Thursday, April 18, 2013

Saturday, April 13, 2013

I have no idea who Rae Johnston is, but her owning of a douchebag has catapaulted her to my top fifteen favorite people in the world

This is what assholes deserve when they try to pull that "girls are fake geeks*" bullshit.
Let's be honest here, the fucker deserved it. This whole culture of denigrating women for "not being real geeks" within the subculture is sickening and embarrassing. A geek is a geek, regardless of their gender or sexual identity. Just because you are male does not mean that you are inherently empowered to declare who is and isn't part of the subculture. Not only did that fucker deserve to have Bioshock spoiled, so does every other asshole who pulls that same discriminatory bullshit.

As for Rae Johnston, The Mary Sue says that she's a writer fora website called TechLife. I don't pay all that much attention to tech blogs, so that explains why I hadn't heard of her before. I might have to start reading her stuff.

So, what do you think? Was Johnston's action appropriate? Any sympathy for the guy? Tell me in the comments.

*Or gamer, nerd, trekkie, potterhead, browncoat, SPNer, sherlockian, whovian, etc.

Friday, April 12, 2013

Adam Orth is a bag of dicks

And possibly a poo head, but the jury is still out on that. So, who is Adam Orth and why is he comparable to a bag of male reproductive organs? Well, until recently, Orth was an employee at Microsoft, working as a creative director at Microsoft Studio. I say "until recently" because he resigned the other day in the aftermath of a rather sizable clusterfuck surrounding his rather cavalier response to concern and opposition to a rumor that the next iteration of the Xbox will have an "always on" feature that would require the console to be connected to the internet 24/7 in order to play any games on it. In other words, if the rumor turns out to be true, Microsoft looked at the clusterfuck created by SimCity's release and its "always on" requirement, and said "shit, that looks like a great idea, let's do that!" The problem with an "always on" feature is that not everybody has the internet or can get a reliable, fast connection without shelling out substantial amounts of cash. People who live in rural areas, for example. In any case, Orth took to Twitter to respond, which you can see below (via The Wertzone).

 Oh, but wait, it gets better. Below, you can see Orth's elitism shine (via Nerd Reactor).

"Why would I live there?" Hurr durr. Not everybody can live in Seattle or Redmond and I imagine that there are a lot of people who live in rural areas who feel the same way about urban living. Where you choose to live does not make you better than others.

The fact of the matter is that according to the 2010 census and (probably) Skynet, rural Americans make up 15% of the U.S.'s population of 315 million, which is about 50.4 million people. Not a number that can be easily disregarded and that is just in the U.S., just imagine what the global rural population is and whether it is any easier for them to have a constant internet connection. I would strongly doubt it.

As already mentioned, Mr. Orth's snobbishness elicited a reaction that he probably was not expecting and in the resulting backlash, he resigned. Then Microsoft distanced themselves from his comments like he had made a really, really racist joke. I guess the lesson here would be to think before you leap or shove your foot in your mouth.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

All hail this wicked ass One Piece tattoo

Damn, talk about creative.

I'd love to credit this picture, but it looks like it's been uploaded by twenty different people on imgur.
I like how the guy's hand becomes part of the tattoo, though you'd have to be a mighty big fan of One Piece to commit to something like that. Me? I would have gone with one of the stretchy superheroes like Mr. Fantastic, Plastic Guy, or Elongated Man.

Okay, maybe not Plastic Man.

Via Geekologie.

Monday, April 8, 2013

When it comes to things that should exist, Pokemon "Evolve" decals are near the top of the list

Because you can't tell me that that wouldn't be awesome to have on your car or something.
Credit: Nerd Rage.
Truck balls would be cool too, though they probably would get all banged up or prove annoying in the long run.

Jason watches Mad Men's season six premiere "The Doorway" (spoilers)

Via Wikipedia.
 Although, I almost missed it because I didn't know the show was coming back this month. I don't watch TV much anymore. Fair warning, there are spoilers after the jump.

In any case, "The Doorway" has features several plots and begins with Don and Meg in Hawaii on a working vacation. The latter's career on a popular soap opera is burgeoning and Don meets a soldier in a bar and attends his wedding as the father of the bride. Don pretty much spends the entire episode just sort of...coasting. That's the only way I can describe it.

Roger meanwhile is going through what appears to be either a mid-life crisis or an existential one. He tells his shrink that he feels nothing and shows it when his secretary later informs him that his mother has died - she's more upset about it than he is and he consoles her. Yet, paradoxically, he breaks down at the end of the episode when he finds out that the guy who shines his shoes is dead. Roger has not been the same since he dropped acid last season.

Betty is Betty. She made a rape joke as foreplay in one scene. Seriously. She also goes to look for one of Sally Draper's friends, a talented violinist, when she goes off to New York City to attend Juliard, but instead spends most of her remaining screen in an abandoned building occupied by squatters. She also dyes her hair black.

Peggy is still a BAMF. Love Peggy. Her plot mainly dealt with a client 86ing an ad campaign because a comedian (I keep thinking George Carlin) on Johnny Carson made several jokes about soldiers in Vietnam cutting off ears and turning them into necklaces. The client (I can't remember if they mentioned their name) makes headphones and the campaign was centered around the "lend me your ears" line from William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

Ginsberg has a mustache and looks like he belongs in a supporting role in a 70s movie. Stan has a beard and looked vaguely like a young Ron Fucking Swanson. I love the way Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce looks now. Last season ended with the agency planning to expand to a second floor and they did. Now, a staircase outside their conference room leads directly to a second floor full of offices. There are also a lot more employees and the place generally looks way busier than it did last season.

Pete's hairline is receding. This pleases me, especially because he's still a turd.

Harry Crane has sideburns a modish/Beatles-type haircut. Definitely late 60s-early 70s look.

Don and Meg are pals with a doctor and his wife. Don's fucking his wife. No surprise there.

Overall, I'd say this was a good episode, but it didn't roll my socks down, let alone blow them off. It's good to have the show back, though. I didn't realize how much I missed some of the characters (Ginsberg, Stan, and Peggy) until tonight.

Rating: 7/10.

Thursday, April 4, 2013

This OVC strip accurately describes my feelings on Marvel and DC's "mega event" philia.

Credit: Our Valued Customers.
Exactly. I don't mind big crossovers and mega events like Secret Invasion, Blackest Night, and others as long as they're in moderation, which they never are. I mean, yeah, they're big money makers now, but eventually people are going to grow tired of yet another big thing and buy them less and less.

...

Oh, who am I kidding? Most comic book fans would buy a box of horse shit as long as it had Spider-Man, Wolverine, Batman, or a combination thereof on the top. I'm not saying they don't have taste...actually that is what I'm saying. Oh welp.

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Why couldn't I have had an AT-AT bed when I was young? D:

All I got was one of those bunk beds with the futon couch on the bottom. Not as great as it sounds.

The only potential downside to this is a Rebel trooper armed with a grapple, lightsaber, and a bomb.
Credit: imgur.
My only reservation about sleeping in something like this is how high off the ground the bed is. When I had that bunk bed, I slept on the bottom part because I was convinced that I would somehow fall off the top. On a related note, futon couches are not comfortable for long term sleeping. In any event, the fact that it comes with a door is reassuring that I probably wouldn't fall and bust my face during the night.

h/t Nerd Approved.

Even as a zombie, Karen Gillan is still hot

Check out her commercial for z’Ombéal, skin cream for zombies below.



But hey, maybe it's just me. Don't forget to watch The Nerdist on BBC America every Saturday night at 10:00 PM. It's nice finally having things to watch on Saturdays. If zombie Karen Gillan isn't enough to entice you to watch, then maybe Robert Kirkman and Michael Rooker will?

These picture of David Tennant and Matt Smith (and bonus Jenna Louise-Coleman!) should come with a Surgeon General's warning.

Credit: Doctor Who Twitter.
The 50th anniversary of Doctor Who is going to be awesome! The Tenth and Eleventh Doctors together! The only thing that could make the 50th anniversary special better is if all of the surviving Doctors were in it. Alas, it's not to be. William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, and (surprisingly, because I thought he was still alive) Jon Pertwee are all dead. I have no idea whether the other Doctors from Classic Who will be appearing or not. On the plus side, Christopher Eccleston seems to be giving serious thought about revisiting his role as the Ninth Doctor, which is huge!

The lack of alumni does bother me. This year is the half century mark for Doctor Who and how many scifi franchises can tout that they've been around for that long? Star Trek is still three years off and Star Wars is still young is comparison. Aside from David Tennant, Billie Piper, and maybe Christopher Eccleston, the other cast members of the past don't really give two scoops of fucks about celebrating the 50th anniversary. Some of the other Doctor actors are going to be reprising their roles on audiobooks for the anniversary, but that seems like lip service at best, as they've already been doing those for a while.
Credit: Anglophenia.

In any case, I'm hoping that we get a something similar to the Three Doctors and the Five Doctors, which were both specials made to celebrate a milestone anniversary - the tenth and twentieth years, respectively. In those, different incarnations of the Doctor met and teamed up. Unfortunately, there hasn't been anymore such specials since 1983, so it would be pretty great if Moffat and Co. were to follow the trend.

Allons-y and Geronimo!

h/t Tor.com.

Monday, April 1, 2013

Now that's what I call fine art

La persistencia de la Pacman.
Credit: Mike Capp.
Nice touch with the Power Pellets in the background.

A large scale replica of Hogwarts made out of LEGO? Daaaang

Four hundred thousand LEGOs and a year of work is what Alice Finch spent creating this big, big, BIG(!) replica of not only Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardly, but several of the rooms as well, such as the Chamber of Secrets, the Potions Room, the hall where the students ate, and even Hagrid's pad. Check out more pictures under the cut. The attention to detail is phenomenal.









You can check out more pictures on Alice Finch's Flickr.

h/t Geekologie.