HAPPY "ASYLUM OF THE DALEKS" DAY!!

Hi All!


I'm sure you're all aware of the fiasco that was movietickets.com. It crashed like the Titanic into the TARDIS the moment BBC America tweeted that Doctor Who series 7 NYC premiere tickets were for sale.

However, I was one of the lucky few to purchase tickets to the event held on August 25th at the Ziegfeld Theatre in midtown Manhattan!! Tickets were 11 cents each in honor of the 11th Doctor, but of course, movietickets.com included a $1 fee for each ticket, so best $2.22 I've ever spent? Yurp.

I picked up my tickets a day early, because I knew it would be a madhouse the day of the screening.

Bruce Banner green nail polish, chipping away in excitement. Batman is jealous of my tix!

Totes pumped!!

Smart move really, because the line outside the theatre was reDONK when I got there the next day. Of course, I had to dress first.

Unlike a good 40% of the crowd, I didn't dress as the Doctor or Amy. Nope, I kept it simple. Not too fanatic. Just a Dalek t-shirt, some bow tie earrings, and a pair of suspenders. Low key, right? Right??

Anyway, I didn't take a ton of photos at the actual event because 1) I didn't want to miss anything and 2) the lighting in the theatre before and after the screening was not optimal for pic snapping and 3) obviously BBC America was taking better photos throughout, and we all know anything related to Doctor Who makes it onto the Internet pretty quickly.

Anyway, there were a couple of BBC America trailers before the episode started up, including one for The Spies of Warsaw, starring David Tennant, so you can imagine how the crowd reacted every time his face popped onto the screen.

Crowd: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! (But louder)

The episode was great. It's amazing thinking about how the Doctor Who budget has increased over the decades. This episode looks like a movie. It's beautiful, and I can't wait to see it again and to watch all of series 7!!

Anyway, here are some of my non-spoilery highlights. REPEAT THERE ARE NO SPOILERS! :)

1. The poster outside the Ziegfeld was great and made me feel like I was at some massive, amazing event. Which I was. :)

Photo from BBC America

2. Matt Smith wore polka dotted, tall socks that showed because he'd rolled his trouser legs up. I'm assuming he rolled them up specifically to show his amazing socks.

3. Chris Hardwick practically begged for Matt's endorsement for him to play the 12th Doctor. It was kind of adorable, because everyone in the audience wanted the same thing for themselves. Ultimately, I believe, Matt's vote went to another excellent choice. You should watch the Q&A. I don't think any possible female Doctors were mentioned. It is a point of contention among so many nerds.

4. We saw teasers for the next several episodes, and I am sooooooo excited to see the TARDIS in New York City in the upcoming "The Angels Take Manhattan"!!!!!!!!!

5. During the Q & A, an audience member said that he was making a Doctor Who musical for YouTube. I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for that.

Photo from BBC America

6. Karen's dress.

7. Matt and Karen arrived in not one, but TWO Deloreans. I'm pretty sure you have to pull those up from the bottom of the Atlantic ocean. Although, these two had New Jersey plates...

8. Before the screening started, the lights were dimmed and hundreds of blue and green Sonic Screwdrivers were lifted into the air and waved about much like Zippos at 1980's rock concerts.

9. I've never seen so many fezzes in one place before, and I've been to a Shriner's parade. Just saying.

10. The fact that, because I picked up my tickets early, I got to skip the enormous ticket line and waltz right into the movie theatre like an effing star!

11. Feeling British for an evening. So much BBC. So much Doctor Who. So much awesome.

12. Karen chewed gum during the Q&A. Not sure how I feel about it, but I noticed, so I thought I'd share. Whovians are weird for details.

13. Every time something cool happened in the episode, everyone cheered. Particularly for Rory's slide. That's not a spoiler, because you have no idea what it means. But you will. ;)

14. Also before the screening started, someone started the audience clapping out the four pulse drum lick that the Master hates so thoroughly.

15. Not being the nerdiest person in the room. By a long shot.

16. Just knowing I was in the same room as THE DOCTOR!!!

17. Before the Q&A kicked off, Matt Smith asked for a show of hands for who thought putting spoilers online was a bad idea. Every hand in the theatre went into the air.

18. Someone asked Karen and Matt what Shakespearean play they would most like to do together. They had one picked already, and Karen said, "Macbeth." However, being an actor, she immediately freaked out about having said "Macbeth" in a theatre, so she turned around 3 times, ran to an exit, and ran back. Technically, you're supposed to leave the theatre completely, but I think her theatre karma will be just fine.

19. Matt and Karen both gushed about how great filming and being in New York is. Rightly so.

20. Daleks. Lots and lots and lots and lots of Daleks.

21. I saw Doctor Who tattoos!

22. Matt and Karen both agreed that the fans in the US are more involved and intense than the ones in the UK. Seems pretty obvious, I think, but it was cool to hear the cast say it.

23. All the "Top 11" lists that played before the screening. Little clips of things like "Top 11 gadgets," "Top 11 bad guys," etc. Pretty fun looking back at all the doctors enemies and toys and friends and destinations.

24. Bow ties everywhere. Regardless of gender. Because bow ties are cool.

Photo from BBC America

25. The amazing community of Whovians around the world and right here in NYC!

Few more tidbits, I recommend checking out the fun, short "Pond Life" series here before watching the episode tonight!

Also, the full Q&A will be up on the Nerdist Channel later today!

OMG this photo!

Actual Dorkgasm

Geeky Crafting

Bonnie Burton would be proud, y'all. Though, I'm guessing Ardian Syaf might be a little pissed about me cutting up issue #4 of the New 52 Batgirl.

 But check out my shooz!!!

With a little help from this:

They went from this:

To this:

Rest assured that I will be rocking the hell out of these as often as humanly possible.

Also, please note that the bubbles in the last image have been tidied up. My Batgirl stilettos are ready to fight crime. 

All you wanna do is ride around Sally

Ride, Sally Ride.

Today the world lost an inspiring woman. We all at some point thought, "Yep. I'm going to go into outer space. I could totally pass all the astronaut tests because I'm brilliant and assume I can do a pull up."* Sadly, we aren't really taking into consideration that we don't have Ph.D.s in physics and didn't do a shit ton of research on astrophysics and free electron laser physics in our early 20's [or maybe you did. I bow before you].

However, regardless of our academic records, I'm sure at one point or another we've all been pretty darned impressed by Sally Ride.

Sally Ride, the first American woman to enter space, died today at the age of 61. She'd been fighting pancreatic cancer.

Let's also note that at age 32 she was the youngest American (at the time) to enter space. Let's also note that she was the first lesbian to enter space.

Thanks for all the inspiration, bravery, and brilliance Dr. Ride!

If, somehow or other, you happen to be reading a dorky blog about dorky things, but don't know about Sally Ride's life, please consider watching this very informative video:

*I definitely cannot do a pull up. I've only ever successfully done two in my life, and after doing them I thought, "well, I'm strong enough to do pull ups now. No need to continue exercising."

Fan art makes me smile with my [nerdy] heart

Today I saw Doctor Who fan art that looked like me. My head exploded into a bajillion happy pieces, of course. [just like what would happen if the TARDIS ever exploded, but I'm not saying that it ever has or will - TIME TRAVEL!!!!!!]

Anyway, in case you're wondering (duh), Gladys drew these totally SQUEEEEE-worthy Doctors as ladies, and Five looks a lot like yours truly, making me freak out with giddy geek joy. It's messy.

SEE??

Obviously, this lead me down the nerd fan art road, and all roads lead to Rome, but I couldn't find fan art for the BBC/HBO series ROME. However, I did find this nifty drawing of Rory as a Roman, probs chasing the Pandorica or some such thing.

Below are my favorite finds of the day. Most are Whovian, but there are a couple other goodies. I gathered them over a 24 hour period and didn't think I'd be blogging about them at the start, so I wasn't keeping track of sources. As I kept seeing more and more goodies, I knew I'd want to share them. If the art is yours and you'd like a link back to your site, please feel free to message me or leave a comment.

Veronica Mars A5G5RGY

So I'm a decade late, but I just started watching Veronica Mars. While it's all good murdery fun so far one weird thing I noticed tonight was that in the opening credits the notebook doodles under Ms. Dent feature a car with California plates that read "A5G5RGY". Now that looks like a pretty legit license plate right? Nothing like a good old ASSORGY on the back of your car eh? Oops. I mean A5G5RGY. Get your minds out of the gutter, damnit!

A5G5RGY

I knew I'd seen this before and if you were a wee lad or lass on the internets a decade ago you probably have too. Maybe Sydney Tamiia Poitier was absent when the producers were handing out opening credit doodles because she ended up getting a nod to the famous Floridian ASSORGY plate instead of mayhaps a more appropriate sketch of a keyboard or pencil. Just the way the booty bounces I guess.

WARNING - Cover your child's ears

Do you know of Fascinating Aïda?

No??

You're in for a treat. Fascinating Aïda is a British comedy cabaret act that is more than a little dirty. My new favorite number is below.

They been tossing their lewd humor around Europe since the 1980's. Learn more about them here, but really, just watch all of these and then sing the songs softly to yourself while standing in line at the grocery store.

This requires sound

oh the drama.

Scifi Why: Starfleet Uniforms

Why are Starfleet uniforms so tight? I posit that it’s to cultivate an atmosphere of trust and openness towards others, primarily those species that have not made contact with Starfleet yet. I started thinking about this yesterday after reading this NYTimes article about Woolrich, an American clothing company that has tailored a new line of chinos specifically for the purpose of carrying concealed weapons. I guess I’m just more comfortable seeing a phaser or gun out in the open, dangling from someone’s belt, than being taken by surprise and shot at when I start screaming at the guy who just cut me off in the bike lane.

Anyhow, those uniforms couldn’t have been an easy thing for the cast of TNG to put up with. Patrick Stewart has gone as far as saying that they were on their way to causing him permanent back and neck damage! Ouch! Not to mention the embarrassment they must have inflicted upon the cast as some of them aged from strapping taut-bodied 30 somethings to less-than-in-shape, slightly-more-round-than-they-used-to-be 40 somethings. OK fine. It was really just Jonathan Frakes and his Ding Dong addiction.


And then there’s poor Brent Spiner playing the android Data. He must have felt a ton of pressure to appear ageless throughout the seven year run of the show. Good on ya Starfleet for probably promoting unhealthy body image issues for the entire cast, all for the sake of garnering trust with unknown entities. The future is hard. Let’s go shopping.

**P.S. to my wife: “sexy star trek costume” is totally in my search history for research purposes. Ex astris, scientia!

A little poll

Happy Easter

He is risen! And hopefully I is, too.

Sorry for the long absence. Let's not get into it. Let's just talk about zombies.

Easter is the day when we celebrate the rise of the Second Zombie! Now I know what a lot of you are thinking: "Jesus was the first zombie!"

WRONG! Don't forget miracle of miracles - Lazarus! Zombie Numero Uno!

And since he is so sorely over-looked year after year (the poor guy doesn't get his own holiday, nor is his story ever told from his perspective in any of the books of the bible), I thought, "let's celebrate Lazarus! What was he like? What did he want?  What happened to him?"

Let's imagine his story from his P.O.V., shall we?

****

Dude, feeling totes sick. Like, gonna die any second now sick. I just barfed and sharted at the same time. This is bad. Real bad. Blood in my urine bad.

...

I know! Jesus will help me! He can't be far off, right? I mean, I live in Bethany and he's in Jerusalem and that's not so far. I'll send my sisters Mary and Martha to get him, he'll show up, I'll be fine. Phew. Feeling better already.

...

K. I know it probably took them a little while to get to Jerusalem, but where ARE they? Mary? Martha? Jesus? I think I have a fever.

...

Mary and Martha are back. No Jesus. Apparently he had "some shit to deal with." WTF? I'm dying!

...

Well, I'm dead. Sucks.

....

Aaaaand now I'm buried. At least I'm not sharting uncontrollably any more.

....

I think the rock in front of tomb just moved. It matters not as I am still, like, totes dead.

...

Whoa. Jesus just called to me. Like for realsies. Just hollered, "yo Lazarus, get out here." I know I'm dead and all, but I feel oddly compelled to get up and just.... Holy cats, I'm standing up. I'm walking! I can see Jesus! And Mary! And Martha!

And all I wanna do is eat their brains. BRAINSSSSSSSSSSSS!

****

A pretty compelling tale, right? And in honor of Lazarus the first zombie, I shall now eat candy brains and reflect on the Book of John, Chapters 11 and 12. Happy Easter!

Sidenote: enjoy this infographic. Faith comes from understanding. :)

Cat Fights Dog With Lightsaber

Obviously the cat has the red, Sith lightsaber

Space and back

Watch this now!

Darth Vader on a Unicycle Wearing a Kilt and Playing the Bagpipes

Darth Vader on a unicycle wearing a kilt and playing the bagpipes. We'll give you one guess as to what city this happened in...

iPhone

Oh hello. Be dazzled and amazed as I post from an iPhone!

Robot Quadrotors Perform James Bond Theme

Robot Quadrotors Perform James Bond Theme. Doomed I tell you, doomed.

They won't be so cute when they are swarming around your carcass harvesting brains for the first prototype Cybermen.

Haterade: Fictional Racial Slurs

Finally got around to watching Gran Torino this weekend. Turns out Clint Eastwood is the ultra-violent racist grandfather I never wanted or had. Anyway, he spewed so many ethnophaulisms I needed the help of The Racial Slur Database to fully comprehend the movie. Which got me thinking about scifi/fantasy. (Well fine, when am I not?) But this time it was mostly about the fictional words and contexts authors create to express racism in their universes. Here's a list of some I think are interesting.

For expressing racism against robots:

• Skin Job - Blade Runner (1982), Battlestar Galactica (2004)
• Toaster - Battlestar Galactica (1978, 2004)
• Outmodes - Robots (2005)

For expressing racism against the undead:

• Suckheads - Blade (1998)
• Fanger - True Blood (2008)

For expressing racism against genetically modified/different organisms:

• Windup - The Windup Girl (2009)
• Heechy Keechy - The Windup Girl (2009)
• Mutie - X-Men
• Mutts, Muttation - The Hunger Games (2008)

For expressing racism against aliens:

• Prawn - District 9 (2009)
• Buggers - Ender's Game (1985)
• Spoonhead - for Cardassians in Star Trek: TNG

For expressing racism against half-wizards, half-muggle people:

• Mudblood - Harry Potter

For expressing racism against humans:

• Meatbags - Bender in Futurama  (1999)
• Fleshy Ones - Nextwave (2006)
• Milksucker - Men in Black (1997)

For expressing racism against cartoons:

• Toon - Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988)

Are there any universes out there that non-homogenous and free from racism? Cause that would be cool.  Any interesting ones I missed above? Leave some haterade in the comments. I always thought when people called me a pizza bagel it was a compliment.

How Much Would the Death Star Cost to Build?

How much would the Death Star cost to build? Eleventy billion dollars? Close.

Happy Presidents' Day

Watch this cool/creepy video of all the POTUSes morphing from one to the other.

Can we all just agree now that Franklin Pierce was the hottest? Sorry, JFK, but dude looks like Jon Hamm!

14th President

Don Draper

Hmmm. Don Draper for President?

Inspector Spacetime

My fellow dorks, there comes a time in the life of dorks when we must band together to do what is right in our dorky world, when we must stand up and support our fellow dorks, and when we must throw money at the internet in order to make awesome crawl out of the womb of brain thoughts.

That time is now!

Rise up, my friends! And throw your money at the internet! Inspector Spacetime needs you!!

Travis Richey has promised that if he can raise the funds from fans, he will make a multi-episode web-series of Inspector Spacetime, the Doctor Who homage from Community. Richey has experience as an independent web series producer, and he also plays Inspector Spacetime on Community. It's a thousand (okay, three) nerdy things coming together at once! Help out by giving to his Kickstarter campaign.

Cease. And also, desist

Hi,

I know a lot of you come here looking for the bacon post. How do I know? Google analytics + that's the only post I put on reddit.com/baconswarm

Well, you've noticed it's not here. It's gone. There is no bacon.

I know. My heart aches, too. I mean, bacon! We all love bacon! It's made of bacon! And it tastes like awesomeness.

Here's the thing. Couple months ago, Google (they run Blogger, if you didn't know) took down the bacon post because they'd received a Cease and Desist. Crummy thing is, I don't know who sent it or what they were upset about, so I can't even edit the post to make everyone happy and smiley again. My guess is either Kevin Bacon's people are hella busy making sure no one ever associates his name with a delicious food (good luck with that one, fellas) or the clip from Wife Swap made someone grumpy.

BUT I DON'T KNOW!!!

It could just be that someone else is claiming that they had thought number 7 on my top ten reasons I love bacon list before I had thought number 7.

If I find out what the issue is, I will fix it with Time Lord speed and repost the bacon post, but until then, I just want everyone to rest assured. I still love bacon. And I always will.

xo,
The Dorktess

Doctor Who Bingo

I'm dying of bronchitis in NYC. The only way to get better is to visit the Doctor.

Thank goodness for Doctor Who bingo!

Please leave suggestions for additional bingo cards in the comments!

edit: here are so many more of these!

Just a thought, Doctor

Based on all your adventures I've seen so far, I think you always look cool in your own way, and I do love Converse sneakers, but shouldn't you be wearing waterproof shoes most of the time?

Piggyback Bandit

I don't usually read the sports page, but every now and then you find one of these gems.

Did you know there's a big, bad man who goes from high school to high school to cheer at basketball games? Did you know that after a team wins and they all cheer together, he always asks someone for a..

a....

a PIGGYBACK RIDE!?!?


Only, apparently, one time he didn't even ask! He just threw himself on some high school basketball player's back and TOOK a piggyback ride.

1. For some reason this is news.
2. Just go read the article on ESP effin' N.com. The man's even called the "Piggyback Bandit."

I die.

Valentines Day Love Song: Positronic Pimp

You do know the Futuristic Sex Robotz, don't you? Perhaps most famous for their "Snakes on a Plane" song. But this one is better.

Tatooine Tuesday

How'd we miss this??

Last September a planet was discovered. Big whoop, right? RIGHT! because it's the first planet that has been discovered that orbits two (count 'em! Two!) suns!!!

NASA scientists found it using the cool as f**k Kepler space telescope in the Kepler-16 System about 200 light years away.

I know what you're all thinking. If Tatooine really exists.......... does Han really exist?

And since I like you, you get to watch this, too.

Mopey Monday: Forlorn Furniture

Ever wished your household was as sad and miserable as you are?

Wish no longer, you pathetic putz! Two MFA design students at Parsons have hacked some random household goods to make the mopey! Using the darkest side of artificial intelligence, the pair of students have made a lamp that fades out in exhaustion and a chair that feels so meaningless and adrift if you're not sitting in it, that it will start to wander aimlessly around your apartment.

The chair sounds super sad, but the lamp idea I kinda like, as I hate having to put in the effort to turn off my lamps after I lit around in their light all day. I'm not really joking. Turning off lamps is the worst.

Check out the forlorn furnishings below.

Burcum Turkmen and Katie Koepfinger's "Emoti-bots" from Michelle Calabro on Vimeo.

Wildlife Control: Analog or Digital

Spanning Brooklyn to San Fran in some sort of The Postal Service like collaboration, the band Wildlife Control has released a great pixel art style video for their song "Analog or Digital". It features robots, dinosaurs and aliens so what are you waiting for?

This Ape is Smarter Than You

This ape is smarter than you:

Don't believe me? Try it yourself.

Tattoos-day: Five Worst Batman

Well I was going to start off the first official Tattoos-day with some badass Hunger Games tats but some other site already beat me to it. Anyway, here's the clear winner over there. Instead let's check out the top five not so great Batman tattoos the internet has to offer:

#5. Batman or Superman. Pick one.

#4. Bat Hand. Might get a little awkward during special alone time.

#3. Lego Batman. Great videogame, bad tattoo.

#2. Michael Keaton constipation face Batman.

#1. Alf-Batman? No, really Doodlebug?

Here's a non-tattoo chaser:

THE AVENGERS!

It was worth sitting through all that weird sport thing to get to see the Superbowl commercial for The Avengers!

Can't wait for May!

Puppy Bowl and Dog-related conspiracies

Happy Puppy Bowl Sunday!

This is always a joyous day. I mean, puppies! PUPPIES!!

But of course this got me thinking about various dog-related media that I love. Particularly the 1961 animated Disney film 101 Dalmatians.

This movie always put a smile on my face. I loved that it was set in England, that the dogs had established a barking-across-the-country telegraph system, all those spots, and that the puppies watched TV quiz shows. I cheered for the goodies and hissed at the baddies.

What I didn't do was math.

Let's backtrack. In the film, Pongo and Perdita, a [married] dalmatian couple have 15 puppies! Excessive, but as Pongo's owner Roger reminds us, Pongo is an "old rascal," which I can only assume means he has a high sperm count. At about the same time as the puppies are born, Roger's wife Anita invites her old school friend Cruella De Vil to visit.

Let's just ignore the fact that Anita would no way in hell actually be "old school friends" with Cruella De Vil who is clearly 30 years older than Anita and made of pure oozing hatred. Anita is a very mild-mannered dog lover who fell for a musician. Not the type to be buddies with rich, evil, 60+ year old fur collectors.

IMPORTANT: Since I have become a dog owner myself, I've had the luck to meet many a dalmatian puppy. In case you didn't know, dalmatians are mid-sized to large-ish dogs. Mature ones can weigh more than 55 pounds.



In a scene right after the puppies are born, Cruella calls the newborns "horrid little mongrels" because they have no spots. Roger and Anita laughingly let their nefarious friend know that dalmatians don't show their spots right away, but that the spots become visible over time. They don't give her exact dates, but it's usually 8-10 weeks before the spots are showing. So, at least 2 months.

Anyway, Cruella sends two goons to steal the puppies in the night. The goons take the puppies back to a creepy old house that apparently only has enough electricity to run a TV, but not the overhead lights. At the house are a ton of pet-store-bought puppies. All the puppies are the same size, except for one fat one, who is fatter than the others. Fat. So, the puppies are also, we can assume, fully weaned as pet stores aren't going to sell you a dog you have to bottle-feed. Therefore, even if they all miraculously got their spots early, they're at least 6 weeks old.

Margot Tennenbaum's coat

But let's say these puppies are 8 weeks old, k? An average 8 week old dalmatian puppy weighs around 14 pounds. The average fully grown red fox weighs 10 to 12 pounds.

Who cares about red foxes? Well, apart from PeTA, I do at the moment, because I'm being logical!

It takes about 18 red foxes to make a coat. Red foxes weigh LESS than 8 week old dalmatian puppies.


WHY THE FUCK DOES THIS SICK WOMAN NEED 100 PUPPIES FOR ONE COAT?????????

But the drama doesn't end there. NO!

Because it's not 101 Dalmatians, my dear dorks. It's 116!

In 1997 Tim Whyte wrote this blog post in which he analyzes the film that his child forced him to watch on repeat. When an ugly cat arrives to rescue the puppies, he meets one who tell him that the majority of the puppies were "bought and paid for" from pet stores. This puppy continues on, informing the cat that there are 99 of them.

I know you're thinking 99 plus Pongo and Perdita. 101.

WRONG!

There are 99 puppies from the pet store. The puppy then points to the fifteen stolen puppies wearing collars and watching TV. Puppy lets the cat know that they "never counted them."

Well, Perdita definitely counted them as she shoved them from her womb. There's 15 of them. Plus your 99 pet store puppies. Plus Pongo and Perdita. 116 Dalmatians.

Sadly when Roger counts all the dogs at the end of the film, we're back to 101, which of course means that 15 puppies were not rescued. So Cruella still got her coat.