My Geeky Trivia

By Geeky Gem

For this week trivia I am taking back in time again to a movie I loved as a child and had for Christmas on Blu-Ray. Flight of the Navigator was just one movie that as a kid I watched over and over again.

When David’s parents pull up to their house in the beginning of the movie, the song playing on the car radio is “You’re The One That I Want” from “Grease”, also directed by Randal Kleiser.

In his room in Nasa base, David asks when “Starsky and Hutch” is broadcast. Director Randal Kleiser also directed Starsky and Hutch.

The ship used in the movie can be found in a boneyard at the Disney MGM Studios Theme Park at Walt Disney World in Florida. It can be seen on the studio tour.   (Which I have seen and have a picture of.)

The tee-shirt worn by the girl at the restroom is for EPCOT Center, the then-new Disney theme park in Florida. Her brother is wearing a Miami Vice tee-shirt.

When MAX, the ship computer, is describing the animals he has on board, he said “That is a Feenastarus from the Pixar Elliptic”. This was five years before Pixar, a fledgling special effects computer group at the time, teamed up with Disney, who produced this film.

The second film released under the Disney banner to contain profanities (the first being 1981’s The Devil and Max Devlin). The word “shit” is said twice.

When escaping the NASA facility, MAX and David travel “precisely 20 miles from point of origin” in approximately 35 seconds. This is equivalent to a speed of 2,057 miles per hour.

One of the prop hulls was refurbished and is now used as the topper to a drink station in Tomorrowland at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom.

The music video playing in the scene where David meets Carolyn McAdams is Blancmange’s “Lose Your Love.”

There we have it, Flight of Navigator was an awesome movie and has all the things I love in it, Aliens, adventure and a talking ship what more could you want.

Wednesday Whimsy

By: Caelrona

Hiya all! Caelrona here with another dose of Wednesday Whimsy. This week I actually have some stuff to write about for all of you. It isn’t geeky per-se (although I am making fun of people) but it’s pretty funny, so it should count as whimsical =) I’m not going to talk about geeky goings-ons in my life, because it is just as eventless and boring as it was last week – but about things going on here in my home country of America. Now you might be asking yourself, what could be so interesting in America that I would write a blog post about it? Sports? Nope, not interested in the world of sports even if it is Football season here (For those of you who are not familiar with American Football, it is sort of like Rugby for pussies wearing Kevlar armor with a bunch of rules and regulations that take away all the blood – I mean fun.) Politics maybe? Excuse my language, but hell no. What then, could be so interesting? Stupidity. If there is one thing Americans excel at, it is making absolute fools of themselves, usually over the most amazingly silly things. Most recently it has been over food, which I thought was kind of funny. As a geek I have my favorite gamer snacks, and I’m sure you do too. But I certainly am not going to rage or pay out the nose to get them. Anyway it’s always fun to laugh at stupidity together, so I thought I’d share it with you so that you can laugh at it with me.

 Hostess is going out of business. The maker of spongy, sugary, sinfully delicious and fattening snack cakes and pastries is closing. If you don’t know who Hostess is, I’ll wait while you go google it. Try searching the words Twinkie, Zebra Cakes, Snowballs, Ho-Hos, DingDongs and Zingers. Or you could check out the movie Zombieland. One of the main themes in the movie is Tallahassee trying to get his hands on a Twinkie. But why is this big news? Why is this even news at all?! I have no idea, but it is making headlines all across America. I guess people love their snack cakes a little more than I do. Whatever the reasons, people have been going nuts ever since the headlines were posted. Stores have been ransacked of anything with a Hostess label and people have begun posting boxes of the pastries and cakes online (try an ebay search, I dare you) for ridiculous prices. Even worse? People are buying them! When I looked them up on ebay, someone was selling 5 boxes for $80. That is ridiculous profit, because those boxes only cost like $2 at the store. Perhaps the absolute worst thing? People are buying them. Just for shits and giggles I watched that very same auction end – someone bought them. For $80 freakin’ dollars! That’s the price of two used video games right there, or a new one plus a little spare cash. Maybe it’s the geek in me – or it might be because I’ve never been overly fond of Twinkies – but personally I’d rather have the money than the snack cakes.

 

Among other stupid American news is yet another case of what I can only describe as ‘Holy shit, my country is filled with fuckin’ idiots.’ A very popular (overpriced, douchbaggy, ‘cool’, hipster, with mediocre drinks) coffee house franchise has been running out of one of their seasonal drinks very regularly and very quickly, much to the intense displeasure (*cough* profanity screaming anger *cough*) of their customers. It has gotten so bad that it made the national news headlines. Starbucks did so much promotion on the Pumpkin Spice Latte drink (which, I’ll admit is fairly tasty) that they can’t keep their stores stocked with the stuff to make it. They’ve been selling out the same day they get the stuff in – even the powdered instant stuff they sell which normally ends up in the discount bin after New Years has been flying off their shelves – and yet again onto ebay listings. I don’t know what it is, but when people can’t get their junk food (or drink) craving, they will spend crazy amounts of money on that stuff. Tins of the powdered instant stuff are selling on ebay for $20 a pop, when they can be bought at the stores for only $7. Not only that but people are listing recipes on how to make same-tasting Pumpkin Spice Lattes at home. Holy Toledo, people are actually paying for a recipe! The only possible explanation for all of this crap?

 

I guess it could just be that people are insane. Or stupid; whichever.

 

  Anyway, on a different note of insanity it is November now. I don’t know what that means for other countries, but in America this means two things; Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Nothing really too geeky there, but some fun is to be had anyway. Thanksgiving is all well and good I guess, but I’m most excited about Black Friday. Not because I’m going to be going shopping – but because I’m going to watch the madness on television. Every year it gets better and better. Riots, beatings and all sorts of crazy things go down. According to statistics about 20 people die every year on Black Friday trying to shop. This shit is insane. What should be just a fairly busy shopping day turns into the most wickedly awesome fights and riots ever. Seriously, this is one day of the year that the news is guaranteed to be worth watching. Fights start on Black Friday that put professional pit fighters to shame.

Well, anyway that is what is going on here in America. People are being stupid, and someone somewhere is going to die trying to buy some pajamas. Ahh stupidity – it’s always entertaining! Anyway, I’ve got some more madness to watch so I’ll talk to you next week!

Until next time;

Caelrona – signing off! ❤

Wednesday Whimsy

By @hmsbeefnuts

OK so it is Wednesday again, and that can mean only one thing. Yes that’s right, I have to garble together some thoughts and ideas into something that might resemble a blog, if only I worked a bit harder on it. This week I thought I would share some of my views on recent geeky happenings, a few news stories, a trailer or two and some thank yous. So here goes…

Firstly, I’m sure Geeky Gem would like to join me in saying a great big thank you to everyone who has visited this blog since we began in the dark days of January. We started small, but have grown week by week, month by month and have seen some impressive (for us) milestones in the last few days. We are not very far from our 10,000 view, and have had a series of days with some great numbers. We would like to say thank you to you if you have ever clicked a link, read any of our posts, commented, liked, re-blogged, or just looked at some pictures, thank you from the bottom of our well of souls. When we started this blog, we never really thought anyone would care, we still aren’t sure anyone does, but we think some of you might, and that is all that is important. We hope we can continue with our strong start and grow as writers and bloggers, we hope you join us on this journey. Right enough schmaltz, what else has been occupying my mind?

I have tried to make a concerted effort not to spend money on games and blu-rays in the past few months. Well, I lost control last week. I picked up X-Men Quadrilogy on Blu ray, Alien Quadrilogy on Blu, Tintin, King Kong, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows and last but not least, The Grey. Yeah I splashed out, but then, it was my birthday, and I hadn’t spent money for ages. I also picked up on DVD a documentary film called Superheroes, on real life Superheroes. Men and women who dress up to try and combat crime and anti-social behaviour in their communities. I enjoyed it immensely, and would recommend it to anyone with an interest in superheroes or documentaries.

I haven’t played a video game for so long now that it was getting quite disconcerting. Work and writing and movies and social things have stopped me from playing anything. I picked up The Witcher 2, and finally played a couple of hours on Sunday. I’m enjoying it, it has a complicated crafting system, but overall, I think I will have to devote more time to it in the very near future.

Here are some trailers that I think are worth checking out, if you haven’t already…

Anchorman 2

Skyfall

Things that make me happy:

The Avengers becoming the 4^th highest grossing film of all time.

Sorting out your DVD/Bluray collection.

Game of Thrones.

Things that make me sad:

Dan Harmon leaving Community. Are you crazy NBC?

Cardboard boxes around DVD/Blurays.

Only 2 more Game of Thrones until next year.