reading material.
Journeyman for Life
Apr 30Journeyman is really probably not coming back next year, which is lame cause it was a really good show. Yes, they kind of did that “Oh, here are some songs and hairstyles and key parties and bell bottoms to tell you what era we’re in now” thing, but the stories were solid, the mythology was interesting, and the lead performance from Kevin McKidd was really quite dreamy. Only I refuse to refer to him as “Kevin McKidd” or even his character name. He will always be simply “Journeyman” to me.
I’m going to a screening of Made of Honor tonight to get my Journeyman fix. I’ve been babbling all day about how “I prefer Journeyman to McDreamy” and “Journeyman’s hair doesn’t look so good in the trailer” and “Oh, look, Journeyman is apparently one of the only characters with a last name, probably to show that he’s Scottish.” Friend Jenelle is getting a real kick outta this, let me just tell ya.
Anyway, I’m a little worried about Journeyman, though, because I think he might get his heart broken. Maybe he can just zap over to another era and solve a mystery to soothe his soul.
Someone Take a Picture…
Apr 29…before I cause a car accident with my gawkin’.
There’s a big wall on La Brea that is usually home to an eye-catching mural of some sort. I drive by it every day and have been greeted by a mooning Mona Lisa, Marion Cotillard clutching her Oscar, and Madonna and Britney’s gigantic heads making out. Now the mural’s moved over a little, to another side of the wall, and it’s this amazing rendition of TOS Spock rendered in a color block-y, vintage movie poster-type format. It’s lovely. And I keep meaning to try to take a picture of it, because this entry would be so much better with a picture, but this traffic-clogged corridor doesn’t really offer a good way to pull over and trying to take pictures from one’s moving vehicle while one is trying to power through Los Angeles traffic is probably a bad idea. So someone smarter/more artistic than me please go snap a shot of this before it’s replaced by scandalous graffiti of Miley Cyrus or something.
Grok #1: An Alert Nerd Zine
Apr 15
Gentle nerdly readers, we know there are many things that make you sad. Darth Weinstein’s claw-like grip on Fanboys. Lawsuits from Big Meanie George Lucas. The fact that you can’t take Alert Nerd with you and read it while you’re riding the bus or sitting on the can or experiencing a company-mandated corporate training retreat.
But wait! We’ve found the solution to at least one of these perplexing dilemmas! And so we present to you our latest brainchild: a zine. But instead of time-warping back to our college days and busting out the staplers and Xerox machines, we’re presenting it to you as a shiny PDF. You can read it on your computer screen or print it out and tote it wherever you so desire.
Within, you will find essays, fiction and general silliness exploring geek culture and the nerd experience. The pieces are a bit longer than what you will generally find on the site (in some cases, spanning an unnecessary, er, epic amount of pages) and they all center on a theme chosen by the editors. For our inaugural issue, we’ve chosen…pon farr. Delicious.
Grok #1: Spring ‘08, Pon Farr (PDF)
Highlights include…
Scintillating fiction from Matt Springer and Sarah Kuhn!
Thrilling explorations of the mixed geek marriage by Jeff Stolarcyk!
Slashy musings, mused by Chris Stewart!
Amazingcrazy words on the online love life of a semi-geek, downloaded by semi-geek Ken Simon!
Brilliant breakdowns of why pon farr is the best geek pick-up strategy evAR, as tested by Sarah McKinley Oakes!
Mind-blowing insights on con hook-ups!
Possibly tasteless nerd pick-up lines!
And much, much more! So read on, print out and/or share with your friends! And we’ll be doing this quarterly, so come back this summer for more!
