Odds and ends

I have not joined the circus nor left the planet in search of a moderately sized blue box that's bigger on the inside. Real world work has gone completely nutty, forcing the nerdy goodness of my life temporarily to one side. I even missed the Oscars! Anyway, I'm swooping in with a few quick updates:

+ As a fan of doughy guys, I am thrilled beyond reckoning that Andy Richter will resume his sidekick duties with Conan O'Brien when his Tonight Show stint begins. I've missed you, Andy. Now if only you'd wear that coat with the puppies in it every night, I'd be in a perpetual state of bliss.

+ Speaking of welcomed additions, did you hear that Michael Cera has finally signed on for the "Arrested Development" movie? Can I get a "woo" and a "hoo"? Of course, he's probably too old to do any more good jokes of him sitting on Jason Bateman's lap learning to drive...a memory that still reduces me to giggles.

+ I thought this was pretty interesting: 10 Video Games That Should Be Considered Modern Art. I agree wholeheartedly with most all the choices but especially with the Fallout series. I love watching my husband play that game. The graphics are incredible, the art direction amazing and really, any video game that includes Cole Porter in its soundtrack is brilliant in my book.

+ And finally, check out these nifty images from Agatha Christie's recently renovated home in Devon, England. It's now open to the public.

Bamber and Agyeman, fightin' crime and lawyering it up

The Law and Orders continue to spawn and this time they're taking the British sci-fi people with them. Check out this preview of Law & Order: UK starring Battlestar's Jamie Bamber and Doctor Who's Freema Agyeman.



Rumor has it Law and Order: UK likely will air in the U.S. at some point. The show is already better than the original for one simple reason: judges in wigs! Awesome.

Nerd Man of the Month: Stephen Fry

It was a close race but Stephen Fry edged out Greg Grunberg and the men of Top Gear to seize the coveted title of The Park Bench's Nerd Man of the Month. The King of Twitter earns this prestigious (hey, stop laughing) prize for several reasons:

* He's very, very funny. And he's been that way for a very long time. Twenty years ago, I was a big nerdy Fry and Laurie fan and still giggle with foolish pleasure at their absurd and brilliant sketches even when they make me think, "Oh God, that's horrible," as in the case of the sketch below.



* He played Jeeves. And no respectable literary nerd has anything but the deepest love and affection for Jeeves and all who have embodied him.

* He knows his gadgets. The man knows more about gadgets and the gadgets that run the gadgets and the people who make the gadgets that run the other gadgets than almost any other normal human being. Certainly more than any other normal human being who's ever played Jeeves.

* He can break entire websites with one mighty Tweet from his Twitterific quiver. Seriously, the man has roughly 7 million followers and manages to entertain each and every one of us pretty much all day long. He's jovial, informative, kindly, appropriately cranky at times and just damn well entertaining.

* He's on "Bones." And we lady geeks love the "Bones" with the science and the Boreanaz.

* He's a novelist. Stephen Fry is a wonderful writer. His first novel, The Liar, has held a cherished place on my book shelf for years. He's written three more since then in between all the other spiffy stuff he's done including traveling to all 50 U.S. states for the BBC.

I could go on and on so let's just summarize here and declare Stephen Fry to be a stellar individual more than worthy of our humble Nerd Man honors. Plus he's very tall and signs his tweets with little x's. Seriously, what's not to love?

Speaking of nerdy men...

...I believe we're in need of some Nerd Man of the Month nominations. Please let me know your preference for the gentleman upon whom this month's honor should be bestowed. For handy reference, here's a list of past winners:

Jim Parsons
Neil Gaiman
Bruce Campbell
Adam Baldwin
Neil Patrick Harris
Patrick Stewart
Robert Downey Jr.
David Tennant
John Krasinski
Conan O'Brien
Alton Brown
Michael Cera
Nathan Fillion
Flight of the Conchords
Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart
Simon Pegg and Nick Frost
James Gunn
Wil Wheaton
Jonathan Coulton
John Hodgman
Joss Whedon

Nominate away! Actually, I'll throw in the first suggestion: the men of Top Gear -- James May, Richard Hammond and Jeremy Clarkson.

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.