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?

Things I Learned from Molly Ringwald’s Tweets

Like so many child star­lets and b-list celebs before her,  Molly Ring­wald has joined Twit­ter. You might remem­ber her from The Break­fast Club , Pretty in Pink , Six­teen Can­dles , For Keeps , Fresh Horses –all required view­ing for chil­dren of the ‘80s.  Or per­haps Some­thing to Live For: The Ali­son Gertz Story  was more your cup of tea (a cup of tea with AIDS in it, that is).

One of the things I love most about Twit­ter is how close it makes me feel to irrel­e­vant celebri­ties. Not to say that Molly Ring­wald isn’t rel­e­vant to any­one; she’s cer­tainly rel­e­vant to me and the mil­lions of other fin­ger­less glove-wearing mem­bers of the John Hughes gen­er­a­tion that wor­shiped every shock­ingly pink out­fit she ever wore. It’s just that Twit­ter has a way of shin­ing the spot­light back on for­got­ten stars and rekin­dling pub­lic inter­est in their once glit­ter­ing lives and careers. It’s kind of the mod­ern, social media equiv­a­lent of those “Where Are They Now?” arti­cles except way bet­ter because now we get to absorb every mun­dane detail of their daily lives.

Like this tweet, for example:

2nd here & I have 2,453 following!Thanks for wel­com­ing me and I will strive to find inter­est­ing things to tweet in my happy mun­dane life!

— Molly Ring­wald (@MollyRingwald) April 21, 2012

Aw, you’re wel­come Molls! (I like to call her that.)  And I want to thank you for car­ing enough about what inter­ests me to edit your tweet­ing habits accord­ingly.  Oth­er­wise I might have unfol­lowed and never got­ten to know these awe­somely geeky things about you:

Molly Ring­wald is a Secret Red­dit Lurker

@Mol­lyRing­wald @jdross @kn0thing @red­dit Ah… YOU’RE my hero. I love Red­dit. I’ve been lurk­ing for ages!

— Molly Ring­wald (@MollyRingwald) April 22, 2012

Molly Ring­wald Refers to Her­self in Third Person

@Uncle­Dy­na­mite Molly Ring­wald is pro choice if that’s what you’re wondering..

— Molly Ring­wald (@MollyRingwald) April 23, 2012

Molly Ring­wald is Addicted to Fruit Ninja

Not sure which is more addict­ing: Twit­ter or Fruit Ninja. Is this where I cease to be productive?

— Molly Ring­wald (@MollyRingwald) April 23, 2012

Molly Ring­wald is a Fan of LOST & Game of Thrones

Smoky from Lost just showed up in Game of Thrones!

— Molly Ring­wald (@MollyRingwald) April 23, 2012

Molly Ringwald’s Kids are Adorkable

And they have cool names like Mathilda.

@Mol­lyRing­wald @Selemar9 My daugh­ter watch­ing 16 Can­dles for the first time… twitter.com/MollyRingwald/…

— Molly Ring­wald (@MollyRingwald) April 23, 2012

Molly Ring­wald Likes Avatar & The Leg­end of Korra

Leg­end of Korra. Sun­day night treat for 8 year old..

— Molly Ring­wald (@MollyRingwald) April 23, 2012

@orso99 love it. Didn’t care for the live action ver­sion though…

— Molly Ring­wald (@MollyRingwald) April 23, 2012

Shut the front door! Molly Ring­wald likes  The Leg­end of Korra ?! I can feel my girl­crush from the ‘80s com­ing back, except now it’s more like a mom­crush where I imag­ine Molly Ring­wald is my mom and she makes me watch all her Brat Pack movies while braid­ing my hair and feed­ing me fresh cut veg­eta­bles from her garden.

Who cares what Molly Ring­wald thinks anyway?

I do. I care!

In a per­fect world John Hughes would still be alive and mak­ing amaz­ing films for Molly Ring­wald to star in–like a  Break­fast Club sequel . But for now I’m just happy know­ing that Molly Ring­wald is still cool and beau­ti­ful, lives an idyl­lic life and loves to tweet about it. It’s every­thing Claire Stan­dish would have wanted.

5 New Midseason TV Shows for Geeks & Comic Book Fans

Via Scoop.it — Shezcrafti

ComicBook.com has a good round-up of 5 new(ish) TV shows that comic book geeks would prob­a­bly enjoy.

The hol­i­day sea­son is over, which means the Char­lie Brown Christ­mas spe­cials are done, and new episodes of return­ing shows and mid­sea­son replace­ments are start­ing.  Of course among return­ing TV shows, comic book fans have The Big Bang The­ory, Fringe, and The Walk­ing Dead.

How­ever, the excit­ing news is that there are sev­eral brand new mid­sea­son shows that should be of inter­est to comic book fans. Here’s our list of the top new TV shows for comic book fans.

Via comicbook.com

Here’s what’s on the list:

• Napoleon Dyna­mite (pre­miered Jan. 15 )  —  The quirky ani­mated com­edy series based on the pop­u­lar movie, voiced by the orig­i­nal film’s actors.
• Celebrity Appren­tice (pre­miers Feb. 12)  — Why is this on the list? Mainly because this sea­son stars Lour Fer­rigno & George Takei.
• The River (pre­mieres tonight/Feb. 7)  — A new paranormal/horror adventure-ish series that takes place along the Amazon
• Comic Book Men ( pre­mieres Feb. 12) — Another new AMC show, pro­duced by Kevin Smith. Must-see TV for comic book fans.
• Alca­traz (pre­miered Jan. 16)  — This JJ Abrams & Jorge Gar­cia “Lost-esque” show is based on the dis­ap­pear­ances of over 300 inmates and 40 guards, and gov­ern­ment cover-ups sur­round­ing the mys­te­ri­ous prison. Looks awe­some, but I haven’t had the chance to see it yet.

I’d also add to this list Touch , the new super­nat­ural show on Fox that stars Kiefer Suther­land. It pre­miered on Jan. 25 as a “spe­cial pre­view” and will begin reg­u­larly on March 19.

Are you watch­ing or do you plan to catch any of these? I want to know your thoughts about them.

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.

Geeky Gamer Jewelry on Etsy

As the site says on its home­page, Etsy is the place to buy and sell all things hand­made.  Here is a show­case of some of the coolest geeky gamer jew­elry I’ve found there, and the awe­some sell­ers who make it:

Pix­e­lated good­ness from an aptly-named seller,  Pixel Party offers charm bracelets, cuf­flinks, ear­rings, and more in the clas­sic 8-bit style of your favorite video games.

The Gamer Gear Store sells unique-looking hand-sculpted pieces from “all school” video games, as well as other great geeky gear inspired by vin­tage comics and movies.

The Clay Col­lec­tion sells super cute minia­ture poly­mer clay ver­sions of your favorite video game acces­sories, hard­ware, and characters.

For those who want to wear their D20s instead of just rolling ‘em, Candy Corn Stu­dios sells beau­ti­ful, wear­able art made with the real thing.

I really heart the jew­elry that Omega­zoid sells.  Sim­ple plas­tic beads emu­late that 8-bit pixel look perfectly.

The two ladies behind Char­lie Carter Cre­ations sell awe­some clay jew­elry based on video games, and other geeky stuff like Futu­rama, Mup­pets, and child­hood toys.

Know of any other great Etsy sell­ers, or do you make and sell geeky/gamer jew­el­ery too?  Leave me a link to your store in the com­ments and I’ll add it to my list!