Tuesday Odds & Ends: Tennant in America, Whedon and the Terminator, Sir Christopher Lee and spiders

+ This morning on I Can't Believe She's Got Another Item on Tennant The Park Bench, the big news is that David Tennant will be starring in a TV series pilot for NBC called "Rex Is Not Your Lawyer" about "a top Chicago litigator who begins suffering panic attacks and takes up coaching clients to represent themselves in court." Dear NBC, I know you like to do dumb things like put Jay Leno on the TV, but please let Tennant use his real accent. Please? I will buy you a cookie if you say yes.

+ Speaking of buying things, Joss Whedon has made a hilarious offer to buy the rights to "Terminator." In his "Open Letter to the Terminator Owners. From a Very Important Hollywood Mogul," Joss provides some insight into how he'd revive the franchise:

Terminator... of the Rings! Yeah, what if he time-travelled TOO far... back to when there was dragons and wizards? (I think it was the Dark Ages.) Hasta La Vista, Boramir! Cool, huh? "Now you gonna be Gandalf the Red!" RRRRIP! But then he totally helps, because he's a cyborg and he doesn't give a s#&% about the ring -- it has no power over him! And he can carry it AND Frodo AND Sam AND f@%& up some orcs while he's doing it. This stuff just comes to me. I mean it. (I will also offer $10,000 for the Lord of the Rings franchise).

+ Sci-fi, fantasy and horror legend Christopher Lee has been knighted for Prince Charles on behalf of the Queen for his contributions to drama and charity work. Well-deserved indeed!

+ Don't forget that "V" debuts tonight at 8 p.m. EST on ABC. The early reviews have been good so far.

+ Want to follow some cool folks who make comics? This site has compiled a list of comic book industry Twitterers for your easy reference.

+ Big science news this morning: apparently, the dinosaurs of Sussex never dusted, and as a result, scientists have found a 140-million-year-old spider web preserved in amber.

Monday Odds & Ends: Where the Wild Things Are, Halo, Olmos, embroidery and polymaths

+ What better way to start the week than with a new "Where the Wild Things Are" preview? I'll admit, I was tepid on this film when I first heard about it, but everything I've seen so far makes it look...well...enchanting and that's not a word I use everyday:


+ Speaking of enchanting (there, I've gone and used the word again), check out this great sampling of Whedon-inspired stitchery -- is that a word? My favorite is the "It's curtains for you, Dr. Horrible" piece...with the little curtains attached.

+ In movie news, it looks like Steven Spielberg may be taking over the "Halo" movie and everyone's favorite crazy space admiral, Edward James Olmos, will be joining the cast of "The Green Hornet." Oh, and sadly, McG is going to make a "Terminator 5." I would be more likely to see it if he was going to make a "Terminator 9 to 5 The Musical" but that's probably not in the cards.

+ Looking for a few summer book recommendations? May I suggest reading Felicia Day's hilarious recaps of what she's been reading these last few weeks? They include romance and zombies and hot bisexual druids. No, really.

+ Want to see a preview for Matt Smith (aka "Doctor Who" Eleven)'s new flick? It's about a woman who clones her dead boyfriend...and then has to wait for him to grow up. Awkward!



+ Here's a rather touching account of one woman's pen pal friendship with director John Hughes, who sounds like he was a very kind, patient and gracious man.

+ And finally, new research shows that kids who develop imaginary playworlds when they're young are more likely to display broad creativity when they get older. Congratulations, WoW creators, odds are, you're polymaths!

Odds and Ends

+ Ten Annoying Habits of a Geeky Spouse The name speaks for itself! Love this list. Thanks to Jen for sending it in!

+ So, well, hmmm...a live-action Star Wars TV show taking place between Episode Three (aka the least horrific of the utterly horrific prequels) and Episode Four (the one that made us think George Lucas could sustain a brilliant idea). I refuse to have any sort of anticipatory feeling about this.

+ Speaking of dudes I don't want to be disappointed in...Joss Whedon swears to all that is holy and right that "Dollhouse" is going to get good with this week's episode and will stay good ever after. I didn't watch last week's episode but because Joss gave me Giles and Jayne, I will tune in again. Except by "tune in," I mean "DVR it and watch it later because at 9 o'clock this Friday, I'll be crying my way through the last episode of BSG."

+ Weird festivals from around the world...I'm totally planning my next vacation around the Gloucester Cheese-Rolling Festival. Although I'd have a hard time trying to avoid gigantic wheels of cheese when deep down, I love cheese more than anything except pie.

+ Even better than cheese? A MacGyver movie is in the works!! The bad news? It's being produced by the offspring of Dino De Laurentis.

Joss, Neil and Time Magazine -- together at last, four years ago!

Courtesy of today's Nerd World column at Time Magazine, here's an interview from 2005 with Neil Gaiman and Joss Whedon. It's a great read with them both talking about totally different projects but also discussing what it's like to be nerd icons. A sample:

TIME: I almost miss the stigma that used to attach to these things. Now everybody's into Tolkien. And I feel a little like, hey, I've been into that stuff my whole life. And in fact, you used to beat me up for it.

JW: I miss a little of that element, the danger of, oh, I'm holding this science fiction magazine that's got this great cover. There a little bit of something just on the edge that I'm doing this. That's pretty much gone. Although when I walk into a restaurant with a stack of comic books, I still do get stared at a little bit.

NG: I always loved, most of all with doing comics, the fact that I knew I was in the gutter. I kind of miss that, even these days, whenever people come up and inform me, oh, you do graphic novels. No. I wrote comic books, for heaven's sake. They're creepy and I was down in the gutter and you despised me. 'No, no, we love you! We want to give you awards! You write graphic novels!' We like it here in the gutter!

JW: We've been co-opted by the man.

Oddly enough, neither of them talk about a future where they'll both be Nerd Men of the Month.

Whitford and Whedon...together at last.

I never thought I'd write these joyous words yet here it is. Hopefully you'll be able to hear it above the clarion calls of angels and the bliss of the dulcet baby choir:

Yes, Bradley Whitford and Joss Whedon are doing a movie together.

I may have cried a little just then. It was announced today that "West Wing"'s Bradley Whitford and some dude named Richard Jenkins are signed on (or close to signing) to star in "The Cabin in the Woods," the upcoming horror flick penned by Whedon and "Cloverfield" writer and "Buffy" alumnus Drew Goddard, who also will direct. Says Goddard, "It's really just your basic typecasting: When you need two actors to run through the woods in low-cut nighties, you immediately think of Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford."

No one seems to know what the flick is really about except, well, there's a cabin in the woods and it's Joss Whedon so it's probably safe to assume there will be jokes, fearsome rabbits, perhaps a vampire with fruit-punch mouth and at least one completely unnecessary and gut-wrenching death.

I'll be tuned in, that's for sure. The movie is scheduled for release in February 2010.

Angel, Buffy or Firefly...which one's the best?

This guy on IO9 argues that "Dollhouse" is going to be Joss Whedon's greatest work ever. His case is pretty compelling -- except for the bit where he says that most of Whedon's premises are weak, a statement with which I disagree vehemently. Everything he says about "Dollhouse," though, actually makes me look forward to it even more.

It also made me wonder, though, what IS Whedon's best work? "Aliens 3," right? Hahahaha, just kidding. Okay, what's his best TV series? That, for me, is a really difficult call. There's so much to be said for all of three shows.

"Angel" is of course the forgotten cast-off series but boy oh boy was that a great show. First, Angel was a great character -- the vampire equivalent of Jane Eyre's Mr. Rochester. He was dark and brooding and guilt-ridden but he was also vain and inadvertantly hilarious. The episode where he could finally walk in sunlight and, more importantly, see himself in a mirror is brilliant, with this morbid dude frolicking in daylight and asking his friends if he always wears that much gel in his hair. And yet, the show could wring the emotions out of you too, whether it was Angel losing Buffy all over again or losing Cordelia or giving his son away to protect him. But best of all, he got turned into a puppet! "A wee little puppet man!" as Spike said. That in and of itself makes this resilient, creatively flexible show a masterpiece.

Which means it would be at the top of my list if it weren't for "Firefly." Thirteen episodes of pure perfection, a show that gave the world Nathan Fillion and a man named Jayne -- two things for which I will be forever grateful. "Firefly" always had the ideal mix of action, adventure, humor, hijinks, romance, familial love, marital love...and, as Joss always said, whores! (That was my favorite part of every pre-press interview Joss ever did for "Firefly." Every one of his descriptions ended with "and it has whores!" Wouldn't everything be funnier if it ended with "whores?" I say yes.) It's such a shame that Fox pulled the plug on "Firefly" so quickly because each episode was better than the last. This one would be at the top of my list, too, if it weren't for...

"Buffy," which, with all respect to the IO9 dude, is always going to be Whedon's greatest work. And here's why: it was his first show and it was genius from day one. Turning that horror movie cliche of the dumb blonde victim on its head...and then on its ass...and then back on its head again, "Buffy" paved the way for strong female characters who could also be funny and flawed. "Buffy" was an original. And holy cow, was it ever funny. Every episode was packed to the brim with absurd and unforgettable lines that I will continue to quote decades after everyone ceases listening to me. And just as "Angel" and "Firefly" did, "Buffy" could get manic clowns with blood made of Xanax to cry -- when Angel turned on her, when Giles betrayed her and oh my God, when Joyce died. That episode is one of the most heart-rending and crushingly disturbing portrayals of death ever shown on television and why Whedon wasn't given an eternal Emmy award right then and there will always be a mystery to me.

So no matter how great "Dollhouse" turns out to be -- and I have deep nerd faith that it will be awesome (despite my "meh" feelings about the previews) -- it will never be as good as "Buffy." And that's not a criticism. It's just that "Buffy" was the groundbreaker. She made everything else possible and for that one simple reason, it's a show that will never be topped.

Still though, nothing beats "Aliens 3."

What do you think?

New "Dollhouse" trailer

A new trailer for Joss Whedon's "Dollhouse" has arrived:



I don't know...it doesn't really grab me. Then again, I'm not a big Eliza Dushku fan. And I have to remind myself that "Firefly" didn't look that great to me before I saw an actual full episode either, so I'm still very optimistic. What do you think?

Nerd Man of the Month: Adam Baldwin

This month’s Nerd Man and I go way back – in the sense that we’ve never met and I just watch him a lot on TV. When I was a kid, one of my favorite movies was called “My Bodyguard,” a movie about a kid who goes to a new school and gets beaten up all the time until he hires the troubled, brooding big guy to protect him. As someone who used to get crammed into lockers on a frequent basis, this movie spoke to me…and it didn’t hurt that the brooding guy was kind of hot. His name? Adam Baldwin. And not only did he continue to be hot, he then started starring in pretty much every good sci-fi show and movie produced in the last 15 years, from “The X-Files,” “Angel” and “Independence Day” to “Firefly,” “Serenity” and now “Chuck.” My friends, he was even in the cheesy TV remake of “The Poseidon Adventure,” in which he ROCKED.

And unlike most people who aren’t animated characters on “South Park,” he looks damn good in an orange knit hat. These are just a few of the reasons why Adam Baldwin has earned August’s Nerd Man of the Month honors.

Baldwin’s not just another pretty face. In fact, he’s not very pretty at all. He looks like an archetypal tough guy, all brawn and scowl. But here’s what makes him different, separating him, so to speak, from the Vin Diesel chaff: he’s pretty damn funny and never more so when he’s uttering the words of Joss Whedon. Baldwin’s 13 episodes as Jayne in Whedon’s “Firefly” left an indelible impression. He managed to make Jayne arrogant, ridiculous, cold-hearted, endearing, dangerous and reluctantly good all at once – sometimes all in one scene. He was the menacing funny guy. Only Jayne could have become a folk hero by running away and accidentally dropping all his stolen cash, making the people of Canton believe he was their Robin Hood. And only Baldwin could have conveyed the utter horror and arrogant pride that Jayne felt when he realized just how much all those Cantonians loved him. In fact, let’s all take a moment and reflect on “The Hero of Canton,” a man named Jayne...as sung by Baldwin:



The thing is, nerds love underdogs, too, and in the world of acting, Baldwin seems like the ultimate underdog. He’s never been a huge star and probably never will be. He’s never headlined a movie or shown up on Perez Hilton’s site. Even in his new series, “Chuck,” where he plays a government agent assigned to protect the geeky title character (flashback to “My Bodyguard?”), he’s rarely center stage but he always, always steals the scene. He’s a guy who seems to just work hard, plug along and quietly entertain the millions of people who secretly know he’s awesome. And in the end, well, that’s a hugely endearing quality.

So please join me in doffing our flappy-eared hats and honoring Adam Baldwin with this month’s Nerd Man title. Now let’s go shoot some space guns! It’s what Jayne would want.

The best Whedonverse singers

Greetings, Park Benchers! I'm Shan, and I'll be your guest blogger today. I normally blog over on The Nonsensical Ravings of a Lunatic Mind about television, movies, sci-fi, pop culture, news and UGA football. While the wonderful Liz is away, she's graciously asked me to help keep you entertained.

With the recent release of the 100% awesome Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, and the fact that after looking high and low for the soundtrack to Buffy's "Once More With Feeling" on iTunes, I finally found it for download on Amazon's MP3 site, I thought I would discuss the "singers" from those two seminal works.

This is a perfect confluence of topics to address, since I like making lists (typically, in a feature I call "The Canon"), regularly play a couch potato version of Randy, Paula and Simon with weekly American Idol reviews (the only reality show to make it past my "quality television" filter, though "quality" is a dubious term for AI), and of course, because I'm a huge Buffy the Vampire Slayer nerd. So, without further ado:

The Canon: Best Whedonverse Singers

First, a few caveats. I'm only considering the pure musical episodes, meaning "Once More With Feeling" and the entirety of Dr. Horrible. So you won't see any reference to Christain Kane, Julie Benz, Andy Hallet or David Boreanaz (Manilow!) singing on Angel, or anyone belting out "The Hero of Canton, The Man They Call Jayne" on Firefly. And I'm only ranking "series regulars," so you won't find the sublime Hinton Battle, who portrayed the demon "Sweet" on "OMWF." ("What You Feel" is probably my most played tune from the soundtrack). Or David Fury (how many of my fellow geeks regularly proclaim "they got....the mustard....out!" loudly when getting your dry cleaning? Just me? Moving on...) or Marti Noxon (parking tickets never seemed so heartbreaking). Finally, I realize that not everyone in the Buffy cast was completely enthused, or confident, about doing a musical, so there's no stigma attached to being at the bottom of the list.

1. Anthony Stewart Head. Giles' singing wasn't a surprise, after the Scoobies caught him performing "Behind Blue Eyes" during the otherwise disappointing "Where The Wild Things Are." But Head is quite the accomplished singer, with a background in musical theatre, and his "Standing" is truly heartbreaking. (Trivia: did everyone know that his older brother Murray was a one-hit wonder in the 80s with "One Night in Bangkok?")

2. Neil Patrick Harris. Who knew that Barney Stinson (or Doogie, if you prefer) was so musically talented? I was aware that he had performed on Broadway, notably in Cabaret and Assassins, but damn, was he good in Dr. Horrible. He handled both the uptempo numbers and the ballads with equal aplomb, and if you can move someone deep inside with an ode to a Freeze Ray, then you belong toward the top of this list.

3. Felicia Day. As the frozen yogurt, laundry and homeless loving Penny, Day was the lovely and tragic catalyst for the events of the Sing-Along Blog. She didn't have any true showstoppers to perform, but she has a clear and beautiful voice.

4. Amber Benson. While "Under Your Spell's" choreography won't make Bob Fosse roll over in his grave, Benson wonderfully captured Tara's love for Willow in strong voice, and her reprise of this tune, combined with Head's "Standing," gives you chillbumps.

5. James Marsters. "Rest in Peace" was a terrific showcase for Marsters' rock singer vibe, and musically and thematically perfect for Spike.

6. Emma Caufield. Her surreal, hysterical ranting about bunnies in "I've Got A Theory" is entertaining enough, but she also handled the Cole Porter-esque, playful back and forth in "I'll Never Tell" with tuneful wit.

7. Sarah Michelle Gellar. Unlike many young starlets of today, Gellar had no ambitions to release a sugary, wafer-thin pop music album, and only approached the singing in "OMWF" as an extension of the character she inhabited so very well. For someone without a significant background in musicals, she performed adequately carrying the bulk of the musical plot. What she lacked in pitch-perfect vocals, she more than compensated with a heartfelt and moving performance.

8. Nathan Fillion. Captain Hammer didn't sing his most memorable line ("The hammer is my penis."), but he did perfectly convey the hero's doltish and narcissistic charm in his opening number atop the remote-controlled van, and his final episode ode to the homeless.

9. Nicholas Brendon. He didn't have to hit the big notes to entertain; his verbal gymnastics and lyrical tap-dancing through "I've Got A Theory" and "I'll Never Tell" brought a smile and was 100% Xander.

10. Michelle Trachtenberg. Dawn's in trouble. Must be Tuesday. Didn't have much to do, didn't want to do much, but her dancing was lovely, right?

11. Alyson Hannigan. "I think this line is mostly filler." Sweet, adorable Willow. Thank goodness her powerhouse acting can carry virtually any other episode.

So there you have it, Park Benchers. Agree or disagree? What are your favorite musical moments from "Once More With Feeling" or Dr. Horrible? Which singers rack up the biggest play count on your iTunes?

Finally, as an extra special guest blog bonus, I'll select one random lucky Park Bench commenter to receive their choice of an iTunes credit for the full series of Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, or a copy of the "Once More With Feeling" soundtrack.

Thanks to Liz for letting me be Julie McCoy, your blog cruise director around these parts for a day.

News of the Day

+ We have a winner in the ESPN Zone Ultimate Couch Potato Contest: Stan Friedman of New York, who lounged competitively for 29 hours. The lone female contestant dropped out after a disappointing 15 hours. Friedman's mark, while impressive, was well short of the Guiness Book of World Records mark for watching competitive sports, which was 69 hours and 48 minutes. I think we'll all be using that bit of knowledge at our next cocktail party. [New York Daily News]

+ Netflix soon will be delivering movies directly to your TV set via some sort of magical box that I believe uses fairies and pixie dust to transmit film from the internets, if I'm understanding my science correctly. This is an awesome development. I used to like Netflix because it meant I didn't have to go outside to the video store. Now I like Netflix because it means I don't even have to go outside to my mailbox. Yay, sloth!

+ Comic Book Resources did a year-end wrap-up of best and worst comics, writers and artists. Joss Whedon snuck in there as one of 2007's best writers for his Buffy season 8 work among other things. [Comic Book Resources]

+ And for all you political nerds out there, don't forget that C-SPAN is providing live coverage of the Iowa caucuses beginning at 7 p.m. EST tonight. I'm so curious to see how a caucus works, I'm actually going to watch this. Go, candidates I feel least unappealing! I'm totally rooting for you! [C-SPAN]

Thursday's basket of awesomeness

With the news that the X-Files movie is now scheduled for release on July 25, 2008, I didn't think my nerd basket of awesomeness could get any fuller, until these announcements arrived:

+ If you loved Mystery Science Theater 3000, then you were probably wetting yourself with glee right along with me upon hearing news that MST3K creator Joel Hodgson was bringing members of his posse of excellence back together for a new project called Cinematic Titanic.

Here's what he had to say on the Cinematic Titanic site:

"I’ve decided, in collaboration with the other bold souls who “started it all,” to do a new project that is strong enough for our diehard audience, and also gentle and easy to swallow for those that are new to movie riffing. Wait for it….wait for it...meet Cinematic Titanic!

It’s going to be powered by the original cast of MST3K! Trace Beaulieu, J. Elvis Weinstein and yours truly, along with some friends who came along later to make the show great: the beloved Frank Conniff and the scathingly brilliant Mary Jo Pehl."

I'm so excited for this project, I can barely function. My little comedy-loving heart is dancing around right now, much like that terrifying baby in "Ally McBeal" but cooler and more fully-clothed.

And in other awesomely awe-tastic news....

+ Joss Whedon is returning to television! No, not with the reality show I always hoped he'd have where the audience gets to watch Joss sit around and be brilliant while eating cereal and deciding which unironed shirt to wear. No, he's returning to television with a new series called "Dollhouse" which he will be writing and producing. It stars Eliza Dushku, who is also serving as co-producer. The show, according to Variety, "follows a top-secret world of people programmed with different personalities, abilities and memories depending on their mission."

Joss says the series came out of a lunch meeting between him and Dushku, whose name, by the way, I really enjoy saying. Duuushku, Dushkuuuu... Anyway, here's what Joss says:

"It was a mistake!" Whedon said. "I sat down with her to talk about her options, and acted all sage, saying things backwards like Yoda and laying out what I thought she should do. But in the course of doing it, I accidentally made one up. I told it to her, and she said, 'That's exactly what I want to do.'"

The show has been given a seven-episode order by Fox, who promptly guaranteed to bury it on Friday nights, not advertise it and then run the episodes in the wrong order. Not that I'm still bitter about "Firefly" or anything.

+ And finally, if the Hollywood writer's strike hits and we're all left TV-less, don't forget you can create your own entertainment, just like they did in the old days: by writing an entire novel in one month. Yup, November is National Novel Writing Month. So pull out your Moleskin notebook and start scribbling. You've got 30 days to produce a masterpiece, starting...NOW!

A.M. Update

* Every time I hear or see Seth Green, I think of the scene in Buffy when Oz tells Giles he thinks he should name the zombie cat "Patches." And then I laugh. I don't know why. That's just how it is. Anyway, if you'd like to listen to Seth Green and conjure up your own mental images, he did a nifty interview on NPR yesterday about Robot Chicken and various other projects, none of which, sadly, involve zombie cats named Patches. (And again I laugh.) [NPR]

* Speaking of interviews and speaking of people who know Seth Green, Joss Whedon did an interview this week with The Onion's AV Club in which he talks about a bunch of new projects including an Angel TV movie which led me to go, "Huh? What?" and then kind of jump up and down a little bit. I'm feeling like maybe I misunderstood though because it seems too good to be true. Let me know what you think. [The Onion AV Club]

* Speaking of people who don't know Seth Green, my husband is very excited over news of a World of Warcraft movie. I think he's secretly hoping that his blood elf Hoyt gets asked to participate, but I'm not sure that'll happen. I'm guessing though that there will be sword fights and lots of flying arrows, so it's all good. [Monsters and Critics]

* Speaking of things that have nothing to do with Seth Green at all, a new study came out yesterday saying that while we women prefer the muscled, tough, Rocky-esque gentlemen for our clubbing and concrete pouring needs, we prefer the gentler, less bulge-y gents for marriage and long-term co-habitation. I'm guessing the report was written by a lot of men who are gentler and less bulge-y and who maybe get picked on by the bigger, meaner sports fitness researchers down the hall. Just a guess. [Yahoo "News"]

* And finally, something that has only tangential relation to Seth Green and then only in terms of evolution, a monkey smuggled himself into LaGuardia Airport yesterday sitting quietly, smoking and reading In Flight magazine under some guy's hat. He was discovered when he asked for a moist towelette. Or something. All I know is, it's a cute monkey and I love the BBC caption for the article which states, "The monkey was said to have been well-behaved on the flight." Unlike some of those damn kids always kicking my chair, the reporter thought to himself, shaking his fist in unseen rage. [BBC News]

The A.M. Digest

* This news from Comic-Con is almost enough to make me really, really happy on a Monday morning. Whedonesque.com and TV Squad are reporting that Ripper, the Buffy spin-off focusing on my imaginary Sunnydale boyfriend Rupert Giles, has actually been picked up by the BBC. It will be done as a 90-minute TV movie and yup, Anthony Stewart Head will reprise his role. No details on plot or when it will start filming, but hey, I'm not greedy. I've been waiting years and years for this bit of Whedon-y goodness, so I'm just happy to hear it might actually be happening. I hope Head remembers how to stammer and clean his glasses....[TV Squad story]

* In slightly less important cinematic news (kidding, of course), Swedish director Ingmar Bergman has passed away. Which is weird because I thought he was already dead, but then I realized I was thinking of Ingrid Bergman. And then I thought about how Woody Allen's movies wouldn't have been as good if he'd been aping Ingrid Bergman all these years, and then that made me appreciate Ingmar a little bit more and then I felt bad about mixing him up with a woman. Sorry, Ingmar. [NPR story]

* If you want to feel slightly old this morning, and who doesn't really, then take a stroll down memory lane with this visual history of game consoles. You'll see the old Odysseys and Ataris and realize that the 1970s were all about wood-paneling on everything. Including babies and small cars and trees.

* Also, the Italians exhumed two Medici writers...apparently just because they can. Bunch of Renaissance-having show-offs. [Guardian story]

Oh, the things we could buy...

There are a lot of good reasons to be rich. First and foremost, there's a lot of stuff you could buy. You could buy one of these:


Or one of these:


Or one of these:


Or one of these:


But absolutely the best reason for being rich is that you could bid on one of these:


Seriously, how many of us really need two kidneys? Let's start bidding! And if you win, remember to share with the rest of us. Please?

Nerd Man of the Month: Joss Whedon

With the recent debut of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Season 8 comic book series, now seemed like the perfect time to name Joss Whedon our first Nerd Man of the Month. Witty and talented with a couch-honed physique and catastrophic hairline, our Mr. March is a Nerd World Everyman. He’s that guy we liked in AV class but didn’t ask out because we thought maybe we could do better. And then he graduates and creates an incredible TV series and then we feel really stupid because, shit, he just got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and here I am on the couch eating ice cream.

Beyond our high school regrets, however, Joss Whedon earns our girl nerd love because of his incredible skill as a writer. From Buffy to Angel to Firefly, he’s crafted some of television’s finest hours, seamlessly bridging that harrowing gap between fall-down funny comedy and bitterly heart-rending drama – all with monsters and space ships and more heroes and metaphors than Joseph Campbell could shake his dead, jealous fist at. And while I still haven’t forgiven Mr. Whedon for bifurcating Anya in the last episode of Buffy, he did make up for it in so many other ways. He gave us Once More With Feeling and a hot librarian named Giles and a Mandarin-spewing space cowboy we like to call “Captain Tightpants.” For those reasons and so many more, The Park Bench is proud to name Joss Whedon our Nerd Man of the Month.