The Softer Side of Kenny Powers: His Top 10 Kindest Moments

There’s noth­ing worse than good TV shows that lose their edge and out­stay their wel­come.  I’m happy that  East­bound and Down  isn’t one of them.

Last night’s episode of  East­bound and Down was most likely the last one. As in, ever .  While I’m sad to see the show end, I do believe there’s such a thing as “too much of a good thing” espe­cially if the “thing” we’re talk­ing about is Kenny Powers–one of the most obnox­ious, ego­tis­ti­cal, sex­ist, racist, class­less douch­bag­gi­est  char­ac­ters on tele­vi­sion. But we love him for it.

As we all mourn the pass­ing of one of the fun­ni­est shows on tele­vi­sion, the inter­webz are rife with Kenny Pow­ers com­pi­la­tions today: his best insults, his fun­ni­est quotes, his biggest dick moves.  But even Kenny Pow­ers has a soft side. It’s not often dur­ing the show that we get to see Kenny being any­thing other than a giant dick, but every now and then he shows us a few ten­der, soul-bearing moments. Would we still root for the guy if he didn’t?

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD! You’ve been warned.

And now, a look back at the kinder, softer side of Kenny Fuck­ing Powers:

#10 — Kenny Bestows His Nephews with Kenny Pow­ers Memorabilia

Sea­son 1 — Episode 3

JUST ONE!

#9 — Kenny Pro­motes Steve from “Assis­tant” to “Friend”

Sea­son 1 — Episode 6

Actu­ally, Steve never knows what’s up.

#8 — Kenny Thanks His Fam­ily, Acknowl­edges His Niece’s Existence

Sea­son 1 — Episode 6

It’s OK, Kenny. So did we.

#7 — Kenny Treats April to a Roman­tic Evening in Myr­tle Beach

Sea­son 3 — Episode 1

Cruisin’ on the Red­neck Riviera.

#6 — Kenny Gives Mex­i­can Kids a Donkey

Sea­son 2 — Episode 6

He’s serious.

#5 — Kenny Con­vinces Steve to Stay with Maria, Waxes Poetic About Love

Sea­son 2 — Episode 7

 He then pro­ceeds to grope Maria’s breasts.

#4 — Kenny Says a Lit­tle Prayer for His Fatally O.D. Friend

Sea­son 3 — Episode 4

After snort­ing the rest of his drugs and wip­ing away all traces of his being there, of course.

#3 — Kenny Decides Not to Send His Baby Down the River

Sea­son 3– Episode 2

Poor Toby.

#2 — Kenny Blesses Steve’s Deci­sion to Retire, Unborn Child

Sea­son 3 — Episode 8

Fol­lowed by an extremely awk­ward group hug.

#1 — Kenny Quits Base­ball and Gives Up his Life for April

Sea­son 3 — Episode 8

 And with that hair, he also com­pletely quit dignity.

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.

My Top 10 Most Anticipated Movies of 2012

I hope you’re pre­pared to fork over a lot of cash to Hol­ly­wood, because 2012 is going to be a kick-ass year for movies.  Our first year of Life After Harry Pot­ter™ will be one filled with promise.  New trilo­gies will begin, beloved trilo­gies will end, and some of the biggest and best direc­tors are expected to unveil mas­ter­pieces. If the world’s going to end on Decem­ber 21st, at least we’ll die sat­is­fied know­ing we’ve finally seen  The Hob­bit.

Here are the 2012 movies I’m most look­ing for­ward to:

(ordered by release date)

The Woman in Black

Release  Date:  Feb­ru­ary 3, 2012 
Direc­tor:   James Watkins

Based on the 1983 novel by Susan Hill, The Woman in Black is the woe­ful tale of a young busi­ness­man, Arthur Kipps  ( Harry Pot­ter  Daniel Rad­cliffe), who is sum­moned to the Eng­lish coun­try­side to set in order a deceased elderly woman’s affairs and estate when he soon becomes haunted by a men­ac­ing pres­ence.  I love atmos­pheric hor­ror films, espe­cially when they take place in big, secluded old man­sions.  If you’ve never seen it, I also highly rec­om­mend the orig­i­nal British made-for-TV film ver­sion from 1989, which oozes atmos­phere and dread.  I have high expec­ta­tions for this mod­ern remake.

The Hunger Games

Release Date:   March 23, 2012
Direc­tor:  Gary Ross

Finally, a  hugely pop­u­lar young adult fic­tion film adap­ta­tion that isn’t Twi­light (with­out candy-ass vam­pires, and bet­ter writ­ing)!  Set in the future dystopian North Amer­ica (now a nation called ‘Panem’), The Hunger Games is an annual tele­vised bat­tle between young boys and girls from each of Panem’s twelve dis­tricts.  These 24 “trib­utes” must fight to the death until only one remains stand­ing.  The story cen­ters on Kat­niss Everdeen (Jen­nifer Lawrence), and her strug­gle to sur­vive.  I prac­ti­cally devoured these books at the beach last sum­mer, and I’m hop­ing this first film does the series justice.

The Raven

Release Date:   April 27, 2012
Direc­tor:  James McTeigue

Being a hor­ror fan from Bal­ti­more means you can’t not  love Edgar Allen Poe.   The Raven  is a fic­tion­al­ized account of the last days of the writer’s life, in which Poe (John Cusack) tries to track down a ser­ial killer whose mur­ders are eerily sim­i­lar to the ones he wrote in his sto­ries.  Will the film also por­tray Poe’s rag­ing alcoholism?

Dark Shadows

Release Date:  May 11, 2012
Direc­tor:  Tim Burton

Another love child between Tim Bur­ton and his go-to lead­ing man, Johnny Depp.  The three or four peo­ple who read this blog already know I’ve been look­ing for­ward to  Dark Shad­ows  since I first heard about it .  Other than cen­ter­ing around Baran­abas Collins (Depp), the plot descrip­tion on IMDB is dis­ap­point­ingly vague.  But I’m sure we can expect a delight­fully Burton-esque mix of char­ac­ters and sto­ry­lines bor­rowed from Dark Shad­ows’ many incar­na­tions.  Hope I can fin­ish my  Dark Shad­ows marathon  project before then!

Prometheus

Release Date:  June 8, 2012
Direc­tor:  Rid­ley Scott

Prometheus might turn out to be the film everybody’s been hop­ing Rid­ley Scott would make since Alien .  It looks dark, unset­tling, full of alien crea­tures, and obvi­ously, set in space (although Scott has con­firmed this isn’t a pre­quel, and is only loosely based on his pre­vi­ous Alien films).  A team of explor­ers set out to unearth the ori­gins of mankind, but instead unknow­ingly unleash our poten­tial destruction.

Brave

Release Date:  June 22, 2012
Direc­tors:   Mark Andrews, Brenda Chapman

Pixar does fairy tales.  Set in the myth­i­cal high­lands of Scot­land,  Brave  is the story of a coura­geous young princess named Merida (Kelly Mac­Don­ald).  Deter­mined to carve her own path in life, she defies an age-old sacred cus­tom, result­ing in a curse that unleashes chaos and fury upon her kingdom.

Abra­ham Lin­coln: Vam­pire Hunter

Release Date:  June 22, 2012
Direc­tor:   Timur Bekmambetov

There are two movies about Lin­coln com­ing out this year, but this one’s bound to be the most fun.  Adapted from the best­selling novel, Abra­ham Lin­coln: Vam­pire Hunter  is a mélange of his­tory and hor­ror in which our beloved 16th pres­i­dent leads a secret dou­ble life as van­quisher of the super­nat­ural.  It’s as nutty as it sounds, but the book was great.  And at least it’s not another god damn remake/sequel/prequel/reboot/etc.

The Dark Knight Rises

Release Date:   July 20, 2012
Direc­tor:  Christo­pher Nolan

The end of Chris­t­ian Bale’s reign as Bat­man, and the final chap­ter in Nolan’s tril­ogy.   The Dark Knight Rises takes place eight years after the events of the last movie.  Bat­man resur­faces when the ter­ror­ist Bane arrives in Gotham City after tak­ing the fall for Har­vey Dent’s crimes. Even though I’m def­i­nitely look­ing for­ward to it, I don’t know if any new Bat­man movie will be able to top The Dark Knight .

The Hob­bit: An Unex­pected Journey

Release Date:  Decem­ber 14, 2012
Direc­tor:  Peter Jackson

It’s The Hob­bit !  It’s the pre­quel to The Lord of the Rings!   It’s directed by Peter Jack­son!  What more is there to say?

Lincoln

Release Date:  TBA, Decem­ber 2012
Direc­tor:  Stephen Spielberg

Never mind that Lin­coln is being directed by Stephen Spiel­berg. Any­thing star­ring Daniel Day Lewis is fuck­ing win.

The 5 Best New Shows on TV Right Now

The fall 2010 TV lineup has been pretty under­whelm­ing for the most part, with the net­works foist­ing brain-dead shows upon us like $h*! My Dad Says and Out­sourced . But there are a few gems worth watch­ing.  And not sur­pris­ingly,  they’re all on cable or non-U.S. networks.

Here are the five best new(ish) shows on TV right now, accord­ing to me:

The Walk­ing Dead

A cinema-quality zom­bie apoc­a­lypse show based on an acclaimed comic book series? Can I pos­si­bly put more awe­some into that sen­tence?  AMC’s The Walk­ing Dead is a horror/drama that chron­i­cles the day-to-day lives of a small group of sur­vivors in Atlanta.  I’m not typ­i­cally a fan of the zom­bie genre but this show has man­aged to change my mind.  For a TV show, it has “holy shit” lev­els of gore and vio­lence, but for me it’s the strik­ing visu­als, char­ac­ter devel­op­ment, and intense cliffhang­ers that make this a can’t-miss show.

Sherlock

Sher­lock is BBC’s re-imagining of Sher­lock Holmes for the 21st cen­tury.  The character’s names and per­son­al­i­ties haven’t changed, nor have the famil­iar set­tings, but the new Sher­lock is high-tech and action-packed with great direc­tion and an excel­lent cast.  Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch is per­fect as Holmes, who is inci­sive and eccen­tric as ever.  So far there are only three 90-minute episodes, with more planned for 2011.

Lost Girl

Bo is a beau­ti­ful and mys­te­ri­ous woman…with a habit of leav­ing a trail of dead bod­ies behind her.  Turns out she’s actu­ally a suc­cubus, a fae who feeds on sex­ual energy to sur­vive, and must learn to cope with her ter­ri­ble secret.  After using her pow­ers to res­cue a young thief girl named Kenzi, she’s soon caught up in a war between light fae and dark fae and yearns to dis­cover her ori­gins.  I know–the premise seems ridicu­lous, and it kind of is (lol Canada?), but Lost Girl man­ages to enter­tain in spite of how silly it sounds.  The char­ac­ters are inter­est­ing enough and the dia­log is hip and witty.  And the sexy cast isn’t hard on the eyes, either.  If you’re look­ing for a decent new sci-fi show and you’re tired of vam­pires, give Lost Girl a chance.

The Increas­ingly Poor Deci­sions of Todd Margaret

I’ve been a big David Cross fan since the late 90’s HBO sketch com­edy Mr. Show and enjoyed most of his later shows and movies.  As cre­ator, writer, and star, The Increas­ingly Poor Deci­sions of Todd Mar­garet is as David Cross as it gets.  The title says most things you need to know about this show:  Todd Mar­garet is inca­pable of mak­ing good deci­sions.  As a lowly office temp who fina­gles his way into a top sales posi­tion in Lon­don, he’s an uncul­tured, socially awk­ward com­pul­sive liar sur­rounded by unsta­ble peo­ple and sit­u­a­tions that just go from bad to worse–with riotous results.  The show is on IFC, so it doesn’t hold much back.

Haven

Haven is a super­nat­ural drama set in the small town of Haven, Maine, where FBI agent Audrey Parker arrives to inves­ti­gate a rou­tine mur­der case.  But the town and its peo­ple hold many secrets, and Audrey’s own mys­te­ri­ous past is inex­plic­a­bly connected.

Let’s be hon­est. Most shows on SyFy suck.  Haven prob­a­bly won’t change your mind about that, but it has enough cool things going for it to keep me inter­ested:  1) The show is loosely based on a novella by Stephen King; 2) The dreary, rainy small coastal New Eng­land town set­ting; 3) Great chem­istry between the lead char­ac­ters; 4) Enough mys­tery and intrigue to keep you guess­ing.  I’m not fully caught up on Sea­son 1 yet, which just fin­ished its run in Octo­ber, but I was happy to hear that  Haven has already been renewed for a sec­ond sea­son.   Haven isn’t per­fect, though.  It has a lot of poten­tial, and I hope to see it bloom from a decent show into a great one.

What are you watch­ing these days?

There aren’t nearly enough co-op RPGs in this world.

Last Fri­day night, after a crazy busy week suf­fer­ing video game with­drawal,  my boyfriend Daniel and I were bored and look­ing for some­thing fun to play.  Tired of our usual go-to FPS genre with old stand­bys like L4D, we started search­ing around online to see what other alter­na­tives we could come up with.  We ended up wast­ing half the night look­ing for games that either didn’t exist or games that we didn’t own and/or couldn’t put our hands on imme­di­ately.  But we had at least nar­rowed it down to three cri­te­ria.  We wanted to play some­thing that was 1) Co-op.  2) Fantasy-ish.  3) Action/adventure-ish.

Turns out there’s not a whole lot to choose from.

We searched in vain online, Googling things like “fan­tasy co-op games” and “co-op RPGs” only to turn up a smat­ter­ing of rel­e­vant results, usu­ally in the form of old forum posts where other co-op-starved cou­ples before us had ven­tured, dar­ing to ask the same futile ques­tion and met with the same small, pre­cious hand­ful of games in answer.

Even­tu­ally we real­ized that if we were going to get our co-op RPG on, we’d have to kick it old school.  So I drug out my boxes full of old con­sole games and began rifling through them, and to my delight, dis­cov­ered a very neglected-looking but oth­er­wise work­ing copy of Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance II for Xbox.  I had had fond mem­o­ries of the first Dark Alliance game, which, in a for­mer life, I had beaten on co-op with my boyfriend du jour.  But I had never spent much time with the sequel, let alone play through it co-op.  Daniel and I sud­denly had plans for our Fri­day night.

Eerily sim­i­lar to our WoW alter egos, Dan selected the Dwarf Rogue char­ac­ter while I, com­fort­able in my usual role of heal bitch, opted for the Human Cleric.  I thought per­haps we’d play through the start­ing zones, maybe get to level 3 or so before get­ting bored.  But ever since last Fri­day night it has been non-stop BG:DA II every chance we get.  I for­got how much FUN these types of games are, espe­cially on co-op.

And now back to my orig­i­nal point–why aren’t there more co-op RPGs out there?  Off the top of my head, the ones I can think of com­prise a very short list:

• Baldur’s Gate: Dark Alliance I & II
• Cham­pi­ons of Nor­rath 1 & 2
• Diablo
• Gaunt­let Legends
• Phan­tasy Star Online
• Sacred 1 & 2
• Secret of Mana

If you know of any oth­ers (any GOOD ones, that is), please comment…I’m listening!

5 Reasons Why the World of Warcraft Movie will Suck

Despite yesterday’s major geek­gasm news that Sam Raimi will be tak­ing up reigns as direc­tor of the highly-anticipated movie World of War­craft , I remain pessimistic.

The World of War­craft movie will suck, and here’s why:

1. First, let’s get the obvi­ous out of the way.  As a gen­eral rule, movies based on video games suck.

   Need proof?
   – S uper Mario Bros. sucked
   – Res­i­dent Evil (all of them) sucked
   – House of the Dead sucked
   – Silent Hill sucked
   – Laura Croft: Tomb Raider 1 & 2 sucked
   – Dou­ble Dragon sucked
   – Mor­tal Kom­bat 1 & 2 sucked
   – Street Fighter (both of ‘em) sucked

   …I could go on, but this post would get very long very quick.

2. The actual World of War­craft sucks nowa­days.  And things are only going to get worse as Bliz­zard scram­bles to main­tain its revolv­ing door player base.  Bliz­zard may claim to have some­where in the neigh­bor­hood of 11 mil­lion sub­scribers, but for all the new peo­ple sign­ing up, there’s a whole lot of vet­er­ans and hard­core gamers leav­ing Aze­roth, who are dis­en­chanted with many of Blizzard’s recent “fuck you” deci­sions that tend to favor its own pock­ets over those of pay­ing cus­tomers.  With the new Star Wars MMO loom­ing on the hori­zon, Bliz­zard knows it must milk the WoW cash cow for all its worth–in the form of paid fac­tion trans­fers and over­hyped expansions.
3. I like Sam Raimi, I really do.   But just watch Spider-Man 3, and var­i­ous other films Raimi has fucked up.  When it comes to direct­ing, he’s kind of a hack who’s for­tu­nate enough to have cult status/geek cred with the Evil Dead fran­chise.  Sure he makes some damn enter­tain­ing pop­corn hor­ror movies, but is he capa­ble of pulling off an epic fan­tasy film?  I hope his work on Leg­end of the Seeker isn’t an indi­ca­tion…  Check out Raimi’s over-saturated IMDB page , where he’s cur­rently listed to have over 20 projects in pro­duc­tion, includ­ing Spi­der­man 4.
4. It will be told from an Alliance per­spec­tive.  Snore.  I guess even out­side the game the Horde gets no love.  That aside, there are a zil­lion pos­si­ble sto­ry­lines in the World of War­craft upon which to base a movie.  Why choose lamestream Alliance?  I guess two mil­lion Night Elves can’t be wrong.
5. Last year, I included the long-rumored World of War­craft movie on my list of  Top 5 Most Antic­i­pated Fan­tasy Films of 2009 , which up until recently, Bliz­zard has main­tained would be the film’s year of release.  (I hope they didn’t really expect us to believe that! ) So it wasn’t at all supris­ing to hear that World of War­craft: The Movie is now slated for release in 2012.  TWENTY TWELVE!  Will WoW still be as pop­u­lar three years from now as it is today?

Hope I’m wrong!

Worst Valentine’s Day Gifts for Gamers

Valentine’s Day is just 1 day away.  So what have you got­ten for your sweet­heart who loves video games?

Stuck for ideas? There’s a ton of good blog posts out there rec­om­mend­ing awe­some V-day gifts for the spe­cial gamer in your life.  Great stuff like  this , any of these , and (my per­sonal favorite) this .

But for all the great Valentine’s Day gifts for gamers, there’s a whole lot of bad ones.  And bad Valentine’s Day gifts can lead to cry­ing, shame, and the with­hold­ing of sex.  Lucky for you, I’m here to help you avoid such pit­falls by review­ing some of the worst gifts pos­si­ble.  This is espe­cially help­ful for you non-gamers who know you want to get your Valen­tine some­thing gamer-related, but have no idea what NOT to buy.   And if you’re a gamer your­self, you should know better.

Warn­ing: Giv­ing your sig­nif­i­cant other any of the fol­low­ing items for Valentine’s Day may result in a swift and imme­di­ate breakup.

Wii Fit

There’s noth­ing like giv­ing your part­ner a Valentine’s Day gift that not so sub­tly sug­gests they should lose some weight.  While I don’t think it’s quite as bad for a girl to give this to her man, I do pity the guy who makes the mis­take of buy­ing this for his girl­friend, espe­cially if she didn’t ask for it. Get­ting a Wii Fit is anal­o­gous to receiv­ing a bath­room scale, which, FYI, usu­ally tops the lists of worst Valentine’s Day gifts .  Even if your inten­tions are com­pletely inno­cent, stay on the safe side and just assume that on some level, whether sub­con­sciously or not, she will get offended.

Generic Game Systems

For gamers, there’s noth­ing quite as dis­ap­point­ing as receiv­ing a generic game sys­tem as a gift, espe­cially if you had your heart set on a real one.  You know the ones I’m talk­ing about–they’re the no-name “all in one” con­soles with built-in games that QVC tries to pawn off on clue­less moms around the hol­i­days, or the Brand X game sys­tems that resem­ble con­trollers col­lect­ing dust in some bar­gain bin at Toys ‘R Us. They’re easy to iden­tify because A) they’re cheaply priced; B) they usu­ally say things on the box like “you’ll never need to buy another game again!”; and most rec­og­niz­ably C) THEY DON’T FUCKING SAY “NINTENDO”, “XBOX”, or “PS3” ANYWHERE!  Nobody, I repeat NOBODY wants one of these worth­less pieces of shit as a gift on any hol­i­day, let alone Valentine’s Day. Avoid!

Stu­pid Gamer T-Shirts

There’s a lot of cool gamer t-shirts out there, but also plenty of uncool ones.  If you plan on get­ting some geeky gear for your favorite gamer, make sure you at least buy one that doesn’t make them look like a com­plete douchebag.  As a gen­eral rule of thumb, you should avoid any­thing that says “1337.”  Also ter­ri­ble are shirts based on shitty games, shirts boldly pro­claim­ing how much you “pwn” (unless of course you really don’t, and you’re just try­ing to be ironic), unfunny cus­tom design jobs that nobody under­stands but you, or per­haps this shirt .

Rock Revolution

Also known as the game that ISN’T Rock Band or Gui­tar Hero.  So if your BF/GF had their heart set on either of these games for Valentine’s Day and you get them Rock Rev­o­lu­tion instead, con­grats, you fail.  It’s almost like the devel­op­ers delib­er­ately made this game to trick naive peo­ple into buy­ing it think­ing it’s one of the other two.  The track­list is sur­pris­ingly not hor­ri­ble, but hardly any of the songs are per­formed by orig­i­nal artists.  The game has also received ter­ri­ble reviews from most crit­ics and game sites.  Com­pared to Rock Band and Gui­tar Hero, Rock Rev­o­lu­tion is undoubt­edly the red-headed stepchild.

Plug ‘n’ Play TV Games

These lit­tle one-trick ponies are a close cousin to the afore­men­tioned Generic Game Sys­tems, and they come in a wide vari­ety of games rang­ing from crappy to crap­pier.  These are the kinds of video game prod­ucts you buy for some­one that only likes or has ever played one video game in their entire life (usu­ally Tetris), your grand­mother who only knows how to play card games, or young chil­dren who you don’t yet trust enough not to fuck up a real con­sole.  These plug ‘n’ play devices are typ­i­cally very gim­micky, with prod­uct designs that go out of their way to let you know what game you’re play­ing, and uncom­fort­able con­trollers. While there are SOME decent retro plug ‘n’ play devices that mimic clas­sic game con­soles, they usu­ally have excep­tion­ally shitty con­trollers and/or a lim­ited library of built-in games. The only time it’s accept­able to buy one of these toys is if you’re unable to acquire a real Atari or Com­modore 64 and are des­per­ate to play your old favorites.  Buy your Valen­tine the real thing instead!

Hope I saved you from a sex-less Valentine’s Day!

Awesome RPG Intros

It wasn’t so long ago that RPGs were sim­ple affairs involv­ing a few different-colored pix­els with a sword roam­ing over an end­lessly sim­i­lar land­scape fight­ing other different-colored pix­els to mind-numbingly repet­i­tive music (I’m look­ing at you, Dragon Warrior).

But over the years, as game con­soles have evolved, so too has the game­play and the immer­sive expe­ri­ence we’ve come to expect from RPGs.  With plots and char­ac­ters that com­pletely suck us in as we jour­ney along­side our hero, RPGs have been ele­vated to the level of sto­ry­telling art.  And one of the best ways RPGs plunge us into these vast worlds of might and magic is through the game’s open­ing sequence.

Here are a few of my favorites from sys­tems past and present:

Lunar Sil­ver Star Story Com­plete

Plat­form: Playsta­tion
Year: 1998

A re-make of the orig­i­nal Lunar (Sega CD), Sil­ver Star Story’s open­ing fea­tures a great orig­i­nal song that intro­duces our hero, Alex, and his love inter­est Luna, while giv­ing us a glimpse of all the party char­ac­ters we’ll meet along the way in our quest to become a Drag­on­mas­ter and defeat the evil Ghaleon.

Lunar 2: Eter­nal Blue

Plat­form: Sega CD
Year: 1995

Okay, so I may be a lit­tle biased putting both Lunar games on my list, but this open­ing for the orig­i­nal Lunar 2: Eter­nal Blue was pretty impres­sive for its time, con­sid­er­ing the depth of its sto­ry­telling and the Sega CD’s lim­i­ta­tions.  A lengthy intro­duc­tion that com­bines both story and cred­its, we see Lucia’s awak­en­ing on the Blue Star one thou­sand years after the first game’s events to her omi­nous pre­mo­ni­tion for the world of Lunar.  Beau­ti­ful music and atmos­pheric visu­als, Lunar 2 remains my favorite RPG of all time.

Wild Arms

Plat­form: Playsta­tion
Year: 1996

The Wild Arms open­ing intro­duces Rudy, Jack, and Cecelia, three unlikely heroes whose des­tinies inter­twine to take up ARMs and save the land of Fil­gaia.  A beau­ti­ful intro to an amaz­ing game.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Obliv­ion

Plat­form: PC, Xbox 360
Year: 1996

Emporer Uriel Sep­tim speaks his dying words with a lit­tle help from Patrick Stew­art.  Does it get much more epic than this? A fit­ting intro for one of the most epic RPGs ever made.

The Leg­end of Zelda: Twi­light Princess

Plat­form: Wii
Year: 2006

An under­stated but effec­tive intro that sets the mood for the entire game, the open­ing for Twi­light Princess harkens back to The Oca­rina of Time with Link rid­ing his faith­ful Epona through the twilight-shrouded land­scape of Hyrule.

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!

Top 5 Most Anticipated Fantasy Flicks for 2009

#5 –The Elf­s­tones of Shan­nara

The Elf­s­tones of Shan­nara is the story of two inter­twined destinies–that of Wil Ohms­ford, grand­son of leg­endary Shea Ohms­ford, and Amberle Elessedil, who must go on a quest together to save the Ell­crys, the dying Elvish tree.  Ell­crys remains the last strong­hold of magic pro­tect­ing The Four Lands from the onslaught of the Demon World, and only Amberle, last dis­ci­ple of the Druid Allanon, has the power to save it.

Direc­tor Mike Newell (Harry Pot­ter and the Gob­let of Fire) will bring The Elf­s­tones of Shan­nara, the sec­ond book of The Orig­i­nal Sha­narra Tril­ogy by Terry Brooks , to the big screen in 2009, release date to be announced.

#4 — The Alche­myst: The Secrets of the Immor­tal Nicholas Flamel

The Alche­myst: The Secrets of the Immor­tal Nicholas Flamel is a cont

empo­rary fan­tasy that mixes ancient phi­los­o­phy and renais­sance his­tory with a modern-day set­ting. Twin teens Josh and Sophie New­man work at a San Fran­cisco bookstore/café for a book­keeper whom they soon dis­cover is actu­ally Nicholas Flemel, the leg­endary ancient alchemist and keeper of The Codex. Nicholas and his wife Perenelle have been liv­ing eter­nally by drink­ing the Elixir of Life. When necro­mancer Dr. John Dee steals The Codex, Josh and Sophie are unex­pect­edly drawn into a world of magic and mys­tery to help Nicholas recover The Codex or face the world’s destruc­tion at Dee’s hand.

The first book of the six-part The Secrets of the Immor­tal Nicholas Flamel series by Irish author Michael Scott , The Alche­myst will be a major motion pic­ture by New Line Cin­ema in 2009. The film is cur­rently in pre-production, with no offi­cial release date yet.

#3 — Ink­heart

Ink­heart is the story of a book­ish young girl named Meg­gie and her father Mo, who has an extra­or­di­nary abil­ity: when he reads books aloud, he brings them to life. The first book of the widely suc­cess­ful Inkworld tril­ogy, Ink­heart is a charm­ing tale by beloved children’s author Cor­nelia Funke . Sim­i­lar to 2008’s The Spi­der­wick Chron­i­cles, Ink­heart is geared toward a younger audi­ence set, and a def­i­nite fam­ily film.

Although not one of my favorite books (sur­pris­ing, con­sid­er­ing how much I adored The Thief Lord also by Cor­nelia Funke), the film’s trailer looks promis­ing enough, and full of action, which is some­thing I felt the book sorely lacked. Ink­heart stars Bren­dan Frasier as Mo and child star Eliza Ben­nett as Meg­gie, and is set for a Jan­u­ary 2009 release.

#2 — War­craft

What we know: War­craft will be a live-action movie by Leg­endary Pic­tures based on Blizzard’s hugely pop­u­lar War­craft series of PC games and World of War­craft, the mas­sively suc­cess­ful MMO. The PG-13 rated movie will be told from an Alliance per­spec­tive, and its sto­ry­line will be set one year before the events that unfold in World of Warcraft.

What we don’t know: Any­thing else. There’s still no images, no trail­ers. Not even an offi­cial web site. Yet Bliz­zard has con­firmed, through a series of cryp­tic winks and nudges, that this movie is still very much in pro­duc­tion. It’s hard to believe this movie will be a real­ity in 2009, con­sid­er­ing how shrouded in mys­tery it seems to be. Not a word was breathed about the film at Bliz­zCon 2008, a huge dis­ap­point­ment for thou­sands of fans anx­ious for any kind of update they can get.

Update 1/23/2009: Quote from Bliz­zard:

“We are in fact work­ing on a movie with Leg­endary Pic­tures, but we don’t have any new infor­ma­tion to share with every­one just yet. At the 2007 Bliz­zCon, we even had a spe­cial panel with a lit­tle bit about the plans for the film. I’m sure you can find video on it or reports on it.

Just as an addi­tional infor­ma­tional bit, it will be Live Action.

I’m quite sure there will be plenty of action, but there’s a story to be told too. I couldn’t tell you more though. ”

Update 7/22/2009:  Sam Raimi con­firmed as direc­tor!!

#1 — Harry Pot­ter and the Half-Blood Prince

Imag­ine look­ing for­ward to a movie you’re really excited about. Not just any movie, but the sixth and most cru­cial film adap­ta­tion of the best­selling book series of all time. The release date draws near. You start see­ing posters, pro­mo­tions, pro­duc­tion stills. Your excite­ment builds. You watch the trailer, and it looks amaz­ing. You can­not wait to pre-order your tick­ets. And then you find out it’s get­ting delayed. By eight months.

That’s exactly what Warner Bros. did to mil­lions of excited Pot­ter fans eagerly await­ing the release of Harry Pot­ter and the Half-Blood Prince . Just two months before the film’s originally-scheduled Novem­ber 2008 release date, Warner Bros. announced it would be mov­ing the release date to July 2009. The back­lash was imme­di­ate. There were peti­tions, boy­cotts, and a flood of strongly-worded emails to Warner Bros. stu­dio execs. Their reasoning—some vague excuse about the writ­ers’ strike impact­ing their bot­tom line—was hard to swal­low, espe­cially after watch­ing them rake in hun­dreds of mil­lions from last summer’s box office megahit The Dark Knight. Yet despite our out­rage, we all know that come next July we’ll still be pre-ordering our tick­ets and lin­ing up in droves at the even­tual mid­night release.

(I’m still bit­ter, can’t you tell?)

6 Geeky Things I’m Thankful For

Thanks­giv­ing is just two days away. Come Thurs­day I hope to be in a full-fledged turkey and wine-induced coma, sur­rounded by fam­ily and friends, kick­ing off a bliss­ful four days of gam­ing, couch­ing, Net­flix­ing, and left­overs. Gear­ing up for the long week­end has got me think­ing about all the geeky things I’m thank­ful for.

Here’s a look back at 2008 from a grate­ful geek girl:

The Tales of Bee­dle the Bard

I’m thank­ful for The Tales of Bee­dle the Bard , the new children’s fairy tale book and Harry Pot­ter com­pan­ion piece from one of my favorite authors, J. K. Rowl­ing . Since 1997, I along with most of the world have adven­tured along­side Harry in his seven-year bat­tle against You-Know-Who, and like so many other fans, was depressed when the series came to its heart-wrenching con­clu­sion last sum­mer. Look­ing for­ward to the book’s release this Decem­ber 4th, when I and legions of Pot­ter fans can delve once again into a small piece of the wiz­ard­ing world.

The Dark Knight

I’m thank­ful that The Dark Knight was a piv­otal box office phe­nom­e­non, and arguably one of the best super hero movies ever made. I’m thank­ful that Heath Ledger will be remem­bered for one of the most riv­et­ing and bril­liant per­for­mances ever known to big screen vil­lainy. I’m thank­ful that this movie has defined the new stan­dard against which all future super hero movies should be judged, and I’m opti­mistic that Hol­ly­wood will start pay­ing attention.

The New Xbox Expe­ri­ence

I’m thank­ful for the New Xbox Expe­ri­ence , and Microsoft’s part­ner­ship with Net­flix to bring the “Watch It Now” movie ser­vice to the Xbox 360 con­sole free of charge. Net­flix sub­scribers that own an Xbox 360 no longer have to face the inevitable deci­sion to shell out $100 for a Roku Net­flix player, yet another periph­eral that would clut­ter up our home enter­tain­ment sys­tems. I’ve found the high-quality stream­ing ser­vice to work absolutely per­fectly. It’s just too bad about Sony’s sour grapes .

Wii Fit

I’m thank­ful for Nin­tendo and their seem­ingly end­less inno­va­tion when it comes to pro­duc­ing fun and easy to learn yet chal­leng­ing games for the Wii , most notably 2008’s sim­ple but sur­pris­ingly effec­tive title Wii Fit . While Wii Fit cer­tainly doesn’t score any points for breath­tak­ing graph­ics or intense game­play, there is some­thing to be said for any game (or non-game) that moti­vates us lazy gamers to get off the couch and get physical—and have fun doing it.

The Twi­light Saga

I’m thank­ful for Stephe­nie Meyer’s ridicu­lously cheesy Twi­light Saga , whose sopho­moric books man­aged to com­pletely suck me in for a good two weeks of unadul­ter­ated guilty plea­sure read­ing, the per­fect anti­dote to a stress­ful month . I’m also thank­ful that the equally cheesy and unin­ten­tion­ally hilar­i­ous Twi­light movie —which grossed $70 mil­lion on its open­ing week­end, thanks to dreamy Rob Pat­tin­son —made for one of the most enter­tain­ing and mem­o­rable girls’ night outs I’ve had in a long time.

Wrath of the Lich King

I’m thank­ful for Wrath of the Lich King , the lat­est and great­est expan­sion to the sec­ond life I know as World of War­craft, which gave me the excuse to get back in touch with old guildies and good friends (some vir­tual, some real) and fall in love all over again with the sheer awe­some­ness of this game. Bliz­zard has really out­done them­selves with this release. The stun­ning visu­als and beau­ti­ful music score alone were worth the wait. Indeed, things were get­ting pretty bor­ing around Aze­roth until you showed up, Arthas .

Look­ing for­ward to all the geeky things 2009 will bring!