5 Geeky TV Shows I Wish Were Real

I’ll admit it: some­times I sit around and dream up fan­tasy TV show con­cepts. When you con­sume as much tele­vi­sion as I do, it takes a lot for a show to really grab you. ‘Course, it doesn’t help that I grow more cyn­i­cal and jaded with each pass­ing year, but I digress.

Now, I’m not a pro­ducer or any­thing, and I’ve never pitched a tele­vi­sion show in my life, but I’m pretty sure that if any of the fol­low­ing show ideas were to sud­denly exist tomor­row, it would be an instant success.

Here are five geeky TV show con­cepts that I wish were real:

“Pick­ers” for Gamers

You know the show Amer­i­can Pick­ers on the His­tory chan­nel? Well this would be  pretty much the same thing except a pair of nerds–the less socially skilled and more awk­ward, the better–would go around to yard sales, liq­ui­da­tions, pri­vate col­lec­tors’ homes, maybe even Craigslist and Ebay in search of rare and valu­able video games and gam­ing col­lectibles. You know, stuff like the Medieval Mad­ness pin­ball table, Air Raid for Atari 2600, or the Vir­tual Boy  (just kid­ding about that last one–nobody really wants one of those things).

On the real Pick­ers, the two hosts nego­ti­ate to the point of high­way rob­bery. This show would be the oppo­site because gamers are sen­ti­men­tal fan­boys who are known to put things like rare, ridonku­lously expen­sive Neo Geo car­tridges ahead of their finan­cial future–which is part of the appeal too, so that we at home can all have a good laugh about it.

Work­ing Titles:

• Epic Looters
• Shit Gamers Will Pay Obscene Amounts of Money For

Project Photoshop

Think Project Run­way , except replace the wannabe fash­ion design­ers for wannabe graphic design­ers. Actu­ally, the con­tes­tants don’t even need to be skilled graphic design­ers at all–the show would be fun­nier with ran­domly selected neti­zens with ama­teur Pho­to­shop skills. The con­tes­tants would face off against each other in extreme Pho­to­shop chal­lenges, timed of course, in cat­e­gories such as Meme Gen­er­a­tion , Fat Celebrity Makeovers, Moti­va­tional Posters , Fake Prod­ucts, Movie Poster Mashups , and the other highly cre­ative but ulti­mately use­less art forms that Pho­to­shop has become infa­mous for. It goes with­out say­ing that use of Comic Sans would result in an instant elimination.

In keep­ing with the spirit of the orig­i­nal show, the design­ers could still present their mas­ter­pieces on the runway–except it would be a vir­tual run­way where home view­ers would be able to par­tic­i­pate in the elim­i­na­tions via live social media-based vot­ing. Holy shit this show sounds awesome.

Work­ing Titles:

• Pho­to­shop­ping with the Tards
• Clone Stamp for the Win

Hip Service

Remem­ber that show Lip Ser­vice that used to be on MTV in the early ‘90s? If you’re too young (or too old) to remem­ber it, Lip Ser­vice was a game show where the con­tes­tants  divided up into teams and had to lip sync their way through a grab bag of ran­domly selected pop­u­lar songs of the day. The in-house DJ (who was Spin­derella of Salt ‘N Pepa, by the way) would mix the music live. You could get Ice Ice Baby, Vogue and Unskinny Bop back to back, or it could be Come Baby Come , I Touch Myself, and Blame It on the Rain–it was anyone’s guess! The team that lip synced the most con­vinc­ingly is the team that won.

Sim­i­larly, Hip Ser­vice would fol­low the same for­mat except all the con­tes­tants would be hip­sters and all the music would be from obscure bands that you’ve prob­a­bly never heard of, like St. Agnes Charm School, Crotch Mit­tens  and Zebra­pants (and don’t bother Googling those bands because I just made them up). See, hip­sters take their music very seri­ously and there is noth­ing fun­nier than some fuck­ing hip­ster who doesn’t know the words to obscure, shitty music that only hip­sters are sup­posed to like. Isn’t it deli­ciously ironic?

Work­ing Titles:

• Music Is Too Mainstream
• I Was Into Lip Sync­ing Before It Was Cool

Win Mark Zuckerberg’s Money

You’re famil­iar with Win Ben Stein’s Money , right? Well, since Mark Zucker­berg has more money than God, I fig­ure he could stand to give a lit­tle bit of it away. And just like Ben Stein, Mark would be a con­tes­tant on his own show in a sport­ing attempt to pro­tect his assets and ward off com­peti­tors. Here’s the fun part, though: all ques­tions will be related to Facebook’s murky pri­vacy poli­cies, sketchy terms of ser­vice, and barely-there tech­ni­cal sup­port that even The Zuck him­self doesn’t get. So pretty much every­one stands a good chance of winning.

Work­ing Titles:

• “Like” Mark Zucker­berg On Face­book to Win
• Win The Winklevii’s Money

The Biggest Loser: Zom­bie Edition

I don’t watch The Biggest Loser , mostly because it depresses the hell out of me, but I can tell you for a fact I’d watch the shit out of The Biggest Loser if the show was any­thing like the pic above. I got this idea after hear­ing about Run For Your Lives , a zombie-themed 5K event/obstacle course that is as every bit as bitchin’ as it sounds. Get­ting in shape is much more effec­tive when your very life depends upon it, say, when you’re run­ning from a horde of brain-lusting zom­bies. It doesn’t even mat­ter that zom­bies aren’t real (…yet). I’m run­ning the hell away from any­thing that looks like that. By the way, don’t for­get it’s Zom­bie Aware­ness Month !

Work­ing Title:

• The Run­ning Dead
• The Biggest Meal

 Just for fun…

If any of these show con­cepts had any shot in hell of becom­ing a real­ity, which one would you want to watch the most?

Meet Wes, a Guy Who Draws Ninja Turtles (Almost) Every Day

Last week I was ran­domly brows­ing #TMNT on Twit­ter (I think it was some­time dur­ing the the Bayliens back­lash) when I stum­bled upon  this guy .

His name is Wes and he has a cute TMNT blog where he draws a new Ninja Tur­tle pic­ture every day.  Well, almost every day.

He read­ily admits that he’s not an artist–which is appar­ent from the lined note­book paper and crayon scrib­bles that adorn his work–but he loves to draw Ninja Tur­tles so that’s exactly what he does!

There’s some­thing kind of charm­ing about a grown man who loves to draw Ninja Tur­tles with­out a care in the world about what any­one thinks or even if the draw­ings are any good.  As I men­tioned on his blog, it takes me back to my junior high days when I spent most of my time in class draw­ing Ninja Tur­tles (very poorly) and not doing what­ever it was I was sup­posed to be doing.

I asked Wes if he took requests, and he was more than happy to humor me with this amaze­balls pic­ture of Raphael, my favorite Tur­tle, crouch­ing on the rooftops of New York City:

Note the gar­goyle thrown in as an added bonus! I have no idea how Wes knew that Gar­goyles was also one of my favorite shows from child­hood. I’m pretty sure that my find­ing his blog was writ in destiny.

The next day he drew me the same pic­ture but from a dif­fer­ent perspective:

Totally shell­tas­tic AND refrig­er­a­tor worthy.

Any­way, check out Wes’s “Tur­tle a Day” blog for more orig­i­nal, hand drawn Ninja Tur­tle good­ness and occa­sional reviews about the other nerdy and equally awe­some stuff he’s into (which he also clev­erly illus­trates with Ninja Tur­tles).   And what a nice guy, too.

Ten Unusual Wines that Geeks Would Love

With Valentine’s Day just around the cor­ner, any one of these wines would make an awe­some gift to present to that spe­cial geek in your life:

Wines for Gamers

Player 1  by 8-bit Vintners

“Player 1″ was cre­ated by an actual gamer, and comes from the wine­mak­ing region of Walla Walla, Wash­ing­ton.  Owner/gamer Mike James says, “My wine is for any­one who spent time try­ing to save a princess or fit odd shaped blocks together. We may have never met, but we have more in com­mon than we ever knew. So blow out that old Con­tra car­tridge, give the NES a good dust off, and pour your­self a glass.”  Sadly, 8-bit Vint­ners has closed up shop, but you can still pur­chase the wine on Ebay and other places (if you know where to look).

Boss Mon­ster by Woot Cellars

This 2007 zin­fan­del from Woot Cel­lars is rep­re­sen­ta­tive of every ter­ri­ble boss you’ve ever encoun­tered in a video game (though I think he looks vaguely rem­i­nis­cent of Phan­toon from Super Metroid).  “Boss Mon­ster” is a lim­ited edi­tion wine that is only some­times avail­able via Wine.Woot .  If you like wine and enjoy get­ting a good deal, you might want to sign up for Wine.Woot’s deal-a-day style offers.

Stun­lock , nOOb , & Gamer Win­dow  by GamerWine

Gamer­Wine is avail­able in three vari­eties with relat­able names: Stun­lock , a rich red; nOOB , a full-bodied Mer­lot; and Gamer Win­dow , a smooth Pinot Gri­gio.  Sug­gested pair­ings:  Hot Pock­ets, Pizza Rolls and Cheetos.

Wines for Fan­tasy Film Buffs

The Bot­tle of Wits by Alamo Drafthouse

“The Bot­tle of Wits” is a new line of sig­na­ture wines by Alamo Draft­house inspired by everyone’s favorite 80’s fan­tasy film, The Princess Bride, which cel­e­brates its 25th anniver­sary this year.  The line includes both red and white vari­eties: “As You Wish White,” a light, golden medium-bodied Cal­i­for­nia blend, and “Incon­ceiv­able Cab,” a 2009 vin­tage Cal­i­for­nia Caber­net.  The wine will go for sale online start­ing Feb­ru­ary 14, 2012.

Wines for Hor­ror Fans

Zom­bie Zin by Chateau Diana Winery

From Chateau Diana Win­ery in Healds­burg, Cal­i­for­nia comes “Zom­bie Zin­fan­del” that is blood-red in color and described as “hor­ridly rich in con­cen­trated fruit fla­vors with a fin­ish that never dies!” Clever.  And here I thought the only zom­bies with mohawks were from Tiris­fal Glades.

Return of the Liv­ing Red by Red­heads Studio

“Return of the Liv­ing Red” is a red wine from Red­heads Stu­dio (I see what they did there), which is a small win­ery in South Aus­tralia. The wine is dark gar­net in color, full-bodied, with fla­vors of cur­rants and black­ber­ries.  The grue­some (but awe­some) pack­ag­ing was designed by Mash .

Kil­li­b­in­bin by Broth­ers in Arms

This col­lec­tion of “killer” wines is by Broth­ers in Arms of the Met­alia vine­yard, also in South Aus­tralia (side note: why does Aus­tralia have all the cool wines?).  The labels were designed after vin­tage hor­ror movie posters to play up the “kill” part of the wine’s name.

Vam­pire, Drac­ula & True­blood by Vam­pire Vineyards

When it comes to vampire-themed wines, Vam­pire Vine­yards pretty much has the mar­ket cor­nered.  The vineyard’s full line includes Vam­pire, Drac­ula, True­blood, and Chateau du Vamm­pire.  There’s even red Vam­pire Vodka, and the com­pany is also branch­ing out into other vampire-themed bev­er­ages  like soda, cof­fee and energy drinks.  Thanks to the pop­u­lar­ity of Twi­light, True Blood, The Vam­pire Diaries, etc, it’s no sur­prise that this type of bla­tant pan­der­ing has also been very suc­cess­ful for the com­pany (just read their nau­se­at­ing  About Us page).

Wines for Techies

USB Port by Peltier Station

A zin­fan­del dessert wine, “USB Port” (get it?) has a rich, sweet fla­vor that bal­ances choco­late with ruby cherry and spice. Sounds deli­cious.  Just don’t try to plug it into your laptop.

 Edu­cated Guess by Roots Run Deep

This Napa Val­ley Caber­net Sauvi­gnon is the flag­ship wine of Roots Run Deep win­ery, who would like you to make an “edu­cated guess” about which wine to choose.  The very tech­ni­cal, smart-looking label depicts actual wine­mak­ing for­mula strings that chemists would use.

5 Virtual Retro Toys You Can Play With Online

The other day I stum­bled upon a site that archives those won­der­ful old Read-Along adven­ture books and makes them avail­able for down­load.  It made me nos­tal­gic for other toys I remem­ber fondly from child­hood, and I went on some­what of a quest to see how many vir­tual ver­sions of old toys I could find.

If you’re feel­ing up for a bit of retro­tain­ment and have some time to kill, these vir­tual toys are as close as you can get to the real thing.

Simon

» Play with Simon
Pos­si­bly the great­est toy from the 1980s, Simon was like an audio/visual assault on your basic mem­ory recall skills.  It fre­quently made us feel infe­rior, but those flashy lights and syn­the­sizer sounds kept us happy in our button-mashing comas.  And who didn’t want to be that bad-ass Johnny kid from this com­mer­cial ?  WARNING: This is addictive!

Speak & Spell

» Play with Speak & Spell
The orig­i­nal hand-held elec­tronic learn­ing toy that paved the way for decades of imi­ta­tions.  What child of the late 70s/early 80s didn’t have one of these things?  Plus, accord­ing to E.T. you could hack this baby to phone home the mothership.

Etch-a-Sketch

» Play with Etch-a-Sketch
My skill at vir­tual Etch-a-Sketch is only slightly less sucky than my skill at actual Etch-a-Sketch.

This one lets you print out your cre­ations, but sadly lacks a shake-to-erase fea­ture.  Still, it’s a fun time-waster.

Rubik’s Cube

» Play with Rubik’s Cube
I was never able to solve one of these stu­pid things, let alone do it in 8 sec­onds .  If you had a cheaply-made Rubik’s like I did, you could try to cheat and rearrange the stick­ers.  This vir­tual one has real­is­tic twisty-turny action! (And all the frus­tra­tion of the real thing.)

Lite Brite

» Play with Lite Brite
There’s no telling how much dam­age we did to our reti­nas star­ing into these things.  Lite Brites were a relax­ing way for artis­tic kids to spend a rainy Sat­ur­day.  Per­son­ally, I never had the patience to fin­ish my designs, or I’d acci­den­tally shake the thing and lit­tle plas­tic pegs would go flying.

I’m still hold­ing out hope for vir­tual Magna-Doodle.  Now go have fun reliv­ing your childhood!

How do you manage your ever-growing media wish list?

WANTED:  A bet­ter solu­tion for dis­cov­er­ing and con­sum­ing new media.  First things first:  It seems inap­pro­pri­ate to call what I’m talk­ing about a “wish list” because…

A) I don’t nec­es­sar­ily intend to shop for and pur­chase said media , nor do I always want to receive it as a gift.  While there’s a bunch of great, free tools out there like Amazon’s Wish List and Wish Radar , these tools are geared more toward mak­ing a pur­chase and not mere consumption.

B) Most wish list tools are shopping-based and don’t cater well to old media like out-of-print books, hard-to-find movies, or retro/legacy games on dead plat­forms.  And what about obscure TV shows never released on DVD?  Try adding Out of this World to your Ama­zon wish list.

C) The media I’m inter­ested in isn’t always released yet. I often put upcom­ing movies, books, albums, and games on my list that may be a year or more away from a release date.  How do you account for these types of things using a wish list sys­tem that is based on available/purchasable products?

In short, my media wish list is more like a “To Do” list. I have a “To Play” list for games; a “To Watch” list for movies and TV shows; a “To Read” list for books; and a “To Lis­ten” list for new artists and album I want to check out.  I don’t nec­es­sar­ily call all these dif­fer­ent lists “To _______ Lists,” but that’s essen­tially what they are.  Their sole pur­pose is to help me dis­cover new media and keep it on my radar until I’ve had time to watch it, play it, read it, or lis­ten to it.

So how do I keep up with it all? Here is my system…of sorts:

1.  Post-Its and Paper Scraps — I am per­pet­u­ally writ­ing notes-to-self on Post-Its and paper scraps con­tain­ing unor­ga­nized, off-the-cuff lists of things I’ve heard about or read about in my online and offline trav­els.  For exam­ple, if I’m brows­ing a gamer forum and some user rec­om­mends a game that sounds like I might enjoy, I’ll write its name down, per­haps along­side a short note that lends some help­ful con­text like: “Shadow of the Comet (PC) — Love­craft­ian AG.”  If I hear a song I like on the radio while I’m out some­where, I’ll try to scrib­ble down lyrics so I can look it up later.  By the end of any given week, my mes­sen­ger bag’s outer pocket con­tains a stash of folded, wadded-up notes that I’ll later re-visit and add to my wish list(s), then toss the paper.

2.  Google Docs — My actual media wish list is a series of Google Docs con­tain­ing sep­a­rate lists for Movies/TV Shows, Music, Games, and Books.  These are, of course, neater than my hand­writ­ten notes but still pretty raw and orga­nized.  Also, there’s no real sense of pri­or­ity.  Depend­ing on the list, I might add some extra info, like release date/year for movies, plat­form and genre for games, etc.  I like stor­ing this info in Google Docs because I can access and man­age my lists as eas­ily as I do email.  Per­haps one day I’ll grad­u­ate to a more sophis­ti­cated Google Spread­sheet, but the Docs get me by for now.

3.  Plan-Ahead Shop­ping & Stream­ing  — When I’m in the mood and can make the time to actu­ally watch/play/read/listen to some­thing, I’ll browse through my wish list(s) ahead of time and pick what­ever looks appetizing…followed by a trip to the store, library, Net­flix , iTunes, XBMC, tor­rent site, or wher­ever it is that I might pur­chase or down­load it.

4. Reviews, Rec­om­men­da­tions, & Taste Engines — Need­less to say, my media wish list is never empty, but it also doesn’t just con­tain things I stum­ble upon.  I will often seek out and dis­cover new media by con­sult­ing a per­son­al­ized arse­nal of review sites, rec­om­men­da­tion sites, and taste engines that includes Net­flix, Jinni , GoodReads , Ama­zon , GamerDNA , just to name a few.  Then there’s the count­less review and pre­view blogs that entice me to pile it on even thicker.  I do get a lot of gen­uinely great rec­om­men­da­tions this way, but as always, it seems more gets added to my lists vs. gets removed.

What this all this boils down to is that I’m approach­ing a state of media over­load and I need a bet­ter way to cope with it. Short of quit­ting my job and devot­ing all day to play­ing video games and watch­ing movies (a girl can dream, can’t she?), I need a bet­ter solu­tion that will track, pri­or­i­tize, remind me about, and remem­ber all this media that I plan to con­sume, whether it’s old, new, or unre­leased.  Is there a sin­gle sys­tem out there that can do all this?

The com­ments are wide open to your sug­ges­tions, app rec­om­men­da­tions, and/or pithy remarks about my being a media junkie with no life who needs help!

10 Gifts for Geeks for $10 or Less

With Christ­mas right around the cor­ner, I thought it would be fun (and hope­fully help­ful) to put together a list of inex­pen­sive gift ideas for geeks, all for under $10. (And I’m not going to cheat and men­tion $10 gift cards, either!)

Pocket LED Flash­light

“May it be a light to you in dark places…”

Every geek needs a good flash­light, and even bet­ter if it fits in our pocket!  Great for wran­gling with hard-to-see com­puter con­nec­tions or ven­tur­ing behind our A/V sys­tems to con­nect new gear, a bright LED flash­light is a must-have.  X-treme Geek sells a nice mini LED flash­light for just $9.99.

Bat­ter­ies

Geek Power-Ups

If there is one uni­ver­sal truth, it’s that geeks can ALWAYS use more bat­ter­ies.  Between our wire­less key­boards, wire­less mouses, dig­i­tal cam­eras, wire­less game con­trollers, A/V remotes, Nin­tendo DSs, PSPs, laser point­ers, giz­mos, gadgets–wait, what was I say­ing?  Oh right: MOAR BATTERIES!  You can’t go wrong giv­ing geeks a nice big pack of AA or AAA bat­ter­ies.  A tad imper­sonal, but extremely prac­ti­cal and def­i­nitely appreciated–particularly dur­ing those moments we real­ize our bat­tery sup­ply is crit­i­cally low and we dread thought of actu­ally get­ting up to change the channel.

Sharpies

For Your Sharpie Fetish

We love our Sharpies .  They’re great for every­thing from label­ing the lat­est disc of pirated legally down­load­able soft­ware you burned to Sharpie-ing per­verse things all over your friend’s face when he falls asleep drunk on your couch. (Don’t ask.)  From Ultra Fine Points to Sharpie Minis to good ‘ol Orig­i­nal, there’s a Sharpie prod­uct in a wide range of col­ors for every geek’s Sharpie fetish.

Bliz­zard Authen­ti­ca­tor

I CAN HAZ SECURITY?

Over 11 mil­lion peo­ple play World of War­craft.  Odds are you know at least one of them, and have no idea what to get them for Christ­mas.  The Bliz­zard Authen­ti­ca­tor is a must-have acces­sory for any­one that plays WoW.  It pro­tects their account from key­log­gers, tro­jans, and other mali­cious attacks.  It’s a great gift and for just $6.50, it’s also super inexpensive.

Mole­sk­ine Pocket Jour­nals

Low-tech pro­duc­tiv­ity app!

The “leg­endary note­book used for the past two cen­turies” (if you believe their mar­ket­ing bull), Mole­sk­ine brand note­books are a favorite low-tech vice of writ­ers, artists, and geeks to cer­e­mo­ni­ously com­mit our thoughts and sketches to paper.  Though the full-size note­books are a bit pricey, you can score a pack of 3 cashier pocket Mole­sk­ines for about $8, blank or lined.  These pocket-sized jour­nals are per­fect for keep­ing in your pocket (shocker) to make quick lists or reg­is­ter ran­dom ideas on the fly.

Dice Set

Roll to see if you have a life…

For the D&D nerds, Magic play­ers, and board game geeks on your list, a set of shiny new dice makes for a very thought­ful and use­ful gift.  What’s your geek’s favorite color?  Odds are you can find a cool-looking set of dice to match.  Board Game Cen­tral has a great selec­tion of 6-sided and d20 dice sets all for under $10.

Caf­feine

Energy in a can!

Whether it’s in the form of cof­fee, chai tea, energy drinks, or soda, most of us geeks require an end­less sup­ply of caf­feine to help us through our late night cod­ing projects, marathon gam­ing ses­sions, and the abysmal work day that fol­lows.  Though cases of the really good stuff like Bawls and Jolt are on the pricey side, for less than $10 you can still give your geek a smaller-serving caf­feinated shot in the arm.  How about gift­ing a sam­pler of 20 oz. energy drinks, or a trio of cof­fees or teas?   Also try Pacific Chai , Mon­ster Energy , and there’s always Red Bull .

Comic Books

Mmm…new comic smell!

Comic books have evolved so much over the years, it’s per­haps more appro­pri­ate to think of them as read­able works of art than the hum­ble col­or­ful dis­trac­tions they used to be.  As the qual­ity has gone up, so has the price, but you can still walk into any comic shop and pick up some great new issues with that glo­ri­ous new comic smell for less than $10.  And with so many dif­fer­ent titles to choose from, you’re sure to find some­thing for every­one.  Who knows, you might even get your geek hooked on an awe­some new series.  There’s also manga for the Japanophile on your list.

Thinker Toys

FACT: Play­ing with toys helps you get work done.

Between writ­ing, brain­storm­ing, trou­bleshoot­ing, or fig­ur­ing out why our damn pro­gram isn’t work­ing, geeks need some kind of imme­di­ate stress reliever/creativity spark by our side.  Give your geek some inex­pen­sive “thinker toys” for his or her desk.  Try some Silly Putty, Play Doh, Koosh balls, or per­haps a “thinky Slinky”?  Or go for the clas­sic Rubik’s Cube (though it may cause more stress than it alle­vi­ates).  Any­thing goes, as long as it’s small, mildly enter­tain­ing, and keeps our hands and minds momen­tar­ily busy.

Com­puter Clean­ing Prod­ucts

Handy for remov­ing yesterday’s lunch from your keyboard.

Geeks love their com­put­ers and gad­gets but it can be a nev­erend­ing bat­tle to keep them clean.  Crumbs in the key­board, fin­ger­prints on the lap­top screen; these are our per­pet­ual annoy­ances.  Which is why any geek can appre­ci­ate a lit­tle help to keep our LCD mon­i­tors and iPhone touch­screens sparkly clean.  Sta­ples sells a nice lit­tle key­board brush for less than $5 and a mini screen cleaner for under $10.

Hope I’ve given you some good ideas for the geeks on your Christ­mas shop­ping list!