The Return To Wonder Con

Hey there folks! I know I haven't mentioned it before now, but just so you know, I'm going to be attending Wonder Con up in San Francisco this weekend. If you haven't heard of Wonder Con before, it's basically the smaller brother of the San Diego Comic Con. In fact, Wonder Con is even put on by the same folks who do the SD Con, Comic Con International. Don't let the fact that this con isn't as big as SD's behemoth fool you though. Wonder Con is still plenty big on its own, and is packing a pretty powerful lineup of geeky newsworthy greatness.

Think of it like this. If the San Diego Comic Con is like the Oscars of comic conventions, Wonder Con is like the Golden Globes.

With that said, I'm going to sadly be missing the first day of the Con on Friday, but I will definitely be reporting on all the good stuff that goes down on Saturday and Sunday. In fact, I've even managed to score a press pass to the event which seems to be granting me invitations to all sorts of press-only goodness. It's almost like I'm a real reporter now or something.

This of course means that I'll be having to step up my game in regards to coverage this year. To that effect, I'm going to be live tweeting all weekend long. If you'd like to get random news bits and geeky anecdotes from this weekend's con, be sure to follow or official Geek-tastic Twitter account. You can find a link to our Twitter feed in our social media links to the right of this post.

Speaking of those links to the right, you may notice that I've finally gotten around to adding a direct link to Geek-tastic's flickr account there as well. Be sure to check that out this weekend too, as I'll be adding a new set of Wonder Con pics there as soon as I can. This will most likely be sometime on Saturday, although I'm not sure exactly when. I wish I could be more specific on that, but what with the constant running around at the con all day, the questionable and hard to find free internet connections available in downtown SF, and the guaranteed binge drinking that will be taking place at the local bars in the evenings, it's kind of impossible to pin down exactly when the pics will go up. I'll try to get them up as soon as I can though.

I'd also like to mention that I recently acquired a brand new digital camera, so all of the new pics I will be taking from this time forward will be in 12.1 megapixel awesomeness. Of course, that still won't make up for my complete amateur level photography skills, but i've been working on those too. Just be patient with me. I'm working hard to bring you better quality photos of all the geeky greatness that I report on.

If you happen to find yourself in the San Francisco area this weekend and you'd like to share a tasty beverage with (aka "buy a drink for") me, then drop me a line. I'd love to meet up with you. Message me over twitter or email me directly (geek.tastic@yahoo.com) and I'll let you know where I'll be and when. It would be totally awesome if we could coordinate an impromptu gathering of Geek-tastic readers at the con. I hope to hear from you.

I think that's all for now. If you'd like to check out my coverage of last year's Wonder Con, you can find the articles here:

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3

Oh, and here's last year's flickr set of Wonder Con photos as well. Enjoy!

The Greatest Winnie The Pooh Story Ever Told

The 100 Acre Woods is typically a very peaceful place. On an average day, the most exciting thing that may happen is that Pooh could get his head stuck in a honey jar, or Tigger and Rue could go bounding around causing minor annoyances to those around them. This new story, however, does not take place on an average day.

Alien Vs Pooh is the story of what happens when the denziens of the 100 acre woods wake up one morning to find a batch of facehugger eggs in their midst. What happens from their is pure storytelling greatness. The art style of the book is classic pooh too, which only adds to the appeal of this rather amazing web comic.

Be sure to check out the whole story HERE. There's even some surprise guests along the way too. It's available to be read in three different sizes. I highly suggest the Large size, to fully enjoy the details of the art.

I'm not sure who made this, but whoever they are, they're geniuses in my book.

Welcome To Geek-tastic.com Version 2.0

Hey there!

So . . . . notice anything different about the site lately?  Yeah, that's right, your eyes do not deceive you.  Geek-tastic has undergone a major site revamp.  Welcome to the all new Geek-tastic.com.

The reasons for the site changes are many, but it basically boils down to the fact that I needed to take more direct control of the site.  Since the site originally launched back in July of 2008, my good friend Josh Lander was kind enough to handle all of the hosting duties for the site free of charge.  This was totally awesome of him to do, and I shall forever be in his debt because without him I doubt this site would have ever started in the first place.  So let's all say a big thank you to Josh.

Since then though, there's been stuff I've wanted to do with the site that I just couldn't do without being in direct control of the site myself.  Aside from background stuff like getting accurate reporting on site views and stuff like that, I've wanted to host the actual podcasts here on my site instead of having to go to an outside source like archive.org for hosting larger files.  With direct hosting of media like podcasts, I can open up an itunes account for the podcasts.  That's something I've actually wanted for a while now.

After much discussion with my more tech savvy friends and wandering around online, I decided to go to Squarespace.com for my new hosting duties (hence the "Powered by Squarespace" ad to the right).  

 As for the appearance of the site, I apologize for the spartan look I have going on at the moment.  I'm still really new to Squarespace and I'm still learning my way around their site building tools.  What you see before you right now is what I was able to accomplish in about three or four hours of fooling around online on a Sunday afternoon while drinking some Absynthe.  If I was a real professional, I would have waited until the revamp was complete and ready to go before I launched the new site, but let's be honest here, I'm pretty sure you've realized by now that this is definitely not a professional site.

Besides, where's the fun in a professional launch anyways?  We're doing this in true amateur style, so you'll get to see me totally fuck up along the way as I try to figure out what the hell I'm doing here.  Doesn't that sound like awesomeness just waiting to happen?

In all seriousness though, here's a quick rundown of some of the big changes to the site that you can find right now.  I'll update you as new stuff becomes available: 

1.  The "About Us" section.  Check out the links at the top of the page.  There's a new link where you can check out the profiles of the Geek-tastic contributors.  Wanna know who the hell we are so you can mock us with more accurate information about who we are?  That's your place to go.  Right now, I'm the only one with a profile up, but I'll be adding the rest of the crew as soon as they send me their profiles.

2.  We now have a direct link to our official Twitter page on the right.  Click on it.  Follow us.  I won't spam you with too many Tweets.  I promise.

3.  The RSS Feed.  Right now, it's broken.  Sorry about that.  I'll be trying to get that fixed in the next few days.  As soon as it's working, I'll let you know.

4.  If you had an account to leave comments on the old site (I think about two of you did), then you're going to have to create new accounts for the new site.  I'm really really sorry about this.  I tried to figure out a way around this, but there's nothing I could do.  Join up and feel free to comment about how much this move sucks.  I know it's a major inconvenience to have to create a new account.  

 Ok, that's all for now.  I'll keep you all updated as more changes are made to the site.

Abraham Lincoln Is A Bad Motherfu... Shut Yo Mouth!!!

Hey Man, I'm just talking about Lincoln. You know? Our 16th President. The man was many things. A freer of slaves, a leader during troubled times, a lover of beards and tall hats. But did you also know he could give Buffy a run for her money?

That's right people, Abe Lincoln hunted the children of the night. Vampires. We're not talking about the wussified sparkling kind either who mope around and date teenagers. No, we're talking about killers. Beasts disguised as gentlemen of the day. They're a blight on this world, and Honest Abe could honestly kick their asses when he needed to.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is a book that will be coming out soon. It was written by Seth Grahame-Smith, the same guy who gave us the ever amazing Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, and if his past work is anything to go on then this book will be a must read. Above is a trailer for the book that the publisher Quirk Classics has put together, and it's nothing short of amazing. Witness the glory as Lincoln takes down a vampire John Wilkes Booth.

I can only hope one thing after watching it myself, and that is that the actor who plays Lincoln in this trailer will be cast to play him again in the full length feature film that is sure to be adapted from this in a few years time. That guy is bonafide bad ass!!!

Oh, and speaking of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, there's a prequel coming out for it called Dawn of the Dreadfuls, and it too has a completely rad trailer for it. Check it out:



Seriously, why doesn't Quirk Classics just expand out and start making low budget horror films too? I'd watch the shit out of that if it was a full length film. It's beautiful. At the very least, you know that the films they made would easily be ten times better than any of those SyFy channel Original movies.

Robots Are Awesome

 

Yes, Robots are awesome. It's just too bad that they will inevitably turn on us and kill us all, terminator style.

Until that happens though, we can enjoy their cute robot ways and learn what we can about them. In fact, someone's even gone to the effort and made this handy dandy infographic all about Robots. It's filled with all sorts of fun facts about their history. For example, did you know that robots have already killed people? It's true. The first robot to ever murder someone happened back in 1979?

And people wonder why I fear the future.

To check out the full infographic, click HERE.

(Via Geekologie)

For The Art Lovers Out There

For your artistic enjoyment, I offer you this masterpiece. Forget that whole, "Dogs playing poker" painting you've seen before. That thing can't hold a candle to Wolverines playing Poker.

What's kind of sad though is that I could totally see a comic book being made out of this. The entire issue would take place inside Wolverine's head, and the different versions of himself at the table would represent different aspects of his splintered memory and psyche.

Oh god, I've probably just jinxed us. Now it's going to happen for sure.

I'm sorry.

Hail To The Clay Baby!

It's Evil Dead. In Clay Form. In 60 seconds. What else do you need to know? What the hell is wrong with you? Why aren't you watching it already?

You've already seen it? Well watch it again. Why do I always have to think of everything for you?