If you’ve been following my Twitter account, you will have noticed I’m working on a new series of events: the Geeks of London.

Most of you here know that I’ve been doing the Geek Dinners for two years now, so why the sudden new event? While I loved organizing the Geek Dinners, I noticed a couple of things: For starters, it’s always been confusing to people what ‘Dinners’ meant. In a lot of people’s eyes that meant a sit-down dinner, and some were then scared off by such a formal setting. We never ever did an actual proper sit down dinner, most of the time it was just a buffet, but it’s always been a bit unclear to people what the dinner part entailed.

Besides that I’ve always felt the term Geek doesn’t necessarily only mean techy geek. I think geeks come in all types of varieties, like movie geeks and comic book geeks. One final reason to change the event was because of the Girl Geek Dinners. I appreciate what the Girl Geek Dinners are doing, but they’ve grown so much by now that a lot of people didn’t realized there was also a “normal” Geek Dinner (I hate using the term “normal”, because that would imply the GGDs are abnormal, but I hope you get my drift).

So the idea of this new series of events was to step away from the former Geek Dinner name, but to also organize meetups for all different types of geeks, be they movie geeks, comic book geeks or tech geeks. The first meetup will a Movie Geeks of London meetup, which will take place next week on Tuesday the 16th (for more details check out the website).

I’m hoping more people will get involved and will take on the role of organizing some of the meetups. I really want this to be as varied as possible with all sorts of themed events. The first event will just be a hang-around-a-pub-and-meet-lots-of-new-cool-people type meetup, but I’d love to do some meetups with special speakers or sponsors (or in the case of the movie meetups maybe a certain movie that everyone agrees on seeing before meeting up). I know we might have a pub quiz being planned and once the weathers a bit warmer I want to do some photography and geocaching walks. If you’ve got an idea for an event, let me know and I’ll help get you setup.

Interesting links for February 1st through February 8th:

• Happy Pills!? Sweet Happiness in Sugar-Pill Supplements – Shop that sells “medical emergency sets” filled with sweets.
• Can Live-Action Airbender Live Up To The Cartoon? – Some side by side comparisons of the teaser trailer and the cartoon. Plus: Appa!
• Do Knot Forget – Cool ad from Ford.
• Spelling Society : Chaos poem. – Awesome poem.

My arm is finally starting to feel better, and I’m slowly getting back to sitting longer behind my laptop. It’s still not completely healed, but it’s much, much better than the past couple of weeks. I’ve got so many blog posts to catch up on: my final movie and book reviews of 2009, the Secret Santa I organized and more.

Here are some short review of books I read last year:

A Song of Ice and Fire – George R R Martin

Ages ago I tried reading A Game of Thrones and just couldn’t get through it. When I heard HBO was making a TV show out of them I knew I had to give them another try. Maybe I was too young the 1st time around, cause this time around I loved the books. The story, the characters, the world, everything is so detailed and built up, I think I might be spoilt for other series. I still have to read the fourth book (A Feast For Crows), but the first three are amazing.

I’m now so looking forward to the HBO show, I just hope they get this right. This is the type of fantasy TV show I’ve been hoping for; something that’s more like a costume drama, just not set in our world.

A Game of Thrones (UK, US), A Clash of Kings (UK, US), A Storm of Swords (Book 1 UK, Book 2 UK, US), A Feast For Crows (UK, US).

The Nightwalkers  – Jacquelyn Frank

I really enjoyed these books, it’s again a cool different type of world. In this case it’s set in our world, but with demons, vampires and shapeshifters. The demons (with which the series starts) are the most interesting species with the characters each having elemental powers. The series starts off pretty cool, with some revelations being made over the demons and their back history. There are 5 books in the Nightwalkers series (Jacob, Gideon, Elijah, Damien, Noah) from Jacquelyn Frank. The story continues in her next series Shadowdwellers, about the 4th species in that world, but these 5 form a complete story.

Jacob (UK, US), Gideon (UK, US), Elijah (UK, US), Damien (UK, US), Noah (UK, US)

The Black Magician Trilogy – Trudi Canavan

I read this series a couple of years ago… and absolutely hated it. Well, I liked the premise, but somehow at the time I just didn’t like the ending. Re-reading it now though makes me realize how your tastes do change through the years. This time around I loved every bit of it.

The trilogy is about Sonea, a young girl who lives in the slums and finds out she has magical abilities. But as long as the city can remember only people from the upper classes have been found with magic and have gone on to train at the Guild. The first book drags on a bit and it only really becomes interesting once Sonea is actually at the Guild learning her powers. There are some cool concepts in here, like the way the magic works.

The Magician’s Guild (UK, US), The Novice (UK, US), The High Lord (UK, US)

Heart Fate – Robin D. Owens

The 7th book in the Heart series from Robin D. Owens. I didn’t love this book as much as some of the previous ones, but still an enjoyable read. Heart Fate is about Tinne Holly, the younger brother of Holm Holly (who was the hero in book 3) and his heart mate Lahsin Yew.

Heart Fate (UK, US)

Fire Study – Maria V Snyder

I loved Poison Study and Magic Study (the first two book from this series) and had been looking forward to their conclusion for ages. I won’t say anything about the plot, cause I’d otherwise spoil the first two books too much. Yelena is a great character and it’s cool to see how much she grows during the series.

I liked Fire Study, but somehow at the same time I was a bit disappointed by it. I think I just wanted it to be more than it was; with characters and a world this rich, I was expecting a grand emotional finale. It’s sort of there, but it’s missing that special something that makes me fall in love with a book.

Fire Study (UK, US)

The Rogue Hunter, The Immortal Hunter – Lynsay Sands

Two books from Lynsay Sands’ new Rogue Hunter series; it’s basically a continuation of the Argeneau series (same world, same recurring characters) only she ran out of Argeneau family members to write about.

The first books from the Argeneau series were hilarious, they’re the funniest romance books I’ve read. But the last couple ones… meh. They’re still okay, but I’m missing the funny in them. The Rogue Hunter has some cute moments in it, but most of the plot is pretty boring. The Immortal Hunter, however, gets interesting again, setting up a new main storyline and mystery. I can’t wait to see how this continues.

The Rogue Hunter (UK, US), The Immortal Hunter (UK, US)

The Tamir Triad – Lynn Flewelling

I’m a fan of Flewelling’s other series, The Nightrunners, and was curious to see more of one of the stories we heard about in there. This trilogy takes place a couple of hundred years earlier, when the country Skala is being ruled by an usurper king. For Skala to prosper though, there must always be a Queen on the throne, so the current king is secretly murdering his own female king to protect his own reign. Following prophecy, two wizards spellbound a princess at birth, with a glamour to disguise her, making her look like her dead (sacrificed) brother. The girl grows up believing she’s a boy…

The premise of this book is pretty unique, yet without interesting characters this could have failed completely. The characters and the world that Flewelling has created are fascinating; I sped so quickly through these books, I just wanted to know what happened to them as quick as possible. Great books, I recommend them to anyone who wants a cool new fantasy world.

The Bone Doll’s Twin (UK, US), Hidden Warrior (UK, US), The Oracle’s Queen (UK, US)

The Summoning Series – Robin D. Owens

I read the first two books of this series in early 2009 and finally got around half a year later to finish this series. The books are about the world of Lladrana, where forces of darkness have invaded. The different factions of the world resort to their final option: Summoning their prophesied saviours from the Exotique land aka Earth.

Each book is about the summoning of a human to this strange world where they each discover they have magical abilities. What I loved about these books was how unpredictable they were; they didn’t follow the standard romance formula. Plus it’s got a great fantasy story with lots of magic and talking hamster!

Protector of the Flight (US), Keepers of the Flame (US), Echoes in the Dark (US)

Episode 159: “cafes near the louve”

Most of you might have seen this yesterday already, but if you haven’t… so sweet:

Ever since getting my bridesmaid’s dress from Laura Ashley, I’m kind of digging some of their designs. I still find most of their stuff a bit too stuffy and proper, but some dresses look really cute.

This first one is leaning towards the too ‘neat and proper’, but I think with the accessories it could look awesome.

And this second just looks elegant:

Both dresses are on sale right now, and are only available in limited sizes.

Episode 158: “Well, it’s not a very strong drink’.

SPOILER alert: if you haven’t seen last week’s season opening of Lost, don’t watch this video.

Via io9

Funny little flash game where you have to turn gears. It’s only 20 levels, but gets pretty tricky:

Yep, I’m starting yet another “rrific” post, this time all about terrific t-shirts! I managed to get this one in a sale yesterday at David & Goliath’s Carnaby Street store for only £5:

Cute, right? And perfect for Hackdays!

I told you last week I’ve been waiting to see more footage of The Last Airbender. We saw a teaser last June, but since then we’ve only gotten glimpses of posters and screenshots. Well, the TV spot for the Super Bowl has just been released and supposedly some time soon we’ll get to see a full trailer:

This looks awesome! I loved the cartoon on which it is based and I think M. Night Shyamalan has the skills to make this work. I’m still worried about how they’re going to squeeze 8 hours of story into only 3 hours max of movie (yeah, not every single episode of the first season is important to the main plot, but you’d be surprised how many episodes are necessary for the story or feature recurring characters).

I also want to see some non-action scenes and see whether or not these kids will be able to portray the characters the right way. The TV show was pretty goofy at times, but that goofiness made the serious episodes all the more worthwhile. I hope that they don’t get rid of that for the the movie.

Ever wanted to own a prop of your favourite TV show? If Dollhouse was your fave, here’s your chance. Priya’s painting from Sierra’s background episode “Belonging” is on auction on eBay to raise money for charity. The proceeds will go to the Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, a nonprofit, academic, pediatric medical center. They provide the highest quality healthcare for children who are the sickest and most seriously injured in the Southen California region.

From the eBay page:

During the filming of the episode Michael Voelker, who works in the art department as a set dresser, brought his son Hunter to set.  Hunter Marlowe Voelker is two years old and was recently diagnosed with ALL (acute lympoblastic leukemia).  He is an adorable, positive kid and to call him a trooper doesn’t cover it.

Anyway, we were standing around the painting a few days later, talking about what would happen to it when the show was done.  Would it fit in our living room?  And then we got on the subject of the devoted, pro-active fans of the series and how they would love to own this.  Maybe we could auction it off!  For a bunch of money!  And then use that money to build a private glow-in-the-dark jacuzzi water-slide park in our back yard!  Or we could give it to charity, I guess…

At the moment, the bid for the painting is $4350… so does anyone have at least $4400 available? Here’s how the painting looks like :

BEWARE – after the photo are SPOILERS for the Dollhouse finale

So have you seen the Dollhouse finale yet? The penultimate episode with the current day wrap-up was a bit of a letdown for me. Some great acting especially from Enver Gjokaj (Victor) with a return of his Topher-Victor. Man, that guy can channel other actors eerily (found out he’s actually playing the young version of Robert de Niro in the upcoming Stone, can’t wait to see that). But most of the plot just felt rushed and clunky.

The last episode though? That was awesome. It wasn’t perfect, but I loved that it at least had a complete full circle story. Things I liked:

Topher. I loved him from the beginning. Even though he was bit annoying at the start, he was the only one with funny lines and the only character that, well, showed character. Through the last season he became a more sympathetic character. That final scene with him and Adelle was so sweet!

Victor and the Mad Max rebels. It might have been a little over the top, but it was interesting to see how they used the tech and had adapted to it. Plus the whole Priya/Victor thing was interesting to see, especially cause we got to see the consequences of their decisions from the previous episode.

Ballard getting shot. I should have expected something like this from Joss Whedon. It didn’t hurt as much as previous of his ‘killings’ (Angel, Doyle, Wesley, Wash, Penny and more), I think I as a viewer wasn’t as invested in Ballard as in other characters, but it was still heartbreaking to see the effect it had on Echo.

Things I didn’t like: the Ballard/Echo ending (kind of sweet, but also kind of creepy if you think it through). The all-powerful MacGuffin that solved the entire brainwiping in one go. I wish we could have seen more of the future world, and I wonder how this show would have continued if Whedon had gotten more seasons.

So that’s it for Dollhouse. What’s next for Whedon I wonder?