Geeky ‘Pinterest’ Finds…

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.

Mass Effect Trilogy Trailer

Bioware and Electronic Arts have come together once again to release the epic Mass Effect series, collected as a trilogy. For those who missed it the first time, get the full experience from beginning to end and learn what the hype has been about for the last 5 years.

As one of the biggest fans of the sci-fi epic that is Mass Effect, I personally have very mixed emotions about this. I’m one of the ones who’s been invested in the game since 2007 and held my breath, carrying my character – and every painful decision, sacrifice, and choice through each edition of the game. I’m one of the ones who managed to keep his crew alive ALL through the first two and in the third only lost characters because it was truly for the greater good (I refuse to spoil any of it, even now). And now, the collected edition is here, and it is ALMOST ENOUGH to make me go through it all again and relive the ridiculousness and insanity and pure awesome that was Mass Effect.

If you haven’t gone through the Mass Effect experience and you’re any kind of a fan of science fiction or phenomenal storytelling, you owe it to yourself to get the FULL experience, from beginning to end, and really learn just how invested you can be in that universe of Mass Effect. And, don’t let the people who’ve lost their minds over the endings spoil it for you, the experience alone is FAR worth the trip.

Mass Effect Trilogy is due November 6, 2012.

Bryan Singer To Direct ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’, Nobody Is Really Surprised

When news broke that Matthew Vaughn was stepping back as director of X-Men: Days of Future Past, fans were a little surprised. The much-anticipated sequel to X-Men: First Class gained a ton of hype as soon as the title was announced, and Vaughn was expected to direct, off of a screenplay he worked on. With the announcement that he was off the project, but still on board as producer most thoughts turned to Bryan Singer taking over as director.

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Arrow: 1.04- “An Innocent Man”

If last week showed us nothing else, it established that the people behind Arrow have zero issue with cliff hangers. Boy, what a cliffhanger it was. Granted it wasn’t anything like “who shot JR?” but for a third episode of a first season? It was pretty solid.

Thankfully they started off this week right where they left off and we see Diggle wake up with an awesome “wtf just happened here?” look on his face. WTF indeed John. I really did like how instead of hearing Oliver’s speech and immediately jumping up asking “golly gee willikers Oliver, what hijinks will we find ourselves in next?!?” he just rolls his eyes and asks when Oliver took archer classes. Way to go John, I approve of your reaction.

I also approve of this:

Arrow An Innocent Man

It’s a mosaic of Oliver’s face made up of pictures of scenes from the episode. Pretty cool. Click here for their site, they have quite a few of them.

Arrow An Innocent Man
You tell him Oliver!

Back to it! If Yao Fei continues to do things like the classic “you don’t understand me but maybe if I say it louder and with more force that might help”, I will be forced to love him forever. The look on his face the last time he said whatever word it was, made me laugh like a madwoman. Then to find out he speaks English! Ah, that was just perfect.

This episode didn’t have a bad guy from the DC Universe but rather someone from “the book”. This week’s selection is named Jason Brodeur and he is a CEO who is the least prepared for anything bad to happen that I’ve ever seen. Seriously, if you own a big company, especially one that deals in chemicals, wouldn’t you have an “I’m dumping toxic waste and now that waste is hitting the fan” contingency plan? One that doesn’t involve killing the whistle-blower and blaming it on the husband? He also seemed as if he was completely caught off guard when Arrow came after him. Hmmm…. for three weeks now (in our world at least, I don’t know that they’ve given us a timeline on the Arrow world) there’s been a vigilante hunting down corrupt and evil business men and you are surprised he showed up for you? Come on now.

Speaking of people who aren’t prepared for the consequences to their own actions, Oliver, you need to work on your secret superhero-ness. Mainly the secret part. Have you not watched Batman ever? The Batcave is hidden for a reason.  That reason is hello! you don’t want anyone to know you are Arrow! Keep hiding your shit in the stairwell where there are cameras and you aren’t going to remain a secret for long. Or worse yet, you could get your ass arrested. I’m so disappointed in you. You may have learned to speak Russian and “Chinese” and how to use a bow and arrow but apparently Yao Fei failed in passing along “Superhero 101”.

Arrow An Innocent Man

I do however, have to commend the use of the voice changer. Very heads-up play. We all know that the voice would have given it away big time. It’s not like she COULDN’T SEE YOUR FACE FROM TEN FEET AWAY! I was unaware of the fact that apparently Laurel suffers from night blindness. Either that or that smeared on mask is doing an incredible job. There are a lot of things I’m willing to go fourth wall on but come on, this was a bit ridiculous.

Last week my ire was all for Thea, this week it’s Laurel. In addition to the aforementioned inability to recognize her former fiance when he’s standing right next to her, she had quite a few moments where I just couldn’t do anything but shake my head. On one hand, it’s cute that she went to the house to check on Oliver after the shooting but come on, you guys aren’t together anymore so why don’t we go ahead and skip the sanctimonious speeches. I understand it was needed to show the difference in her reaction to Oliver vs. Arrow but still, blech. Then you would think a cop’s kid would be a little bit more wary of an apartment that has no power. You would also think that maybe she wouldn’t keep her gun in an unlocked drawer! Gun safety, gun safety!!

Laurel Lance Arrow An Innocent Man

Last I checked, Laurel is a lawyer in the legal aid office. I’m not up to date on my “what lawyers do what” but I daresay there aren’t many that go from suing a big time business owner to a class action suit against the manufacturer of smoke alarms to death penalty cases. Laurel better become the Black Canary soon because she’s getting on my nerves. At least we didn’t have to deal with “good” Merlyn this week.

Best parts of the episode? Three names; Walter, Felicity, and Digg.

Oh, Walter you smart, smart man. I knew the minute you mentioned that 2.6 million that something was fishy with Moira and so did you. Now you just need to figure out what the deal with that shipwreck is. Why would Moira keep that a secret? Same reason she had Oliver beat up, obviously, but now there are more layers that need to be investigated. Oooohhh, the intrigue! Not to mention, why did she call it Tempest? Is this incredibly handsome “Well Dressed Man” perhaps the Tempest/aka Garth? But if that’s the case then Garth would have gone bad, and what if Moira and the beautiful man aren’t necessarily bad guys? What if they are just misunderstood? All I know is, I can’t wait to find out.

Arrow An Innocent Man

If I were running the show I’d dump Thea and Laurel and just have the show be all Felicity, all the time. She is just so freaking adorable! I mean seriously, she has one scene in the entire episode and she just steals it outright. However, when she first showed up all I could think was “how on earth did this chick from IT just waltz into the CEO’s office without the slightest of problems?”, but thankfully she mentioned Walter calling her up to his office. Whew, that would have bothered me for awhile. I tend to worry about really important things like that.

Arrow An Innocent Man Felicity Smoak

 No surprise, best parts of the episode belong to John Diggle. First he basically told Oliver to shove his head up his ass because there was no way he was going to be a  criminal. Then he quit! Of course that was inevitable but it did allow some comic relief with his replacement. Dude was a bit of an idiot, but at least he had a “firm grip”. When he returned to Big Belly Burgers the “did Deadshot kill John’s brother?” question was answered. Apparently he did, which is good to know. This of course was the push John needed to go ahead and join Oliver. I do wonder though, is he Alfred? He did say he wasn’t a sidekick so is he someone they just added to the Green Arrow world or is he loosely based on someone else? There is no way he can be Speedy. I mean he can, but I won’t be happy about it. Lord knows the writers want to keep me happy!

Arrow An Innocent ManIf John’s sister-in-law had an issue with him doing personal security I can only imagine how less than thrilled she’s going to be with “superhero’s sidekick but not a sidekick sidekick” job he’s got now. I wonder if it comes with dental.

Minus the Laurel annoyances, I really loved this episode. I think it’s a little ballsy how fast they are moving the plot along but I like it. They could have drug out the “Ollie ditches his bodyguard everyday” schtick for at least a couple more episodes but at least this way we’ll get to see more of Diggle than just his reaction to being given the slip.

There wasn’t a whole lot of references to the DC Universe in this episode. Well there might have been but I only caught a few. If you follow the Flash then you know about Iron Heights Penitentiary. Apparently the criminals housed there are so dumb they can’t figure out that if you walk in a single file or even in pairs everyone will fit through the door. They looked like a bunch of doofuses piled up in the doorway. Then of course there was the “10:15 to Bludhaven”. Everyone knows about Bludhaven. It does beg the question, if Bludhaven is just a train ride away then maybe Nightwing will be coming to Starling City? Oh yes please!

I’m fairly certain it has nothing to do with DC Universe but I did catch one of the names on the list. None other than Charles Davenport. Hmmm, yes that is a man that perhaps the Arrow should pay a visit. Yikes.

Episode 5/”Damaged” airs on November 7th.

*I’m aware that I promised a shirtless Oliver Queen picture each week but sadly there just wasn’t any shirtless scenes this week. The closest we got was pensive Oliver.

Arrow An Innocent Man
If he were to ever change his mind there would be an obscene number of people screaming

Arrow An Innocent Man

Until next time Arrow fans!

Wizard World: 2012 Comic Convention, Austin TX

Over this past weekend, the Wizard World Comic Con made its latest stop in Austin, Texas. The convention attracted thousands of comic book, movie, and TV lovers from all over Texas, who flocked to the Austin Convention Center to be a part of Wizard World’s fantastic event. I was lucky enough to be a part of all of the madness, and see some great costumes, celebrities, and comic book/movie related merchandise.

Although Friday convention goers were mostly comprised of fans looking to shop around at stations set up by local vendors, the Saturday crowd, for the most part, were people looking for autographs and pictures with their favorite TV and Movie personalities. Among the guests on Saturday were: Michael Rooker, Norman Reedus, CM Punk, Lou Ferrigno, Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino, and Patrick Stewart. Though I probably shouldn’t have been, I was absolutely amazed at how many Trekkies showed up. It was overwhelming how many people weren’t there for the comic related attractions, but for the meet and greet and panel with the Star Trek cast.

As I said earlier, Friday seemed to draw more of the comic book crowd, as local vendors were already set up, and the TV personalities hadn’t come yet. Perhaps the two biggest comic artists that showed up were Neal Adams (Batman, X-Men), and Will Conrad (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, X-Men). Both were there gladly talking with fans, and signing copies and original prints that were displayed at their section of the floor. I was lucky enough to have Neal Adams sign a print for me, and talk with him for a brief moment. During our conversation he told me that he is currently working on the next edition of The First X-Men.

I have to vent about something, and that is the fact that some stores still set up shop at comic cons not willing to bargain with costumers. To me it is ridiculous for stores to show up to a comic convention with all of their merchandise set up and when somebody wants to purchase items in bulk, they cross their arms and say, “It’s priced as marked.” I understand that in some cases, the marked price is as low as you can go. However, when a vendor says the same thing to every costumer, on every piece of merchandise, and their prices aren’t even marked down at all, I think that’s garbage.

Something that surprised me was the lack of horror movie related merchandise. Not only was it advertised on the convention website that there would be horror merchandise, but being as close to Halloween as the convention was, I figured that the inclusion of it would be a given. Never-the-less, horror movie and TV merchandise was kept to a bare minimum, which in the end was completely over-shadowed by the excess of everything else. There was an over-abundance of comic related shirts, action figures, and books, which was the main draw for most convention goers anyway.

One thing that you can always count on at a comic convention, no matter what time of the year, is that you’re going to see costumes. This weekend’s comic con being so close to Halloween was no exception, as hundreds of people came in dressed as characters from their favorite comic books, movies, and TV shows. Although most costumes were either related to Batman or Star Trek, a few comic fans creatively strayed from the path by showing up in some off the wall apparel (IE: the Terrence and Phillip pic above).

Overall Wizard World put on an amazing comic convention in Austin. The amount of different ground they covered from local vendors, artists, and various celebrities was extremely vast. Dates have already been posted for some of the Wizard World Conventions for 2013, and they will be at various locations throughout the U.S. If you find yourself anywhere near the convention sites within the next year, be sure to check it out all the great attractions that Wizard World has to offer.

One of the greatest attractions at the convention!!

DVD Catastrophe – Photoshop Abuse

Now I don’t like to talk about depressing things, but something has been bothering me for some time. I feel it is time to talk about it, right here, right now. It is something we all know about, but are not quite sure when it raised its ugly head. It is something that invades our everyday life. It is the horror of Photoshop, the tool to make stars look even prettier.

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Conveyors of Common Sense…

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