Wednesday Whimsy; Caelrona at the Renaissance Faire

By: Caelrona

Hiya All! I can’t believe it is already Wednesday again! Well, I don’t know about ya’ll but I was busy this weekend. As some of you may know, I live in the United States; specifically I live in Arizona. Once a year our uh, fair(?) state has a Renaissance Festival. This Renaissance Faire is huge, sprawling and packed with many shows and fun things to do (and tons of way to spend so much money. So. Much. Money.) My friends and I decided a while ago to attend, and last weekend was dedicated to the Renaissance Faire. We spent both Saturday and Sunday from, sunup to sundown, walking about in medieval dress. Our feet hurt, our ribs hurt (cinchers and corsets are bloody painful!), hell even our scalps hurt. But we had tons of fun, and I thought that I’d share that with you as best I could through a blog. I mean, what is geekier than a Renaissance Festival?!

Jousting

One of the main things we spent nearly all of Saturday keeping track of was the jousting tournament. There were three different jousting events, all tied into one another, spread throughout the day which basically meant a crap tan of walking for us as we’d see one, then walk about the other shops and shows until the next joust and have to walk all the way back. There were four knights jousting, whose sections could be sat in to cheer for. We ended up in the section for the rider in amethyst. Unfortunately, we picked the loser of the tournament to cheer for, which was a letdown, but he was a good sport and spent the remaining time in the arena talking to everyone in his section of the stands and letting kids pet his horse.

The Tortuga Twins

My friends saw two of their shows; whilst I was only able to see one. During the first I was getting my hair braided at one of the stalls. However, the show I did get to see was hilarious. It also was apparently their only rated R show. It was definitely adult humor; several families got up and left within the first few moments (although why they were there that long I can’t imagine; they loudly proclaimed several times that it was an R rated show.) Several random audience members were accosted, embarrassed and mildly molested during the show. Well, I say mildly, but…

Zilch the TorySteller

Zilch the TorySteller is.. oh, I don’t even know how to describe him. He’s hilarious. From his website; ‘My name is Terry Foy, although you might know me better as Zilch the Storyteller. Er, ah, Torysteller. The stories I tell have a bit of a twist to them. I spalk in toonerisms. Ah, I talk in spoonerisms. Citching one’s swonsonants fack and borth Worning your Turds around. It’s serfectly pimple. You just have to tink thaster than you falk.’ Yeah. Try reading that a couple times and see if you get the idea. He talks that way the entire time, telling various ‘TairyFales’ like ‘Rindercella and the Stoo Tugly Epsisters,’ ‘Rittle Led Hiding Rood,’ and Spilliam Wakshear’s ‘Jomeo and Ruliet.’ Also, if that weren’t enough to catch your attention he goes off on random tangents to tell awesomely nerdy jokes and small stories. Like the time he had a group of Klingons and a group of Storm Troopers having a little inter-genre mixer at one of his shows, and one of the Storm Troopers was wearing a kilt! Or when he had a front row of Doctor’s from Doctor Who, and they kept getting excited and squeaking; ‘We’re in chronological order!’ This man was so funny, we could hardly breathe most of his show.

Tartanic

I’ve saved the best for last. Now you might be wondering; what is Tartanic? The simple answer; Tartanic is a band. They are the most interesting band I’ve ever come across, and one showing had me hooked; I am now a fan for life. The long answer? Dressed in kilts and sunglasses, Tartanic gives its audiences a barrage of sound from not one but two Highland Bagpipes, and three percussionists. Imagine one dancer, six drums, six drones, 18 notes, fast fingers, high comedy, flying bagpipes, taste-defying stunts and scorching hot music played at over 120 beats per minute with driving speed and high-volume, all brought to you by five men without pants. Yeah, they are pretty damn awesome. Little ol’ me with my pirate’s heart of gold even shelled out 15 clams to buy their latest album. That’s right; they are so amazing they got me to PAY for music. We saw 3 of their shows between the two days we spent there; mainly because I kept dragging my friends to them. What can I say? I love me some men in kilts with bagpipes and big drums.

 

So there you have it! That is how I spent my weekend; running around a huge dusty portal back in time and getting accosted by various people who thought I worked for the faire. Honestly, just because a girl is wearing period clothing doesn’t mean she’s going to sell you a corset people. But anyway, I had an amazing time, spent way too much money and walked so much I still hurt from it; it was fantastic!

Until next time,

Caelrona – signing off! ❤

Tenacious D

The Most Awesome Band in the World

By Geeky Gem

As you can see from my eariler blog I love Tenacious D, as does Hmdbeefnuts its funny that we didn’t even know that we both liked The D, until the release of The Best video a few months ago. Here we are going to cover the movie Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny and the album that came with it. Then I will move on to the new album Rize of Fenix.

Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny came out in cinemas back in 2006 and was a comedy/rock musical set in the 1990s, starring The D, an excellant American comedy rock duo that features Jack Black and Kyle Gass. It is directed by musician and puppeteer Liam Lyuch. All three of them are also listed as the writers of the film. It follows the story of the birth of The D, with catchy songs included but I will come to those later.

The movie starts with a young J.B being told by his father (Meat Loaf) that he is not allowed to rock while living at home. J.B has a converstaion with his poster of Dio and decides to run away to Los Angeles, were he meets K.G who is playing guitar on the beach. Thus begins the story and legend of The D.

 

They discover in order to become the greatest band in the world they need a guitar pick that all other great bands have. From AC/DC to Van Halen, when they go looking for this pick, they are told it is The Pick Of Destiny, and so the road trip to destiny begins.

 

 

Now I have seen this movie, a lot and although Hmsbeefnuts is not a huge fan of the movie I think it fits The D down to a T. it’s funny, edgy and full of brilliant songs which I shall talk about now.

 

The soundtrack to this movie has 15 songs on it, some are just skits and are quite short but are used in the movie to join scene’s up. The D started recording songs for the soundtrack of the film, their second studio album, The Pick of Destiny after J.B had filmed King Kong. The album has John Konesky and John Spiker from Trainwreck on electric guitar and bass respectively. With the fantastic addittoin of Dave Grohl again on drums, he also lent vocals to “Beelzeboss (The Final Showdown)” as well as acting in the film, as Satan. Dave Geohl can also be seen in the video for The Best which is the first song taken from The D’s new album Rize of the Fenix which leads us nicely on to this.

 

I have just got my hands on The D album Rize of Fenix and have so far listened to it on repeat a dozen or so times. This album has 12 songs on and a few skits, with J.B getting a teacher in for K.G to improve his rock. When To Be The Best was relased on Youtube it was a six minute video that documents the uncertain future Tenacious D faced after the box-office failure of The Pick of Destiny, KG’s subsequent breakdown and incarceration in “an institution”, and Jack’s embracing of an indulgent Hollywood lifestyle. This short movie features numerous cameo appearances, including Maria Menounos, Val kilmer, Dave Grohl (as I mentioned earlier), Yoshiki Hayashi, Josh Gorban, Tim Robbins and Jimmy Kimmel. In fact just as a treat I will post the video below. Dave Grohl again plays drums on this album as the band is a long time friend of his. To be honest, this album is really good, and gets better after every listen.

 

Here for your viewing pleasure is the video for To Be The Best.

 

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nai7w1frB1E)

 

And there we have it the tale of the greastest band in the world. I am going away now to watch all the things that Hmsbeefnuts told you about. Long live The D.

 

 

Autumn of Terror: Movie Monsters

By Geeky Gem

As Autumn of Terror continues here at All Geek To Me, I thought I would talk to you about some movie monsters that have either freaked me out (by that I mean they freaked me out not scared me ok.), some that have made me laugh and some the are just epic. Shall we begin?

The Gremlins – Gremlins 1984

 When this movie frist hit the big screen, as with many of favourite movies I was very young, I was 1 in this case. Meaning that I didn’t see this movie till well over a decade later, this is how much I didn’t and still don’t scare easily. The first time I saw the Gremlins like Stripe above I believe I thought well there a little freaky aren’t they. I watched this movie plenty of times with my little brother and when he first saw it I had to go and check under his bed every night for a week just so he would go to sleep. The funny thing about that now is that he loves horror movies more than I do.  The Gremlins dont sat off looking like this they come from Gizmo after water is poured on him, breaking one of the rules of caring for a Mogwai. I love the Gremlins and I think they make awesome movie monsters, if you have never seen this movie, then shame on you.

The Crawlers – The Descent 2005

When I first saw this movie I wasn’t saw how I was going to get on with it. Turns out I liked it, this was partly down to the Crawlers who after years and years of living in the caves ad adapted to the living there, with eyes that could see in the dark and stealth to hunt its prey. They didn’t scare me either but I can see why they would, with the ability to appear from any where the Crawlers are not a monster I would like to come up against.

A Critter – Critters 1986

Another 1980’s movie monster for you here, some people say Critters came about as Gremlins weren’t scary enough, well if you asked me they both make laugh. These creatures from outer space have crash landed on earth, and they are hungry. They land on a farm and the fun begins as they terrorize the family that live there. I have never laughed so much watching this movie its great if you havent seen it, check it out.

The Pale Man – Pan’s Labyrinth 2006

As many of you know I love the work of Guillermo del Toro, I got to see Pan’s Labyrinth in the cinema with some friends. The Pale Man freaked me out, he didn’t scare me one bit but I won’t lie to you he did freak me out. However he is brilliant and Doug Jones does a fantastic job as he plays the Pale Man and Fauno in this movie. If you havent seen Pan then you really must, it has such a simple story line but it is very powerful and the creatures with in it could only have come from the mind of Guillermo del Toro.

Godzilla – Gojira 1954

Now what sort of movie monster list would this be with out Godzilla, back in 1954 he bashed and crashed his away around the town wrecking ever thing in sight. Now Godzilla can’t really be blamed for this, was it not for some nuclear testing he would never have been born in the first place, can’t blame im fr being a little pissed off can you. Godzilla has been in many movies but the 1954 one is my favourite, however Godzilla is set to make a return to the big screen in 2014.

There we have it folks just some of the great movie monsters out there for you to enjoy and hide from. Now I am off to check under my bed for Gremlins and Critters, I’ll see you soon.