+ Sci Fi Wire has a recap of the "Iron Man 2" panel at Comic-Con complete with a description of the new trailer the producers debuted there. Sounds like this movie is on track to live up to the original.
+ It's just trailer heaven here today! Here's an extended look at "The Waters of Mars" Doctor Who special coming up later this year. Looks pretty creepy.
+ And finally, "Top Gear" co-host and former Nerd Man of the Month James May plans on building an entire real-size house out of LEGO bricks. The site of his house? The Denbies Wine Estate in the appropriately named town of Dorking. (I love this.) If you live anywhere near there, May is looking for volunteers to help him on August 1 put together the more than 3 million pieces that were delivered to the site this past Friday. Just click here and look for the e-mail link.
For me, cars can best be described as four wheels and a big yawn. Unless they were built in the ‘30s and are pretty to look at, they just don’t hold my interest. There’s too many letters and numbers and mechanics involved – “it’s a Mark 12PDQ and it’s got a V-8 with 400 cylinders and a Belgian hamster fan belt.” My brain just doesn’t get it.
What my brain does get – and in fact, likes very much – is BBC America’s “Top Gear,” a show ostensibly about cars but much more about three British guys doing ridiculous things at unsafe speeds. For example, there was the episode where they painted “NASCAR sucks,” “I hate country and western” and “Hillary For President” on the sides of their cars and tried to drive through Alabama. I emphasize the word “tried” because, in true American fashion, a whole bunch of rednecks proceeded to chase them from a gas station and try to kill them. Welcome to the USA, British people! Then there was the time one of the hosts, Jeremy Clarkson, designed his own interior for a Mercedes. He wanted it to be homey, ergo he put in stone floors, plastered over the doors, added a wood burning stove – complete with chimney out the trunk – and replaced the seats with cozy dinner table chairs…that were not nailed down. For finishing touches, he added a book case, miniature globe and tea service. You can best imagine the test drive by picturing a doll house strapped to a turbo charged engine and driven be two adult men who should know better but thankfully, just ignore common sense. Oh, and then there was the time they played soccer with subcompacts:
There are some boring bits to get through each week – like when they talk about cars – but those moments are mitigated by the camaraderie and sly senses of humor of hosts Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond, who you might recognize from another BBC show, “Brainiac. There are celebrity test drives, too, where they let everyone from Gordon Ramsey to Ewan McGregor drive crappy little autos around a track as fast as they can, pitting their best times against each other. They also feature interesting little items on new technologies for cars, explaining these gadgets in easy-to-understand terms that actual make them look interesting and desirable. I learned loads from watching their piece comparing the homing systems of carrier pigeons to the navigational innards of a GPS system.
So even if you’re not too wild about cars, don’t be afraid to take “Top Gear” out for a spin. (See what I did there?) The show underscores one of life’s most important lessons: funny British guys really can make anything fascinating.
+ This Thursday night, you'll be able to Twitter along with the "Fringe" cast during a rebroadcast of last year's "The Road Not Taken" episode. You'll be able to post your own comments as well. I encourage you to ask Joshua Jackson if he's wearing pants...celebrities like that plus, it's just a good thing to know.
