Category Archives: THE INTERWEBS

THE INTERWEBS

Geeky ‘Pinterest’ Finds…

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In today’s world of ever-changing internet trends, it is easy to miss even “big” sites. Don’t believe me? Go ask all those people still hanging out on MySpace. One you might not have heard of is Pinterest– especially if you are male. As opposed to in the U.K. where the majority of Pinterest users are professional males, here in the U.S. it’s mainly women, women who are into house decorating and cooking and home tending and you get the picture.

Because that is the majority of users and their pins, does not mean that Pinterest does not have something to offer for those not the least bit interested in the Martha Stewart arts. Au contraire! A little run down of how Pinterest works. It is basically “visual bookmarks”- instead of saving sites to your browser, you can “pin” them to your Pinterest board instead. When you pin something, you pin it to a certain board. For example, when you look at either the Grizzly Bomb Pinterest  page, or my own personal Pinterest page (first you can tell that I’ve been on Pinterest much longer than Grizzly Bomb!), you can see that there are separate boards for various categories. Everyone can make their own boards, you aren’t forced into having a “home” board if you don’t want one. But what if you want to see what other people are pinning to their boards? Well you have two options: First you can choose to follow people (I think following Grizzly Bomb would be a great board to follow, just saying) and then whatever they pin will show up on the Pinterest equivalent of your Facebook wall. The second option is what brings us together here today, categories.There are various categories ranging in topics from fashion and humor to art and photography. The best category however, and the category that even people who could not give a rat’s ass about home decor or the latest in fall fashion could find something for them, is the Geek category.

Because I know that not everyone has the disposable free time that I do, and because I would hate for anyone to miss any geeky goodness, and frankly, because I’m such a wonderful and giving person, I have taken it upon myself to compile a weekly “Best finds in the Pinterest Geek Category this Week!!!!!!!” for your perusal. There is no need to send gifts, or money, or songs you have written in my honor (although they certainly won’t be turned away)- no, your gratitude is enough to keep me going.

So with all that out-of-the-way… I bring you this week’s “Best Finds in the Pinterest Geek Category this Week!!!!!!!”

Because I’m the one running this particular show, we are going to start with a pin that combines two of my favorite things in this world, LEGO and Batman. Those men right there are holding perhaps one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen- a Batcave built out of LEGOs. Let me repeat that. This is a Batcave built entirely out of LEGO bricks. When I scrolled past this the other day I did a double take and then one of my dogs had to revive me when I passed out from too much awesome.

Ask pretty much any woman who seriously plays video games to name some pet peeves and more than likely the sentiment behind this pin will be listed. It drives me nuts when people (oddly enough, not always just men) assume that if you are a girl who games you are one of these three types:

  • a.) a supermodel who doesn’t know her a,x,y, and b from her x, square, triangle and circle
  • b.) a girl who uses her husband/boyfriend’s XBox to play bejeweled on the big screen
  • c.) an idiot who thinks the Playstation is just a really fancy dvd player

Believe it or not, there are quite of a few of us who look forward to the release of Halo 4 just as much as any guy.

As I say all that, I must caveat, I love playing video games and am rather good at campaigns and questing. When it comes to multi-player however? I am just awful. Unless I have a war hammer. Given a war hammer, I am unstoppable. Okay, maybe not unstoppable, but I do actually kill other people so that’s a plus.

Another big thing on Pinterest is outfits. I am so not an outfit kind of gal, my everyday attire is either jeans or pajama pants and whatever t-shirt I happen to grab, so when I came across this one I was sort of surprised that I’d finally seen an outfit I would wear. There’s no chance I’d carry that purse, but the rest of it? Love it.

Random quirk about Pinterest- when you go to “re-pin” something, most of the time people do not change the description. Whoever pinned this at one point described it as “ridiculous”. I think we can all agree that what they meant to type was “awesome”. There is absolutely no way that this could ever be described as ridiculous. It has all the components of epic-ness.

  • Office products used in a new and exciting way… check
  • Beloved video game character… check
  • Old school version of beloved video game character… check
  • Incredible representation of the above… check
  • Just awesome in general… check, check, check

Yea sorry original pinner, I’m going to have to wholeheartedly disagree with your “ridiculous” description.

The sad part about Pinterest, just like the internet, is the lack of a built-in fact checker. I think we can all agree the creator of this meme pin had a good idea but just failed, horribly, in its execution.  However, I happen to adore Cobie Smulders and love How I Met Your Mother so I’m able to look past the error.

Now that Halloween has arrived, we are fully into the “holiday season” so it’s about time everyone start thinking about their gingerbread houses. I would like to put forth the argument that this particular gingerbread creation would kick every other gingerbread creation’s ass.

There we have it, the inaugural run of “Best Finds in the Pinterest Geek Category this Week!!!!!”.

Until next week! For now, I’m off to think of a better name.

THE INTERWEBS

‘Monster Roll’ is on a Roll

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Monster movies have always been a firm favorite with movie goers worldwide, but with so much competition in the market, how do you get financing for your own monster movie? Well Dan Blank has created his own little mini movie to help showcase his ideas. Monster Roll is a six-minute movie about the perils of abusing the hospitality of the sea, and the consequences of this act. The only people who can save us from the problems we have caused are the sushi chiefs. They need to help us restore the pact between the sea and man.

Continue reading ‘Monster Roll’ is on a Roll →

THE INTERWEBS

‘The Crow’ Inspired Web Series: Everybody Loves Draven

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What happens when two completely opposite genres collide? It can be terrifying, or awesome. Or terrifyingly awesome. Or awesomely terrifying?

In this particular instance, the world of horrible sitcoms collides with the world of dark and gritty superheroes in “Everybody Loves Draven”, a twisted sitcom take on The Crow. In episode 1, The Crow – Eric Draven – and his life partner and roommate Beakman must face their greatest terror yet: a visit from Draven’s dad. Dark hilarity ensues in “Hi, Dad!”

What do you think of this insanity? Would you watch more? Sound off in the comments!

THE INTERWEBS

Bryan Singer’s Latest Project: “H+ The Digital Series:

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Where were you on April 23rd, 2005? I don’t remember where I was. Hell, I don’t remember what I was doing yesterday, much less seven and a half years ago.

Thankfully we do know where this guy was.

Jawed Karim was uploading the first ever video on YouTube.

Since that day YouTube has become an ubiquitous part of our everyday lives. According to Alexa, YouTube is the third most visited site on the internet. Not hard to see why, as not a single day passes where I don’t look something up on the site. It can range everywhere from the completely absurd, to the extremely useful. A good amount of the time it is for either a music video or web series. In the past year or so, YouTube has made a conscious move from being a bastion of baby crying videos to being a viable entertainment option. With everything from live streamed concerts to “web tv” style channels, they’ve started their march, and with big names coming to play, the future is looking bright.

One of those potential bright stars is a new offering from director/producer extraordinaire Bryan Singer and his production company, Bad Hat Harry.

Welcome to H+, The Digital Series. It is directed by Stewart Hendler of Sorority Row fame. Okay if Sorority Row doesn’t blow your skirt up, he is also the director of the upcoming Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn.

The premise? Well it’s simple- an implant is developed and released to the public that enables them to turn their brains into computers with a heads up display. The idea is based on the transhumanism ideology that man is in a constant move forward and that in the not too distant future, technology will play an even larger role in that evolutionary move. Played Deus Ex? It’s sort of like that, but not really.

So pretty much everyone has these implants and they can bring up their iTunes library while walking down the street, or watch a football game while driving, although this is dangerous and apparently illegal. Their vital organs are being constantly monitored which conceivably stave off preventable diseases such as diabetes.

Sounds great. It is great. It’s great until “The Event”.

And that’s all I’m telling you. Mainly because I don’t know much beyond that myself. The series debuted on August 8th and has put up an episode, each roughly 4-6 minutes long, every Wednesday since then. I sat and watched them in sequence and truthfully, was sort of frustrated because I so badly wanted to like it. Each episode was of a different time and different place, and different people. Then it jumps back to the original group/time. The disjointed storytelling just wasn’t doing it for me.

Then I watched this vlog from John Cabrerra, one of the creators and writers of the series (who also was on Gilmore Girls which I could not place for hours until it finally came to me as I ate a bowl of peas- and there’s a glimpse into my daily life, welcome) and after a few tweaks, I was really enjoying the series.

See, H+ is not your normal web series in which you sit down and watch episode a through z and it all forms a nice, compact, linear story. Instead, this series is composed of “moments of time and space” that you can move around to however you desire. I set up a playlist for myself where it was linear and each location told it’s story at one time. However, no one is forcing you to make your own playlist- if you want to watch them as they air, have at it. Whatever floats your boat.

But the fun doesn’t stop there! You can head over to hplusdigitalseries.com and see pictures, short bios, and an interactive map which did clue me in that the locations we’ve already seen, are not all there are. Something to look forward to.

I know another thing I am looking forward to seeing is fellow St. Louis native, Sean Gunn,  (I’m not really a native but I did graduate from high school there, same as Mr. Gunn) also a Gilmore Girls alum. As far as I can tell so far, he plays some sort of technology hating man who has to rely on some sort of technology to get around. Yay conflict!

Check out the existing episodes on their YouTube page and tune in on Wednesdays for new episodes.
And let us know what you think- are the transhumanists right and we are headed for an inevitable takeover by technology in our day-to-day lives? Or is the iPhone5 about as far as we are going to get?

Either way, it’s an interesting conversation to have and an entertaining series to watch.

THE INTERWEBS

Lizzie Bennet Diaries: Get Your Austen On

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Here at Grizzly Bomb, we know that many of our readers are men. Most of you are not married, don’t have kids, and are under age 35. Based on all these criteria, I’m going to take a wild guess and say many of you don’t read. Those of you who do read probably grab the latest Tom Clancy novel or at the very least a comic book.

I highly doubt any of you have or want to read Jane Austen.

In some sense, I don’t disagree with you. I just finished reading Pride and Prejudice for the first time in my life last month and there were times I wished I didn’t have to keep flipping back to the chapter notes to figure out what that word meant in Austen’s time. However, in the end, I felt like I had not wasted any time and felt deeply satisfied, even rewarded, with finishing a classic story.

I don’t blame you for wanting to watch her.

But how often do your mothers or sisters reference Austen, and they brush you aside as illiterate because you don’t know what they’re talking about? What about your girlfriend who keeps nagging you to watch the 5-hour BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, but you’d rather prefer watching Keira Knightley if you had to watch a version at all? Don’t worry; I know how to save you from further situations like these.

Now I’m not here to argue that you must sit down and read Pride and Prejudice (though it really wouldn’t hurt); what I am proposing is you give at least the basic Austen storyline a chance by watching the Lizzie Bennet Diaries on YouTube.

The Lizzie Bennett Diaries takes the characters, concept, and plot of Austen’s much-beloved classic and converts it into modern-day, relevant videos. That’s right – you won’t need to read about how the word engaged actually means busy because the Diaries use updated language to explain the same themes of Pride and Prejudice. In fact, the web series is written in the form of vlogs, where Lizzie reports on the goings-about of her life, just like we’re used to seeing with people like iJustine.

Lizzie can’t help if her sister Lydia jumps in on her vlog to high-five the audience sometimes.

Here are some other perks to watching the Lizzie Bennett Diaries:

1. There are attractive actresses playing the roles of the three sisters, Lizzie, Jane, and Lydia.  Not to mention they are just plain good actresses, too.

2. The videos are short, around five minutes long at maximum, which is way easier time to commit than a whole 5-hour sitting.

3. Like the modern-day language used, references are made to popular culture to help make the series even more relevant.  For example, in episode 45, George Wickham calls himself Batman.  You can’t get much more relevant than that.

4. If you’re on Twitter, the show creators have set up Twitter accounts for the characters, who regularly interact with each other outside of the show to make the experience more realistic.  Yes, you can tweet to Lizzie if you want to.

5. And as already mentioned, of course, you’ll have gained knowledge so you can get your female friends and family off your back.

Sure, there is some drama involved because when it’s a young woman’s vlog based on Austen it’s pretty hard to leave out her hatred of Mr. Darcy or her little sister’s boisterous, sometimes obnoxious, party attitude. However, each show does tend to cover only what is necessary to follow the storyline, and each episode tends to leave you with a “what will happen next?” moment.

Now it’s time for you to go watch the Lizzie Bennett Diaries instead of just reading about them. The worst that can happen is that you feel that you wasted five minutes of your life. The best that can happen is that you can get some personal satisfaction knowing you can now beguile women with your Austen smarts (or, like I said before, just get them off your back).