let your geek run wild
Mario, the plumber who helped build Nintendo, has been a much beloved video game character for many years. In 2001, Mario became the main character of another line of great games, Paper Mario. Here’s a look at the history of Paper Mario, including the latest addition, Paper Mario: Sticker Star, available on Nintendo 3DS and 3DS XL!
This Infographic comes courtesy of Nintendo UK. Paper Mario: Sticker Star is available on Nintendo 3DS and Nintendo 3DS XL
Courtesy of Jeremy Doucette
Summer can be an oppressive season. For all the joy in the long hours of warm weather, sunshine, and outdoor activity, there comes a point when all you want to do is cool off. After two solid months of relentless sun, you may be ready to seek a technological solution to the heat problem. You can only retreat to the air conditioned home and car so often; at some point you need to enjoy the outdoors. Fortunately, there are a lot of great tech gadgets for beating the heat so you can get out and take advantage of the nice weather.
Who doesn’t love a cool treat on a hot day? Surely you would have to be deranged to say no. Indulging in some ice cream in the scorching sun may just give you that extra incentive you need to stay out. What’s more, if you’ve always vacillated over purchasing that home ice cream maker, you finally have a perfectly reasonable reason. There are a lot of compact ice cream makers that won’t take up much kitchen space, can be easily stored, are simple to use, and are cheap. Plus, you get the added benefit of experimenting with your own flavors and finally realizing your lifelong dream of starting an ice cream brand. If nothing else, this is great way to cool down outdoors.
The amazingly refreshing feeling of a cool mist on your skin while you’re baking in the sun is a feeling like no other. Perhaps you indulge in this sensation during a hot afternoon working outside. Perhaps you even go to great lengths to fill spray bottles and carry them with you to keep the mist in close proximity. Well, no longer will you have to enjoy a good mist the manual way. With an automatic mist system you can enjoy a cool, skin soothing mist hands free. These mist systems are portable and can attach to just about anything. If you’re working in the yard, attach the mister to the fence. If you’re lounging in the sun beneath an umbrella, hook it to the umbrella. During the hottest days of the summer where anywhere outside of the air conditioner is a hellish place, a portable automatic mister will keep you cool and comfortable outdoors.
Sometimes the heat can be most oppressive when you’re in the car. If the A/C isn’t enough and your body is still hot and sticky with sweat from the sun’s rays narrowing in on you in the car, you may need a seat cushion cooler. With this seat cooler, you can keep your whole body cool and stay comfortable while driving. This cushion contains air holes throughout the seat and plugs directly into the lighter in the car. The cool air then runs through the cushion, cooling your body as the sun beats down upon you through the window. The cushion also secures to the seat so you don’t have to worry about trying to adjust it as you drive.
This technologically advanced fan was developed by Dyson and is a unique take on a gadget that you didn’t think could get much better. This fan sends a steady stream of uninterrupted air through a crack in the fan’s edge. Most fans use blades to circulate air and the stream is choppy. The Dyson air multiplier fan gives you a cool, strong stream of air to refresh yourself on a hot day. With a fan like this you may even run your A/C less.
By +Ben Vaughn
Ben Vaughn writes on gadgets to beat the summer heat, tips for fixing home plumbing fixtures, and selecting a water softener Utah.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit … Memorize it, kids. It could come in handy. If Lorem ipsum can work as a centuries-old, standard placeholder for text, why not for speech? Consider the awesome applications: political conversations over the holidays; awkward, totally unexpected, sexual advances by a friend; foot-tapping queries about your Internet-browsing history; traffic stops by your local boys in blue. (On second thought, don’t give coppers the Lorem Lip. They don’t seem to have much of a sense of humor these days.) In fact, the mysterious, quietly-omnipresent Lorem ipsum we all know and love has been used as a text placeholder, almost as long as there has been text … almost.
Artwork by Pkwahme
Bored with telling the same stories at every Fourth of July, Thanksgiving and Super Bowl party, ancient Chinese Buddhists living circa 650 C.E. decided it a far better idea to share their holy texts with loved ones via print: enter stage-left, the first movable type, Chinese woodblock. Using rag paper methods learned from the far reaches of the Islamic Empire (Mesopotamia 3,000 B.C.E. being the birthplace of cuneiform handwriting and, eventually, putting all that to paper), these scholarly Buddhists, notably Wong Jei in 886 C.E. who printed a scroll for his parents, believing it to bring them good luck, set about printing many a scroll filled with kindly, Buddhist tenets. These kind ideas were met with mass silencing and murder of the printers by their own government, not to mention the burning of those very nice scrolls.
Fast forward to 1450-55 C.E.. Johann Gutenberg replaced the wood and clay, blocked type (whole pages set vs. individual characters) with metal type and printed the first substantial, commercial book with individual, movable type: The Gutenberg Bible. Some sixty years after that, Martin Luther would use movable type to tell the Catholic Church a thing or two about a thing or two.
On Hallowe’en Night 1517, Luther tacked his Ninety-Five Theses on a church door in Wittenberg, Germany, arguing against the Church’s “sale of indulgences”: basically buying one’s way out of purgatory. Before the Church could say “Hail, Mary!”, scores of Luther-fans, using Gutenberg’s printing press method, helped spread The Ninety-Five Theses all over Europe, much to Catholicism’s dismay.
By the by, there are forty-six surviving copies of original Gutenberg Bibles, most of them resting peacefully in Germany. There are, however, eleven in the United States. If you know how to have fun the right way, including throwing around words like incunabula, and are fortunate enough to live near The Huntington Library, Yale, Harvard, the Library of Congress, Indiana University or any of the other American venues, I suggest you treat yourself to one of mankind’s wonders of ingenuity, before the growing masses of half-wits and jelly beans make the printed book completely obsolete.
Photo: Nils Hamerlinck
Anyhoo, to the point of all this: Lorem ipsum is merely dummy text used until permanent text is put in place. It’s been used for everything from church manuscripts to Civil War-era broadsheets, from Victorian merchant adverts to Vaudevillian playbills, from wedding invitations to websites under construction. Designers and printers have long realized that potential clients and customers will be distracted by actual content when perusing spec media: pamphlets, books, theater bills, advertisements, websites, etc. Lorem ipsum looks just enough like a natural distribution of letters and phrases to fool the brain, without taking focus off the layout. First recorded usage of Lorem ipsum is c. 1500 C.E. when an anonymous printer used it to create a type specimen book. The interesting thing is that whilst it looks like Latin, it also looks like random twaddle. It is, in fact, a combination thereof.
Lorem ipsum actually comes from two sections of Cicero’s De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, or The Extremes of Good and Evil, written in 45 C.E., in Latin. If you’re just geeky enough, and I know you are, you’ll scroll down to see the full, standard Lorem ipsum passage used by printers and designers. You’ll then note one of Cicero’s sections, from whence the passage comes. The letters marked in bold make up the now-standard, fill-in text of Lorem ipsum. It’s like taking bits of text from a Simpsons comic book and creating your own language: Eat my shorts, man! becomes Atmy ort sma! Finally, if you’re still interested, Cicero was translated for us, lovingly, by one H. Rackham of Cambridge, Mass. in 1914. Note his work below, as well.
Looks like a fine wine to me. Sold! Photo: Brett Jordan
Like so much political discourse, Lorem ipsum is simply a Straw Man, or an Aunt Sally, as the Brits call it: superficial, space-filler taken from original ideas and used to create the illusion of words and meaning, until something better comes along. Try the Lorem Lip next time your boss wants to know why you’ve logged so many hours at hamstergrrls.com or your prof asks if this is your own work.
“Well, sir. You see, lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Right? Oh, and also, atmy ort sma!”
If you say it with confidence and add proper gestures and facial expressions, it will take them a few minutes to figure out what’s going on. If that doesn’t work, there’s always Ctrl+Z, kittens!
Abyssinia!
Hannah’s fave places to haunt online? JennyPop.net and amazon.com/author/jenniferdevore
Follow @JennyPopNet #loremipsum #printing #history
For the truly geeky … read on!
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum.
Sed ut perspiciatis unde omnis iste natus error sit voluptatem accusantium doloremque laudantium, totam rem aperiam, eaque ipsa quae ab illo inventore veritatis et quasi architecto beatae vitae dicta sunt explicabo. Nemo enim ipsam voluptatem quia voluptas sit aspernatur aut odit aut fugit, sed quia consequuntur magni dolores eos qui ratione voluptatem sequi nesciunt. Neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit, sed quia non numquam eius modi tempora incidunt ut labore et dolore magnam aliquam quaerat voluptatem. Ut enim ad minima veniam, quis nostrum exercitationem ullam corporis suscipit laboriosam, nisi ut aliquid ex ea commodi consequatur? Quis autem vel eum iure reprehenderit qui in ea voluptate velit esse quam nihil molestiae consequatur, vel illum qui dolorem eum fugiat quo voluptas nulla pariatur?
But I must explain to you how all this mistaken idea of denouncing pleasure and praising pain was born and I will give you a complete account of the system, and expound the actual teachings of the great explorer of the truth, the master-builder of human happiness. No one rejects, dislikes, or avoids pleasure itself, because it is pleasure, but because those who do not know how to pursue pleasure rationally encounter consequences that are extremely painful. Nor again is there anyone who loves or pursues or desires to obtain pain of itself, because it is pain, but because occasionally circumstances occur in which toil and pain can procure him some great pleasure. To take a trivial example, which of us ever undertakes laborious physical exercise, except to obtain some advantage from it? But who has any right to find fault with a man who chooses to enjoy a pleasure that has no annoying consequences, or one who avoids a pain that produces no resultant pleasure?
Category : Entertain Me, Featured, Geek Out, Television
Freddy Jones: With these cameras set up around the house, we’ll be able to watch and record anything that comes after my dad. There’s only one problem; I’m a trap guy. I have absolutely no idea how this stuff works.
Velma Dinkley: Don’t worry. I’ve been stripping dielectric insulation off my coax since before I could walk. Get ready to worship The Velma!
Velma takes one for the gang at DragonCon. Photo: Rob Speed
Just as 21st C. CGI and fantasy SFX finally caught up with Tim Burton’s imagination, 21st C. ghost-hunting gizmos and paranormal paraphernalia finally caught up with the original Geek Girl, Velma Dinkley and her tech needs. Allow Moi, your own Miss Hannah Hart, ghostdame of the Hotel del Coronado to elucidate.
The Mystery Machine keeps on truckin’.
See, kids, before there were tacky, black ops wannabe, caravans of windowless, black Suburbans cruising the countryside at night, there was the Mystery Machine: the epitome of groovy, a rockin’, hippie, aqua-and-orange surfer van carrying four hip, sleuthing friends and their ever-hungry, always scaredy-cat, Great Dane named Scooby-Doo.
Scooby, Shaggy, Freddy, Daphne and Velma have been hitting the road in style, in the Mystery Machine for nearly thirty-five years, meddling in the nefarious affairs of grouchy, greedy locals: these wayward townfolk oft disguised as the supernatural in a variety of form and function. Although Velma Dinkley, short, curvy, turtlenecked, know-it-all, bobbed-brunette, appears the wallflower of the gang, she is the bespectacled brains behind this adventure crew, forever playing second fiddle to the beauteous ginger, Daphne Blake. To boot, like any geek girl in love from afar, her passion for Shaggy goes mostly unrequited, sitting backseat to the shared loves between a boy and his dog: mad sandwich skillz and Vincent van Ghoul flicks.
Interpersonal issues aside, the Hanna-Barbera creation (1969) of Joe Ruby and Ken Spears just finished its eleventh iteration of the family-friendly, spooky, sleuthing series: Scooby-Doo!: Mystery Incorporated (2010-2013). The first incarnation not run first as a Saturday morning kids’ show, this latest series contains a running, arcing mystery involving an antique locket and a Tod Browningesque parrot named Mr. E. The overarching tale knits in and out of fifty-two episodes which originally aired on Cartoon Network in a 2:00p.m., afterschool time slot, over a spotty three-year period. If you missed its original run, S1 is now available via Netflix.
A Warner Bros. Animation, Mystery Inc., shares the same quality as many another WBA production: Pinky & The Brain, Animaniacs and just about any Looney Tunes short. The writers understand adults are watching, too. The genius and longevity of such entities as The Muppets, Disney and Warner Bros. comprehend that vital, full-spectrum hook.
“Grab this! It’s a fairway wood, it’s safe!” Freddy Jones puns as he extends a golf club toward the ceiling to save his dad, Mayor of Crystal Cove, who’s being tossed around the room by a violent poltergeist. A fine example of WBA humour, indeed.
Now, some three decades of understated humour and Witching Hour investigations later, Velma Dinkley has access to an arsenal of high-tech ghost-hunting tools she’s been waiting for and, paired with Freddy’s Traps Illustrated obsession, mystery solving in 2013 could not be easier. An excellent example of this? Scooby-Doo!: Mystery Incorporated, “A Haunting in Crystal Cove” (S1e23).
Although the supernatural inevitably end up just being rubber-masked, servo-driven, CGI-enhanced townfolk, the front-end of any Scooby-Doo endeavor has the best of spirit-hunting intentions, entrenched in the hunt for the unexplained. Whilst Daphne’s smokin’ hot-pink getaway sticks get more screen time than Velma’s digital, detecting devices, you know she has them stashed somewhere and puts them through more tests and trials than a Wired product reviewer.
Clearly, Velma doesn’t schlep all this gear to each and every mystery. We rarely see more than a Smartphone and Coke-bottle glasses on her person. If she did, the Mystery Machine would be packed to the gills, with cables, power sources and monitors alone, rather than housing just Shaggy, Scooby and their various to-go feasts in the back. Still, the instruments and implements appear when necessary. Maybe Velma stores them at the back of her mom’s coffeehouse/bookstore/town museum.
Long before the stars of reality TV’s paranormal invasion were just filthy thoughts in their fathers’ eyes, Scooby-Doo and his groovy gang were criss-crossing the Southern swamps, abandoned theaters, run-down plantation homes, dilapidated boardwalks and rusted-out amusement parks across our great, haunted country. Long before nice guys Grant & Jason of SyFy’s Ghost Hunters, before those thug half-portions Nik, Aaron & Zak of Travel Channel’s Ghost Adventures and before the moody Ryan and Eilfie of A&E’s Paranormal State, there was the affable, hip, fashionable, cheerful Scooby-Doo and the Gang. You won’t find Freddy schlubbing around in jeans and a black t-shirt to meet the Lord of the Manor. (Okay, Shaggy is, well, a bit shaggy; but at least he sports corduroys and is almost always flashing a smile.)
Get ready to worship The Velma! DragonCon Photo: Rob Speed
Even before we were blessed with The X-Files‘ Scully and Mulder, our grunge-era, supernatural sleuths extraordinaire, there was another skeptical but open-minded, saucy, brainy, bespectacled, over-achieving, single, geek girl with a short do and sensible shoes who was so fierce, so confident and so rockin’ she needed only one name: Velma. Rock on, Velma. (BTW, kids, if you see any new episodes with the Mystery Machine crossing the bridge onto Coronado, give me a heads-up! Lucy and I might need to hit the road!)
Abyssinia, kids!
Hannah’s fave places to haunt online? JennyPop.net and amazon.com/author/jenniferdevore
Follow @JennyPopNet #scoobydoo #velma #ghosthunting #geekgirls
Good To Be A Gamer is Available on iTunes!
http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/good-to-be-a-gamer/id476489256
Good To Be A Gamer RSS Feed!
http://goodtobeagamer.libsyn.com/rss
Good To Be A Gamer is Now Available on Stitcher!
http://stitcher.com/s?eid=21476988&refid=stpr
That’s Entertainment – locations in Worcester, MA & Fitchburg, MA
http://www.thatse.com
http://www.facebook.com/ThatsE
If you have difficulties with the player, click the link below for the direct download:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/goodtobeagamer/GTBAGamer_05202013.mp3
NEWS
Nintendo is not going to host a big press event at E3 2013 [Nintendo 3DS Blog]
http://nintendo3dsblog.com/nintendo-is-not-going-to-host-a-big-press-conference-at-e3-2013/
2K Games won’t have a booth at E3 2013 [2K Community Blog]
http://www.2kgames.com/blog/2k-this-spring
Bethesda Opens a Play Testing Lab in Dallas, TX [Bethesda Blog]
http://www.bethblog.com/2013/05/02/play-testers-wanted/
ITEMS OF INTEREST
PBS Idea Channel
http://www.youtube.com/user/pbsideachannel
CONTACT
Questions? Comments? We want to hear from you! Feel free to post a comment on the podcast entry at http://www.goodtobeageek.com, or email us at gamer@goodtobeageek.com. You can also email David at dlucier[at]goodtobeageek.com, email Jessa at jphillips[at]goodtobeageek.com.
Special thanks to Sterling for the use of his music in the podcast. Be sure to check out his Magnatune profile page to learn more about him and discover more of his music.
Good To Be A Gamer is sponsored by Good To Be A Geek – let your geek run wild! Opinions expressed on Good To Be A Gamer are those of the hosts and/or guests and do not necessarily represent those of Good To Be A Geek.
Category : Featured, Storm of Words
The HBO television series, Game of Thrones, has returned with Season 3. Also returning is Storm of Words, a Game of Thrones podcast! We’re back every week to discuss the latest episodes of the series and delve into the world George R.R. Martin created through his novels.
Thomas & Jennifer Jordan (IAmThink.com) and Alexander McGrath embark on a journey beyond the wall to breakdown the episode, “The Climb.” This episode is spoiler-free; however, there is some discussion about how the series deviates from the novels.
The primary focus of the show is the tv series, so if you haven’t read the books you can still enjoy the podcast. If you have read the novels, just think of it as bonus content 
If you experience difficulty using the player above, click the link below for the direct download:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/stormofwords/sow_S3E6.mp3
CONTACT
Questions? Comments? We want to hear from you! Feel free to post a comment below or email us at podcasts[at]goodtobeageek.com.
Special thanks to Walid Feghali for the use of his music in the podcast. Be sure to check out his Sound Cloud profile page at http://soundcloud.com/walidfeghali to learn more about him and discover more of his music.
All audio clips for Game of Thrones are provided courtesy of HBO, http://www.hbo.com
Storm of Words is sponsored by Good To Be A Geek – let your geek run wild! Storm of Words is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
Category : Entertain Me, Featured, Movies, Reviews, Television
Michael: It’s just hard to accept that it’s really come to begging.
George: Sometimes, it’s the only way to stay in the game.
Narrator (Ron Howard): Please, tell your friends about this show!
Ron Howard, we did. We looked the other way, for a just a second, and they snatched Arrested Development from our sticky, chocolate-covered banana hands with swift and heartless indifference. So, we told on the offenders. We told our parents, our teachers, our friends, our families, our congressmen and our pets. We wrote, emailed, blogged, Tweeted, Facebooked and clipped up YouTube homages in the multi-millions of copyright infringement violations. Apparently, it all worked.
May 26th at 12:01a.m. PST, (That’s O.C.-time, kids.) hordes of rabid Bluth devotees will commence their Memorial Day celebrations with Trader Joe’s frozen bananas, Grey Goose Vanilla and O.J. hiballs, Gangytinis and the words that started it all … And that’s why you always leave a note!
“There’s always money in the banana stand.” Original: Park Ave, Balboa Is., Newport Bch, CA
After Fox cancelled Arrested Development, similar to their unwise, initial cancellation of Family Guy, executive producer Mitchell Hurwitz explained he was not interested in Showtime’s offer to pick up the show, nor any other network offer for that matter. Even though his show was brutally cut short after a mere three seasons, Hurwitz was “more worried about letting down the fans in terms of the quality of the show dropping” than he was worried about letting down fans by leaving them without it altogether. Hurwtiz offered hope to fans everywhere by further stating, “If there’s a way to continue this in a form that’s not weekly episodic series television, I’d be up for it.” In 2011, Netflix snapped the towel off the competition and exposed their cutoffs, leaving them crying in the shower. Netflix earned distribution of the long-awaited fourth season. Steve Holt!
This month, Netflix will proffer the patient and the tenacious fifteen, brand-new Arrested Development episodes, one more than originally planned. Officially season 4, it will serve as a where-are-they-now?, visual omnibus of the Bluth Family, each episode focusing on a specific member: episode no. 1, George Michael.
“Everyone, ourselves included, seems to feel like the Bluths left the party a bit too soon,” said Brian Grazer and Ron Howard of Imagine TV, which co-produced Arrested Development with 20th Century Fox TV. “Bringing a series back from cancellation almost never happens, but then, Arrested always was about as unconventional as they get, so it seems totally appropriate that this show that broke the mold is smashing it to pieces once again.”
You’ll find few creative comparisons of Arrested Development to other shows. There are no blah blah-meets-blah blah kind of descriptions, because there has never been a show like it. Which leaves yours truly fretting, hoping that season 4 will live up to past memories and future visions of the Bluths.
Winning awards ranging from AFI’s TV Program of the Year to a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series, Mitchell Hurwitz’ Arrested Development has garnered, thus far, twenty-five awards and thirty-eight nominations. The comedy series set in Newport Beach, California is simultaneously as random and tightly-knit as a ensemble production could be. Like Seinfeld or The Beatles, there really could be no magic without everybody. Plucking out any one character would be like knocking out a support beam; it might stand for a bit, but you want to get the heck out of there, in case of an earthquake.
It has been a very long seven years since the brilliant-but-booted story of an Orange County real estate dynasty living in genteel poverty was ripped from our hands. Now, it’s come back to us and we’ll take it the way we want it: on our devices, on our schedules and gorging ourselves on Tobias, Buster, Gob, Gangy and George Michael, making ourselves as fried and sick as we want to be on cornballs and Lindsay’s hot ham water.
Michael Cera Photo: Eva Rinaldi Celebrity Photography
As for the future, beyond May 26th that is, S4 will also serve as a primer to the eventual, fan-driven, feature-length film. Along the Bluths’ Balboa boardwalk, Netflix will not only be keeping a sharp eye on the bananas:dollars ratio, but watching carefully the dynamics of the fire-sale user-model they call binge-viewing.
“While Netflix doesn’t release viewership numbers, critical response indicate that the first direct-to-Netflix original series, House of Cards, was particularly popular with viewers inclined to watch a whole series in only a few sittings,” writes Rachel Edidin of Wired magazine.
Like a line of gratis, birthday shots set up on a long bar, or an open bag of Gardetto’s, if they put it in front of us, we will consume it. With deftly placed plants and payoffs throughout numbers of Arrested Development episodes, it’s impossible to stop at just one. Netflix, as well as other distributors and broadcasters, will be studying the hungry hordes closely and, if the latter two are wise, adjusting formats and viewing models.
Heads up, HBO and Bravo; you might still try to force us into cable contracts and programming on your schedule, but that’s all over. Sure, HBOGO is a great app; but one can’t use it unless one adheres to the front-end, archaic, cable subscription model. Even the scraps CBS, NBC and Discovery begrudgingly throw at us under the Hulu fence, or even via their own websites, are becoming boring and passé: dictating on which devices we may watch, for how long we may watch and how many episodes we are worthy of receiving. (Psst, broadcasters, we’re still watching your commercials; why do you care so vehemently when and where we watch them?) As George Bluth, Sr. reminded the dolls of his attic tea party with a strong, pointed finger, “I don’t let ‘em tell me what to do.”
Now, get your Bluth frozen bananas, grab your Gangytinis and crank up “The Final Countdown”: it’s time you blue yourselves!
Executive Producers: Mitchell Hurwitz , Brian Grazer, Ron Howard , Jim Vallely and Troy Miller
Production Companies: Imagine TV and 20th Century Fox Television
Exclusive Distributor: Netflix
Arrested Development Central Cast:
Jason Bateman as Michael Bluth
Michael Cera as George Michael
Jeffrey Tambor as George Bluth Sr.
Jessica Walter as Lucille Bluth
Will Arnett as George Oscar Bluth II, a.k.a. Gob
Tony Hale as Buster Bluth
Portia de Rossi as Lindsay Fünke
David Cross as Tobias Fünke
Alia Shawkat as Maeby Fünke
Hannah’s fave places to haunt on-line? Jennypop.net @JennyPopNet & Jennifer Devore’s Amazon Author Page
Category : Featured, Storm of Words
The HBO television series, Game of Thrones, has returned with Season 3. Also returning is Storm of Words, a Game of Thrones podcast! We’re back every week to discuss the latest episodes of the series and delve into the world George R.R. Martin created through his novels.
Jessa Phillips, Thomas & Jennifer Jordan (IAmThink.com) and Alexander McGrath embark on a journey beyond the wall to breakdown the episode, “Kissed by Fire.” This episode is spoiler-free; however, there is some discussion about how the series deviates from the novels.
The primary focus of the show is the tv series, so if you haven’t read the books you can still enjoy the podcast. If you have read the novels, just think of it as bonus content
If you experience difficulty using the player above, click the link below for the direct download:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/stormofwords/sow_S3E5.mp3
CONTACT
Questions? Comments? We want to hear from you! Feel free to post a comment below or email us at podcasts[at]goodtobeageek.com.
Special thanks to Walid Feghali for the use of his music in the podcast. Be sure to check out his Sound Cloud profile page at http://soundcloud.com/walidfeghali to learn more about him and discover more of his music.
All audio clips for Game of Thrones are provided courtesy of HBO, http://www.hbo.com
Storm of Words is sponsored by Good To Be A Geek – let your geek run wild! Storm of Words is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
Category : Featured, Storm of Words
The HBO television series, Game of Thrones, has returned with Season 3. Also returning is Storm of Words, a Game of Thrones podcast! We’re back every week to discuss the latest episodes of the series and delve into the world George R.R. Martin created through his novels.
Jessa Phillips, Thomas & Jennifer Jordan (IAmThink.com) and Alexander McGrath venture through Westeros and across the Narrow Sea to discuss the episode, “And Now His Watch Is Ended.” This episode is spoiler-free; however, there is some discussion about how the series deviates from the novels.
The primary focus of the show is the tv series, so if you haven’t read the books you can still enjoy the podcast. If you have read the novels, just think of it as bonus content
If you have difficulties with the media player, click the link below for the direct download:
http://traffic.libsyn.com/stormofwords/sow_S3E4.mp3
CONTACT
Questions? Comments? We want to hear from you! Feel free to post a comment on the podcast entry at http://www.goodtobeageek.com, or email us at podcasts@goodtobeageek.com.
Special thanks to Walid Feghali for the use of his music in the podcast. Be sure to check out his Sound Cloud profile page at http://soundcloud.com/walidfeghali to learn more about him and discover more of his music.
All audio clips for Game of Thrones are provided courtesy of HBO, http://www.hbo.com
Storm of Words is sponsored by Good To Be A Geek – let your geek run wild! Storm of Words is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
Courtesy of Codemasters
The long anticipated wait for GRID 2 is almost over! With its release date rapidly approaching (May 31st) fans of the GRID series of racing games are in for a well-deserved treat. Game development has built upon the original American themed GRID and now game play expands through 40 years of motor sport heritage and across three continents: North America, Europe, and Asia. Of course, the objective of GRID 2 is to develop your driving skills and become one of the top-ranked drivers in the world. There are also many new features, vehicles, and courses added that will allow game-play to be sensational for the PS3, XBOX 360 and PC platforms.
GRID 2 offers a multitude of vehicles, all separated by tier levels. Tier 1 being the introductory – the place where your race career begins. Vehicles in this tier include boosted Japanese sports cars, such as the Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution, American hatchbacks such as the Ford Focus ST, or classic European tuners, like the BMW 1 series. As game-play goes along, the 2nd Tier vehicles improve in quality. These vehicles include the Mercedes C63 AMG and Ford Mustang Boss 302. The final and most exotic stage of vehicles, Tier 3, includes dream-like machines of the highest class. The vehicles in this group include the McLaren MP4-12C, Subaru BRZ and the Super Touring Class Volvo S60.
Along with the vehicles, styles and locations of game-play have been upgraded for GRID 2. Certain game modes include time attack, world-series racing, and elimination to test your mettle as a driver. The most exciting attribute to these modes are the venues selected by developers for racing. Tracks include the beaches of Miami, the skyline of Chicago, the nightlife of Los Angeles, a run around the Eiffel Tower in the streets of Paris and, of course, the beautiful Cote d’Azur in the advanced levels of game-play. Other European circuits include Brands Hatch and the Red Bull Ring raceway. Many more tracks and road courses throughout the world with great scenery and attention to detail show how GRID 2 pushes the envelope for racing platform games.
The updates to innovations in the game set GRID 2 apart from the competition. The amount and degree of damage a car experiences has been intensified with realistic effects if you decide to trade paint with your opponents. Artificial Intelligence is no longer a standard push over; it marginally increases its level of difficulty according to how well you perform in your races, thus always allowing you to develop properly as a racer. A feature that is becoming more popular in racing games, the flashback and rewind feature, has been added to game-play in GRID 2. This feature allows you to correct any major mistake and focus on what is most important: driving at the limit. One final feature that was an interesting add to game-play was the True Feel Handling System, which offers real-life physics application to simulate the realistic drive ability of any vehicle, making game-play approachable, yet challenging to master overnight.
Sebastian is an amateur blogger, car affectionado and casual gamer. Driving and racing simulations have always been his go-to games after a hard days work.
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This week, Dave Lucier gets a week off so Jessa Phillips can talk about girls gaming with special co-host Bree Brouwer. In industry news, Women in Games International teamed up with the Girl Scouts of Los Angeles to develop a patch for girls interested in learning about video game development.
http://gamepolitics.com/2013/04/17/women-games-international-teams-girl-scouts-la-video-game-patch#.UXX-PbVwqSo
Find more from Bree Brouwer at her site, Geek My Life (http://www.geekmylife.net) and listen to her segment,“Behind Schedule,” on the Shauncastic podcast (http://www.shauncastic.com)!
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CONTACT
Questions? Comments? We want to hear from you! Feel free to post a comment on the podcast entry at http://www.goodtobeageek.com, or email us at gamer@goodtobeageek.com. You can also email David at dlucier[at]goodtobeageek.com, email Jessa at jphillips[at]goodtobeageek.com.
Special thanks to Sterling for the use of his music in the podcast. Be sure to check out his Magnatune profile page to learn more about him and discover more of his music.
Good To Be A Gamer is sponsored by Good To Be A Geek – let your geek run wild! Opinions expressed on Good To Be A Gamer are those of the hosts and/or guests and do not necessarily represent those of Good To Be A Geek.
Whereas geeks were once bullied and made the laughing stock by their peers, today, geek has become the new cool. Every year, a new blockbuster hits theaters based on a comic book hero, television shows are sprouting up with nerds as their protagonists, and video games have never been cooler. People who would have once shied away from showing their nerdier sides are now able to display their true selves to the world without having to worry about as much derision or criticism than ever before.
When trying to describe oneself, the question becomes: are you a geek or an uber geek? A geek is someone who looks forward to attending Comic-Con every year. An uber geek on the other hand looks forward to attending Comic-Con while dressing up as his or her favorite character. As one of the the tell-tale characteristic of a geek, poor eyesight comes in varying degrees between geek and uber geek. Generally, the worse someone’s eyesight is, the more likely he or she is an uber geek.
Image compliments of Best Computer Science Degrees
Category : Entertain Me, Featured, Storm of Words, Television
The HBO television series, Game of Thrones, has returned with Season 3. Also returning is Storm of Words, a Game of Thrones podcast! We’re back every week to discuss the latest episodes of the series and delve into the world George R.R. Martin created through his novels.
Jessa Phillips, Thomas & Jennifer Jordan (IAmThink.com) and Alexander McGrath embark on a journey beyond the wall to breakdown the episode, “Walk of Punishment.” This episode is spoiler-free; however, there is some discussion about how the series deviates from the novels.
The primary focus of the show is the tv series, so if you haven’t read the books you can still enjoy the podcast. If you have read the novels, just think of it as bonus content
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CONTACT
Questions? Comments? We want to hear from you! Feel free to post a comment on the podcast entry at http://www.goodtobeageek.com, or email us at podcasts@goodtobeageek.com.
Special thanks to Walid Feghali for the use of his music in the podcast. Be sure to check out his Sound Cloud profile page at http://soundcloud.com/walidfeghali to learn more about him and discover more of his music.
All audio clips for Game of Thrones are provided courtesy of HBO, http://www.hbo.com
Storm of Words is sponsored by Good To Be A Geek – let your geek run wild! Storm of Words is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
Category : Comics, Conventions, E-vents, Entertain Me, Featured
(Boston,MA-April 17, 2013) Wayward Raven Media is proud to announce the much anticipated release of their horror/fantasy comic The Ascendant, issue 2. Cail, a Duke of Hell, returns to do penance by sending escaped demons back to the underworld. This time, however, the pursuer is the pursued. Joined by his fellow escapee Faustus (the doctor himself) and a new cohort, Cail fights for his life in one of Italy’s most dangerous and hellish terrains.
Courtesy of Wayward Raven Media
Signed print copies can be purchased first at Boston Comic Con on April 20th and 21st at the Hynes Convention Center. For those who want it sooner, a digital version can be found by going to the Wayward Raven website. If you missed the first issue, don’t fear! It, along with other great Wayward Raven products, can be procured by going to waywardraven.com.
Bring a copy of this press release to one of our tables in Artist Alley (AAW54 and AAW55) at the Boston Comic Con and get a dollar off your purchase or two dollars off any multi-item purchase. Show up in one of our t-shirts (see our shop page on the website) and get a free book!!!!
Also available by Wayward Raven Media:
The Ascendant, Issue 1 - A tale about an escaped Duke of Hell who begins to feel remorse for his millennia of debauchery and cruelty. That guilt causes him to masquerade as a human and go on a crusade against the other escaped creatures that inhabit the earth, corrupting and harming its citizens.
Horsemen, Issue 1 - An intergalactic team is locked in an ongoing galactic battle with an enemy bent on destroying freewill in the multiverse. Issue two available soon.
The Cell – In this paranormal novel, an aspiring comic book artist loses his way until a call comes from beyond the grave. When living and dead unite in a quest, all souls are saved along with dreams for future days.
Ominous Odes - A collection of short stories that tells tales of the dark and eerie that always lurks just outside of human perception, fleeting upon the cusp of vision. A dark lottery ticket, a future serial killer, a tragic female legend and a detective on the trail of a killer all reside within.
Damn Heroes – Weekly web comic about Sebastian, a hapless norm stuck in a city of overly zealous superheroes with more muscles than sense. Check it out for free on damnheroes.com.
For more information visit www.waywardraven.com or like us at http://www.facebook.com/waywardravenmedia .
Ars longa, vitae brevis. Wayward Raven… soaring on winds of imagination
About Wayward Raven:
Wayward Raven Media’s comic books and prose had their debut at the 2012 New York Comic-Con and have been growing ever since. The ranks include Mark Frankel, Joshua Lee Andrew Jones and Alexander Sapountzis. They can be followed on Twitter: Mark @PantherPitt, Joshua @JLAJones, and Alexander @asapountzis
@GoodToBeAGeek @SultryMinxZoe