The idea of a London Girl Geek Coffee had been spinning in my head for a couple of weeks, but I never had the time or effort to actually organise it. While talking to Emma during the Girl Geek Dinner last Tuesday, she took matters into her own hands and on the spot created an event on Upcoming for two days later aka: yesterday.

So yesterday in the late afternoon the first Girl Geek Coffee took place at the Starbucks inside the Espirit on Regent Street. It was a small gathering with 5 Girl Geeks, including Emma and me, showing up. For a good two and a half hours we chatted and sipped our Lattes, Mochas and Espressos. The topics covered a wide range of things, from TV shows to university life to geek chic clothes (I’m thinking of cutting up conference swag T-shirts and turning them into minidresses).

The coffee was lovely, but the location this time wasn’t that great. It’s normally quite nice (I’ve used it as a work cafe a couple of times), but now they had turned up the heater quite high and it was just too warm to sit there comfortably. Next to that there was another group (of about 6 people) who decided to meet up there and they were as loud and as annoying as you can get. Next time we’ll have to find another location (if you have any suggestions, email me).

All in all, the first London Girl Geek Coffee was a succes and we’re definitely going to hold more in the future. I’m thinking we should hold this event every other week, so the next one would be Thursday over two weeks (April 10th). In the future we’ll have an actual Girl Geek Coffee site (maybe something together with the Geek Dinners, Geek Werewolf and I’d like to see Geek Poker), but for now if you want to join us keep an eye on this blog and Upcoming for the next event.

Episode 47: *swoosh*

These fanmade videos are awesome! They feature characters from the video game series Dead Or Alive and Final Fantasy battling each other and all I can say is: WOW!

The second one is 11 minutes (!!) and is even cooler, with more characters and effects:

I know my video game lore: do you? Who can name all the featured characters from these clips?

I’ll dive right in by saying that so far this is the best movie I’ve seen this year. Now I know 2008 is far from over, but I have a feeling that by the end of this year Son of Rambow will still be in my Top 10.

Set in the early 1980’s in England, Will Proudfoot is part of the Brethren religion and has been kept away from watching movies, listening to music and making friends with outsiders. After seeing a bootleg version of Rambo (First Blood) at school terror Lee Carter’s house though, Will is completely blown away and Lee gets him involved into making a sort of sweded version of the movie. Add a busload of French exchange students, a flying dog and an evil scarecrow and you have a pretty damn amazing film.

Son of Rambow is the movie I was hoping Be Kind, Rewind would be (yeah, I didn’t like BKR, if enough people want, I’ll write a review). The sweding is great, but there is more to the movie than only those parts. The story is so sweet and there are a couple of brilliant moving scenes. It’s also full of funny moments; I was giggling throughout the entire film.

Will and Lee are superbly portrayed by newbies Bill Miller and Will Poulter. I was surprised to see that both of them haven’t been in that many other films (Poulter in none actually), but I’m guessing that after this films is released that’s going to change. I also loved Will’s innocence. Especially at the start of the movie there are things that he’s doing that at first glance you just don’t understand. Then when you find out, you just can’t help but find it cute.

I also have to give a special mention to the visual effects and sound effects. There aren’t that many (it’s not that type of movie), but when they are used it works so well. For instance, at the start of the movie a group of kids run by, but from the sound of it they seem more like a giant stampede. Then next to that Will’s daydreaming is brought to life in a very unique type of way (I won’t explain how otherwise I’ll ruin it).

This is a definite must-see cinema movie. In contrary to most other movies, Son of Rambow is worth every penny and you’ll come out of the cinema with a smile on your face. By the way, stay seated till after the credits. There’s a little extra you won’t want to miss.

[rating: 4.5/5]

Episode 46: “It’s a deeply intense moment in our lives.”

I came across this video while searching for more info on the new Joss Whedon internet musical Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. To my surprise, there’s already a fan site up and running: Doctor Horrible (then again I shouldn’t really be surprised, should I? I’ve even fallen in love with series without having seen anything of it yet). On their site they had this little gem of a video. It’s a clip from the Megan Mullaly Show of an interview of the cast members of How I Met Your Mother, where Neil Patrick Harris and Jason Segal sing one of the songs from Les Mis.

Yesterday I finally took some time to hang up a couple of posters, some of which were lying around for months. The two big posters were both of Heroes, which I got from Cristiano for my birthday. One of them is the “main” poster of the show; the one with the faces on the bottom and the clouds and the skyscrapers. You know, this one:

I don’t think the image works that well when you see it like this “on screen”, but as an actual poster it looks pretty impressive. The second poster is (in my eyes) extremely cool and as far as I can tell it’s quite difficult to find. It’s the cover of the fourth 9th Wonders, the Heroes webcomic, featuring Claire coming out of the flames:

Next to those large posters, I got a couple of smaller ones. A few months ago I managed to get some promotional posters (Fearless, Aeon Flux, Ratatouille and Transformers ) for about $2 at the London Film and Comic Con. Now I finally put them up:

I love the design of these small ones and am hoping I can find more of these in the future. I’ve got a couple of awkward pieces of wall that desperately need to be covered. Here are some overall shots of how the posters are:

Yes, that’s a Spiderman 3 poster there. I bought it before the movie came out and haven’t got around to replacing it with something better (aka almost anything else). There are two particular sets of posters I’ve got my eye on, but I don’t have that much space in my room. Maybe someday later when I got a place that’s bigger than a single room. Anyhow, the first set contains Battlestar Galactica propaganda posters, including the cut-off edges:

The second set is of a similar vein, but this time they’re travel agency adds from Firefly:

I’ve fallen in love with these posters and every time I come across them I want them even more. Each of them is so different than the others, but still you can see that they form a set together. And don’t you just love the “Visit tranquil Miranda”? So Santa, Birthday Bunny, Tooth Fairy, could I please have these for my next Christmas/birthday/wisdom tooth removal?

Episode 45: “Oh, Danny Boy. Oh, Danny Boy. Oh, boy. Oh, boy.”

I know a couple of other blogs that posted this video for St. Patrick’s Day, but it’s just too funny to not mention it here. My three favorite muppets (The Swedish Chef, Animal and Beaker) singing Danny Boy:

I just love me some Threadless t-shirts. They’re having another sale with all tees $9 and I again couldn’t resist not buying some. Normally the tees cost $17, so the discount seems too good to pass up on. The first tee I’m getting is Adorable Disaster. I saw this one more than a year ago and I still have to smile every time I see it.

The second tee is called A Voyage of Discovery and I just love the detail of this design:

I’ve got 4 other t-shirts from Threadless and so far I’m pretty impressed by them. I used to get a lot of Emily Strange and David & Goliath T-shirts, but I always had problems with those (shrinking in the wash, fading, etc). These Threadless ones though are much better and a whole lot cheaper. So head on over to Threadless, while the sale still lasts!

Interesting links for March 11th through March 20th:

• A la Cart: The Secret Lives of Grocey Shoppers – A book by Hilary Carlip about discarded shopping lists. Based on 26 lists she’s found, she creates and imagines the people who would have written them and turns herself into those characters. Take a look at the flash intro; it explains it all.
• We Tell Stories – Six authors, six stories, six weeks. For the next six weeks, stories will come out, each with a different unique method of presentation. This week’s The 21 Steps, for instance, uses Google Maps.
• By Ken Levine: If a major studio gave notes on JUNO – What if the screenplay of Juno had landed in the hands of a major Hollywood studio? Can you imagine what the demands of the studio would have been? How the story would have been rewritten?
• Interview: David Hewlett – Great interview with Hewlett who plays Dr. Rodney McKay in Stargate: Atlantis. It’s cool to see how much of a geek he is himself.

This story was posted on Nancy Redd’s website and I just had to repeat it. It’s a forwarded email from a woman who decides to try out waxing on some sensitive places. I’ve only had my eyebrows waxed and I could barely stand the pain from that!

All hair removal methods have tricked women with their promises of easy, painless removal – The Epilady, scissors, razors, Nair and now…the wax.

My night began as any other normal weeknight. Come home, fix dinner, play with the kids. I then had the thought that would ring painfully in my mind for the next few hours: ’Maybe I should pull the waxing kit out of the medicine cabinet.’

So I headed to the site of my demise: the bathroom. It was one of those ’cold wax’ kits. No melting a clump of hot wax, you just rub the strips together in your hand, they get warm and you peel them apart and press them to your leg (or wherever else) and you pull the hair right off.

No muss, no fuss. How hard can it be?

I mean, I’m not a genius, but I am mechanically inclined enough to figure this out. (YA THINK!?!) So I pull one of the thin strips out. Its two strips facing each other stuck together. Instead of rubbing them together, my genius kicks in so I get out the hair dryer and heat it to 1000 degrees. (’Cold wax,’ yeah…right!) I lay the strip across my thigh.

Hold the skin around it tight and pull. It works! OK, so it wasn’t the best feeling, but it wasn’t too bad. I can do this! Hair removal no longer eludes me! I am She-rah, fighter of all wayward body hair and maker of smooth skin extraordinaire.

With my next wax strip I move north. After checking on the kids, I sneak back into the bathroom, for the ultimate hair fighting championship. I drop my panties and place one foot on the toilet. Using the same procedure, I apply the wax strip across the right side of my bikini line, covering the right half of my hoo-ha and stretching down to the inside of my butt cheek (it was a long strip).

I inhale deeply and brace myself….RRRRRRIIIIPPP!!!! I’m blind!!! Blinded from pain!!!!…. OH MY GAUD!!!!!!!!!

Vision returning, I notice that I’ve only managed to pull off half the strip. CRAP! Another deep breath and RIPP! Everything is spinning and spotted. I think I may pass out…must stay conscious…must stay conscious. Do I hear crashing drums??? Breathe, breathe………… OK, back to normal.

I want to see my trophy – a wax-covered strip, the one that has caused me so much pain, with my hairy pelt sticking to it. I want to revel in the glory that is my triumph over body hair. I hold up the strip!

There’s NO hair on it. Where is the hair??? WHERE IS THE WAX???

Slowly I ease my head down, foot still perched on the toilet. I see the hair. The hair that should be on the strip…it’s not! I touch. I am touching wax. I run my fingers over the most sensitive part of my body, which is now covered in cold wax and matted hair. Then I make the next BIG mistake…remember my foot is still propped upon the toilet? I know I need to do something. So I put my foot down.

Sealed shut! My butt is sealed shut. Sealed shut!

I penguin walk around the bathroom trying to figure out what to do and think to myself: ‘Please don’t let me get the urge to poop. My head may pop off!’ What can I do to melt the wax? Hot water!! Hot water melts wax!! I’ll run the hottest water I can stand into the bathtub, get in, immerse the wax-covered bits and the wax should melt and I can gently wipe it off, right???

WRONG!

I get in the tub – The water is slightly hotter than that used to torture prisoners of war or sterilize surgical equipment – I sit. Now, the only thing worse than having your nether regions glued together, is having them glued together and then glued to the bottom of the tub…in scalding hot water. Which, by the way, doesn’t melt cold wax.

So, now I’m stuck to the bottom of the tub as though I had cemented myself to the porcelain!! God bless the man who had convinced me a few months ago to have a phone put in the bathroom!!!!! I call my friend, thinking surely she has waxed before and has some secret of how to get me undone. It’s a very good conversation starter ‘So, my butt and hoo-ha are glued together to the bottom of the tub!’

There is a slight pause. She doesn’t know any secret tricks for removal but she does try to hide her laughter from me. She wants to know exactly where the wax is located, ‘Are we talking cheeks or hole or hoo-ha?’ She’s laughing out loud by now…I can hear her. I give her the rundown and she suggests I call the number on the side of the box.

YEAH!!!!! Right!! I should be the joke of someone else’s night.

While we go through various solutions. I resort to trying to scrape the wax off with a razor . Nothing feels better than to have your girlie goodies covered in hot wax, glued shut, stuck to the tub in super hot water and then dry-shaving the sticky wax off!! By now the brain is not working, dignity has taken a major hike and I’m pretty sure I’m going to need Post-Traumatic Stress counseling for this event.

My friend is still talking with me when I finally see my saving grace….the lotion they give you to remove the excess wax. What do I really have to lose at this point? I rub some on and OH MY STARS!!!!!!! The scream probably woke the kids and scared the dickens out of my friend. It’s sooo painful, but I really don’t care.

IT WORKS!

It works! I get a hearty congratulation from my friend and she hangs up. I successfully remove the remainder of the wax and then notice to my grief and despair…

THE HAIR IS STILL THERE……..ALL OF IT!

So I recklessly shave it off. Heck, I’m numb by now. Nothing hurts. I could have amputated my own leg at this point. Next week I’m going to try hair color…

It’s that time of the year again when networks are looking around and searching for new TV shows for next fall. And may I say that we’ve got quite an interesting bunch so far. If some of these projects turn out as great as I’m hoping they can be, I’m going to have trouble fitting it all in my schedule.

Dollhouse
Finally Joss Whedon is returning to TV! This news isn’t exactly new, but it’s one TV show I’m dying to see. Dollhouse is created/written/produced by Joss Whedon and has been picked up for 7 episodes by FOX. Yep, the same FOX that’s responsible for the deaths of countless innocent series. So don’t hold your breath (just warning). The TV show will feature Buffy-alum Eliza Dushku as Echo:

… a young woman who is literally everybody’s fantasy. She is one of a group of men and women who can be imprinted with personality packages, including memories, skills, language—even muscle memory—for different assignments. The assignments can be romantic, adventurous, outlandish, uplifting, sexual and/or very illegal. When not imprinted with a personality package, Echo and the others are basically mind-wiped, living like children in a futuristic dorm/lab dubbed the Dollhouse, with no memory of their assignments—or of much else. The show revolves around the childlike Echo’s burgeoning self-awareness, and her desire to know who she was before, a desire that begins to seep into her various imprinted personalities and puts her in danger both in the field and in the closely monitored confines of the Dollhouse.

Sounds interesting, right? For more info on the other characters, take a look at Ausiello’s report. They’re still busy with the casting of those characters, but I’m curious to see if we’ll get any more familiar faces. [Source]

Caprica
I’ve been waiting for ages for this TV show to be greenlighted and today it finally has. It was first announced way back in April 2006, only to get stuck in the fiery pits of Development Hell. The show will be a prequel to Battlestar Galactica, focusing on events 70 years before the current BSG series. It’s been described as television’s first science fiction family saga:

The series will revolve around two families: the Adamas and the Graystones. Joseph Adama, father of future Battlestar commander William Adama, is a renowned civil liberties lawyer who becomes an opponent of the artificial intelligence/Cylon experiments wrought by the Graystones, owners of a large computer corporation that builds the first Cylons.

We need more good scifi shows on TV and while I’m normally not a fan of spin-offs, in this case it could turn out really great. Especially because the “mother” series is wrapping up before production on Caprica starts and I’m guessing most of the production team will continue working on that. [Source]

Cupid
Ten years ago, before Veronica Mars, Rob Thomas had another little short-lived TV show called Cupid. Now the ABC has asked him to write a pilot for a new version of this show. I never watched the original show, but I’ve heard from various people that they used to love it. The old show starred Jeremy Piven as:

Trevor, a man who believes he’s Cupid and must fix the problems of couples on Earth so that he may gain access to Mount Olympus and begin sipping ambrosia and living the good life. The catch? He lost all his mythological abilities. The other catch? He may just be a normal guy who is missing a few screws.

It sounds like a great plot and if Rob Thomas stays on board for the entire series, I’m definitely going to tune into this one. [Source]

Beverly Hills, 90210
Rob Thomas is a busy, busy man. Besides being asked by ABC for a Cupid-remake, the CW has approached him to write and produce a re-envisioning of Beverly Hills, 90210. I would have skipped this, if Rob Thomas wasn’t involved, cuase come on do we really need this? Don’t get me wrong, I get that people like the drama/soap series about rich kids with problems (The O.C., Gossip Girl), I’ll admit I’m one of them, but why a remake of 90210? Why not something completely new? The list of characters came out today and so far I’m not seeing anything to get excited about. Ah well, I also didn’t get hooked on The O.C. until half-way season one, so I’ll just wait and see how it goes. [Source]

Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog
For me, this sounds too good and way too weird to be true, but I’m completely geeking out on this small project. It’s a three part Web musical (with each episode only being 10 minutes) written by Joss Whedon and his brothers during the writer’s strike. The idea is this:

It’s the story of a low-rent super-villain, the hero who keeps beating him up, and the cute girl from the laundromat he’s too shy to talk to.

To make it even better, the role of the super villain Dr. Horrible will be played by Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother) and the role of the hero Captain Hammer goes to Nathan Fillion (Serenity, Buffy). Can this project get any better than this? [Source]

Alice
I kind of liked Tin Man, the SciFi Channel re-imagination of The Wizard of Oz. It wasn’t as great as I thought it would be, but still was pretty entertaining. The same creative team responsible for Tin Man will be back with another re-imagination, this time of the classic Alice in Wonderland. I can see how this can work; it seems like the perfect story to adapt to a scifi setting. I’m surprised actually that no one has done it before (or am I just blanking here?). I wonder what type of adaption it will be though? Will it follow the path of Tin Man with other dimensions? Or virtual reality? Or maybe something less obvious like space travel? [Source]