Wednesday Odds & Ends: Adama, Star Trek onesies, Wolfman, Bioshock and Facebook

Thanks everyone for all of the great Nerd Man nominations yesterday. All of the suggestions were terrific and I'm putting them in my to-do file, so they'll all get their turn soon! And now on to the news of the day:

+ Would you like to have dinner with Edward James Olmos? Personally, I'm intimidated by the man just watching him on TV, but I'm sure there are bolder folks than me out there. In conjunction with the recent release of the "BSG" prequel movie, "The Plan," UGO has announced a "Dinner with the Admiral" contest. Just answer a few trivia questions and you'll be entered in the drawing. Good luck!

+ If you have a baby and would like to turn it into a nerd before it can even walk or roll over on its own, here's your chance! You can now purchase Star Trek uniform onesies. Awesome!


+ There's a new trailer out for the "Bioshock 2" game, which is absolutely one of my favorite games ever. Not to play, mind you -- I have the dexterity of a chimp with no hands -- but to watch. It actually had a compelling plot and the graphics were just gorgeous. Can't wait to watch the husband play this one!



+ What if "Harry Potter" had come out in the 1980s? This cartoonist takes a few guesses involving, among other things, Christopher Lloyd and David Bowie.

+ Doesn't this kind of creep you out? Facebook will turn accounts into memorials for deceased users. I'm not sure if I want all my Scrabulous scores and unanswered RSVPs etched in digital stone for all eternity. How do you feel about it?

+ Want to see Benicio del Toro get all shaggy and Anthony Hopkins nibble on scenery? Then check out the new trailer for "The Wolfman" over at Apple. Looks pretty...but it also looks like something I've seen a hundred times before. It puts me in a mind to howl, though, and that's always fun. Join me, won't you? A-woooooo!

Tuesday Odds & Ends: "Star Trek," Hitchhikers and "Good Eats"

It's a bit of a slow nerdy news day, but we do have a few highlights:

+ Looking for a good laugh? Check out the "Star Trek XI" gag reel that's been circulating. Zachary Quinto is quite adorable...and does a hilarious Scottish accent. Or was it Irish? Dutch maybe?



+ This week marks the 30th anniversary of the publication of "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." And a new book, touted as the sixth installment in the series, has been released to mark the occasion. It's written by Eoin Colfer, the author of the Artemis Fowl series.

+ There's a new trailer out for "The Sarah Jane Adventures," featuring a few snippets of David Tennant's upcoming appearances. Sadly, there are also Slitheen, which just make me want to cry. Dumbest aliens ever created...



+ In the "well, that's nice of them" category, Fox has announced that it will air all 13 episodes of "Dollhouse" this season, mostly based on the show's decent DVR numbers.

+ NPR has a story on food wizard Alton Brown and ten years of his show "Good Eats," an occasion Brown is marking with the release of a new book on the series.

50 Nerdy Things to Do Before You Die...

Part wish list, part to-do list, part flight of fancy...but 100 percent nerd.

50. Have a fashionista compliment you on your outfit.

49. Get married on a replica of the starship Enterprise at the "Star Trek: Experience" in Las Vegas.

48. Be bold and take your action figures out of the box, value be damned!

47. Visit the grave of pioneering comic book artist Jack Kirby.

46. Live James Joyces' Ulysses by attending the Bloomsday Festival in Dublin. (Reading Ulysses first -- or at least buying the Cliff's Notes -- might be good here, too.)

45. See all of Shakespeares' histories performed. Yes, even the crap ones. (Helloooooo, King John!)

44. Visit the yet-to-be-made Harry Potter theme park.

43. Visit the yet-to-be-made Harry Potter theme park and try not to cry tears of girly joy.

42. Defeat King Koopa. Just once, damn it!

41. Have martinis and make witty comments at the Algonquin Hotel in New York, preferably at a round table.

40. See at least one game at all existing Major League Baseball ballparks.

39. Make a tour of Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles. After that, make a tour of The Big Lebowski’s Los Angeles.

38. Draw a map of a nonexistent or fictional place.

37. Visit DC Comics’ office.

36. Check out the computer labs at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, future birthplace of HAL-9000.

35. Go to the Superman Festival in Metropolis, IL.

34. Have dinner with Adam West (Batman), Burt Ward (Robin) and Linda Carter (Wonder Woman). Denigrate Gil Gerard.

33. Visit the respective castles that inspired Frankenstein and Dracula.

32. Match or out-do Eugene Andreev's record-setting freefall from an altitude of 83,523 ft (25,457 m).

31. Build your own lightsaber.

30. Visit Riverside, Iowa, future birthplace of Captain James T. Kirk.

29. Watch the sunset from inside the "Pee-Wee's Big Adventure" dinosaur.

28. Convince Harold Bloom that Tolkien's Ring trilogy belongs in the canon just as much as that stuffy old Faerie Queene. Plus, hello, hobbits!

27. Go to an underground sing-along screening of the Buffy Musical. (When Buffy is outlawed, only outlaws will sing-along to Buffy.)

26. See the butter cow at the Iowa State Fair.

25. Spend an entire weekend watching Miyazaki films. Subsequently achieve outstanding bliss.

24. Witness a live space shuttle launch. Extra points if you're piloting it.

23. Create an elaborate, unnecessarily detailed wiki about a fictional universe or series of stories.

22. Smuggle your soul into a futuristic robot. One thousand years from now, mock the suckers who fell for cryogenics.

21. Kill a zombie.

20. Kick Eric Clapton's ass in "Guitar Hero."

19. Become an editor and get paid to correct other people's grammar errors.

18. Make a pilgrimage to the Ernest Hemingway Home and Museum in Key West, Florida, and pet his six-toed cats.

17. Learn advanced Klingon.

16. "Accidentally" get locked in a bookstore for seven or eight days.

15. Watch 24 hours of "24" without falling asleep or hallucinating about Tony's soul patch. Seriously. It can't be done.

14. Understand a Tom Stoppard play on the first viewing.

13. Visit the International Space Station and go for a spacewalk.

12. Join the 501st Stormtrooper Brigade.

11. Memorize enough digits of pi to be impressive but not weird.

10. Be part of the first Wii Sport Olympic team. Be satisfied in the knowledge that your groin pulls will only ever be virtual.

9. Make out with Joss Whedon or J.K. Rowling. Extra points if you achieve a two-fer.

8. Gain at least one bionic limb or superpower

7. Feel again like you felt the first time you saw "Star Wars."

6. Correct Alex Trebek on the pronunciation of something French. Consequently hold him when he cries.

5. Figure out what the hell "Lost" is about. [This item also works for "The Prisoner," "Twin Peaks," "Cloverfield," and the popularity of Oprah.]

4. Solve a New York Times crossword puzzle...with your eyes closed. Just kidding. Doing one in pen with no mistakes in under 10 minutes is good, too.

3. Defeat those brainiac kids in the Scripps Spelling Bee Contest.

2. Get something published in The New Yorker. Have David Remnick call and ask where you've been all his life.

1. Live to see the day when smart and witty wins out over hot and shallow every single day of the week.

Contributors: Leonard Pierce, Meghann Williams, Annie, Scott, Kevin Church, One Pink Shoe, Ms. C

It's just that kind of day.

(It would help if you could read the following post while imaging mellow, jangly piano music playing in the background. Thanks.)

I don’t know – maybe it’s the rain. Maybe it’s the melancholy or the fact that I’m thinking of having cheese for lunch. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m wearing synthetic fibers. Whatever the reason, today is the kind of day when I’m thinkin’ ‘bout Shatner.

I’m thinkin’ there’s a lot to love about this particular Canadian…and no, that’s not a fat joke. Those will come later. Be patient. I’m thinkin’ here’s a man who loves himself a lot and if he loves himself a lot, then who are we to question that wisdom? After all, William Shatner knows William Shatner better than anyone and maybe we should all settle down and not fight the Shatner love anymore. I’m cool with that.

And speaking of cool, I’m thinkin’ he’s pretty cool to pimp himself for Priceline, too. Because not only is he entertaining me with his kung fu moves every night on TV, he’s probably also getting a sweet deal on rooms and rental cars. It makes good career sense and best of all, it makes good financial sense. He’s a smart Canadian.

I’m thinkin’ no one else could have played Captain Kirk – and ultimately come to believe he was Captain Kirk – quite the way Shatner did. If you haven’t read his autobiography, you really should. Immediately. I’ll wait….

Are you done? Did you enjoy it? Was your favorite part the part where he believed he could fight some guy because he was pretty sure that he, William Shatner, had Kirk’s smooth moves and would win, just like Kirk? But then he didn’t because he’s not a fictional character and wasn’t carrying a stunt coordinator with him that day. Yeah, that was a good chapter.

I’m thinkin’, too, of the time he tried to humiliate a teenage Wil Wheaton which Wheaton describes beautifully here. I’m thinkin’ I don’t like Shatner so much when he does that but I do like laughing at the story, in which he tells the young, newly minted Star Trek:TNG cast member that “he would never let a child on the bridge of his ship.” Again with the reality not being such a good friend of The Shat Man.

And I’m thinkin’ that as much as I mock Shatner and point at his girdle when I watch Generations and shake my head at his singing (“Mr. Tambourine Maaaan!!!!”) and cry a little at his spoken word poetry and maybe laugh some more when he auctions off his kidney stones, the world really wouldn’t be as much fun without him. That’s not just the cheese and melancholy talking either....

Screw you, mainstream television, we've got a list!

TV Guide has compiled a list of the Top Cult TV Shows Ever. Star Trek clocks in at a predictable number one with The X-Files nipping at its heels in second. That short-skirt-wearing, demon-pummeling Buffy and the Scoobies come in at third. I was sad to see that Angel didn't make the list, but at least Firefly's hanging in there at 25 and the way-cool Mystery Science Theater 3000 is making its presence known at number 13.

There's probably a Roswell connection

Poor Scotty....Somewhere in New Mexico, a teenage boy is rubbing the dust off Jimmy Doohan's little ash-filled cannister and logging onto Ebay for the biggest financial score of his life.

Best Sci-Fi Friends Forever

Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch blog asked its readers to name the top 15 sci-fi characters and creatures they'd most like to spend time with. The answers, my friends, are intriguing:

Voters gave the friendship thumbs-up to the Satellite of Love crew from Mystery Science Theatre 3000. I say "hell yes" to this one. I wanted to be imaginary friends with Mike, Crow, Servo and the rest of the gang so much that in college my pals and I drove 15 hours to Wisconsin to go to an MST Convention where we dressed up like Torgo and crashed a wedding at the Radisson. Good times....

No surprise that the voters also named the Star Trek: The Next Generation crew. This is a good call, much better than befriending the folks of the Kirk era. You know why? If you were Kirk's friend, you'd be cinching up his girdle every day like he was Scarlett O'Hara. Also, the 1701-D has that bald panther of love, Jean-Luc Picard. "Hubba" and then "hubba" once more.

Jabba the Hutt made it onto the list. I don't understand his one. You'd have slime trails all over your hardwood floors every time he came over. I going to assume people voted for him because they thought metal-bikini Princess Leia was included in the package.

Bender from Futurama made the grade. Makes sense. You'd always have a tasty alcoholic beverage at hand.

I almost melted from the cuteness when I saw Gizmo from Gremlins on the list. As a kid, I really wanted a Gizmo. I think it was that little purring, chirping, cooing thing he did. Also, he was a dangerous bad boy. Shower him with an accidental wet sneeze and leave the blinds half open and you've got a sharp-toothed little killer with the saucy charm of Hannibal Lecter on your hands. Scary but tantalizing, like a younger, undead Keith Richards.

My Mulder and Scully action figures were pleased to see that life-sized Mulder and Scully were on the list too. See, this would be a tough call for me because I'd start out being friends with Mulder and Scully but then I'd get jealous of Scully 'cuz of Mulder bein' so cute and all and then I'd start spreading lies about her and hiding her shoes and putting glue in her shampoo bottle and kicking her in gym class. And then she'd shoot me. But she'd miss the vital organs and while I was recovering, Mulder would make out with me from pity. And I'd be cool with that. Not that I ever thought about that one....