Some cool/interesting/weird stuff I stumbled upon this morning:

Cabbage Plastic Patch Kids: It’s already bad enough that the pictures of celebrities are airbrushed for magazine covers, but at least I can somewhere somehow see the point behind that. But to airbrush photo’s of your own children?!? They look like creepy weird plastic dolls! [Via dollymix]

The Truth Is Out There Again: According to David Duchovny an X-Files movie sequel is in the work and will start shooting in December. Do we really need more alien abduction and Big Foot stories? That is so 20th century. [Via TvSquad and my new plaid pants]

Come With Me If You Want To Live Be Confused: Another rumoured sequel is Terminator 4, which in my mind is completely unnecessary now that The Sarah Connor Chronicles will be aired. The storyline is already confusing enough as it is; do they really want to complicate the plot even more? Plus this quote from the producer about the new hero doesn’t give me much hope:

Ben-Hur was influenced by Jesus Christ, but it was his story. Much in that way, this character will be influenced by John Connor.

[Via First Showing]

Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty: As long as they don’t bring the Hoff back, this could be quite interesting. Yes, they’re talking about a remake of Knight Rider.
[Via Variety]

I just got back from the 16th London Girl Geek Dinner and as the previous times it was great fun. Now this is the 5th time I’ve been to a Girl Geek Dinner, but the first time I’m actually blogging about it. Why? Well, mainly because I’m too lazy or too tired when I get home from such an event. Then by the time I remember I should have blogged about it, we’re a couple of days further and the specifics are quickly fading from my memory. This time, however, I’m forcing myself to take a couple of seconds minutes to sit down and write about it.

At this evening’s event the sponsors and speakers were from Astraware and fancyapint.com. We were told beforehand to bring along any Windows Mobile or Palm OS devices to get lots of lovely free games. So, I dusted off my old Palm Zire 31 (including 6 brilliant scratched areas on the screen from playing too much TextTwist) and brought it merrily with me. Only to discover that (ofcourse) all the games they had were too “new”. In other words, the resolution of my poor old Palm was way too low. We did manage to beam one game over, so I at least got one freebie.

The speakers mostly talked about how many women were working within Astraware and how it was for a woman to work there. One of the female developers told us how she got the job and what she does within the company. They also gave away a cool VIP pass for their website (=lifetime free Astraware games) for the person with the most gadgets, which unfortunately I didn’t win, because I didn’t want to lug around a heavy bag today. FYI, the gadgets I had with me are: laptop, Palm, Nintendo DS and iPod Nano. The ones I didn’t have with me, but I usually do: 2 mobile phones (one with English Sim card, one with Dutch), external harddisk and camera.

Next to that, I met (and re-met) quite a couple of fellow girl geeks and had some great geeky discussions with them, covering social networks and programming languages to the more serious stuff as fanfiction, scifi/fantasy books, films and Doctor Who. One more thing to note: the food. There were 10 large platters of food, for “only” 40 people. Did they really think that all that food would be eaten? I’m not complaining, just observing that the amount was kind of overestimated.

As always it was great a evening and (as always) I’m looking forward to the next one. It’s planned for the 9th of October and will be sponsored by HP. If you’re interested, you can find all the details on Upcoming.

A couple of weeks ago I ordered some T-shirts for Cristiano and me from Threadless, when they had a “all-Tshirts-10-dollars” sale. I finally have got them, after having to go to a Delivery Office and pay 3 pounds extra import tax and 8 pounds handling fee. I find the handling fee a bit ridiculous, cause if they hadn’t checked it and just sent it straight to me, they wouldn’t have gone through the trouble of handling it. Instead they decide there’s an extra import tax on it, giving me extra trouble to have to pick it up and adding a handling fee on top of that! Now I haven’t been that long in the UK, but does this happen often? Do they always check everything? Or is it (like in Holland) that once in a while you can be unlucky and they check what it is?

Anyhow, I finally have my T-shirts and I just love them (see pictures)! I really like the whole idea behind Threadless; everything is basically user-generated. Anyone can submit a T-shirt design and people can score the design. Based on the number of scores, the average score and the comments people leave behind the Threadless team decide which designs will be printed. Next to that you can collect points by submitting photo’s of you wearing Threadless T-shirts, with which you get extra store credit and thus, more reason to buy more T-shirts. The T-shirts themselves are funny and pretty, in a very unique type of way. I have a lot of Emily Strange T-shirts, but these are just so much cooler.

So what are you waiting for? Get some T-shirts!

I just got back from a screening I was able to go to of the western 3:10 To Yuma with Christian Bale and Russell Crowe. To be honest, it didn’t really look that interesting to me and I don’t think I would have gone if it hadn’t been for the free tickets. What convinced me to even show up today was the fact that Christian Bale is in it. Since seeing him in Equilibrium (which is actually on TV now as I write this), I’ve found that any film with him in it, is actually worth watching.

Christian Bale plays Dan Evans, a rancher who is paid to help bring a captured outlaw, Ben Wade played by Russell Crowe, to a train leaving at 3:10 to Yuma, where he will be led to trial. Bale perfectly portrays Dan as a down-on-his-luck man who is desperate to do anything to sustain him and his family. He believes he has long failed and lost the respect of his wife and sons, which is why he decides to take on the offer of escorting Ben Wade to the train. Adding to that is Russell Crowe as the outlaw Ben Wade. This character could have been so one-sided and just plain mean and unlike-able, but Crowe manages to actually bring some more dimensionality into it. He isn’t really the completely bad-person that he wants you to think he is; just one with not too high morals. The acting of the two main characters was just superb; I wouldn’t be surprised if one of them got nominated for an Oscar next year.

So what did I think of it? It was… interesting. It’s not as if I didn’t like it, but I also didn’t really love it. The acting was good, the music was good, the setting was good; in fact there was a lot that was good, but nothing that was great. Maybe it’s because I’m not the western type or the “Oscar”-winning movie type. Haven’t you ever noticed that most Oscar nominated movies are quite intense and dramatic? Full of meaningful life lessons and bravery and complicated relationships?Well, this was kind of one of those films. I can appreciate 3:10 To Yuma as a good well-thought-out well-cast well-scripted well-directed and so on movie, but it won’t be one I’ll passionately adore and want to see over and over again.

If you like Oscar-type movies, you really should go here. If you don’t, wait till it comes out on dvd and watch it before the Oscars in February; it has all the requirements to be nominated and I have a weird feeling it will.

A couple of weeks ago I posted a review about the new TV series starting this year, including the comedy-action Chuck. My main grievance with this new series was that while they were clearly trying to attract a geeky nerd audience, they failed to deliver a logically sounding plot riddled with inaccurate computer facts and this puts off the very audience they’re trying to attract.

Now more than ever I’m convinced NBC is trying to attract a geeky following for this show. Since last week the main character Chuck Bartowski has appeared on multiple social websites. So far these are the ones I’ve found:
del.icio.us
Last.fm
Flickr
Facebook
MySpace
YouTube
Amazon
Twitter
I especially love the del.icio.us bookmarks and the Twitter feeds; you really get a feel for the character, as if he’s a real person.

I’m still not convinced that Chuck will survive it’s first year, but I’m willing to at least give the first couple of episodes a try. Tip to the writers: hire some real nerds as advisors. I mean, Grey’s Anatomy and CSI do it for their specialities, why shouldn’t Chuck?

I do have to applaud NBC though for trying something a bit different. Yes, there have been online marketing stunts before for other tv series and movies, but one that actually makes use of the sites and social networks that people are using daily? I don’t think there has.

Maybe you’ve already heard about this, but yesterday AICN reported that Shia LaBeouf disclosed the name of the fourth Indiana Jones movie: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Soon thereafter the official IndyIV website also confirmed it, so it’s not some weird rumour just floating about, but the real deal.

Now the title kindles some pretty nice speculation about the plot of the movie. I remember reading about the discovery of a crystal skull which was supposedly thousands and thousands years old and not carved with metal tools, but I’m not sure what part is just Big Foot-loving-Elvis-is-alive-believing-Alien-worshipping-paranormal bullshit and what part was actually real. It does fit right up the alley of the previous Indy films.

But what about the “Kingdom” part? Here’s my prediction: the Kingdom will be Atantis. It would fit, right? Indy searching for an advanced ancient civilization, because of a crystal skull he found with clues indicating to where it leads. Better yet: let’s also use some of the “original” story! The “real Indy” took his 17-year old daughter exploring some temple and she discovered the skull. So for the movie let’s have Indy’s son discover the skull!

But then I read this on FirstShowing.net:

The crystal skulls turn out to be alien skulls, underneath a Mayan or Aztec pyramid that takes off and thus reveals itself to be a mothership of sorts.

I hope this is not true; aliens will make it just too corny. Little grey men and flying saucers?!? Okay, for some movies it can work, but I don’t think IndyIV would be one of them. It could be just a internet rumour and I’ll continue to believe my only little prediction until I hear actual confirmation from the studio.

Just a couple more weeks and a big chunk of all that wonderful tv-goodness returns back to us. Yeah!! It might be a bit tricky keeping track of when all your beloved series start again (especially if you watch a lot, like I do), but no worries the TV addict has come to the rescue! And no, I am not the TV addict; although I am “a” TV addict, I’m not “the” TV addict (wish I had been so smart to register that url :-p ). Here’s Your Definitive Guide to the Fall 2007 TV Season Premieres.

I’ve been a bit lax lately with writing about the events that I’ve been to, but here’s finally a report of one of them. Last Sunday I went to my very first nerd fest geek gathering convention: the London Film and Comic Con.

There was quite a good line-up of guests; however, some weeks eariler the event was moved to one week earlier and some guests, like Zachary Quinto (Sylar in Heroes) and Torri Hogginson (Stargate Atlantis) had to drop out. The big guests that they announced (and showed up) were: Patrick Stewart (do I even have to mention were he’s from? If so: shame on you!), Dominic Monaghan (Charlie in Lost, Merry in LOTR), Hayden Panettiere (Claire Bennett in Heroes) and Jack Coleman (Mr Bennet aka HRG in Heroes). Then 2 days before the event they also added Milo Ventimiglia (Peter Petrelli in Heroes) and Adrian Pasdar (Nathan Petrelli in Heroes). Wow!! For a Heroes lover like me, it couldn’t get any better. (BTW: there were a whole lot of other “celebrities”, but are people really interested in the “guy who walked in the hallway” in Star Wars?? Sorry, but I’m not one of them.)

I wasn’t really sure what to expect of the whole day, but I have to admit I was at the same time delighted and disappointed. The venue was just horrible; most of the stalls didn’t get enough light and the most important guests were cramped in one corner. You also could only “meet” the guests, if you payed for a signed autograph. This also sometimes only meant walking up to them, them taking the photo/poster/weird fan item and scribbling quickly on it, without even glacing up. As a poor, poor student living in expensive, expensive London, getting one autotgraphs (let alone 6 of them) was not a possibility. I would have loved just to step up to them, completely make a fool of myself and go cheerfully my own way. Alas, it was not to be.

Cristiano and I did manage to get a couple of good photo’s of the main guests, which was quite tricky. You weren’t allowed to make photo’s up close and the stewards were pushing everybody back and standing in your path blocking your view. I only didn’t get a good shot Hayden (I did see her! just a quick glimpse). To see more photos just go Cristiano’s Flickr page.

I loved the stalls, but most of the cool stuff were way to expensive. One stall was selling a replica of the Hiro sword from Heroes, that would perfectly go with out Kill Bill and Last Samuari swords. Maybe next year (one can only hope 😀 ). I stumbled across 2 second hand Buffy books for only 4 pounds and got 4 small posters (Ratatouille, Transformers, Aeon Flux and Fealess) for 80p! Next to that we also got a Casino Royale pokerset, which of course we’ll be taking with us to BarCamp Brighton tomorrow.

I’m definitely going to next year’s LFACC (and I hope I have a little bit more money to spend). It wasn’t the “best day evah”, but still very enjoyable.

I’ve always liked the idea of del.icio.us and do kind of use it, but the website itself was never really “delicious”. Yes, it did do what it had to do, but you wouldn’t really consider it a pretty interface. This all is seeming to change though. Techcrunch showed some screenshots of the new website here.

I really like the new look; it seems much more userfriendly. They’ve also added some needed searching and tagging functionalities. You can request an invite, but at the moment they’ll just put you on the waiting list.