Geekery

Waxy Build-Up

~ lobablanca
Ms. Foster, waxing poetic
Ms. Foster, waxing poetic

Looking for the perfect gift for the actor-obsessed loved one in your life? Then you might want to check out this auction. Apparently, the Hollywood Wax Museum is going to auction off several wax statues from their collection. Included in the auction are life-sized statues of Laverne and Shirley, Kirk and Spock, the Fonz, Terminator 2 Ahnold, Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman (looking strangely like Sarah Ferguson), Marilyn Monroe (looking even more strangely like a young Betty White), Travolta and Thurman from Pulp Fiction, zombie Michael Jackson, some Star Wars blokes (no Jar Jar), the Scream Killer, Forrest Gump – three pages of nothing but wax statues up for sale.

The problem, however, is that the statues look only minimally like their corresponding characters/actors. Case in point: this wax statue of Jodie Foster from Maverick.

Um. No.

Looks like her in the same way that your reflection in a car door kind of looks like you…but not really. I’m actually kind of shocked at how unlike the actors most of these statues look. Madame Tussauds apparently makes the statue process look so much easier than it really is.

Of the statues that I looked at, probably the closest to realistic I saw were Darth Maul and the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz. However, they don’t even showcase the Tin Man on the main page; you have to click on the Dorothy photo to see him (Dorothy actually scares me a little; she looks more like early-in-the-movie Regan from The Exorcist).

However, skip ahead to page 4, avert your eyes from the wax crucified Jesus at the top of that page (really?), and you’ll see some pretty cool costumes, including one of Robert Englund’s Freddy Krueger outfits (minus the glove, unfortunately). I wouldn’t mind that, actually

Return of the Wumpus Huntress

~ lobablanca
The hunt continues into the 21st century...
The hunt continues...

Wow. Someone out there loved Hunt the Wumpus so much that they recreated it in Java. I’ve played it a couple of times so far, and it’s pretty spot-on to the original game play, but with much better graphics. Very nice!

There’s something so comforting about seeing a remake that actually does the original justice. Perhaps Hollywood could take a page from Dreamcodex’s game book and stop with the craptastic remakes! Yeah, that’ll happen.

Looks like they also did a remake of Munchman, but I haven’t checked this one out yet. Apparently, you have to download something and install it. I push the boundaries quite a bit at work, but I think I’ll sidestep this one 😉

I think I might also start talking about video games a bit more often here. I used to be quite the gamer. I’m still playing, thanks to a more than generous gift of an Xbox 360 for my last birthday. I’m nowhere near the obsessed game play levels that I used to be at, but I’m still in the game, haha.

Perhaps my next gaming entry will be all about finally playing my very first game from a long-standing franchise. Hmm, whatever could that be?

Beam Me…Disappointed

~ lobablanca

So since I’ve outted myself as a big frackin‘ geek, I figured that I would follow up with a glimpse at how deep the vein of geekery flows within me. This past weekend marked the airing of a “very special episode” of Family Guy that I have been waiting for since I first heard about it 3 months ago. I originally heard about it through following Wil Wheaton’s Twitter.

Wait. It gets even geekier than this.

The episode in question was being hyped as a “reunion” show for all the actors from TNG (that’s a geekcronym for Star Trek: The Next Generation). Even the goddess herself, Gates McFadden.

Tangent time. Significant survival note for readers: Do not ever say anything negative about Ms. McFadden or I will have to strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger. And I assure you, you will know my name is Loba when I lay my vengeance upon thee.

Right. So I fire up Hulu.com (because that’s how geeks watch their television) to watch this episode. What I saw, instead of the spectacular “reunion” show I had been promised, was a typically lame Family Guy episode, with smatterings of funny moments deeply embedded in the heart of unfunny, offensive drivel. Oh, and maybe a total of slightly more than 5 minutes dedicated to the TNG subplot.

As Otto yells in A Fish Called Wanda, “DISAPPOINTED!” I will grant that some of the TNG stuff was pretty funny, such as the interaction between Patrick Stewart and Michael Dorn when Stewie first beams them into his room. But all in all, it was a big letdown, especially since their scenes were interspersed through a thoroughly lame main plot about Meg finding God through Kirk Cameron. I think the only scene from that plot at which I laughed involved the opening riff from New Kids on the Block’s “The Right Stuff.”

McFarlane, you really let us down in this one, man. You unduly hyped your show with the promise of a TNG reunion. Yeah, you delivered, but in that half-assed way that Columbia Records used to “give” you 12 CDs for a penny. And both times, in the end the final price just wasn’t worth it.

Something Geeky This Way Comes

~ lobablanca

I’m a big geek. I think I somewhat established that throughout the nearly 5 years of my previous blog. However, I don’t think I really hit that truth home Babe Ruth style. So, here I am, pointing to left field and winding up for the grand slam.

I’m a GEEK. I’ve been a Trekkie for more than half my life. I’ve attended Star Trek conventions (notice the “s” that indicates multiple trips to said geek gatherings). My fan fiction has been published and sold at said conventions (I can pretty much stop this right now, can’t I?). I know that IDIC, PADD, and VISOR are all acronyms (and I know their corresponding definitions). I have almost the entire crew of the NCC-1701-E on my desk at work (in action figure form, of course). I also have Battlestar Galactica wallpaper on my work computer desktop. My mirror universe self is an even bigger geek (perhaps I’ll say more on that later; I’m still determining if the blog herd has been sufficiently culled of creepier readers [if you’re still out there and reading this, you know who you are, and the sooner you admit it to yourself, the sooner the treatments can begin]).

All that being said, no, I don’t live in my parents’ basement. Yes, I have a regular job. No, it’s not at The Android’s Dungeon. Yes, I have IRL relationships. No, I’m not defining IRL for you. I am a functioning member of society who just happens to really love the geekiest flavors of life.

Not tonight, dear...I'm a geek.
Not tonight, dear...I'm a geek.

What sparked all this confession today? The image to the right. I stumbled across it during one of my Internet perambulations. I own this shirt. I used to wear it out in public. I was snickered at by a troop of Boy Scouts while wearing it in a hotel that was hosting a Trek convention (because their little gold ascots made them so much cooler than us Trek geeks). I love this shirt. It’s now stored away with many of my other geek chic shirts (think the T-Shirt rack at your mall’s local Suncoast and you pretty much have an idea of my high school/college wardrobe). I should dig it out and snap a shot of me wearing it again, just for gits and shiggles.

Oh, and because I know you’re dying to know what all the excuses are, here you go:

  1. Troi senses danger.
  2. Trying to avoid Lwaxana Troi.
  3. Q’s visiting again.
  4. Playing Poker with Commander Riker.
  5. Helping Geordi in Engineering.
  6. Romulans crossed the Neutral Zone.
  7. My communicator’s not working.
  8. Attending Worf’s Klingon Rite of Passage.
  9. Conference in the Captain’s lounge.
  10. Solving crimes with Dixon Hill.
  11. Helping Wes with an experiment.
  12. Can’t violate the Prime Directive.
  13. Playing Strategema.
  14. Fencing with Picard.
  15. Vacationing on Pacifica.
  16. Trapped on the Holodeck.
  17. Having tea with the Captain.
  18. Explaining a joke to Data.

Damn, it feels good to be a geekster.

Technological Devolution

~ lobablanca

I’m starting to feel my age. Actually, I’m starting to feel double my age. At a time when technological advances are blooming all around me, I find myself embracing with growing fervor the Luddite inside me. I’m still using the cell phone that I received free for re-upping my contract approximately four years ago. It has no camera, QWERTY keyboard, magic genie, etc. It rings when someone calls me and every now and again indulges my rare need to text. I’m satisfied with that level of service.

I don’t want a CrackBerry or an iPhone. I’m still thrilled enough with my iPod that I don’t really need or want more at this point. In fact, I recently discovered that I can sync my Outlook contacts list with my iPod and I beamed over this fact for days. It’s the second most exciting thing I learned about my iPod, the first being my discovery of podcasts (but we can talk more about that later…).

Don’t ask me for my FaceBook or MySpace accounts or if I Twitter. No on all fronts. I’ve got enough attention-stealing stuff crammed into the space of my day as it is.Why on earth would I want to add more? Besides, I currently have two professional and three personal e-mail accounts. If you’re not receiving communications from me from any of those accounts, it more than likely means that I don’t really want to talk with you, let alone tweet you as to whether or not I ate oatmeal or yogurt for breakfast this morning.

It just seems so antithetical for a geek like me to be saying these things. I am, after all, the mistress of all things sci-fi. Show me the first 30 seconds of any episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation and I can give you the title and a description of what occurs during the episode. Shouldn’t I be embracing full-on the advances in technology, waiting with tingly antici…pation for the day that I can queue up for my very own Data?

Absolutely! Unless, of course, the version of Data that we design has Twitter functions and direct access to e-mail. Then I just can’t be bothered…