Time to let my nerd flag fly…

First – it was Daddy Daughter Day on Sunday.  With me being gone all week in Utah, I gave Better Half a break and took off with Lil’ Baird.  Where did we go?  Why the Motor City Comic Con!!!

We both got dressed in our Lucasfilm shirts (I got her a onesie when I went to their offices last year) and headed out.

It wasn’t a bad show this year and a nice crowd for a Sunday.  The big highlight for dad was getting to meet Carrie Fisher (that’s Princess Leia y’all).  Lil’ Baird and I stood in line for only about 15 minutes and I had Ms. Fisher sign a photo for my baby girl!  SWEET!! [Read more →]

Here is my review of Star Trek…

AWESOME!

REALLY…I truly loved just about every minute of this movie.  There were enough little nods to nerds to give it that “insider” fun but was still very approachable.

Even Better Half came out of it and said,

“I can’t wait for the next movie.”

Seriously, that just doesn’t happen!

There was even one part where she looked over at me and said..

“Red Shirt!”

Be still my heart…

I can not stress enough…if you want to have a good time at the movies and embrace your inner nerd (or outer nerd like me) for two hours…go SEE THIS MOVIE!

FYI – here in Detroit we have the Star Trek exhibit at the Detroit Science Center.  If you are in town, you can get a package that gets you in the museum AND tickets to see the movie on IMAX.  Just sayin’…

I was really straining for content for Nerd News this week.

These posts used to appear on Sunday’s, then Monday’s, then last week Wednesday and now here we are on a Friday.  UGH!  Trust me, it’s not that I not being a nerd, it’s just that all those nerdy things I do in the course of a week just sort of blend into this “nerd stew” that floats around in my brain and then when “forced” to write something, I can’t distinguish between one thing or another…

Let’s just run through some categories…maybe that’ll jog the old memory gland…

[Read more →]

It was more of a “jock” week for me (if by jock I mean watching sporting events) !  Everything was pretty much centered around MSU, the Final Four and Tiger’s Opening Day.  I did way more drinkin’ than anything too nerdy.

I didn’t watch any cartoons.

I didn’t get any comic books and I’m caught up with the ones I had.

Sudoku playing has been greatly reduced now that the Detroit Free Press only comes to the house three times a week.

I have been staying current with “Bones“, “Lost“, “Smallville” and “Reaper“. There is a new show on Adult Swim called “The Mighty Boosh” that I am trying to get into.  Also, I have really become a fan of “1,000 Ways to Die” on Spike. Saw the first episode of “Parks and Recreation“…

I did get some Star Wars eggs and socks from the Easter Bunny…so that was cool.

On the gaming front, I mentioned that I was playing a game called “Farm Frenzy, Pizza Party” last week.  It reminded me of something so I went back and played the previous edition of the game “Farm Frenzy 2” and I remembered exactly why I liked it so much…

Look at the screen capture…

Your pigs provide pork (1) which you take to the butcher (2) which gives you pork slices (3).  The cut pork you need to take to the smoker (4) where you get your cured pork (5).  Finally that cured pork goes to the processor (6) and out comes PACKAGED BACON (7)!!!  Seriously!!!  AWESOME!!!

Yahoo has “Farm Frenzy 2” for limited free play here or download here…try it, you might get slightly addicted like me.  “Farm Frenzy, Pizza Party” can be downloaded at Big Fish Games.

That’s about it. 

Yours always White and Nerdy!

The problem with being a “daddy” is that there just isn’t a lot of time to dedicate to the Nerd Arts like I used too, but this was a pretty decent Nerd Week for me. 

Let’s dig right in!

Comics – I’ve been catching up on my reading of late (my books come shipped bi-weekly, so I have a pretty decent stack to get through when they arrive).  It seems most of the titles I read are all involved in some much bigger storyline.  The Avenger books are revolving around “Dark Reign”, Batman has ”Battle for the Cowl”,  Superman is “New Krypton” and Green Lantern is setting up “Blackest Night”.  All four of these storylines have been pretty intriguing but I have to say I am enjoying the Green Lantern books the most.  Opening up the color / emotional spectrum and creating a “Corp” for each has been really cool!!  Geoff Johns has been masterful in constructing this story since coming on board with the “Rebirth” storyline and month after month I just can’t wait to see what comes next!  No surprise that he is also responsible for the Superman “New Krypton” arc.  Whatever he seems to touch, I just fall over for…

I also decided this week that I am going to cut my orders in half, from $100 / mo. to $50 / mo.  That’s a lot of books on the chopping block but it is probably time! 

I recently purchased “Comic Book Collector” software and have been building a database for my collection.  I’m almost at 3,000 issues and only half way through my comic boxes…I had NO idea I had so many books!!

Movies – I FINALLY SAW “WATCHMEN”!!  Better Half and I got a sitter and went to the Saturday matinee.  I got to tell you, I really liked the movie.  It didn’t feel as long as it’s run time to me, it was shot beautifully, colors popped from the screen and I thought the story and how they told it held up.  It has been years since I read the graphic novel, so I wasn’t beholden to the book when viewing and I think that helped.  Better Half had never read the story and as an impartial, she enjoyed it.  However, she did give me a raised eyebrow when I said I’d buy the director’s cut.  What I didn’t like was the sex scene, it was just a little too much and felt very gratuitous. The movie sort of halted right there…weird.  Maybe I am just getting too old.  Anyhoo – I’d give it 4 out of 5.

Games – I have become addicted to a Facebook app.  It’s called “Mafia” and I can’t stop playing it.  It is a simple “level-up” type of game, but has completely got it’s hooks into me.  Ugh, I am such a sucker for this type of thing!!

I’m also playing this little game from Big Fish Games called “Farm Frenzy“.  It’s a time management game where you have to complete the level under a certain time.  I get ultra competitive and have to beat every level within the GOLD time standard.  This typically involves playing some levels up to 15 straight times…I just get so worked up and into it.  I’m about 40% through all the puzzles and only one level has me stumped as to how to get gold.  I will break you “Farm Frenzy“!!

TV – Better Half switched our Comcast to AT&T’s U-verse service and boy has it taken some getting used to.  I have been a Comcast subscriber for 15 years.  I was one of the first to get my hands on digital cable.   I knew that remote and the channel listing like the back of my hand.  Now my world has been turned upside down.  One nice thing that I have noticed…it automatically extends your DVR recording at least three minutes after the show is supposed to end, so no more stuff getting cut off.  I can also now record up to four different shows at the same time, opposed to the two on Comcast.  The thing that sucks out of the gate is there is no “swap” feature.  So I can’t pause live TV on the one channel, hit swap to watch something else then swap back, unpause, and resume that other show.  Believe it or not, I used this type of functionality a ton.

Misc. – I can’t stop Sudoku-ing!!  Although now that the “Detroit Free Press“is not delivering the paper to my home every morning, maybe I’ll slow down.  I’ve got about a 75% completion percentage in beating the daily puzzle in the Freep and it really had become a nice little ritual…sitting down with the puzzle page, grabbing my purple pen and kicking it’s butt!!  Yahoo has a good daily puzzle, but it is just not the same on-line.

That’s all for last week.  I don’t know how nerdy things will be over the next two weeks…it’s a BIG sports time in the “D” with the Final Four and the Tiger’s Opening Day.  That also means a lot of drinkin’.  So if I stay sober enough, and if Lil’ Baird let’s me, maybe I find time for nerd pursuits…

Wait a minute…what happened to “Nerd News…Week 7″??  Well, I haven’t been nerdy at all lately!  Two full weeks have past since my last nerd post and seriously, I am shocked, SHOCKED at how “normal” my life has been these last few weeks.  Work has a lot to do with it.  When I was with Fathead, it was all sports and entertainment al the time.  At TOMCAR, well, it’s all about cars and off-road and military and heavy industry…so focus shifts.  And with Lil’ Baird in the picture, the time to sit and play a game for 12 hours straight, or plow through my comic books or even just surf the interwebs as been greatly reduced.

So here was what little nerdy things I was able to come with during these last two weeks.

• “LOST” continues to rock.  I completed LOVED this last week’s Saywer ep.
• I picked up a little Indiana Jones figure at Toys R’ Us when we were getting Lil’ Baird a bouncy.  It’s the classic outfit from “Raiders” and he has a pistol, whip and fertility idol.  I have given him a place of honor on my desk.  It is too bad that “Crystal Skull” sucked so bad, because these toys deserved a chance.  Hasbro did a real good job with them.
• “Burn Notice” ended it’s third season this week and it was a doosey!!  Season four starts back up this summer.  One of my guilty pleasures and it has Bruce Campbell in it!!
• I did watch a bunch of “The F Word” when I got home from Chicago, eight episodes.  They were all from 2007, but I don’t care.  I am developing a man crush for Gordon Ramsey.  Not the U.S. version, but the REAL Ramsey on BBC America.  Also watched two episodes for “Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares” from BBC last night as well…it’s literally night and day his delivery back home vs. what FOX does to his shows here.
• I HAVE NOT SEEN “WATCHMEN” YET!!!  More of Lil’ Baird ruining my life*…we are going to try to see it this week…just need a sitter.
• And finally, I have rediscovered Ebay…to my own peril.  I was a junky back in the early days, buying just about my entire collection of 12″ Star Wars “dolls” on Ebay.  I hadn’t been on in about 2 years and suddenly found myself back last week.  I got to surfing around and ended up bidding on five things, winning three!!  One was a really cool 1980′s “Return of the Jedi” action figure case in the shape of a Stormtrooper rifle.  It still has a KayBee Toys price sticker on it and is in great shape.  Also picked up a Hallmark ornament that I missed three years ago (Imperial Guard) and a set of misc. figures from the late 90′s.  More stuff for the collection…now if I’d just buy the rest of my shelves, maybe I can show it off.

*I may love my baby, but I am not above callin’ her out.  NOTE: when I say things like this…please note that I am a sarcastic ba$tard.

While I thought this week would have been more nerdy…it wasn’t til the weekend were I finally got a few good nerd licks in.

Two things from this last week:

1) I discovered the new X-Men cartoon on NickToons Network.  I had no idea they had a new Nick channel and as I was surfing for ANYTHING but the Pistons slaughter in Cleveland to watch on Saturday night, I ran into this channel and their mini-marathon of “Wolverine and the X-Men“.

When growing up (say in college) they had a pretty solid X-Men cartoon on Fox for about 4 or 5 years.  The animation was crap, but the stories were pretty deep and pulled straight from the comic book.  I have to say, after watching seven episodes, this one is pretty good too!  The animation is much better, there is some computer work with vehicles (like on the new “Batman: The Brave and the Bold“) but it’s pretty limited.  The cartoon is episodic, but you can still get a decent pay-off if you saw them as stand alones.  I added it to the DVR.  If you are nerdy, like the X-Men and get NickToons Network…then watch!  Here’s the promo clip…

Then on Sunday, my brother and his wife came over to the house.  My brother brought a gift…it was my VERY FIRST STAR WARS FIGURE CASE!!!  And inside were 39 original figures from all three of the first movies including my very first Chewbacca AND Tuskin Raider!  He said he found it in a box of stuff he’d been carrying around with him for years.  Oh happy day!

I never did get back on the computer to play Lego: Batman…but soon my pretty…soon…

Until next week!

or “How Baird Got His Nerd Back!”

So a much better week in Nerd News for me.  I got myself FOCUSED and came at it with a new found dedication to nerdiness!!  I have not been nerdy for so long now that I just had to get myself back in the game!

In “Watchmen” News…they release this incredible little game on their website.  Stuff like this really gets by nerd juices flowing!!  I got caught up in it and played this for about 20 minutes in my office on Thursday (shhhh).  Between things like this and what is being updated everyday on “The New Frontiersmen” site…it’s just AWESOME.  I told Better Half to get a sitter now so we can get to the movie the weekend it opens.  Since we’ve had Lil’ Baird, I haven’t stepped foot in a theater.  I even missed “Quantum of Solace“.  I will NOT miss this movie in the theater!!!

It was clean out the DVR weekend as I watched:

• Batman: Brave and The Bold- good episode with Despero and the Green Lantern Corp, caught up
• Star Wars: The Clone Wars – three episodes, caught up
• Psych – two episodes, caught up
• The F Word – six episodes (more on this later)
• Leverage - one episode, not caught up yet
• 30 Rock – two episodes, caught up
• The Office
• Burn Notice – two episodes, caught up
• Lost (this show is SO ROCKIN’ THIS SEASON!)
• Top Chef
• Dirty Jobs - four episodes, caught up (one was a show on animal rendering – DO NOT watch if you are eating!)

It’s really easy to blow through the DVR when there really is no sports on TV.  No MSU basketball, no Pistons…freed up a lot of time.

When I got back home last Thursday, I had a new box of comics waiting for me as well.  Now usually when I get my new books (bi-weekly) I sit down immediately and can get through almost all of them in one, maybe two nights.  Being so busy with work, I still had a stack from the shipment before I needed to get through.  In between all that TV watching, I knocked out all about 12 books, getting me just into this weeks shipment.  I should be caught up by Tuesday night!  One good book I got this week was the first part of Neil Gaiman’s “Whatever Happened to the Cape Crusader” story running in “Batman“.  Neil is a terrific fantasy / comic writer.  You may have seen his name lately as the writer of the new movie ”Coraline“.  A quick aside, the producer of “Coraline”, Bill Mechanic is a Michigan State grad.  In the movie, the dad is seen wearing a MSU sweatshirt!  GO GREEN!)

I am also try to catch up this week with all the news from the New York Comic Con that happened last week and the International Toy Fair going on right now.  I was lucky to attend both of these events last year with Fathead.  This year, just picking up what nuggets I can from the blogosphere!

No video games this week…but I am determined to get back to playing Lego Batman.

The nerd news for this week is that there is NO NERD NEWS!

Seriously!!!

I was so focused with work that my normal nerd stuff got passed up.

So for this last week, I turn in my card!

This is really all I got…

While out here in Tulare (pronounced Too Lar E, not Too Lair, found that out quick)/ Fresno for the Ag Show, I did pick up two new Star Wars Mighty Muggs. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I got me Biggs and Bossk!  I love these things.  Look at that ‘stache on Biggs!  STYLIN’!

I’m not collecting all of them, just the ones I think are cool.

These were my first two… 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SERIOUSLY, how can you not like these…look at that smile on Lando’s face…

So that’s it…all the nerdy from me this week.  I’ll have to make up for it when I get home!  Comic book, video game, cartoon and beer marathon!!

So last week I told shared with you that I just wasn’t that nerdy…well this week was EVEN LESS NERDY!!!  Which has to be some kind of record for me.

A few nerdy things that I did get to…

Didn’t mention last week, but LOST is back!!  I really loved this week’s episode.  Desmond stories have been consistently good and the overall mythology really moved forward.  All the time jumping can start to get slightly confusing, but I am really enjoying it so far after 3 episodes.

The mini-series “FINAL CRISIS” ended this week and I have to say, I am completely confused!  For non-comic book nerds, this was a DC Comics story written by Grant Morrison.  Grant is know for his imagination and solid story telling.  His “All Star Superman” mini last year was lauded as one of the best stories of the year, not to mention one of the best Superman stories ever told.  So here he got to play in the giant toy box that was the DC Universe and after 6 issues and about 10 ancillary issues, I was left completely scratching my head.

The only other really nerdy thing was Super Bowl commercials for “G.I. Joe, Rise of Cobra“, “Star Trek” and “Transformers 2, Revenge of the Fallen“.  I found links HERE, HERE and HERE respectfully.  G.I. Joe – hmmmm.  Star Trek – not a lot of new footage but still looks promising.  Transformers – the problem with giant transforming robots fighting…it all just looks like a whole pile of metal mess.  Will I probably see all three movies when they hit theaters, ahhhhh, yeah, but just not blown away by the trailers.

One last thing, keep checking out “The New Frontiersmen” web site as they continue to deliver neat little “Watchmen” nuggets.