Wednesday Odds & Ends: James Marsters, Rifftrax, the other cats musical and gratuitious squirrel imagery

+ Don't you love it when great fandoms collide? Everyone's favorite ex-bleach blond vampire is coming to SyFy's "Caprica." Yes, James Marsters will be joining the BSG prequel for at least three episodes playing a terrorist named Barnabus Greeley. Now if only we could get John Barrowman on there, we'd have a nerd trifecta.

+ In other vampire casting news, there are nebulous rumors afloat that Robert Downey Jr. might play the vampire Lestat in a film based on an unspecified Anne Rice novel. I don't think we could get any more vague about this if we tried.

+ Don't forget -- tomorrow night Rifftrax will be going live in theaters nationwide with their mighty mockery of Ed Wood's classic "Plan 9 From Outerspace." Jonathan Coulton will be a special guest. You can purchase tickets here and read an interview with Rifftrax guys Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett here.

+ Did you know that there's a musical based on the "I Can Has Cheezburger" site? It's called, um, "I Can Has Cheezburger: The MusicalLOL" and is being performed at various times through August 28 as part of the New York International Fringe Festival. I can't help but think this is kind of awesome. And it's been getting backhandedly good reviews!

+ Here's an artist who knows how to put his Legos to good use: cartoonist Mark Anderson is building spaceships in the shape of alphabet letters using Legos. Check out the letter B:

+ Interested in getting the background story on the now famous "squirrel in the vacation" photo image? Gizmodo has video of the couple's Today show interview. (The link is, of course, just an excuse to post the photo. Have I mentioned I love squirrels?)

+ And finally, if you're looking for some good online reading material, check out my friend Ian's new blog "TV Lowdown." He's got the scoop on a lot of great TV news and he's an all-around nice guy, so there's two reasons to stop by and visit.

Thursday Odds & Ends: Shatner, Coulton, Flashforward and Dumbledore

So sorry for the late nature of this morning's post. Let's chalk it up to the hours I spent crying myself to sleep last night after finding out that David Tennant would be at this year's Comic-Con...and I would not. Anyway, loads of stuff to talk about this morning:

+ Speaking of Tennant and the good Doctor, this new "Torchwood" trailer for "Children of Earth" name-checks the Time Lord pretty heavily. This is actually the best trailer I've seen for the upcoming special. I'm really looking forward to it now:



+ Here's an interview with Jonathan Coulton where he talks about technology, music and the web in a way that's actually pretty fascinating.

+ Gawker for some reason seems shocked that William Shatner acted crazy on "The Tonight Show" last night. I saw it live -- because for some terrible reason I've developed a sixth sense alerting me whenever Shatner's on TV -- and didn't think it was any weirder or more bizarre than other weird, bizarre Shatner shenanigans. I'd have been more shocked if he hadn't suggested the enormity of his penis or given Conan the finger. What do you think?



+ Ain't It Cool has some tasty tidbits on ABC's new sci-fi show, "Flashforward." All I know is, the show stars John Cho and Joseph Fiennes and that's good enough for me.

+ Poor Dumbledore gets taken to task in this pretty funny examination of the wizard's professional skills, courtesy of Cracked.

+ Here's a 12-minute preview of Ron Moore's mostly-dead pilot, "Virtuosity," which will air pretty much as a two-hour TV movie on Fox on Friday, June 26. It's about people on a multi-year mission to save Earth...and who spend a lot of time with a virtual reality program to kill time. I will admit, I got pretty bored after the first minute or so...even though there was a British guy talking. What's wrong with me??

Odds and Ends: New Moon, Rifftrax, bobbleheads and The Prisoner

+ Robert Pattinson's gotten his pale on again, and he's showing it off for all the world to see in the new trailer for "The Twilight Saga: New Moon." And now I have Duran Duran's "New Moon on Monday" stuck in my head. I'm okay with that.



+ Speaking of awesome movie-type awesomeness, did you know that internet web singing sensation Jonathan Coulton and that other internet web singing sensation with two people in it called Paul and Storm did their own Rifftrax skewering of "Tron?" It is indeed true. The world is a beautiful place when the man responsible for "Skullcrusher Mountain" can make fun of Bruce Boxleitner for my entertainment.

+ When your grandma's birthday comes around this year, forget those tired old Hallmarks with that cranky old lady character spouting grizzled funnies on the cover. Instead, give your grandma what she really wants -- a thoughtful message from a Cylon or sentimental Tracy Jordan malapropism. Yes, you can now get "Battlestar Galactica" and "30 Rock" greeting cards. Could this be NBC's way of making up for "I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here?"

+ Need a cool gift to go with that naked Jamie Bamber greeting card? NBC is now selling "The Office" bobbleheads of characters who are not Dwight. I am in desperate need of a Creed or a Meredith myself.



+ This new preview of AMC's mini-series remake of "The Prisoner" barely lasts longer than a sneeze, but it's kind of cool to see Ian McKellan acting enigmatic. I'm starting to think this could be a very good production.

News of the Day -- Feb. 20, 2008

First of all, many thanks to the folks who realized that I'd lost my temporal mind yesterday and labeled "News of the Day" with a January date instead of a February date. No doubt Freud would have attributed this to a latent desire to return to the womb...one month at a time.

Now, with our feet firmly planted in "today," let's check out some news:

+ Gigantic sea creatures are apparently swarming the icy depths of the Antarctic waters...and they're beautiful. I'm betting 50 bucks they're aliens sent to Earth in search of really large ice chunks for some monster-size dacquiris. The umbrellas they're making to garnish the glass are going to blow our minds.

+ Alyson Hannigan is the latest alumna to join the upcoming PaleyFest Buffy reunion on March 20 in LA. It should be a fantastic event with Joss Whedon and pretty much the entire cast including Sarah Michelle Gellar, Seth Green, Nicholas Brendan, James "I Am Dorian Grey" Marsters, Eliza Dushku, Amber Benson and Charisma Carpenter on hand, to name just a few. Actually, I named a bunch of them. It might just have been easier to say, "Everyone except Anthony Stewart Head and David Boreanaz will be there." I hear it's going to be more of a shindig and less of a hootenanny than originally anticipated.

+ Last night, Yahoo News ran a feature on former Nerd Man of the Month and all-around charming fellow Jonathan Coulton and how he quit his day job to become a rock star. The story is basically framed around the idea of "how could this wacky person quit a job to pursue a lifelong dream?"

Which leads me to a question for you: what did you want to be when you grew up and would you ever quit your day job to try for it now? Share in the comments section. I'll add my answer later today.

Nerd Man of the Month: Jonathan Coulton

This month's Nerd Man describes himself as a "musician, singer-songwriter and internet superstar." That alone would have earned Jonathan Coulton at least 50 percent of the votes necessary to clinch the Nerd Man of the Month title. Couple that, though, with a personal recommendation from John Hodgman and the fact that he's a Contributing Troubadour for Popular Science and he becomes an obvious shoo-in.

If you've never heard Coulton's irresistable pop-ish, folk-ish, nerd-ish songs, have a listen at www.jonathancoulton.com. There, you can sample songs from his 52 songs in 52 weeks project or you can try something from the awesomely titled "Our Bodies, Ourselves, Our Cybernetic Arms." Peruse the song titles and you know any purchase is going to be well worth the price. You've got "Ikea." You've got "Re: Your Brains" in which a zombie plaintively asks his victim to open the door and acquiesce to a perfectly reasonable brain eating request. And you've got the popular favorite "Skullcrusher Mountain," which features these brilliant lyrics:

I made this half-pony half-monkey monster to please you
But I get the feeling that you don’t like it
What’s with all the screaming?
You like monkeys, you like ponies
Maybe you don’t like monsters so much
Maybe I used too many monkeys
Isn’t it enough to know that I ruined a pony making a gift for you?

Seriously, who can resist that? Not the folks here at The Park Bench, that's for certain. And if you can't get enough of Jonathan "Mr. May" Coulton, don't forget to check out this very amusing interview with this "geek and postmodern digital pioneer" in Psychology Today. It's got a picture of Coulton AND his cat. Bonus!

In which we hear back from Mr. Hodgman

Upon learning of his win as April's Nerd Man of the Month, John Hodgman was kind of enough to respond and let Park Benchers know that he was "humbled and grateful" for the honor.

He also was kind enough to nominate a potential Mr. May: songwriter Jonathan Coulton. I give him a "hell yes" vote just for his song, "Tom Cruise Crazy." Check it out below and let me know if he passes muster.