CultureGeek

WebGeek: The Diagram of All Geekdom

It's bad form to write a blog post that simply links to another post. But I can't help myself, because the New York Times actually gets us.

As demonstrated most aptly here.

This diagram is almost a perfect adaptation of the paths to geekdom. My only quibbles would be:

• Lack of representation for costuming geeks. Given the traffic on Dragoncon web sites alone, beginning two weeks after the con ends and going through the entire year until hitting a fever pitch right before con... or, y'know, the outstandingly cool crowd that shows up for every Archon masquerade, some of which go on to work in professional theater and film.

• Avoids entire "Han Shot First" debate, a litmus test for true geekdom.

• Where, oh where, are the comic books?

• Neglected to offer the following track to geekdom:

- Introduced to STAR TREK via syndicated reruns.
- Sucked in by NEXT GENERATION because Commander Riker was hot.
- Attends first con at age fifteen and is scared witless by a giant Klingon before meeting George Takei.
- Begins reading STAR TREK novels, entry drug to serious science fiction.
- Is hopelessly lost as lifetime geek.

Or maybe that was just me.

Random Halloween Fun!

• The Audiovisual Club has a great countdown of the Most Lame Horror Movie Monsters, including the possessed lamp of AMITYVILLE HORROR IV and, I kid you not, whipped cream. That's from 1985's THE STUFF. Complete with clips for your... enjoyment? I have to disagree with them on the scare factor of THE MANGLER, though - didn't see the movie, but the short story was insanely scary. Stephen King at his best.

• Scientists have proven that JURASSIC PARK was right about velociraptors. "Turkey-size" my aunt fanny - they were big, bad and freaky-scary. In scientific-ese, of course.

• Black Geekdom has a list of the top 10 series canceled too soon. Sadly, FIREFLY is not number one, though it should be.

• SFSignal has compiled a list of science fiction/fantasy authors who blog. Worth your time.

WebGeek: Is That a Horn on Your Head, or Are You Just Happy To See Me?

The above is the title of an essay I wrote years ago, after my first adult con experience. My father took me to a science fiction convention when I was fourteen years old, so you can blame him for much of what you endure today. But after my first adult con, I was hooked.

Wil Wheaton's "Geek in Review" column never ceases to be well-written, amusing and very, very true. Wheaton is a survivor of Hollywood in general and science fiction in particular, having had to endure the pains of adolescence as the focus of fandom rage in his teen role as Wesley Crusher on STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION. (Don't call him a former actor. It will really annoy him. He's still working - in fact, he was on CSI last year.)

He's also very, very right in his analysis of cons past and present for this week.

He has rules for fans who stand in line forever to get an autograph (bathe), for the professional promoters who organize major cons of 25,000 to 100,000 (don't be a Ferengi), and for his fellow actors (don't be a... I'm not allowed to say).

Those of us on the con circuit have seen all of the above. The disgruntled fan who essentially pays a $50 entry fee (or more) in order to complain for three days. The super-chairman embued with a god complex. The big-shot celebrity who can't spare five seconds for a fan in an elevator, but can happily take his $20 for an 8-by-10 glossy.

Then there's a gem like this:

A woman walked up to my table and carefully set down a cast photo from season three. Everyone else had signed it, even Patrick (Stewart) and Brent (Spiner), who are incredibly difficult signatures to get.

"You're the last one," she said, eyes gleaming. "I've been carrying this around for ten years to all these conventions, and I can't believe I'm going to finally finish it!"

I signed it as carefully as I've ever signed anything, and when I finished, I looked up at her. Tears fell from her eyes.

"Thank you so much!" She said.

"Thank you," I said, "I'm honored that I got to be part of this moment."

It wasn't about the autograph, really. That 8x10, covered with eight different signatures in black and silver and gold ink represented a journey for her. I don't know what happened on the journey, but I was there for the end of it, and it was awesome.

That's why Wheaton is a class act, and a really good writer, able to put us all in that moment. You may not be able to identify with the woman who sought a dozen signatures for ten years, but I'd wager there's something in your life about which you are as passionate as that woman, and you'd be just as dedicated in your pursuit of it.

Someday I may post my essay about that con, before it became work. Or maybe I'll read more of Wheaton's musings on the subject, so it won't BE work for me anymore.

CultureGeek: Where NOT to Live

Cracked.com has cracked me up today with its list of the seven worst fictional towns in America. You know where you don't want to live:

• Cabot Cove, Maine (MURDER SHE WROTE).
True enough, a 3,000-population town on the coast of Maine doesn't seem so bad. But whenever Jessica Fletcher wasn't off visiting her latest millionaire friend, there were dead bodies galore in Cabot Cove. Cracked lists approximately 800 murders during the series run of 1984-1996. That's approximately 66 murders per year. I'm no mathematical genius, but that comes out to a per capita rate approximately 5.6 times higher than Detroit's, the highest in the nation.

I've always wondered why Jessica Fletcher was never charged with murder. Sweet grandmotherly type or not, people dropped dead whenever she came to visit. Somewhere Fox Mulder has a file on her, and he's muttering to himself as he tracks her across the country...

• Smurf Village (THE SMURFS)
Slammed for having "the least diverse population of any town in the universe," the happy mushroom village for the Smurfs also features a rather paltry male-female ratio, the rather unclear nature of the Smurf language and the disturbingly cultish dominion of Papa Smurf. Snicker at your own risk - they're only three apples high, but they could be coming to get YOU.*

• Hill Valley, Calif. (BACK TO THE FUTURE)
Downsides: a city government so inept it hasn't repaired a lightning-struck clock in thirty years; high level of terrorist activity, including the attempted murder of Doc Brown; easy access to plutonium for said terrorists; lack of police response to Biff's attempted vehicular homicide, aggravated sexual assault and various other crimes.

Upside: entertaining street scenes and an active musical community.

• Springfield, Pickastate (THE SIMPSONS)
Where to begin? Doctors are lousy, the only shows on TV are violent cartoons and a hideous clown talk show, and the twin-stack nuclear reactor is, shall we say, poorly maintained.

• Amity Island (JAWS movies)
It's never safe to go back into the water. Better yet, after the sharks eat you, the local officials will write off your demise as yet another boating accident. It seems to me some boating safety classes are in order, if this is a plausible excuse. Also, the sharks will follow you, because it's personal.

• Bayside, Ind./Calif. (SAVED BY THE BELL)
Seemingly based entirely on the high school, Cracked determines that the principal of said school is "the dumbest person ever to put on a suit." Also, the town has the amazing ability to change states! Bayside moved from Indiana to California without even a shudder! My respect for such inventiveness knows no bounds.

• Gotham City, New Yorkish (everywhere)
According to Cracked, the creator of BATMAN described Gotham City as "Manhattan below Fourteenth Street at eleven minutes past midnight on the coldest night in November." And I can't do better than Cracked's description:

The wind barrels down the alleyways like it's genuinely [censored] at you, the homeless population multiplies like someone fed them after midnight and exhaust-stained water clings to every square inch of the city... In Gotham there are no beer gardens and it's never July. Just cold, dark November all year long. So it's not entirely surprising that the city's favorite pasttime seems to be putting on clown makeup and killing people.

Cracked makes the excellent point that although Batman has many nifty gadgets, he basically stops crime by walking around and seeing it, not having any superpowers like his fellow heroes. Forget the cops - my eight-year-old has a T-shirt reading, "GOTHAM CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT: YOU CALL US, WE'LL CALL BATMAN." Sure, maybe Superman stops by from time to time, but in terms of "danger to innocent bystanders," pick Cabot Cove over Gotham any day.

But I think Cracked might have missed a few dozen places you really, really, REALLY don't want to live:

• Amityville. Because there's this house with eyes, you see.

• Castle Rock, Maine. Which stands for Derry, 'Salem's Lot, Ludlow, Chamberlain and any of the other small towns Stephen King made up to torment and destroy in spectacularly supernatural fashion, often with a Native American burial ground nearby.

• Isla Nublar/Isla Soma. Homes of Jurassic Park and the Lost World. The residents think you're tasty.

• That town where the Gremlins were. Not even Wikipedia remembers its name, but it was populated with mean old people, oblivious law enforcement and less-than-bright science teachers, even before devilish monsters started multiplying in the YMCA pool. Our Hero skips town as soon as he graduates.

• Haddonfield, Illinois. Hey, nobody's done a study on the number of dead bodies in this town per capita, but you know it's got to be high. Also, there seems to be a high level of substance abuse and promiscuity among its young people, before the guy in the mask shows up to correct their behavior. There goes the neighborhood.

• Springwood, Ohio. Where? Oh yeah, there's this place called ELM STREET you really don't want to visit. Ever. And don't sleep. Just drive out of town fast and hope your parents weren't misbehaving years ago.

• Crystal Lake. There used to be a kids' camp there, but it got shut down after massive lawsuits. Nobody hangs out there any more. For long.

• Desperation, Nevada. Which is also shorthand for "any deserted near-ghost town off backcountry roads in Nevada, Arizona and other points west where they can't hear you screaming." Such as, say, Perfection Valley.

That's just the North American list! C'mon, I know you guys have some more! We may like to visit, but we wouldn't want to LIVE there.

EDITED TO ADD: Reader Meri points out that I forgot SUNNYDALE, CALIFORNIA! The Hellmouth of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (and occasional visits from ANGEL). How could I forget seven years of vampires, werewolves and demons (oh my!) along with every other bugaboo that went chomp in the night? I feel like I deserve a stake through the heart for forgetting my lovely Hellmouth, even if it is now a smoking hole in the ground. Still, there's another one in Cleveland.

• I happened to LIKE the Smurfs. So there.
Also: Cracked's page includes bad words, so be warned if you Google.

WebGeek: The Empire's Worst Engineer

One of the best parts of this blog is that I get to share with you the endless creativity and amusement found on the internet, created by people with way too much time on their hands.

To that end, today's giggle comes from somethingawful.com: The Inbox of Nardo Pace, the Empire's Worst Engineer.

Ever wonder why the stormtroopers were absolutely incapable of actually SHOOTING any of our heroes, short of a light graze on the arm? Here's the answer!

Subject E-11 Blaster Rifle Calibration Still Off
From Stormtrooper Commander 09731 <09731@empiremail.com>
Date A Long Time Ago 3:51 PM
To Nardo Pace

As you know, the E-11 has come a long way since its initial prototype. Thanks to your hard work over the past three years the rifle no longer fires completely sideways, and with your latest revision, the number of casualties resulting from blaster fire being directed completely backwards has been drastically reduced.

That said, the E-11 still has some accuracy issues. We recently bolted one of the rifles to a testing mechanism so that it couldn't move even a millimeter, then set up a human-sized target six feet in front of the blaster's barrel. Shooting in two second intervals, we let the E-11 fire at the target continuously for three days.

The result? Not one shot hit the target. I realize you're busy, but perhaps we can go over the design one more time and iron this out.

http://www.somethingawful.com/d/news/nardo-design-empire.php

I particularly like Darth Vader's internet-speak. But then, I am a geek.

Thanks to reader Timewalker for the link!

TrekGeek: William Shatner vs. Wil Wheaton

In which I betray the depths of my geekiness. Shaddup, STAR TREK was my entry drug. Careful, kids, it can happen to you.

Anyone who's been a bonafide Trekkie knows the stories of William Shatner. Beginning with Harlan Ellison's tales of how Shatner insisted on bastardizing the end of "City on the Edge of Forever" and counted his lines, through to the modern era, the story is of a man, um, slightly full of himself.

But who knows, right? I've never met him.

Wil Wheaton has. You remember Wil Wheaton, right? Child actor destined for big things after the brilliance that shone from STAND BY ME? All four of them showed such promise, and the end of that movie is particularly poignant considering River Phoenix's untimely death. After STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION wrapped, Wil hasn't has quite as much of a career as many expected. He still acts - you might have seen him last year on CSI, nearly unrecognizable as a heroin-crazed addict living on the streets.

Now he's a writer, with several books to his name and a blog with thousands of readers. His blog is one of the funniest things on the 'net, and if you haven't caught his behind-the-scenes recaps of first-season TNG, you are truly missing something.

But Wil has a story to share with us. I was hesitant to link it, because he uses some fairly strong language. Be warned: Adults only click these links. But it's worth it, to read how a teenage Wil Wheaton met Captain Kirk between the sets of Enterprises A and D. Everything you heard about Shatner will be confirmed true, then turned on its side, and you might learn a bit about Wil, too.

The one thing we already knew: The TNG crew was the coolest ever, on and off the set.

http://suicidegirls.com/news/geek/20562/

http://suicidegirls.com/news/geek/20634/

What you won't see in these links: a fan remarking that when he won a backstage tour of the TNG set and had hardly gotten to see anything, Wil Wheaton hijacked him, taking him around to the coolest sets, talking up the kind of stuff only geeks can share, turning a lifetime disappointment into a memorable event. In the first-season episode when the Klingons break out of the brig, there are two teenage boys hiding behind the opposite bulkhead, watching them film. That's the sort of thing that means a lot, the difference between a celebrity and an actor.

Bravo, Wil. Hope to see you again soon.

(C'mon, Worf vs. Captain Kirk? That's a fight I wanna see. My money's on the Klingon.)

Open Mic!

So, it's been a week of CultureGeek. Whaddya think?

*I cower under my desk*

No, seriously. What would you like to see that I'm ignoring? What brilliant TV show am I skipping on my Tivo? What about the format - is it easy to read? Should we make the type brighter?

Tell me what you'd like to see here. Just please don't make me watch AMERICAN IDOL. I will if you make me, but I beg you for mercy.