A new Who in Whoville!

It's like Christmas Eve up in Nerdtown tonight!  In case you missed it, BBC made an announcement...that they'll be announcing something!  No seriously, tomorrow, in a live special to air at 2 pm EST (it's 7 pm in England, but hey, I'm not there), they will be announcing the Twelfth Doctor  I've been on the Doctor Who bandwagon for some time now, but this is the first time I get to experience the excitement of the selection of a new actor.  I've never been aware of the changing of the guard in real time!

Unfortunately, I have to work tomorrow.  And also, my nerd and I don't have cable.  So, I've decided that I'm going to watch the special at work.  While bartending.  This is a flawless plan, no?

I know people have their ideas about who should (and might) be the next Doctor.  I've seen some excellent cases for a female Doctor, which would be stimulating and challenging and all the things you want in a 50 year old television show.  I've seen cases for a ginger Doctor as well, but that could just be that we all miss Rupert Grint.

Basically, I have nothing new to say at this point, except to add that I'm totally jazzed to be a member of this world-wide fan base of crazy kids who are tuning into a live TV special about a casting announcement.  Geronimo!

Groop, I implore thee...

Happy Towel Day, A New Hope release anniversary, and Glorious 25th of May!

We have so many things to celebrate this day, including the very real and very important Memorial Day.  Listen folks, I'm a beach baby through and through, and while this weekend gets me super stoked for waves, BBQs, outdoor Coronas and white pants, I hope we all take time to stop and remember the men and women who gave the ultimate sacrifice for us.  My grandfather was 17 when he stormed the beach at Normandy on D-Day.  He served so that his unborn son could birth and unborn baby girl who would grow up to write a nonsensical blog while in Spongebob pajama pants!  If it sounds like I'm trivializing, I assure you: I am not.  

Anyway, announcement!  The How to Date a Nerd blog is officially represented on twitter!  Follow @HowToDateANerd for 140 character updates on life with a nerd, nerds, and nerditude!

Also, in addition to my feeling obligated to make a Geek Pride Day post, I wanted to leave you with this clip.  I consider it Part III in my Benedict Cumberbatch series.

Mr. Cumberbatch?  There's a frood who really knows where his towel is.

Men are from Mars... And I'm Terrible.

I don't know if you guys have seen The Glossary's video of a David Foster Wallace commencement speech that's been circulating.  Entitled This is Water, it challenges the audience to look beyond our  natural self-centerdness and consider that everyone has a story.  As my college acting professor would say, "We all have that wagon of shit trailing behind us."  In case you missed it (and it is worth the nine minutes):

Upon arriving home after a long day slinging beers, my nerd was super excited to show me this.  He is an inherently positive person, and steady and unwavering.  He wanted me to see this video, because it succinctly summed up the way he views the world.  I was moved, sure.  And I see the value in reminding yourself that everyone around us is dealing with their own issues, triumphs and struggles.

But a few days later, we came across this Louis C.K. standup clip while looking for something else:

As we watched, I realized: I am a jerk, and I think everyone else is a bigger jerk.  If you walk slower than me, I cut you off, because I'm busy, and you're a slow jerk.  If you cut me off, you are a jerk for being too busy for sidewalk decency.  Your coffee order is stupid.  You don't know what movie you want to see.  You are bad at putting your MetroCard through the subway turnstile.  These are all major offenses (::salutes::).  To quote the great Louis C.K., "Now I have to know you exist?  You piece of shit."

While brainstorming titles for this post, I submitted, "Men are from Mars... And I'm terrible." to imply how different my nerd and I are, and to further suggest that our (*society's!*) differences balance each other out.  I voiced the title aloud patting myself on the back for cleverness, but my nerd hesitated to approve.  When pressed for a reason, he admitted, "I just don't like that you're grouping me in with other men."

Even the most accepting and welcoming among us have limits.


Fine print: videos posted from YouTube are not mine, no copyright infringement intended, they just helped to prove my point.

Hooray for Hollywood!

I am a movie fan.  I am a pop culture fanatic and I know spoilers and great performances immediately.  I know when a movie will be good 4 months before its release. Even when I don't see all of the nominated movies, I love all of the nominated movies. Oscar night is a special night.

My nerd has to be up early tomorrow morning for a very important promotion-related training issue.  I have no such commitment, and invited our neighbors up to the apartment for a very relaxed pajama party Oscar viewing.

Just before the James Bond tribute began, my nerd took our dog out for a quick walk.  When he came back in, Shirley Bassey was in the middle of a "holy cannoli that woman has GOT IT at 76!" performance.  As she sang Goldfinger, someone asked what other Bond themes she had performed.  The answer seemed to allude all of us (there was drinking, in my defense), so I suggested we look it up.

I reached for my phone.  I suggested to my friend to grab our 50 Years of James Bond book on the shelf next to her.  Absentmindedly, I mentioned, "I sometimes like to stage races to see if we find things out more quickly with or without technology."  My nerd, who doesn't give one lick about the Academy Awards, and spent most of his evening playing Plants Vs. Zombies (available free at the App Store!), pointed out, "Books are technology.  She's still using technology."  There was then mention of stone tools and the printing press.  We're watching the Oscars!  All I wanted to do was make fun of Anne Hathaway's unfortunate darting!

Oh, and I predicted 21 out of 24 on my ballot, so there's that.

For those wondering, I missed Best Supporting Actor (Robert DeNiro), Best Animated Feature (Wreck-It Ralph), and Best Makeup & Hairstyling (The Hobbit).

Attn: Will Smith - Parents DO Understand

Allegedly, this blog is about dating (and living with) your very own nerd.  I say allegedly, because I'm the blog's author, and this is only the sixth post.  Seriously people, do you think Community knew what it was about six episodes in?

This may be the opportunity to highlight (and call out) the people who trained me to live with a nerd: MY NERDY PARENTS!

I never knew how much dear old mom and dad were preparing me for this cohabitation.  But I lived with them full-time for 18 years, and a few unofficial years after that, and I feel as if I'm more equipped as a result.

My mother is a two time Jeopardy! champion.  She knows the first line of every song ever written, and has this super annoying custom of singing a song that "relates" to anything you say.  [Sidebar: I say that it's super annoying mostly because I too have this habit, but I want my songs to last longer than a line.]  My mother is also a badass RN who has the highly disturbing habit of finding gross things to be awesome.  Never tell the woman that you may have a sinus infection unless you want several emails containing photos of the insides of people's faces.  ("It's so cool!  That's probably what your nose looks like!")

My mother also happens to be a bitchin' hippie chick lady who loves earth tones, Peter, Paul & Mary, and the beach.  Which is why when I really think of my nerdly up-bringing, I think of:

My dad.

Guys.  My dad.  When I was eight, my dad tried to teach me to solve for X in a homework problem.  I cried.  I then took it to school and my teacher laughed at my feeble tiny-brained attempt to understand algebra.  My mom eventually banned my father from homework help.  I don't want to give it all away, because I feel I have approximately 30 thousand more blogs with the theme of my dad being a nerd.  Not just a nerd, but my best nerd, and my first nerd.  

Neil deGrasse Tyson (in the running for New York City's greatest ever nerd) recently tweeted this simulated slide rule.  Don't worry, I was born in the Eighties and I'm not still not entirely certain of this tool's purpose.  But I included the link in a text to my dad.

My father responded with the subject line "UNsimulated".  The body of the email contained only the text, "The REAL thing!!" and this picture:

If you're going to take away anything from this post, take this: my father is a man who had a slide rule (obviously).  And a man who is proud of his slide rule (slightly less obvious?).  But more than that, he is a man who has his slide rule so readily accessible that he can send his daughter a picture of it in less than thirteen minutes.

"Can't I Say Hello to Anyone?"

My nerd and I have started re-watching Doctor Who from the ninth Doctor on.  He has this plan to revisit the new Who, then hop back into Torchwood when the timelines meet.  This is all in preparation of the upcoming big 50th anniversary hoopla (Who-pla?).

It was really hard to press play on "Father's Day", knowing the emotional journey to come.  The thought of experiencing "The Empty Child" again terrified me.  And yet, there was one beacon of light in an otherwise creepy-child laden WWII era episode.  That beacon:

(forget Pirates of the Caribbean, this is the only Captain Jack for me)

I got positively giddy seeing this character on screen again.  In fact, when I called out my boyfriend for being giddy upon seeing him, he said (potential spoilers, but only if you're really looking), "So what?  Even Spike got giddy for Captain Jack!"

How can a man capture hearts so easily?  Perhaps its his Scottish background?  His chiseled jaw?  His chin dimple?  The fact that in his world, invisible spaceships docked to Big Ben provide the setting for seduction?  Perhaps it's this gem (available for legitimate purchase at iTunes):

Whatever it is, I look forward to exploring it once more.

Image via wikipedia.org

Oh What a Serkis, Oh What a Show

Only four more days to wait until we see Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.  The nerd and I spent the last week watching The Colbert Report's "Hobbit Week", and if you haven't yet seen it, I suggest you find it on Hulu.  Watching one actor (sorry kids, Colbert's an actor) totally geek out over a novel from his childhood is charming, warming, and smile-inducing.  Watch him match wits with Ian McKellen, out-Hobbit director Peter Jackson and set Martin Freeman up for this joke of all jokes (please wait until the end of the clip):

Also on "Hobbit Week" this week was Andy Serkis.  Every network news station doing a performance capture segment this week will suggest that we know Serkis' work without knowing his face.  Malarky, I say!  For those of us glued to every special feature/behind the scenes extra released, we know that face, those eyes, and the fact that Gollum's voice was inspired by a furball-laden cat.

So, I decided it was high time I sat down and watched the other major Serkis and Jackson collaboration: King Kong.  The DVD was leant to me over a year ago and I just haven't felt like watching it.  I kept reminding myself there are a hundred reasons I would like it.  I kept ultimately deciding I had no pressing interest.  My renewed admiration for Serkis swayed me.

#notimpressed.  

I waited 70 minutes to even see King Kong.  Granted, everyone else watching the movie waited 70 minutes, they just probably had less wine than me.

Then, I had this strange anxiety attack.  As I watched, and the CGI bugs crawled and clicked, I got more and more worked up.  When King Kong fought the giant handful of T. Rexes, I started crying.  When Naomi Watts was hiding from a T. Rex while being chased by a giant bug, I lost it.  We turned the movie off, and put on Mel Brooks' History of the World: Part I instead.

Given this, no one in their right mind would take my review seriously.  That's why I blog.

So, the scenery is beautiful, and there are some period accents, and Naomi Watts is a blonde treasure (Side note: I realized that nothing like this would ever happen to me because I'm brunette.  There are zero directors alive or dead who have convinced brunette actresses to sail towards ultimate peril).  King Kong's rare moments of honesty and believability are when you look into his eyes.  And that's a testament to Serkis more than the movie.

Rather than spend some money and time on making those fights convincing, and taking the care to ensure that I believe that our heroine is being carried by a 25 foot simian, I felt like everyone involved said, "Ah, Serkis can handle it.  Look at what he did with Gollum."

Serkis has said he doesn't want a performance capture Academy Award category.  So I wait, alongside thousands of other geeks, for this brilliant, brave, intelligent and humble man to receive his Lifetime Achievement Oscar.

In the mean time, I await with gleeful anticipation my return to Middle Earth this Friday.