Thursday, October 22, 2009

Thursday Odds & Ends: Tintin, cow abductions, Sackhoff, Cleese and the mighty pens of Frost, Pegg and Wright, if you know what I mean

+ Hot on the heels of Wil Wheaton's appearance Monday night, "Big Bang Theory" continues to rack up the cool, geek guest stars. "Battlestar" alumna Katee Sackhoff will appear as herself in a cameo on the show's Nov. 23 episode.

+ I present to you, the most awesome home furnishing ever invented: the alien cow abduction lamp. Oh, it is mighty and grand...and limited edition so buy now.

+ What does it take to break the Guinness World record for watching video games? Yoga, an ability to digest dates and 40 spare hours to kill. Yeah, this guy played "Grand Theft Auto IV" for 40 straight hours and didn't even take half the breaks Guinness afforded him as part of its rules. Wow. I don't know if that's sad or impressive. Probably a little of both.

+ So, how do "Hot Fuzz" creators Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright and Nick Frost entertain themselves on a Wednesday afternoon? They take to Twitter and write slash fiction stories about their characters, of course. Honestly, it's hilarious and completely immature and Edgar Wright was kind enough to compile the entire conversation on his website. I'm so glad I found his recap because at one point yesterday, I recall stumbled in halfway through the conversation apparently, with odd mentions of cudgels and Pringle's cans from Pegg and Frost. I just figured it was a normal day's chat.

+ If you want a closer look at Nathan Fillion's upcoming Halloween costume on "Castle," this preview is worth checking out. Also, vampires and a Buffy namecheck!



+ Sci-Fi Wire has some new tidbits on the upcoming "Tintin" movie, which is being produced by Peter Jackson and directed by Steven Spielberg from a script that includes contributions from "Doctor Who"'s Steven Moffat and Edgar Wright, slash fiction auteur mentioned above...okay, a co-creator of "Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz."

+ Rolling Stone has a nifty interview with John Cleese, mostly about the recent DVD release of "Fawlty Towers" but also a bit about Python.

+ And finally, Scientific American has an excerpt from a new book chronicling the life of Mary Anning, who unearthed scores and scores of dinosaur bones in the 19th century when people were still scratching their heads and trying to figure out what these things were. Many credit here with being one of the world's first paleontologists, if not the first. Well done, Mary!

5 comments:

Adam said...

Okay, for the record, Castle is quickly becoming one of my favorite show, if only for the conversation Castle and Beckett had about irony in Monday's episode.

Castle: "Thank you."
Beckett: "For what?"
Castle: "For using 'irony' correctly. Ever since that Alanis Morissette song, people use it when they actually mean 'coincidence.' Drives me nuts."
Beckett: "Yeah, well, it must be your great grammatical influence over me."

Brilliant...and it exonerates me for every time I've ever corrected someone's use of the word "irony."

Michele said...

Talking of Mary Anning, have you read Chevalier's 'Remarkable Creatures' - a fiction account of her life. I thoroughly enjoyed the novel (and got hooked on Chevalier in the process).

Liz said...

Adam, I loved that bit, too. It's nice that they portray Castle as an actual writer who gets upset at actual writer-ly things.

Michele, I had no idea there was a fictionalized version of Anning's life story> I'll definitely check it out. I read a bit about her in a Bill Bryson book, and she sounds fascinating.

Michele said...

The novel made her seem fascinating too - I can't wait for this new book to come out over here.

Radish said...

I think the writers of Castle are trying to kill me...no not really that clip is made of awesome!!