10 most popular posts of the past 90 days

skril collins (via Tumblr)

1. Is it OK to think Skrillex is OK?
“It’s Diet Aphex Twin! Derivative, sure, but not dull enough to be offensive.”

2. How Kim Kardashian’s tits prove Obama’s anti-feminist agenda
“Well, that got your attention …”

3. Red hot: 25 carrot-haired cuties
“If the mere mention of Daryl Hall’s name doesn’t trigger the memory of catchy-but-cheesy tunes from the 80s … you’re obviously younger than I am.”

4. Dumb & Dumber
“I took my mother to see Dumb & Dumber at the cinema. She told me that if she was a 13 year-old boy, it would be her favourite film in the world.”

5. Beowulf
“The first thing to say about the film is that it looks absolutely gorgeous. Video games – even cutscenes – are years away from this fidelity.”

6. Skyrim: constructive criticism at its best
“In this age of entitlement – our me, me, me culture – people are usually unable to express their opinions without coming across like toddlers stamping their pudgy little legs and screaming, ‘But I want …’”

7. 10 sexiest nerds
“Wil Wheaton: He’s come a long way since he played Wesley Crusher in Star Trek: The Next Generation.”

8. Really realistic Disney princesses
“Finnish art student Jirka Väätäinen has ‘shopped together photographs to recreate impressions of what Disney’s princesses would look like in real life – and he’s done it very well.”

9. 10 actors who are older than you thought
“Frankie Muniz was 15 years old when the first episode of Malcolm in the Middle aired, and 21 by the final series. He was about the same age as his “older brother”, Justin Berfield as Reese.”

10. Offsetting the Uncool Footprint
“What’s the difference between the embarrassing records you’re quite proud of, and the ones that actually make you cringe? You know how people are trying to offset their carbon emissions. Can you do that with music?”

.

The Guild

I would ask if you remember little Wesley Crusher from Star Trek: The Next Generation, but half of the people reading this have been actively wondering what he’s been doing for the past 20-odd years, while the other half already know.

Actor Wil Wheaton has recently resurfaced in online sitcom The Guild – which is about as nerdgasm-inducing as if video games came on chocolate-coated discs. For the two or three people not watching it, The Guild is a series of short episodes uploaded onto watchtheguild.com and YouTube, starring Buffy’s Felicia Day and based around the lives of a group of MMO gamers.

This is the 4-minute-long first episode, and despite the low budget and woeful acting, it carried us along because anyone who had ever been in an online guild could recognise the characters: it’s something of a standing joke among gamers that you always dread some deluded member turning up on the pretty girl’s doorstep with a suitcase after interpreting “thank you for healing my character” as “I love you”. (caution: language)

.

.

The show coasted along on charm for two seasons, despite only learning to tell jokes well towards the end of the second series. However, the third series (being uploaded now onto YouTube) is where it found its feet as a broadly entertaining sitcom, by focussing more on the relationships between the characters and less on nerdy in-jokes.

Continue reading