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.

Weekly Geek Trivia

By Hmsbeefnuts

Week three of my stint, and damn it, Geeky Gem come back!!! Hmm, keep it together Beefnuts, just one more week to go, one more week….just one more, one more after this one. Right, so last week we looked at the amazing super fantastic Ray Harryhausen, and his wonderful mind creations. This week, I will be telling you about some sit-com facts that you probably don’t know about, if you do, umm, I apologise. If you have not seen these comedy masterpieces, go and check them out please, if you don’t you are missing out on so much awesomeness, that Harryhausen himself would struggle to animate it, whatever that means… Anyway, on to the facts!!!

Community

 

Danny Pudi, the actor who plays Abed is actually half Polish, and can speak the language fluently, I bet you didn’t know that!

 

Arrested Development

 

Tobias Funke’s ‘nevernude’ affliction, is a real thing. Known as gymnophobia, it is the fear of nude bodies.

 

The Office’s own Dwight Schrute, Rainn Wilson, lost out to Will Arnett over the role of Gob.

The Office (US)

Steve Carell started to watch the British version of the show, only to stop a few minutes in, he didn’t want Ricky Gervais’ performance to influence his. John Krasinski, who plays Jim, however, watched it all and loved it.

During the writers strike in 2007, the show had to go on hiatus as WGA member Steve Carell refused to cross picket lines. Carell called in sick to his network bosses saying he had a nasty case of ‘enlarged balls’ and couldn’t come in.

Seinfeld

Michael Richards, who played Kramer, always wore clothes one size too big, in order to appear laid back. Jason Alexander, who played George, however, wore outfits one size too small, in order to make him look uncool and slightly uncomfortable.

In one episode, Elaine dates a guy called Joel Riftkin, who shares his name with a guy involved in a notorious New York City Murder case. Elaine tries to get him to change his name. One of the suggestions is O.J. This episode was shot in 1993, a year before O.J. Simpson was accused of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman. Weird.

 

Whilst filming the uber depressing Schindler’s List, Director Steven Spielberg has said he watched episodes of Seinfeld to cheer himself up.

Curb Your Enthusiasm

No scripts are written for any episode, instead a detailed outline is given to the cast and they improvise the dialogue. Each scene will require 7 or 8 takes on average to get, a very high amount for a tightly scheduled TV show.

In 2003 a man named Juan Catalan was arrested for a murder in Los Angeles. He repeatedly professed his innocence and asked to take a lie detector test, a request that the police denied. He also had an alibi: he swore that at the time of the murder he was at Dodger Stadium with his little girl, watching the Dodgers vs. the Braves, but his lawyer was unable to find him in any of the Dodger Vision or FOX footage he subpoenaed. However, he discovered that there was another source of crowd footage, an episode of Curb called, The Car Pool Lane, which had filmed at Dodger Stadium that night. Although Catalan did not make the final cut of the show, his lawyer was able to find him and his daughter in the out-takes, and determined from the timestamps on the tapes that Catalan could not have been the killer. When told that his show had released a wrongfully accused man from prison and a trial that could have led to the death penalty, Larry David commented, ‘I tell people that I’ve now done one decent thing in my life, albeit inadvertently’.

So there we are, another week over, and 10 more facts to cut out and keep in your Big Book of Geeky Facts. What do you mean you don’t have one of those? Why the hell am I doing this week after week if you don’t collect them all like Poke’mon? Anyway, next week, 10 more facts about He-man or something with a sword, probably Lord of the Rings, yeah Lord of the Rings, you’d like that wouldn’t you? Eating up my facts like the Nothingness in Neverending Story, it’s not easy you know…a thankless task, I only do it because I love you guys…..see you next week!!