Internet Geek Coupons

"From 30% the droids you are looking for to 50% off any one ring of power in either styles for men or dwarves. Other offers will get your mom off Facebook and make it so that someone sees one of your tweets."

Of course if you redeem any one them your shirt will be filled with holes. Oh the dilemma! (The Coupons Tee via Shirtoid)

Previously on Popped Culture...
Retro Geek
The Geek Hierarchy
What Colour Is Your Nerd?

Retro Geek

I was all ready to get the grow-your-own Pterodactyls kit until I read the "Not for realz!" small print. So I'm going to get the The Official Ninja Academy Beginners Guide instead. I see that it is guaranteed. It will go well with my X-Ray Specs and Joy Buzzer. When Geek-ness Goes Retro... from Riccardo Bucchioni at Threadless.

Previously on Popped Culture...
Spin Around, Ninjas!
Elements of Awesome
Extinct, Endangered, Resurrected

What Colour Is Your Nerd?

Inspired by the Nerdist's call for Nerd Collages, I threw together my own. In retrospect there are a few things I would have added, but I'm pretty pleased with the result.

Ok, here are the nerdy details, clockwise from bottom left:
Axis & Allies board game
Douglas Coupland: Generation X
Trivial Pursuit card
iTunes card
Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season One
The Cure: Three Imaginary Boys (first album, English import, vinyl)
Sudbury, Ont. snow globe
Disco Stu
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (signed by Douglas Adams!)
Philip K. Dick: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
Calvin & Hobbes: Scientific Progress Goes 'Boink'
Watchmen
Simpsons cast poster
Comic Book Store Guy
Toronto International Film Festival guide (from 1997, my second year of 12 years of attendance)
Bloom County: Billy and the Boingers Bootleg
Asterix and the Goths
James Bond: Goldfinger
Sydney snow globe
The Tick
Kordos (or is it Kang?)

If you make your own, post a link in the comments. I'd love to see it.

The Geek Hierarchy

All you need to know is video gamers rank higher than role-playing gamers, Trekkies who speak Klingon are geekier than regular Trekkies and nobody is as geeky as furries. And while it is at least six years old (forever online) it holds up surprisingly well.



From Brunching Shttlecocks via Accordian Guy

Here Be Anthropomorphic Dragons

A map of online communities (click on the map for a larger version) and social networking from the web comic xkcd. It's from last year (so of course I'm only seeing it now) and already some of the lands should be resized (up Facebook, down MySpace) and a new island of lolcats is probably required, but other than that its incredibly detailed and funny.

Strange Maps, where I origianlly came across this clever piece of cartography, has a version with a slew of comments explaining some of the more obscure terrirtories. And I'm off to sail the Sea of Memes on my way to the Ocean of Subculture.

The Ultimate Lego Weapon

Having no artistic or engineering skills, all my Lego creations tended to be square houses, square cars, squares, well, you get the picture. Even my pre-formed sets never turned out the way they looked on the box, so I've always been impressed by intricate dioramas.

But nothing prepared me for the 3,800 piece Death Star recreation. Gizmodo has some great hi-res pics of this piece of geek Nirvana, which is going for the low, low price of $499 (Canadian). Yeesh, who says Lego is for kids?

Of course for your money you get "the Death Star control room, rotating turbolaser turrets, hangar bay with TIE Advanced starfighter, tractor beam controls, Emperor’s throne room, detention block, firing laser cannon, Imperial conference chamber, droid maintenance facility, and the powerful Death Star superlaser," plus a trash compactor monster!

Ok, I'm off to play with my son's Duplo blocks and make a, um... box.

Geek Love

A circuit diagram from a New York Times tribute to Dungeons & Dragons creator Gary Gygax. It is way above my geek level, but I can relate to it more than I'd care to admit. Click on the image for a larger version.

When Fans Attack!

It had been years since I'd been to a sci-fi convention, so I jumped at the chance this weekend to indulge my inner geek at the Toronto Fan Expo. Man, a Lord of the Rings musical and a sci-fi convention in the same week? I suppose my geek isn't all that inner these days. Anyway, things have changed, with Star Trek and Star Wars taking a back seat to all thing anime.




Star Wars wasn't shut out entirely - we found Ham Solo here carrying the torch for Lucas and Co., but he was more of an exception than a rule. As for Trek, I saw but one Federation uniform and but a single Kilingon. What is wrong with kids these days?













The rest of Star Wars fanboys had their dreams crushed when, after lining up for hours for an overpriced autograph, they discoved that Carrie Fisher looks more like their mother than the Princess-Leia-on-the-barge fantasies they had been nursing for years.







Of course there were some other changes. It seems that quite a few women actually attend. I don't mean to engage in gender sterotypes, but well, ya know...










But it wasn't just about babes with swords and wings. The Pillow Fight League uses, you guessed it, pillows. The rules are as such:
1. Women Fighters Only. No Exceptions.
2. Fights have a five minute time limit and are won via pinfall, surrender, or referee stoppage. If a fight ends at the time limit with no winner, a winner is declared by a three-judge committee.
3. Punching, leg drops, clotheslines, submission holds, and other moves are allowed as long as a pillow is used to execute the attack.
4. No eye-gouging, biting, scratching, hair pulling, or low blows.
5. No rude, lewd, or suggestive behavior.
6. Loading a pillow with a foreign object such as a brick is strictly forbidden.




So how much do you think Vernon 'Mini-Me' Troyer is hating his life at that moment?

Check out the rest of my pics over at Flickr.