Bespin: The Star Wars Equivalent Of Las Vegas

You know that the parties Lando Calrissian hosts have to be the most epic parties the galaxy has ever seen. Search your feelings, you know it to be true.

Photo courtesy of Mike Noyes.

Better Late Than Never

I know, Halloween was over two weeks ago. It's mid-November now. Why the hell am I posting pics of Pumpkins, you ask?

Well, to be honest, I just wanted to share. These are the pumpkins that I carved this year for Halloween. I carve stuff every year as a matter of tradition, and yes my carvings do tend to lean towards geeky more than they do scary.

I'm really proud of my work this year though. The Spock pumpkin may very well be the best work I've ever done. He took over three hours to complete, but the finished effect was so worth the time and effort put into him.

The Ghostbusters pumpkin by comparison isn't nearly as well done, but it should be noted that I was actually pretty drunk when I carved that one, so I totally deserve a handicap for the scoring on that one's artistic merits.

I hope you all had a great Halloween!

Ever Wonder What The Standard Rate Is For Boba Fett's Services?

Now you know.

As expected, hiring the galaxy's greatest and most feared bounty hunter doesn't come cheap. Only the wealthy can afford his services. This invoice shows some interesting things about the craftiness of Boba Fett too. You have your standard expenses for things like Ammunition and fuel, service fees and of course the actual bounty price, but what really makes Mr. Fett such an accomplished business man in my eyes is the fact that he is charging $50,000 for the Carbonite block that he dropped Han Solo off in.

If you'll remember, Boba Fett didn't choose to put Han in the Carbonite. In fact, he was worried that freezing Han would kill him. That was Vader's call, and Fett was none too happy about it. He was forced to put up with it. The Empire gave him a Han Solo popsicle, and he had to deliver it to Jabba to get paid. Does Fett just acceppt this random circumstance and move on? No, instead he gets creative. He lists it as a "Carbonite Aesthetic Display" and charges $50,000 for it and some wall mounted hangars.

Fett's ability to turn an unwanted situation into a profitable add-on is one of the things that truly makes him the best of the best.

On a completely unrelated side note, I really want a stack of paper with Fett's letterhead in the top corner. "Over 30 years experience!" Hilarious!!!

Jason Vorhees: Great Serial Killer or Greatest Serial Killer?

Going simply by the numbers, I'd have to go with Greatest Serial Killer.

That's right Michael Myers and Freddy Krueger, you guys just can't compare to the amazing kill count of Momma Vorhees' baby boy. What can I say, he's a natural. Be it at Camp Crystal Lake or even in Space, Jason will kill horny teenagers wherever they may be.

Remember kids, don't do drugs or have sex. If you do, Jason will get you.

Random Awesomeness

This is why Frank Castle should never be allowed to give himself cybernetic enhancements to help him fight crime. You just know he would give himself something like this. The guy is crazy after all. Let us not forget that.

My Brother Is Awesome

My brother is awesome. Why, do you ask? Because that is him in his halloween costume for this year. Nuff said.

Well played Michiel. Well played indeed. The gauntlet has just been thrown down. I must now find something to match the epicness of this costume. Let the plotting and scheming begin.

Christina's Book Review - Feed

By Christina Castillo

You know, I have tried to write this review about 500 times and for some reason I can’t get the words right. At least not to my mind. Nothing seems to sound right or maybe it just feels like anything I say just doesn’t do it justice. So, I am going to take the easy way out and simply say….READ IT! The author’s name is Mira Grant although some may actually know her by her actual name Seanan McGuire as she writes books under this name as well.

If you like zombies, if you like viruses, if you like politics (or at least enjoy reading about them) and if you want to read a book that is well written and says more about human nature than the zombies that inhabit the world then you will like this book. I could give you a synopsis, but let’s face it, you can get that from the back cover or from Amazon or you can even read the first chapter at Feed’s very own website. The website alone is entertaining in and of itself.

Suffice it to say, Mira Grant masterfully paints a frightening world in which politicians are scarier than zombies , the zombies are just a fact of daily life that the public have come to accept as not only something they have to live with, but something that most of them will ultimately become. And underlying the whole tragedy is a scandal, a scandal that Grant only alludes to in this book and has kept me clamoring for the release date of the new book for months. I urge you to check it out.

The Best Book Trailer Ever

I've known about the book Night of the Living Trekkies for a while now. I'd read about it online, I'd seen it at comic con, but at no point was I ever interested in reading it. As amusing as the concept of blending Star Trek and zombies is, I think I've just been getting to the point where I'm kind of over zombie stories. They are everywhere lately. There are zombie books, zombie comics, zombie games, zombie movies. Everywhere you turn, you'll find something about the undead. It's as if there actually has been a real, honest-to-god zombie invasion taking place in popular media.

I had thought I was was over it, but then I saw the above trailer.

Holy crap if that isn't the most brilliant bit of marketing I've ever seen, I don't know what is. I now find myself dying to read that book. If it's even half as amusing as this trailer is, it'll be totally worth reading. I also now find myself wishing that this story gets turned into a full on movie. I could only hope that the movie will be as low budget and cheesy as the trailer is. It's the campiness of the effects and the bad Star Trek costumes that really makes this trailer pure nerd gold. Can we just give the guys who made the trailer more money so they can shoot the whole thing? Please?

Random Awesomeness

Damn skippy. Just remember kids, only the coolest of the cool kids wear glasses.

(Via Adventuring Company)

Pat's Favorite Moment From Comic Con 2010

As I was growing up, GI Joe was my absolute favorite cartoon show. Everything else was secondary to it. He-Man, Transformers, Thundercats, M.A.S.K., Silverhawks, whatever else . . . all of them paled in comparison to my love for GI Joe. To me, seeing a sign asking me to enlist in Cobra Industries was like a giant pulsating beacon. I couldn’t look away. Without even knowing what it was yet, I got in line and tried my absolute hardest not to start hopping up and down in excitement. Inside though, I was screaming like a little girl.

Thankfully, the line was short (a rarity at Con) and in a few minutes I was told to go up to one of the three stations they had set up where they were processing enlistees. I tried not to show my disappointment that the guy behind the counter wasn’t dressed in some sort of Cobra Uniform as he asked me for my name. I gave him my name as he asked, and then was told to step back for my picture to be taken. I suddenly realized that I wasn’t sure how I wanted to look in this picture. I was joining Cobra, so I should look evil and menacing, right? I gave the camera my best evil face, which came off looking more confused than anything I think, and was then told to go down to the end to pick up my badge.

“Badge? I’m getting a badge?” I thought. “Too Sweet!”

I walked down to the end of the line where a new guy was putting what looked like employee badges together. I utterly failed in my attempts to not look anxious as I waited for my badge. The minutes ticked by eternally slowly, until I heard my name finally called.

“Patrick” the guy said, in a bored sounding voice.

I jumped a little and was at the desk in a second. The badge was handed to me, and it was glorious. I had been given a Cobra Employee ID card, just like the kind I use every day to get into my office. It even came with the little retractable string thingy you use to attach it to your belt loop. I was in heaven.

“Hey”, my friend Lee said (who had been with me this whole time), “They spelled your name wrong.”

WHAT? Where? I looked again, I hadn’t even noticed it. My last name is spelled Roach (just like the bug or the drug paraphernalia), yet somehow the blonde stoner looking guy behind the counter had managed to spell it Roch.

To quote Darth Vader. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!

I could not believe that they had misspelled my name. Not for this. This was too important. I had to get this right. My inner child was at the reins now. He was going to join Cobra, and he was going to have his fucking name spelled right as he did it.

The line wasn’t too long, so I hopped back in, tapping my foot now in impatience as I eagerly awaited a second chance to join Cobra’s ranks. I got up to the front of the line, and was this time directed to a different kiosk than the blonde stoner guy’s from before. “Thank god” I thought. “Maybe this new girl will actually know how to spell Roach.”

I go up to the counter. She asks my name. I very slowly tell her, “My name is Patrick Roach. R-O-A-C-H.” Yes, I actually spelled it out for her, just to be sure. She just smiled at me and said she got it. I stepped back and got ready for a second photo. Again I tried to look evil and Menacing. This time, I don’t think I look so much confused as I probably do mildly constipated or something. I really need to work on my evil glares apparently.

Another round of waiting at the badge desk. Again my name gets called out. Again I jump. I snatch the badge from the guy’s hand like a starving kid on Halloween grabbing trick-or-treat candy. My eyes shoot straight to the name.

Patrick Broach.

At this point I just start laughing at the absurdity of it all. The laughter helped me from breaking into tears. How hard is it to spell Roach anyways? It’s a common word. It’s not like my last name is Morgendorffer or something like that. I look back at the line, it’s gotten obnoxiously long now. I didn’t want to stand in it again, yet at the same time I didn’t want to walk away with a misspelled card.

I think for a couple of seconds, and then I see that the girl I had taken my second picture with is just finishing up with someone, and the person running the line hasn’t seen that they’re available yet. Without thinking, I run back up to her desk and say, “I’m really sorry, but you misspelled my name on this. Could I please do another one?” I tried really hard here not to sound like the whining 8 year old I really was in that moment. I don’t think I succeeded though.

To her credit, the girl behind the counter took pity on me and said that she still had my picture saved in her computer. She could just retype the card if I wanted, or I could take an all new picture. I mulled this over in my head for a few seconds. I wanted to take a new picture, but I had by now realized that my attempts at an evil glare were going to continue to fail until I practiced on them more. Also, I was starting to feel really self conscious, having had to go through all of this for what most other people around me probably considered to be a random/easily forgotten Con trinket.

I decided to just have her re-type the card. I tell her my name again, even slower than before. R-O-A-C-H. No B. Just 5 letters. No B at the beginning. Yes, just like the bug. Yes, just like a spliff. Did I mention, no B? Ok, cool. Just making sure.

She promises me that she got it right, and tells me to head back to the desk again. I wait another minute. The guy at the badge counter now recognizes me. He gives me a “What the hell are you doing here again?” look as I wait for him to call my name. He finally does. He doesn’t even hand me the card this time. He just left it on the table once he was done putting it together. I can’t blame him really. To him, I’m just some creepy older guy who shouldn’t even be in this room unless I had brought kids with me, which I clearly hadn’t.

I don’t really dwell on that though. All of my concern is focused on the little plastic card on the table. Did they spell it right? Am I going to have to scream at someone if it’s not right? With slightly trembling hands, I pick up the card from the table and turn it over.

I’ll be honest here, I think I let out a small “Woohoo!” I take no shame in admitting that. It was a pain in the ass to get, but it was now in my possession. I had a Cobra Employee Card. Deep down inside, 8-year-old pat was dancing like a madman.

Yes, it’s just a stupid little gimmicky piece of plastic. Yes, it probably cost Hasbro about .005 cents to make this thing. Yes, I should probably grow up a bit (ok, maybe a lot). I don’t care. I have a Cobra Employee Card, and it’s every bit as fucking awesome as I ever hoped it could be.

As I walked out of there, I made sure to securely attach my ID card to my belt. I wanted to proudly wear this thing for the rest of con. Yes, I even wore it the next day on Saturday too. When I got home, I made sure to put it somewhere proper. It now sits on my bookshelf, right next to my Cobra Commander (in a suit at a podium) figure and my Sgt. Slaughter figure with a WWF World Heavyweight Title belt.

Best . . . Con . . . promotion . . . ever!

The Call Of Cthulhu In Under Two Minutes

Even if you've never read any of HP Lovecraft's works; if you've ever been to any sort of convention or if you describe your self as a geek/nerd, chances are pretty good that you've seen the name Cthulhu somewhere. You may even associate that name with a big, scary, squid looking head.

Who, or what is Cthulhu though? Well, read the book The Call of Cthulhu and find out.

What's that you say? You're far too lazy to read a short story that is only about 40 pages long? Ok, fine. Be that way you lazy bastards. In that case, watch the above video, which summarizes the plot of The Call Of Cthulhu in under two minutes. Hopefully, that isn't too long a time for your ADD addled brain to deal with.

There, now you know Cthulhu. May you spend the rest of your life in fear now, like the rest of us.

So Sad, So Horribly True

I really wish I could argue against this infographic, which explains how all good TV shows ever eventually go bad, but it's so completely true that I can't argue against it.

Every show that I can think of, all of my most beloved shows, fit perfectly into this chart. Well, with one exception I guess. Doctor Who. The only reason that show gets around this truth is that they have a built in plot device in which the entire cast of the show can change every few years, thus enabling literally limitless storytelling. No other show is so lucky.

Her Universe

By Christina Castillo

Every year one of my biggest complaints at San Diego Comic Con besides the massive crowds , long lines and for the second year in a row I missed the Big Bang Theory panel is the lack of good fitting female t-shirts. Now don’t get me wrong, there are a ton more than there ever used to be and StylinOnline.com has a vast array of female styles with their four locations on the Comic Con floor. However, what I have come to find is that when I go to some of the other vendors, usually some of the smaller vendors, all of the t-shirts with the designs I want do not have female counterparts. Now they usually have a tiny selection, so they don’t completely leave us females out but I cannot tell you how many times a vendor lost out on my money because they didn’t include girl styles. I do admit that there were a few t-shirts that were just too awesome to pass up, so I ended up getting them anyway, but therein lies my frustration.

So that is why I was so excited to stumble upon Her Universe by complete accident as I was walking the Comic Con floor. Started by Ashley Eckstein, voice of Ahsoka Tano in Star Wars: The Clone Wars and The Araca Group, it is a site geared towards creating merchandise for the female sci-fi/fantasy fan, because if SDCC has taught us anything through the years it is that we do exist! Now they are just starting out so the selection of merchandise is slim at the moment, but they were lucky enough to get a license to create Star Wars inspired designs and it sounds like they are planning to acquire other license agreements down the line and expand and believe me I will be checking the site frequently so I can spend more of my hard earned money on a worthy cause!

So, if you are a geek girl that appreciates apparel made just for us or if you want to get an awesome gift for the geek girl in your life or if you just like to support us geek girls in the pursuit of all things geek I urge you to check out Her Universe both online and on the convention floor. Because come on…who can resist a sexy looking geek girl?! Her Universe will be attending Star Wars Celebration V, Chicago Comic Con and Dragon Con in the coming months and I am sure we will probably see them at next year’s WonderCon and in San Diego. Can’t wait!

Pat's Adventures At Comic Con 2010 - Part 3

Saturday morning, I got up super early because I was a man on a mission. For the last three years now, I’ve participated in a scavenger hunt that is put on by the Peanuts booth (as in Charlie Brown and Snoopy). Every day during con, they give away free tote bags to the first 50 people that complete a scavenger hunt across the Comic Con floor. I’ve gotten bags every year since they started doing this, so I wasn’t about to miss out now.

I got to the floor at 9am and waited impatiently for the doors to open at 9:30. As soon as I was let in, I fast walked (there’s no running allowed at Con) as quickly as I could to the booth. I got my scavenger hunt sheet, which required me to acquire four signatures from different booths all around the floor. I once again busted ass (while still walking) to the different booths and got my four needed signatures. Along the way, for being such an early bird, the guy at the second booth was kind enough to award me with these sweet buttons for free.

Once all of the signatures were gotten, I bee-lined my way back to the Peanuts booth, where I found that I was the 5th person that day to complete the quest. I had attained my prize.

I couldn’t help but think though? 5th? Really? I checked my watch, it was only 9:35. How in the hell did four people finish this thing ahead of me? I was one of the first people on the floor. Who are these ninja scavenger hunters? I must be wary of them in the years ahead. Their skills are impressive indeed, but they will fall to the power of my Comic Con Kung Fu.

With the free bag safely in my possession, I looked around and noticed something strange. The hall was relatively empty. I had gotten there so early on Saturday that the giant crowds hadn’t arrived yet. I immediately realized the potential here. I could now, finally, head over to the huge movie studio booths and not suddenly find myself trapped in a vast sea of unwashed, smelly con attendees.

My first stop was the Warner Brothers booth. It was probably the biggest booth on the floor, and it was tucked in a back corner of the convention hall. For the last two days, even trying to get near this thing was damned near impossible. At the moment I got there though, it was dead. I had full access to the place, and I am so happy I did, because that was when I came across this.

This, my dear friends, is the wounded corpse of Abin Sur, as he will be appearing in the upcoming Green Lantern movie starring Ryan Reynolds. For those of you who aren’t up on your Green Lantern Lore, this is the alien that gives Hal Jordan the Green Lantern Ring. This corpse is a huge part of the Hal’s hero origin story. To stumble across it on the floor of con was pretty damned awesome.

But that’s not all. The Warner Brothers booth also had this weird display case filled with things from the new Harry Potter film. In the early morning hour we were in, it took my sleep deprived brain a few seconds to realize what I was looking at. Maybe you can figure it out faster than I did.

Yeah, those are the seven Horcruxes that need to be destroyed so that Lord Voldemort can be killed. I’m sure for you non Harry Potter fans out there, those are just a bunch of random crap, but to a Potter fan like I am, getting to see those all together in a nice little display case was pretty fucking epic.

As the hall finally started to fill up, I had to leave the WB booth as wave after wave of raging fanboys and fangirls began to fill the place up. I meandered back over to the Marvel booth. It was Saturday after all, and I was still dying to know what was going on behind those giant golden doors. When I got there though, the doors were still shut.

“Bummer!” I thought, and I began to head off. Not even 15 seconds later though, as I’ve left sight of the doors themselves, I hear a collective gasp from the crowd. I turn around and see everyone looking at the Marvel booth. Hands are flying to cameras, flashes are going off like crazy, and people from all around are joining a quickly growing mob to see what all the fuss was about.

In my eternally amazingly bad timing, I had missed the big reveal by just seconds. I ran back into the mob, got within sight of the doors, and this is what I saw.

If you’ve never read a Thor comic before, let me explain. That is The Destroyer. He’s a giant suit of enchanted armor. Forged by Odin himself. He’s super powerful and can pretty much kill gods if he wants to. In the Thor movie, he will be unleashed by Loki against Thor at some point. To use a Buffy-ism, he’s one of the Big Bad’s of the film. Marvel had just announced to the world who one of the main villains of the Thor movie would be, and there was much rejoicing. Yay!

After that, my Comic Con experience started winding down. I was exhausted. I’d been walking for pretty much three days straight. I had spent a ton of money on comics and shirts and whatnot. I had a giant stash of free stuff I’d gotten along the way. To put it simply, I was spent. I did manage to walk the floor a little bit more, and take some more pics, but shortly after the big Destroyer reveal, I decided I had enjoyed myself enough. I headed out of the convention center one last time and was about to board the Trolley when I noticed these signs at the Gaslamp station.

Those are the San Diego trolley signs . . . . written in Klingon.

Have I mentioned before how much I love the fact that Comic Con has spread out into all of Downtown SD yet? I have? Well, let me say it again. It’s little things like this that make Comic Con the best damned nerd convention in the world. Where else but Comic Con would the city hosting the event allow their own public transportation signs to be covered in Klingon script?

You rock San Diego. I take back everything I said about hoping that the convention moves somewhere else. I don’t care about the giant crowds anymore. If the Con leaves SD, it’ll probably lose awesome little bits like this that make it what it is.

I can’t wait for next year. I’m already starting to save up for a hotel.

Pat's Adventures At Comic Con 2010 - Part Two

Panels are a huge part of the Con experience, I won’t deny that. Unfortunately, the only panels I wanted to go to this year that weren’t being put on by me or my friends were all big panels in the big rooms. They were the kind you had to camp out for hours in advance in order to see. I just don’t have that kind of patience, especially during Con when there are a million cool and nerdy things happening every second for four days straight.

With that said though, it’s not like I didn’t hit any panels at all. As I said in part one of my adventures, I did attend the Fan’s Guide To Comic Con. Thursday night was panel #2. The GeekRoundTable/Geek-tastic Live panel Panel.

Check out the bottom of that room program. That’s me! And if you’re wondering, yes we are nighttime programming because we are just too sexy to be able to have a panel during the day. Honestly though, all of this is due to the good graces of Mr. Ned Cato Jr. from the GeekRoundTable. He didn’t have to add me to the program guide name. It’s his panel really. I’m just the lucky sap that he was kind enough to include. Thank you Ned. It was really awesome seeing my site’s name pop up in the program guide.

As for the Panel itself, we actually had something solid to present this year. We brought along a copy of Matt & Wes vs. The Zombie Apocalypse to screen for the live audience, and thanks to the awesomeness of Jeromy and Zach Ball (aka The Bloodshed Brothers), we even recorded the panel this year. Well, the first part of it at least. Enjoy!

If you’d like to see part two, go HERE.

After the panel ended, I was exhausted, so I hopped on the trolley and headed back to my friend’s house for the night. The next day though, I was up bright and early and was back on the floor for another full day of wandering the hall. Friday was a little busier than Thursday had been, but that didn’t stop me from finding some really cool things on the floor. Here’s some of my favorite stuff.

That last one I saw on my way out to lunch on Friday, and it suddenly gave me pause. “The Umbrella Corporation is sponsoring Comic Con?” I thought. “Uh oh. That’s not good. That means a T-Virus outbreak can’t be too far off.” I promptly left the building at this point and didn’t return until I had inoculated myself with tasty food and booze.

On my way back from lunch, I decided to make a small side trek to one of the hotels next to the convention center. They had these huge signs up advertising something called The Hub, and I was curious as to what it was. I followed the signs and suddenly found myself in a large hotel ballroom filled with a ton of children show stuff.

It was cool children show stuff though. They had a big display for Fraggle Rock as well as a giant head & hand of Optimus prime where you could take sweet pictures like this.

Hands down though, the single coolest thing at The Hub (and possibly my biggest geek out moment at Con) was getting to join an evil terrorist organization, determined to rule the world. I am speaking, of course, of Cobra.

This was actually so awesome, I’m writing a separate post about it. More on this later.

After leaving the Hub, I headed back to the floor where I wandered some more. I bought some comics (Walking Dead and Scott Pilgrim mainly), and some other stuff. Along the way I found this really awesome shirt on the sales floor.

Ha! That’s right. Suck it Browncoats. Starfleet always gets the flyest of the bitches. Everyone knows that.

Speaking of Starfleet. As Friday came to a close, I did finally hit up one last panel. The Klingon Lifestyles panel. I’d been hearing from friends for years that this was a “Must See” panel, but somehow I had never managed to actually get to see it before, which is really strange considering what a huge Star Trek fan I am. This year though, I made damn sure I was there for it.

If you’ve never seen the Klingon Lifestyles panel before, let me explain a little. Basically, a bunch of really, really big Star Trek fans get dressed up and put on a 30 to 40 minute live stage play for the audience. It’s fully scripted, and you can tell they’ve been practicing this for weeks if not months ahead of time. Each year, the show is different, but the stories generally follow the same group of Klingons as they wander about the galaxy and get into all sorts of mischief.

This year’s show was a murder mystery. An ambassador had been killed right before trade negotiations were set to begin on a remote station between the Klingons and the Federation. One of the Klingons had been framed for the murder, and Starfleet begins an investigation.

What ensued was pure hilariousness. A scheming con man and his Ferengi mate show up, a red shirt is killed (and briefly turned into a zombie), a Bat’leh battle occurs, and a Vulcan is found to actually be a Romulan spy (damned Romulan spies). The mystery is eventually solved, thanks to the use of giant Clue board game cards detailing who committed themurder, where, and with what weapon. It’s a good thing someone found that giant packet sitting around, otherwise this mystery may never have been solved.

The Klingon Lifestyles panel brought my Friday to a close, so once again I headed back to my friend’s house for some much needed sleep.

Geeky Girls of Comic Con 2010

By Gabriel Madrigal

How many times have we heard that Geeky Girls are the real life unicorns of the geek kingdom? The fact is, if your girl can quote Kevin Smith, knows that Han is cooler than Luke, that the comic is always better than the movie, and that everything is always better when it goes to 11, then you’ve got yourself a winner.

This year, my goal at Comic Con was simple; capture beautiful Geeky Girls at Con. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

To see even more awesome Geek Girls, go HERE: