W00tstock 4.0 Has Come and Gone

The now-annual San Diego ComiCon variety-show companion, W00tstock, has come and gone. As with years past, I went from excited anticipation, to reveling in the warmth of being surrounded by "people like me", to a sudden post-holiday like depression.

I remember some of my friends trying to explain to me what their youthful Church-going experience was like, and I find myself now using the same phrases and adjectives when I try to explain W00tstock to others.  It is very difficult to describe to someone who doesn't get it, except you can say it's a place where you feel safe, everyone laughs at the same jokes you do, and you relish the chance to be surprised and amused in a world where that happens all too infrequently.

Thanks much to the key players who've make this great experience happen for multiple years now:

• http://w00tstock.net/
• http://www.paulandstorm.com/
• http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/
• http://www.adamsavage.com/

I can't even begin to list all the Luminaries of Geekdom who made appearances last night, but I will say that the surprise appearance of Molly Lewis during Marian Call's last song made my night.  I'd have sorely missed her if she'd not made an appearance!

Planning for next year's show must begin: NOW!

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Zombie Walk 2010

My week of Nerd-related activities got extended slightly when a friend let me know that there was a Zombie Walk going on with ComicCon this Saturday.

From ZombieWalk_2010-07-24

Needless to say, I had to drag the family along.  My costume was pretty rudimentary, but there were some really talented and dedicated folks there, including my favorite, the "50's Comic Book Zombie", who was kind enough to pose with me for the picture above.

The walk was organized by Zombie Walk San Diego, as a fundraiser and organ-donor signup event for Donate Life California.  By my estimate, there were somewhere between 500 and a 1000 Zombies who showed up.  Awesome!

More impressive than the sheer number of Zombies was that I was able to get Kimberley and Annika to come along.  Annika was a bit young for makeup, so she wore her "Zombie Snack" bib, while Kimberley was sporting possibly the most subtle costume in the walk, (but she was definitely in-costume):

From ZombieWalk_2010-07-24

Bonus Zombie points to anyone who "gets it".

I was honored to be asked to pose for many photos.  Lots of people thought the sign was great, but I can't take credit for the joke -Think Geek sells the shirt.  My really "big moment", though, was spotting the illustrious Patricia Tallman standing off the curb taking pictures of the shamble as it went by.  I only gave a subtle wave and mouthed "I love your work" as we went by, because the last thing the star of Tom Savini's remake of Night of the Living Dead needed was to be recognized on the street and surrounded by five hundred Zombie fans.  This would be equivalent to someone spotting Mark Hamil watching a parade of the 501st Legion going by.

We were too busy wrangling the stroller amid the shamble of Zombies to take many photos, but I managed a few good ones here, and a quick video snap of the Thriller breakout.

I have found quite a few other good collections of photos, though, so here are the best:
Flickr Set from Mike Rollerson
and another from Sebastian Jesperson
and one from SanDiego.com

Searching "Zombie Walk San Diego 2010" or "Zombie Walk ComicCom 2010" should net many more videos and pictures...
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Its like a grail quest, only -- not.

Well, the end of March 2008 marks the end of a quest of proportions both epic and trivial. You see, since sometime in the summer of 2001 or 2002, I've been trying to find a copy of a movie called "American Cuisine".

That summer, on a weekend when I was home alone, I saw this simple flick on one of the random movie channels that you get with a big cable package. Its not "the Lord of the Rings" or anything, but its a movie that falls into a genre that my wife and I enjoy very much - "Food Porn" movies. Any movie where food or cooking plays a significant role is destined to be a classic in our household. No surprise really, since we're serious foodies and we watch more FoodTV than any four other networks combined, SpeedTV included.

Just a few of our favorites: "Eat, Drink, Man, Woman", (and its remake "Tortilla Soup"), "Chocolat", "Soul Food", "Big Night", "Like Water for Chocolate", and the recently added "Ratatouille". Even movies with tangential food themes or scenes of food porn like "The Last Supper" and "Goodfellas" are a treat.

So imagine my frustration when I saw, by myself, a cute little French-Food-themed romantic comedy starring one of our favorite actors, Jason Lee. Remember this was pre-TiVo (at least in our household). It turns out this movie was seemingly never released for the US market, and is exceedingly hard to find even abroad. I have been trying to get a copy of this movie to share with my wife since that summer day. Yep, nearly six or seven years. This movie isn't just not-released for America, but its also apparently out of print even in the markets it was intended for. The closest I've ever come is a German market disc on sale for $29. I didn't want it quite that badly.

Anyhow, a periodic search on eBay finally revealed my salvation. A Region 2, PAL-encoded, poor transfer of the movie with Polish subtitles, but salvation nonetheless. Fortunately my completely bitchin' Oppo DVD player is region free and PAL-to-NTSC converting, and the original English 5.1 audio is intact (the film was recorded in both English and French by the original cast). The upside of this movie being so hard to find is that apparently almost nobody else was looking for it. For 1.20 GBP, plus 4.20GBP shipping ($8.35 total, with today's craptastic US Dollar) I beat out one other bidder and this particular celluloid unicorn is now part of my collection. Huzzah!

Now the real question, will Kimberley actually like the movie? Read More...

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"Shaun of the Dead" team returns...

OK, I can't wait to see this one. Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright, the writing team behind Shaun of the Dead, the greatest "Romantic Comedy. With Zombies" movie ever filmed, have returned with Hot Fuzz, which looks to be a similar treatment of the "cop movie" genre that SotD received via the horror genre.

As the Times Online points out, the cast reads like a who's-who of Brit actors, most of whom, like Bill Nighy and Martin Freeman, have already proven their comedy chops. I couldn't get SotD into my collection fast enough when it hit DVD, and I'm sure the same will be true here.

I think maybe we need either a Shaun or generic cop movie themed DVD party at my place when this thing lands stateside!

The Times article is mostly spoiler free, but avoid the last paragraph if you want to completely avoid anything remotely spoiler-like:
Hot Fuzz - First night reviews - Times Online Read More...

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