I only discovered Lindsey Stirling’s YouTube videos a couple of weeks ago, but her videos are awesome. She does beautiful violin covers of popular geeky soundtracks, and cosplays the characters in her videos. In the past she’s done Game of Thrones, Lord of The Rings and Zelda, but also more poppy songs like We Found Love, Grenade and Starships. In her latest video she takes on the Assassin’s Creed III theme:

I’ve just started reading an Advanced Reader Copy of Prodigy, the sequel to Marie Lu’s Legend. Lu has created an interesting dystopian world and I can’t wait to find out what happens to the characters. And to celebrate the upcoming release of Prodigy I’ve been given two copies of Legend to give away to two lucky readers!

To enter the contest, all you need to do is email contest@missgeeky.com with your name and address and put “Legend Giveaway” in the title. The giveaway will run until November 19th at 17:00 and is only open to residents of the United States.

About Legend

What was once the western United States is now home to the Republic, a nation perpetually at war with its neighbors. Born into an elite family, fifteen-year-old June is a prodigy being groomed for success in the Republic’s highest military circles. Born into the slums, fifteen-year-old Day is the country’s most wanted criminal. But his motives may not be as malicious as they seem.

June and Day have no reason to cross paths – until the day June’s brother, Metias, is murdered and Day becomes the prime suspect. Caught in the ultimate game of cat and mouse, the two uncover the truth of what has really brought them together, and the sinister lengths their country will go to keep its secrets.

24 Hours, 24 Offers, 24 Books!

The Book Depository has another 24 Hour sale! I’ve missed out on this promotion the last couple of times, each time completely forgetting that it was on. Starting at noon GMT (aka now), they’ll have a book on sale on their homepage, with a new offer appearing every hour. The first book is the LEGO Star Wars Character Encyclopedia… not something for me, but I’m sure they’ll have other interesting books!

Last time they had some great books on sale, so I’m going to try and keep a close eye on what goes on sale every hour! I quite like The Book Depository as an Amazon alternative; I’ve often found books cheaper here and actually in stock.

These Star Wars mugs from etsy store LennyMud are so cute! Silhouettes on one side:

… and awesome quotes on the other:

Via The Mary Sue

I’ve had my eye on this series for a while and I finally got them all a few weeks ago from a secondhand bok shop. I’m guessing they’re filtering those standalone ones out now that this omnibus version has come out, which contains all three parts (Lord of the Changing Winds, Land of the Burning Sands, Law of the Broken Earth). I really like it when publishers release trilogy books like this. It saves me from trying to get all three books in the same format (which is whole lot more difficult than you might think) and saves me money!

I loved the idea of griffins as a kid. I’ve got a memory of this old TV show which had a griffin in it, but I don’t remember the name of it anymore. I just have this scene playing over in my head: a kid looks into a puddle and sees the reflection of a griffin… anybody know from what TV show that is?

Back to topic, griffins are awesome and they’re should be more books about them. Here’s the description of The Griffin Mage from Amazon:

The desert winds have come to the village of Minas Ford. Griffins, creatures of fire, have appeared in a burning haze – searing the sky a blinding white and scorching the earth to parched, barren sand. These majestic beasts, half-lion, half-eagle, spread the arid desert wherever they roam. Iaor, the King of Feierabiand, will not tolerate the destruction of his people’s farmland. He means to drive the griffins from his domain – whether by negotiation or brute force. But not all those who encounter the griffins fear them. Kes, a timid village girl, is summoned to heal the King of the Griffins himself. She will discover her affinity with these creatures, and come to realise that the menace they flee is even more deadly than the blazing fires of the desert.

The Griffin Mage by Rachel Neumeier is £7.79 on Amazon.co.uk and $15.42 on Amazon.com.

I can’t wait till the new episodes of Doctor Who start again! 48 days till the Christmas special… I’m super curious to find out who/what Jenna-Louise Coleman will be playing and how that character will be connected to Oswin Oswald.

This is the first tee I’ve come across to feature Oswin, but I’m pretty confidant we’ll see more based on her in the future (well, more based on this other new character at least). The tee is $25.97 on Redbubble.com.

I liked how The Hunger Games movie turned out, but it’s still interesting to see how it might have been if another director had done it. This video pitch from Kevin Tancharoen is pretty much a mashup of different movies, but it looks awesome!

I so wished Zac Efron had been casted as Peeta; I think he fits way better as my image of Peeta than Josh Hutcherson.

I love shoes that are slightly quirky (remember these awesome tape measure shoes?). And these heels from Modcloth are certainly quirky! They feature a cool minimalistic night skyline:

I like how it’s not just a print or painted on; the skyline is actually made out of a separate white fabric. I do wonder though how long these would last; I don’t trust myself with white shoes. They’re $119.99 on ModCloth.com.

• James Bond: Cars, catchphrases and kisses – Cool infographic on the BBC showing for each Bond movie the number of woman kissed, the number of times he says “Bond, James Bond” and the number of villains killed.
• Batman – The Tailor: where do all the supervillains from comics get their customes from?
• Incredibly Charismatic Animal Portraits by Tim Flach: Gorgeous photos.
• Hello Again, Halley’s Comet: simple, but quite moving:

• “Why Here?”: Great post from Sizemore about the first four minutes of SE7EN.
• Superhero Bodies and What Real Athletes Look Like: The Olympics showed just how varied the body shapes of athletes can be; more varied than the characters in most comics. How should specific super heroes look like and what athletic body type would suit them?
• The Mu Folding Plug: I hate how big and lumpy the UK plug is, this design would be so handy!
• Tim Burton’s Pokemon:

• Extraordinary Travel Destinations Off The Beaten Path: Wow, all these places are gorgeous!
• Science World – We Can Explain: This campaign from Vancouver’s science museum is so fun! They placed interesting ads (some of them interactive) all over Vancouver.
• Distribution of Colours in Movie Posters Between 1914 and 2012: This guy took 35000 movie posters and analyzed their colour distribution.
• 5 Brands That Understand Marketing On Instagram: I’ve only just started using Instagram, but it’s interesting to see how different companies can use it for marketing.

“If I had remained invisible, the truth would remain hidden.”

So speaks one of the characters from Cloud Atlas. It’s also a line that Lana Wachowski quotes in her speech at the Human Rights Campaign Gala where she accepted their Visibility Award. In July she and her brother appeared in an intro video to the 5 minute trailer for Cloud Atlas, making it their first public appearance since The Matrix and making it Lana’s first public appearance as Lana. In her HRC speech Lana tells about her choice of “coming out” to the public and about the fine lines between visibility and invisibility. It’s a beautiful, inspiring and moving speech: