Rad Recs!
Note: While consolidating blogs I’m transferring all previous Rad Recs to Tumblr in this post. Originally posted 4/11/12 and 5/15/12.
All right, so in a shameless steal from one of my fave ladies, Felicia Day, I wanted to start recommending stuff cool stuff I like à la her “Fave Five” segment on the new weekly show, The Flog. And probably provide some insight in to what I’ve been up to lately. Maybe. I don’t know, committing to two premises might be asking too much but we’ll see how this goes.
To start off I need an awesome title for my recommendation posts. With “Fave Five” already in use I’ll just re-purpose the same idea and call these, “Rad Recs”, which is short for rad recommendations. Awesome? Yes, great. I think it’d be even cooler if I called them “Rad Rex” but then I’d fear I’d mislead people looking for rad dinosaurs. But who knows, maybe a totally rad tyrannosaurus rex will appear in”Rad Recs.” Only time will tell.
To start it only seems appropriate I recommend what gave me this idea, Felicia Day’s new Youtube channel, Geek & Sundry. If you’re not already subscribed you need to do so now. I’ll wait.
Okay, now that you’re a member of the super cool club Day’s started we can talk about all the great stuff they’ve got. In addition to her weekly show, The Flog, in where she shares her “Fave Fives” and whatever new adventure she’s been on, I loved Wil Wheaton’s new show, Tabletop. In it he shares a new tabletop game with a group of celeb-friends. You might not think so, but I found it pretty entertaining to watch them struggle through their first time playing. It’s also inspired me to considering hosting a game night at my house, but I fear until I get more games it would be me supplying Munchkin and everyone else showing up with Apples to Apples. Not that I don’t like Apples to Apples, but I want more of a challenge from a tabletop game. Which is why I’m happy Tabletop has introduced me to Small World, the game they play in this first episode,
Rad Rec numero dos: Munchkin, but specifically the new The Guild themed booster pack! Munchkin is a card game that simplifies everything you love about Dungeons and Dragons and makes it easy to pick up so you can get anyone on board. Even your friends who would normally scoff at D&D! The Guild is a web-series created by Felicia Day (Okay, I might be a little obsessed with her and I kind of lust after her life, but that unhealthy obsession is something I can discuss later with my personal webcam diary.) (No, I don’t really keep one of those, it was an attempt at a joke to make light of the fact I might have serious lady-crush on Miss Day.) (Yeah, it wasn’t very funny, which is probably why you didn’t realize it was joke and now I’ve gone on too long talking within parentheses.) about a guild within in a MMORPG quite similar to World of Warcraft. The Guild started as a little web series that could then exploded into a bona fide geek phenomenon. It’s kind of a big deal. Seasons 1-4 are up on Youtube and season five is being added to Geek & Sundry. Also, all seasons are available to stream on Hulu, Netflix, and their original home, MSN. And when I say season, seasons are comprised of five minute episodes, so a season’s maybe 40 minutes.
Okay, back to Munchkin and their new Guild booster pack, the cards were revealed last weekend at PAX. Fans of both the series and the game will LOVE these cards and I bet it’ll be Munchkin’s best selling pack, ever. Buy yours now!
To see previews of all the cards visit Nerd Approved. One I’m really excited to use is the Midnight Munchkin Madness card as it adds a bonus depending on how many other Munchkin games you have in the room. Genius.
Next, and you might begin noticing a trend here, is a new web series I’m about to start watching. See, I dropped cable last year and since then have relied solely on internet content for my entertainment. Guess what? It’s really easy to do, especially if you’re not against mingling in the television black market to get some programs not available any other way. But I say that with a disclaimer, support what you love! If you download a TV show and just love the shit out of it, why not buy the DVD/Blu-ray when it releases, ‘kay? It’s only fair after you’ve enjoyed all their hard work for free. We’re a try it before we buy it generation and I think that’s excellent, but it only works if, y’know, you eventually buy it.
Man, I get distracted easily and am very long-winded with my explanations. Guess you’ll have to come to expect that.
So, new web series I’m checking out is called The Lizzie Bennet Diaries and it’s a really clever updating of Pride and Prejudice for the Youtube generation. It follows Lizzie Bennet as she chronicles the insanity that is her family via webcam. And if you’re familiar with the novel or dozens of movie and TV adaptions you know just how crazy things get. Here’s the first episode,
I’m excited to see how the see how this series plays out and how they continue introducing all the characters. Obviously not every scene can happen in front of Lizzie’s webcam. Or can it? I don’t know, we’ll have to keep watching to find out! Subscribe to be updated when the newest episode is posted and to learn more read this great interview with the brains behind the show, Hank Green and Bernie Su, on Tubefilter.
Finally, my last Rad Rec for today, Marvel’s upcoming series, Captain Marvel. If you didn’t know, I freakin’ love superheroes. Always have, always will. And while Batman will forever be my all time favorite I’ve recently become aware of how few female superheroes starring in their own books. Currently I’m reading Wonder Woman, Batwoman and Bird of Prey from DC, all lady-led books. I was also reading Batgirl but due to needing more monies and my comic book addiction getting slightly out of hand I had to cut back. But, when I heard Marvel was finally releasing a female-led book I knew I’d have to give it a try. It sounds like a good jumping on point for new readers and I am such a n00b when it comes to Marvel. Just look how badass this lady is,
First, holy crap she’s wearing sensible clothes! Plus, this role is a bit of a promotion for Carol Danvers as she was originally Ms. Marvel, yet another female-version of an already established male character. Not to be confused with DC’s Captain Marvel, though, that’s a different guy. Due to obvious legal issues he runs around as Shazam! now. But Carol came from Marvel’s Captain Marvel who was an alien or something. I don’t really know because like I said, I got my degree in DC’s insane history and continuity, not Marvel’s.
Thanks to this killer redesign, her “promotion” to Captain and the fact that it’s one of the few female-led books at Marvel I’m gonna check it out. Oh! And it’s being written by a lady, a real rarity in mainstream comics, believe me.You should definitely read this interview with Kelly Sue Deconnick over at Comics Alliance to get the lowdown on Captain Marvel.
Not sure if you heard, but this little indie, art house flick from Joss Whedon opened recently with a reasonable earning of, oh, over $200 million! As of now it’s pushed passed $1 billion worldwide! Yeah, The Avengers is not only getting lots of love from the fans but critics are also hard pressed to find anything to hate. Last I checked The Avengers was rockin’ a 93% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. That’s like, a rating only reserved for Pixar movies. (Excluding Cars 2, most like to pretend that movie didn’t happen.)
I’ve seen The Avengers three times, and I’m hoping to catch it a few more times before it leaves theatres. Granted, I work at local, single screen theatre that managed to book The Avengers and I can go see it as often as I want, but even if I did have to pay I’d be seeing this movie over and over again. It is that good. Is it the best superhero movie ever? I don’t really want to throw that moniker on any film because that’s a pretty high standard to live up to. Plus, best means different things to different people. But is The Avengers a fantastic culmination to a damn fine series of superhero movies, achieving the unthinkable of a superhero team-up movie that works, almost flawlessly? Yes. Most definitely, yes. And if that’s how you define best superhero movie, then there ya go.
I’ve already shared my thoughts at a couple different places so I won’t elaborate here on what makes The Avengers so awesome, just know that it is your duty as a nerd, as a geek, hell, as an American to go see it!
Warning, both of the following do contain spoilers.
Nerd Bastards Still Reveling in ‘Avengers’ Awesomeness
In where all the writers over at Nerd Bastards shared their thoughts on the epic-ness.
This is podcast me, my boyfriend and another friend record (almost) weekly, you should totally subscribe and then tell all your friends to do the same. Pretty please! In this episode we gush all about The Avengers.
So, Game of Thrones. The first season was mind-blowingly good television. Not only was it a spectacular ten episodes that made anyone and everyone a fan of the “fantasy” genre, it also managed to be an incredibly faithful adaptation of a pretty dense novel with a rabid fanbase who would have come at HBO with torches had they screwed this up. All in all, it’s one hell of an achievement. Would they be able to top it with their second season?
Had you asked me that after the first four episodes, I wouldn’t have been very sure. Things were moving slowly and as a fan of the books I knew certain big events hadn’t happened yet and needed to. Then episode five hit and holy shit! It’s all coming together. The back five episodes of season two are going to be insane. You NEED to catch up if you’ve been slacking.
Over at Nerd Bastards we’ve had excellent reviews by Matthew Jackson that I highly suggest you check out. I feel like he’s picking my brain we’re so in sync with our thoughts on this season. Here’s links for the last few reviews: “The Ghost of Harrenhal” “The Old Gods and The New” “A Man Without Honor”
And in a moment of complete and utter fangirling, who else can’t get enough Daenerys and Jorah?!?? Having read the books I know things don’t really go down how I’d like between these two, then again, the books aren’t finished so maybe there’s still hope! All I know is it would be great if things became a little more serious between them in the show. Come on, they’ve already taken certain liberties with other characters and relationships, why not these two?
Thanks for checking out my first edition of Rad Recs! If you like what I shared and want to talk about it, well, that’s why God invented comments. So please, comment! Also share any suggestions or recommendations of your own.
