So CBS has released the first look at their modern-day take on Sherlock Holmes, Elementary. Can you hear that? Yes, that’s Tumblr having a seizure.

Taking up the scarf mantle of the titular role is Jonny Lee Miller, whose apparently softly spoken take on the character whiffs of a deliberate precaution to make this iteration polls apart from the Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman BBC hit. And then there’s Lucy Liu as Joan Watson. This, I don’t mind so much – I can take that more than, say, if there were ever a female Doctor outside of a farting alien special – but with there already being a Sherlock on the air, again, it just seems gimmicky for the sake of showing a difference between the two.

And that’s not just the fanboy in me typing, that’s me with my director/writer hat on which is really my headphones. Moff’s wife, Sue Vertue, said earlier in the year that the CBS series is “extremely worrying”, and now seeing what they’ve come up with, honestly, I wouldn’t worry about it. While judgement should be reserved for the series proper, the taste we got wasn’t palatable in the slightest, and it really should have been given its purpose as a teaser trailer. The acting seems wooden and the delivery and execution in Sherlock’s deductions come of lacklustre and bland. Sure, Cumberbatch’s frenetic portrayal isn’t the steadfast archetype, but in comparison – and fanboy or not, it will all come down to comparison – it just falls so flat. For another comparison, anyone else get a Doctor Who movie vibe? You know, the one where Paul McGann was excellent and the American influence was really hit and miss.

Oh, and you know that they’ll have Femson (that’s what I’m dubbing her, so hence forth shall she be dubbed) get it on with Fauxlock (re: above parenthesis).
 

 
Wedding cakes aren’t cheap.

I know what you’re thinking, “Really? I had no idea!” Well, turn off your sarcasm app for a moment and walk with me on a journey for the perfect wedding cake.

My dream wedding cake wasn’t one that was simple; in fact, it was huge and amazing and probably cost as much as my wedding dress. You see, a while ago — before Dan and I were even engaged, I came across the most epic cake ever. SusieCakes in Brentwood, CA had designed an “Impressionist Cake” modeled after Van Gogh’s painting Starry Night. This cake (click here to see some photos on Flickr) is, in a word, epic. I later saw the Doctor Who episode “Vincent and the Doctor,” and when it came time to start planning our wedding, I fell in love with the idea of having this cake and a TARDIS cake-topper.

However, the average wedding cake of the most simplistic design averages from around $3-5 per slice, so you can imagine what a custom cake like this would cost. I am both pretty awesome at baking and fairly artistic, so I thought about the idea of baking my own cake, but 1) I’m sure that would be super stressful and 2) the reception site only allows food from licensed caters, and the cake is already included. Because our all-inclusive package at the wedding facility we’re using requires us to use their catering and cake persons, we didn’t want to spend that much more money out of what we would get for free. What we get for free is a very basic cake with two tiers and a choice of some pretty basic designs. So, how to make this cake awesome and geeky without going way over our budget?

The obvious answer is the cake topper.

A TARDIS alone would be sufficient for some people, I think, but I wanted it to be a little more than that. That’s when I saw the picture on the right floating around on the Googles and the Internets. I’m not sure where the image originates, as I think I first founding randomly Googling “TARDIS wedding cake,” but I thought this was a splendid idea: a cake topper with a couple holding hands and entering the TARDIS.

Seeing this picture, I began my search for my own components to recreate this wedding cake-topping scene. At first, when I was looking at cake-toppers, I was shocked at the prices. Many of them averaged around $50-60! I kept searching, and eventually I managed to order said topper for $25 with shipping. Not too shabby. As for the TARDIS portion? I found one on Amazon.com for a decent price and had Dan buy it. I don’t have as many qualms about paying $30 for a TARDIS that makes noises and is awesome, because once the wedding is over, we can definitely use that to decorate our new home. So, we wound up spending about $55 for our cake topper, but at least it’s going to be awesome.

As far as the cake itself, we decided on something a little more traditional, but we made sure to have something a little unique about it. The cake itself will be “blue velvet” (like red velvet cake, but blue) with ivory colored frosting. So, when the cake is cut into, it will look pretty cool to have a bright color on the inside instead of the traditional white or chocolate cake. It may not be the cake I dreamed of originally, but it’ll still be pretty awesome.
 

A couple months ago I remember my sister asking me if I was watching any new TV shows. Before long I arrived at Once Upon a Time… “I’m not sure how ‘good’ it actually is, but the past couple weeks they had Emilie de Ravin play a live-action version of Belle from Beauty and the Beast… they put her in the dress and everything, then they revealed that the dwarf Grumpy is grumpy all the time because of his tragic love story with a fairy played by Amy Acker.” My sister’s eyes got wide and she said “I’m not sure I’m ready for that show.”

That’s the thing about Once Upon a Time. On one level, it’s so bad it’s good. It’s incredibly cheesy, from the writing to the acting, the characters often have a tendency to be idiots, more than one “big reveal” has fallen flat on its face, the special effects are pervasive yet almost always badly executed, the plot has a tendency to head down pointless cul-de-sacs, and it suffers from an over-reliance on absolutely terrible child acting. Yet, for some reason, I just can’t quit the show. I found myself not only tuning in each week, but weirdly excited about it. And after watching the first season finale Sunday night, I find myself looking forward to doing the same with Season 2.

Once Upon a Time, for the uninitiated, is based around the idea that all of your popular fairytale characters like Snow White, Red Riding Hood, etc. were trapped in our world (in the town of “Storybrooke, Maine”… yep) by an evil curse concocted by the Wicked Queen to get her revenge on Snow White. Before the curse descended, Snow and her husband Prince Charming were able to place their baby girl in a magical tree built by Gepetto (again, to emphasize, not making any of this up), so that she could one day come back and be the “Savior”. Cut to 28 years later, and that kid is a grown up, butt-kicking blond bounty hunter named “Emma Swann” who is brought to Storybrooke by her own son who she gave up for adoption. The catch is that the kid was adopted by the evil queen, now presiding over Storybrooke as “Mayor Regina,” and she appears (at least initially) to be the only other person who knows the truth about what’s going on.

The two showrunners for the series, Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, came from Lost, and it shows. They even cribbed Lost’s story structure of featuring flashbacks in every episode that are vaguely related to whatever’s happening in the present day. Except in this case they’re “fairybacks,” as the internet has dubbed them, telling what “really” happened in all those fairy tales. Some of the twists have been pretty fun: for example, Red Riding Hood is the Big Bad Wolf. While the show had some down periods this year (what was the point of that murder trial, and the adultery, and… I could go on), over time it built up an interesting cast of characters who play well against each other. Of course, a big help in all of this is that the show airs on ABC, and can use all of those Disney versions of these characters we’re familar with today. There’s a thrill in seeing live-action versions of these cartoons we all remember. They even have Jiminy Cricket as the town psychologist! The show’s biggest problem is that its main cast, while likable, for the most part lacked agency while they were in Storybrooke: they didn’t remember who they really were, so their vague efforts to fight Regina ended ineffectually. The “fairybacks” were the most interesting part of the show most weeks.

But, and here’s where the spoilers come in, in the first season finale the show did what I thought it would wait until the SERIES finale to do… Emma broke the Curse. So now everyone remembers exactly who they are, though they’re still stuck in Maine for some reason. And Rumplestiltskin has somehow brought magic to our world, so that next year things will get extra crazy. Maybe they won’t even need the fairybacks… So Season 2 should be interesting, but where the show has really succeeded is in setting up an interesting batch of characters, all with their own motivations and backstories, that don’t fit neatly into two teams. Yes, on a basic level the show is about Emma and her “parents” Snow/Mary Margaret & Charming/James/David (I told you it was complicated) vs. the Wicked Queen/Regina, but there’s also the incredibly powerful Rumplestiltskin/Mr. Gold, who’s not on anybody’s side but his own. The insane Mad Hatter, cursed all this time with the knowledge the others lacked, who is murderously pissed at the Queen now for going back on her deal with him. The mysterious rider who roared into town at midseason turned out to be Pinocchio, with his own guilt-ridden backstory. Even the town convent has its part to play, as all the nuns are actually fairies.

By the time we got to the season finale, I was watching Emma pump handgun rounds into Maleficent the dragon (from Sleeping Beauty) and throw the evil queen against a storage locker and, well, it wasn’t so bad it was good anymore. It was just loads of fun.

 
The Other Log of Phileas Fogg by Philip Jose Farmer

Genre(s): Adventure, Science Fiction
Publisher: Titan Books
Description: In a delicious slice of sci-fi whimsy that sits cleverly alongside Verne’s original tale, Phileas Fogg’s epic global journey is not the product of a daft wager but, in fact, a covert mission to chase down the elusive Captain Nemo – who is none other than Professor Moriarty. A secret alien war has raged on Earth for years and is about to culminate in this epic race. A novel in the Wold Newton universe, in which characters such as Sherlock Holmes, Flash Gordon, Doc Savage, James Bond and Jack the Ripper are all mysteriously connected. 
Availability: Paperback and ebook

 
Many people these days seems to think that what we call “fanfiction” was an invention of the internet. But the phenomenon of writers taking other people’s characters and telling their own stories with them is not only not new, it’s not really limited to amateurs. Philip José Farmer is an all-time great science fiction writer, credited with introducing frank discussions of sex to the genre with his award-winning story “The Lovers” and famous for his Riverworld series of novels , in which seemingly every human who ever lived is reborn on an alien world, along the banks of what appears to be an endless river. If you haven’t read these strange and wonderful stories, you owe it to yourself… the multiple attempts at a adapting them to film completely fail to do the books justice.

But Farmer is also known for the so-called “Wold Newton Family,” a series of stories and novels that essentially amount to a sprawling attempt at Victorian literature crossover fanfic, though a very well-written fanfic. Farmer’s underlying premise is that the actual, historical meteorite strike that occurred in 1795 near the Yorkshire village of Wold Newton caused genetic mutations in several people passing by at the time, which were then passed on to their descendants and gave them extraordinary abilities. From this beginning Farmer draws the idea that pretty much every old-timey adventure hero, from Tarzan to HG Wells’ Time Traveler, exists in the same fictional universe. In fact, his “Wold Newton” stories became so popular that others began to add on with their own stories, which even continue today after Farmer’s death.

In 1973′s The Other Log of Phileas Fogg, now available in a handsome reissued paperback from Titan Books, Farmer lovingly adds the works of Jules Verne to his growing continuity. The story is, essentially, a re-telling of the story of the Verne classic Around the World in 80 Days, down to the inclusion of some of the same dialogue. Phileas Fogg, of course, was Verne’s strange traveler, the man who makes the exciting trip around the world with his french valet, Passepartout. Farmer comes to the conclusion that Fogg is not only a little too strange, but is in fact part of one of two warring alien factions, and from there pits Fogg against another of Verne’s famous characters, Captain Nemo, who we discover is best known in England as Moriarty…

While Farmer is a great writer, always subverting audience expectations in interesting ways, here he’s writing for a very specific audience. I’ve read and enjoyed Around the World…, but it’s been at least a decade, and I felt like I wasn’t getting as much out of this as I might have. I have a feeling that someone who had never read the Verne classic would be totally lost. But it is a great story, only improved by the addition of aliens fighting over teleportation technology in between games of whist. It also helps if you, like me, have a weakness for crossover stories. There’s a half-finished Buffy and Firefly crossover sitting on the internet somewhere with my name on it. Farmer is particularly good at suggesting how these connections might happen… just the idea that Moriarty and Captain Nemo are the same person makes me smile. But if you’re a purist English major that might give you some trouble.

I’m fairly certain that Farmer didn’t write these books because he was trying to make money… they feel distinctly like a labor of love. If Jules Verne isn’t your cup of tea, Farmer wrote better-known works featuring Tarzan and Doc Savage that are still readily available. I’m fairly certain that a good portion of the people reading this have sought out fanfic for their own favorite stories, but you may not have known that some great writers have been doing it for decades with some of their favorite books. If you’re a big Jules Verne fan, The Other Log of Phileas Fogg is worth checking out.
 

 
Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks by Ethan Gilsdorf

Genre(s): Non-Fiction, Fantasy, Travel
Publisher: The Lyons Press
Description: In Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks, Gilsdorf crisscrosses America, the world, and other worlds–from Boston to Wisconsin, France to New Zealand, and Planet Earth to Middle-earth to the realm of Aggramar. He asks D&D players, LARPers, medieval re-eanctors, World of Warcraft players, Harry Potter fans and convention goers–old, young, male, female, able-bodied and disabled–what attracts them to fantasy worlds, and for what reasons. What he discovers is funny, poignant, and enlightening.
Availability: Paperback and ebook

 
I first encountered Mr. Gilsdorf when he put out a net call for input into an article he was preparing about the future of D&D for a well known periodical. I submitted my thoughts and asked him to let me know when the article was published. We exchanged a few emails and on the heels of the nationwide announcement of D&D Next or 5th Edition (depending on what camp you are in) true to his word, I received an email notification and a request for my mailing address. About a week later, I received a copy of his book, Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks with a hand written note thanking me for my input.

I was thrilled! What writer for an awesome website like this wouldn’t go ga-ga over a book that has the words fantasy, freaks, gaming, and geeks in the title? Add a D20 and a picture of a gamer circa old school D&D with a battle axe deliberately photoshopped in his hand on the cover, and it puts a geek like me over the moon. Then as you turn the already treasured tome over to find another picture of a D20, a scene filled with minis, a shot of one of the sets from LOTR, SCA fighters, a screen shot from a fantasy MMORPG, a bearded Klingon, and a small photo of Gilsdorf doing his best Pete Townsend impression, the anticipation soars. After taking in the mosaic of words and geek appealing photos, I opened the book and, while I was hoping that opening would be accompanied by the song of angels (or at the very least, some really cool music) and the mysterious self illumination that always seems to accompany someone opening a treasure chest or an ancient tome, instead I found an even greater treasure. The inside cover was the red and white negatives of several old school graph paper maps, maps that we all relied on before cartography programs came along. Without reading a single word, I was flooded with gaming memories of the happiest kind!

Each chapter is preceded by a quote or set of quotes from famous folks from the past. This, along with clever chapter titles, was great foreplay for me. These carefully selected quotes or passages from books were all spot on and fun to read. They kept me on my trip down memory passages (actually it is a dark passage that appears to be about 60ft. long. The walls are made of a rough cut stone, it looks like there are brackets on the wall that once held torches, there is a faint light at the end of the passage that seems to pulsate with a sickly green light…)

My euphoria was soon extinguished when I started reading the prologue entitled ‘The Momster’.

I wasn’t upset because the writing was bad. In fact, there was this brutal honesty that cut me to quick. Gilsdorf’s single mother suffered from an aneurysm in 1979 that transformed her into what he describes as “The Kitchen Dragon”. We tend to idealize the people in our lives who have passed away, but not Ethan Gilsdorf! As the book progresses, there is no doubt that he loves his mother, but to put in writing how his 12 year old self felt when dealing with his disabled mother and the effect that the changes she underwent, had created a soul bearing moment that few authors can honestly express and even fewer authors are willing to.

Gilsdorf uses his mother’s ultimately tragic aneurysm to explain why he was drawn to gaming. He doesn’t use his mother’s condition as an excuse, but shows that it was a contributing factor. Gilsdorf goes on to describe his youthful affair with RPGs and his love for all things Tolkien (big surprise, right?). We soon find ourselves with a grown Ethan Gilsdorf who is still a lover of Tolkien, but suffers from self doubts that he feels stem from a desire to experience fantasy worlds, and overdeveloped case of gamer shame. Rather than retreating to a basement, he decides to embark on a modern day hero’s journey of his own.

While Gilsdorf states his intentions for embarking on this hero’s journey, I found that he often strayed from the path and, at times, his actions were overruled by his fears of a gamer relapse and that overdeveloped affliction of the aforementioned gamer shame. Gilsdorf’s journey, while a bit convoluted, had all of the right destinations, but his actions while he was there and his failure to simply let go and be himself were the honest reactions of a man trying to fight off his past, while still trying to understand why he did what he did way back when.

There were times during this book when I got pissed off. Here is a guy who is on a holy grail-like quest that most geeks would give their entire dice collection and at least three or four source books that they had triples of to experience. One of his goals on his quest is to meet Gary Gygax, one of the fathers of D&D, so he arranges to attend Garycon. Sadly, Gary passed away shortly before the Con, so Gilsdorf headed to this D&D Mecca and plays voyeur. Like a good writer, he watches, but unlike the best writers, he never actually joins a game. On the last day, he does join a chainmail minis game, but for a former gamer to sit around and watch some of the legends of D&D play actual games and not get involved made me sick to my stomach. It was like having the prom queen or king call you, tell you their parents are out of town and that they are lonely, and instead of going to their house, knocking on the door and taking care of business, you sneak around the back of the house, hide in the bushes, and hope you catch a glimpse of them getting ready for bed.

As Gilsdorf’s journey continues, he falls into a voyeuristic pattern that diminishes his ability to actually complete his quest. For a person who is a fan of Tolkein, there are times in this book where I began to wonder if he actually paid attention to the story. During his travels and in his writing, Gilsdorf doesn’t sugar coat his internal struggles, or try to gloss over the fact that he wasn’t willing to knock on that front door. While his actions made me want to club him like a baby seal, his brutal honesty in expressing his doubts and fears had me rooting for him.

I’m sure that you can tell that this book stirred up many bi-polar feelings inside of me. I didn’t go into this book with any expectations so I didn’t build it up to be something it was not, then claim I was misled. Ethan Gilsdorf is a geek who has made it to the big time. His works have appeared in the New York Times, LA Time, The Boston Globe, the SF Chronicle, USA Today, the Washington post, Nat Geo. Traveler, and Psychology today. Many of these articles are about gaming so in one sense, he is truly living the dream. I recommend this book to my fellow freaks, geeks, gamers, and anyone else who claims titles for their passions and hobbies. For those of you adult aged folks who suffer from gamer shame, this book will let you know that there are other people who suffer from the same anxieties that you do and that what you are feeling is normal. For those of us that let our freak flag fly, while you will experience disappointment, you will be treated to one heck of a trip into the dungeons of your past by a DM who is a great writer. No matter what camp you come from, this book threatens a crit!
 

 
That bean spilling, leaping-out-of-the-bag cat – also known as a press release – has outted the airdate for the season seven (or series thirty-three depending on who you ask i.e. me) premiere. Well, sort of.

Like last year’s Let’s Kill Hitler, the first episode of the new season will be screened at the Edinburgh International Television Festival between August 23 and 25, with the Moff and Mark Gatiss attending to field questions.

So how does that equate to an actual date that we can mark in our diaries, pull the phoneline out of the socket, draw the curtains and warn our loved ones that should we be disturbed during the broadcast, that a fiery wrath of verbal abuse and possible slipper throwing will be blasted in their general direction? Well, according to some tinfoil math, we can extrapolate that an airdate of September 1 is the most likely candidate due to past episodes being premiered a week before actual transmission.

Like last year, season seven will be split into two parts, taking a mid-season break after five episodes – the last which will see the departure of our Ponds and the return of the Weeping Angels – pop up again after Christmas lunch with a special that will introduce the new companion, and then continue during spring of 2013.

The first episode is reported to be the one where every type and model of Dalek ever seen in the Doctor Who universe returns. I’m all for giving the Daleks a break so that their scare isn’t diminished but, blimey, I’m sold. Seriously. ‘Resurrection of the Daleks’ Daleks. Remembrance of the Daleks Daleks, complete with the Special Weapons Dalek? I’ll be a fanboy mess, squeeing throughout I’m sure.
 

 
Maybe it was the hypnotic sight of the printer dishing out ninty-odd pages at a rate of knots that made my mind wander, or maybe it was actually because I’d found a mouldy tangerine earlier and was worried that a mutant maggot would burst out and go for my neck, but throughout the day, I just couldn’t stop thinking about the time that I met the Doctor.

It was my seventh birthday, and it was on a Saturday, so by the laws of the universe, that constitutes a guaranteed pretty bloody awesome birthday right there. Presents were ripped into with a grin to rival that of the Cheshire Cat’s. All of them opened, and thanking hugs exchanged, I went to fire up the Mega Drive when I was presented with one final wrapped parcel from my Nan and Grandpa. It was soft. Childhood intuition/suspicion told me that it was clothes, and gratitude aside – and be honest now – when you were a kid, clothes were the one thing you didn’t want for your birthday, because Power Ranger figures. End of. Or something. Anyway, opening the wrapping paper, my brow furrowed. Beige. Another piece unfolded, green trim with red splodges. Then my eyes fell short of popping straight out of my head. It was a woollen vest, the one that the seventh Doctor wore, but knitted, just for me. I bounced around the room more than Stewie going to Disney World.

But that wasn’t all. A final gift, a flyer. Jon Pertwee, the third Doctor, was signing books. Today. My birthday. Stunned into silence and sort of not knowing what was going on, I looked to my Nan and she nodded her head. She didn’t need to say anything. This time bouncing was replaced by a jaw hung expression because this birthday just became surreal.

“What are you going to wear?” my Grandpa asked.

Now I didn’t need to say anything.

Fast forward to my Nan and I stepping off the bus and making our way to the venue. It was safe to say we’d found the place on account of a line of people and a homemade Dalek patrolling the street. The irony was not lost on me, however. There I was. In line to see Jon Pertwee. Dressed as the seventh Doctor, complete with a cloth hat, paisley scarf and tie, and an umbrella sadly not with a question mark handle. The others in line seemed to love it and were greatly impressed, especially so when they asked if I wanted any rice pudding, to which I replied “unlimited.” Plus, the fact that I actually had an umbrella when it started piddling down helped.

As the afternoon crept on, so did the line until we were just over the threshold. That’s when it got real. I could see him through a gap in the snaking line. He looked exactly the same considering this was 1994, and while I was grown up for a seven year old, I happily let my childhood mentality kick in, if for only moment to believe that this was confirmation that he was indeed a Time Lord. I took my Nan’s hand and squeezed it tight. This was amazing. All anticipation went out the front door because this was happening, and before I knew it, I was standing in front of him. Me. In front of the Doctor. Clearly sorcery.

He looked up and smiled, stifling a laugh, and my Nan prompted me to hand over my book for all the staring. In a blazoned scribble he’d signed his name and handed the book back over. I nervously said thank you, and he replied, with a nod, “Doctor.”

I don’t remember much after that. Well, apart from the jumping and mid-air heel clicking once we were outside because I’d met the Doctor, the Doctor. But there was one final surprise waiting for me at home. A very special TARDIS cake made by my Aunt. Now that was a birthday.

What’s your favourite geeky memory?
 

 
An article over at I4U cites the opinion of JP Morgan analyst, Mark Moskowitz, that Apple Television is not coming in 2012. We are talking about an Apple branded television, not the nifty little hockey puck sized media streamer that goes by the name of Apple TV.

A few years back, I joined the Apple cult. I wouldn’t classify myself as a fanboy, but I did join. It started with the usual gateway drug, the iPod touch, and has grown into ownership of several other Apple products like the iPad (1 and 2), an iMac, Airport Extreme and Airport Express, and Apple TV. I like my Apple products and while I sometimes lament some of their limitations, we have a pretty good relationship. I got a great deal on my Apple TV that I just couldn’t pass up, and in typical Apple fashion, it was sexy, minimally packaged, easy to set up, and limited. Now, when I say limited, I’m not talking crazy limited. It was more like a pair of underwear that was just a little too tight. My model would only stream at 720p, although that didn’t matter as I had saved money by buying a 720p TV because everyone was going for the 1080s. I could discuss the other limitations, but this isn’t an Apple TV bashing exercise, it is a SWAG (Super Wild Ass Guess) prediction.

I believe that Moskowitz is right. There will be no Apple Television in 2012. Now, I’m sure that Moskowitz had done in-depth studies and looked at marketing and production reports, but I, however, have a much more effective method: the SWAG. Like Billy Ray Valentine in Trading Places, I don’t have a Harvard education or a big budget to base my analysis. Instead, I have that un-common commodity – common sense.

The first question we have to ask about Apple Television is why? Why would a company like Apple try to extend themselves into an already over-saturated market? How many companies are there out there right now? These days it seems like every store has its own brand and exclusive models produced for that store by five or six other major brands. After my TV shopping experience, there are lots of them… lots and lots of them. Why jump into a sea of sharks when you don’t have to? Apple would most likely turn to other television producers to produce some of their major components, so why bother? Is it more profitable to produce an entire TV with parts from all of your competitors and an Apple brain, or to just keep producing the brain? Seems like a no brainer to me.

Based on the amount of sharks in the tank, let’s talk costs. Apple provides a quality product, and they charge for it. People who have joined the Apple cult are happy to pay these premium prices for the products they love; however, those who have not injected the rice grain sized GPS tracker soaked in the DNA of Steve Jobs might not be willing to pay those premiums (Note: No one will confirm the whole GPS tracker or that it was soaked in the late Steve Jobs DNA. After I bought my iMac, I woke up the next morning with a strange puncture mark on my arm and every now and then I feel a rice grain sized lump in my arm, but I’m sure this is all just a coincidence).

Big TVs are in and people are looking for bigger and more beautiful. Apple’s 27 inch sized displays are huge and they look great; but again, price. Why would I pay an estimated twice the price for an Apple branded TV made of parts from other TV companies when for $99.00, I can get the brain (Apple TV) and attach it to a bigger, more flexible TV? Oh yeah… that expensive TV will say Apple on it. I understand the need to “own” the living room, but most of the companies that have tried that have failed or are still sharing shelf space with other brands. I am completely happy with the 27 inches of real estate that my iMac monitor gives me so why ,would I go out and buy a TV that will cost almost as much as a fully fledged computer? Apple has vision but they are not stupid!

I’ve brought up a few good reasons why there won’t be Apple Television this year or an Apple Branded Television ever, but in the grand scheme of things, I think, even with the past failures of other companies, Apple will give it a go. They have a robust ecosystem that could support consumers’ voracious need for content, but they can do all of this with their current Apple TV. I just hope that Apple isn’t trying to resurrect an interesting idea that Steve Jobs had just because he had it.

Final Analysis: Apple Television this year? Hell no. Apple Television by 2014? Maybe… Do we need Apple Television? Common sense and the SWAG say no, Apple TV is just fine!
 

 
Even if you’re stuck in an office all day and don’t get a chance to show off your summer fashion as much as you’d like, you can still have a little summer flavor by having fun with the way you paint and decorate your fingernails (and toenails!).

We don’t always have the time or they money to get to the salon for a mani-pedi, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do something a little different to give your nails some bling. Here are a few products that will help you have a little summer fun, even if you can’t make it to the manicurist to have them paint wild designs on your nails.

Press-On Nails – Now, I know that a lot of us, as grown-ups haven’t used press-on nails since we were tweenie-boppers, but think about it: these fake nails are cheap, and there’s no messy glue or smelly acrylic — both of which are things that can thin your nails and ruin them, making them brittle and easily-breakable. Simply peel the sticker off the back of these and press them onto your own nails and you’re good for up to a week! My favorites are imPress by Broadway Nails, which come in solid colors as well as different patterns like hearts and stripes and cheetah spots. You can buy them for around $6 at your local pharmacy like CVS or Walgreens.

Nail Polish Strips – If you’re afraid of your fake nails falling off, but still want cool designs, try Sally Hansen’s Salon Effects nail polish strips. These strips of actual nail polish are super easy to apply — just peel the colors off and press them onto your nails, then cut and file down the edges. It’s a lot like press-on nails, actually, but without the sticky stuff between your nail and a fake nail. These nail polish strips come off with nail polish remover and come in a ton of different styles and patterns with everything from zebra stripes to plaid to tie dye. These cost about $10 and last for at least a week.

Wet & Wild Nail Polish – If you just want something quick that you can take off at night and change the color from day to day, invest in a few bottles of Wet & Wild nail polish. These polishes aren’t really great for long term (more than say, 4-5 days), but are only 99 cents each, so you can have fun with different colors on different fingers and toes, or switching your polish every few days. In the picture on the right, you can see that I had fun last summer with strawberry nail designs using Wet & Wild nail polish and nail stickers I bought at the dollar store. Simple, but fun!
 

 
The Avengers

Genre:Superhero, Action
Rating:PG-13
Director:Joss Whedon
Starring:Robert Downey, Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Tom Hiddleston, Clark Gregg, Cobie Smulders, Stellan Skarsgard, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Samuel L. Jackson
Description: Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D. brings together a team of super humans to form The Avengers to help save the Earth from Loki and his army.

 
Few movies this side of The Phantom Menace have had the burden of expectations placed on them that The Avengers had to deal with. Fewer still have delivered, but The Avengers is among that elite. It’s exciting, it’s funny, and it’s moving. Given the unique task of putting together characters from several very different films into one cohesive whole, it fully succeeds. No one is given short shrift. For a long time now, one of the big draws of superhero comics has been their giant, shared world. Now that same joy of watching all your favorites team up and beat up some villains (and maybe, sometimes, each other) has reached the big screen. I had an absolutely wonderful time at this movie.

For those who’ve been living under a rock, Marvel decided several years ago, starting sometime around when the first Iron Man film was a big hit, to make several superhero films in the same universe, and then have all those heroes team up. It was somewhat unprecedented for Hollywood… though Batman and Superman have both had several big hit movies, they’ve never hung out on screen. But through a long, slow build up, including The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger, Marvel never quite stepped off course, though they came close a few places.

It helps that they made a somewhat outside-the-box choice to write and direct the film, an auteur-ish self-professed geek whose only real hits had been on the small screen, Joss Whedon. But this turned out to be an inspired choice: Whedon manages to nail the spirit of the comics while at the same time making this all feel fresh. He succeeds both in getting us to feel the tangible humanity of these larger-than-life characters and really delivering on the coolness-factor of, say, Thor hitting the Hulk in the face with his hammer. This is also one of the funniest superhero movies you’ll ever see.

But Whedon had a great cast to work with: Robert Downey, Jr. as the cocky billionaire philanthropist Tony Stark, aka Iron Man. Chris Evans as the World War II era super-soldier (recently unfrozen from a block of ice) Captain America, a man out of his time. Chris Hemsworth as the Norse God of Thunder, Thor, who though from the “realm” (in this case probably another planet) of Asgard has taken Earth under his protection. Mark Ruffalo (taking over from Edward Norton) plays the scientist who turns into a giant green monster The Hulk when he’s angry. Scarlett Johansson is the super-spy Natasha Romanov, known as the Black Widow (last seen in Iron Man 2), and Jeremy Renner gets a lot more screen-time than his one scene in Thor as the bow-and-arrow specialist Hawkeye. They are all brought together by Agent Nick Fury, Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., to face the threat of Thor’s spurned brother, Loki (in my opinion certainly the best villain of any of the previous films), played by Tom Hiddleston. It turns out that when Loki got tossed into an abyss, he just ended up at the far end of the universe with his very own alien horde. Who woulda thunk it?

The first hour or so of the movie is a little slow. Each member of the team has to be reintroduced separately. But once things get going, boy, do they get going, before the film ends in a massive set-piece action sequence that may be one of the better ones I’ve ever seen. The real trick is the way the movie, without taking too much time to do it, really makes you care about each of these characters… This makes the scenes that are meant to have some oomph really have some oomph. There were more moments where the whole audience broke out into cheering and applause in this movie (not at a Midnight showing, mind you, but on a Sunday at noon) than any other movie I’ve ever been in.

Superhero movies can be a lot of different things. Just think, the two biggest masterpieces of this subgenre might be this and The Dark Knight. Even though they’re both action movies about superheroes, I still have trouble thinking of two more different films. The reason we’re still reading superhero comics after all these years is that they can be whatever we want them to be. Somehow, these big guys in tights fighting each other can encompass all genres. Some people once thought that a few flops (like, say, Green Lantern) meant that superhero movies were on their way out. But I think with The Avengers they’re hear to stay. Each time has it’s own genres. When my parents were kids, Westerns were on every screen. Maybe superhero movies are our westerns. I won’t tell you much about specific scenes or jokes or plot-points, but really, if you’re a geek, see this movie. It’s for us. It’s by us. This is our time.