by AJ Focht

School is back in session and this is your chance to grab that nerdy guy (or geeky girl) that you missed out on last year. But before you rush in head first there are a few things you should know.

While Bob Suicide has been helping all you geeks get down with the right look (and smell!), I thought I would go a step further and offer tips for those of you who are perhaps contemplating dating a nerd for the first time. First of all, bear in mind the rules and rituals of geek bonding are very different from those that apply when you’re dating a member of the general population. Nerds tend to be a bit more, let’s admit it, eccentric than, well, normal people. What makes us nerds so great is that we fully commit ourselves to a project, or video game, or whatever – in the extreme. This can also be a drawback if you are not well versed in the ways of nerdom. Some of our habits, hobbies, and even speech can come off wrong if you are not privy to the way of the nerd.

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by Fred Topel

“I love the Suicide Girls. I like Radeo.”
– Jason Schwartzman, actor

Jason Schwartzman loves the SuicideGirls. He called out his favorite by name and even mentioned another one by her signature tattoo. It makes sense that he’d be so cultured, coming from the Coppola family. They have high class tastes in film, music and even fine wine (try the Coppola shiraz. It’s delightful.)

Alternative beauty is especially relevant to Schwartzman’s latest movie. In Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World, Scott (Michael Cera) has to fight his new girlfriend’s seven evil exes. Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) expresses a lot of SuicideGirls qualities, the way she dresses and her different hair colors (three hair changes in the film), though no visible tattoos. We’ll assume they’re in the director’s cut.

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By Edward Kelly

It starts innocently enough. A woman with red hair and a nervous smile sits in a non-descript room where the lighting is perfunctory at best. Behind her the wall is textured and yellow-ish. The woman rifles through an off-camera plastic bag. She holds up a receipt showing that the product in the bag was purchased recently (if memory serves, the timestamp on the receipt read August 30, 2010, around 2:45 p.m.).

The video is eight minutes long and therefore above average for something on YouTube. I’ve described the first minute or so because, since I saw it, the woman in the video, Karen Alloy (a popular YouTube vlogger with the user name “Spricket24”), has changed the settings and the video is now logged as private. If the description above sounds downright banal, well, that’s because it is. In fact if it weren’t for the title I would’ve bailed on it after the first 15 seconds. But the title of this video is “How To Take A Pregnancy Test” and thus I am in it for the long haul.

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by Brett Warner

They call it “loss prevention”- an attempt to minimize shrinkage, shoplifting, and all other sorts of profit loss. Standing behind a computer screen, fake smiles all around, the word “Information” hanging like a halo over your head… it’s easy to start thinking about things you’ve lost along the way. A soccer mom asks for the Self Help section and like a prized show dog, you walk to her through the aisles, handing her a copy of He’s Just Not That Into You with a chipper “Have a good day!” the first of hundreds you’ll give out before closing time. The truth is that you silently hate this woman, and the next customer, and the next. You hate her because you never planned on selling books for a living. And each query, each title search, each cash register transaction is a blunt reminder of what’s gone missing, of what little there is left. Management worries about lost product – a bookseller worries about losing themselves.

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by Andrew E. Konietzky

This week I had a great round-table discussion with friends concerning the state of new media and the changing world around us. Being a writer and podcaster, I have long been a supporter of CC. Whoops! I may have to give a bit of a refresher course first: Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that works to increase the amount of creativity (cultural, educational and scientific content) in “the commons” – the body of work that is available to the public for free and legal sharing, uses, re-purposing and remixing. So I sat down to do a bit of research for my benefit and to show I am not created just out of cheesy films, zombies and strange culture. Well, actually I am, but I do have a stake in this changing world of media.

The world is now a hyper-expanding WikiNation, with information flowing back and forth faster than ever before. Plug in your cranial jack and download the info-burst on this documentary from the global networks. Rip: A Remix Manifesto, in which web activist and filmmaker Brett Gaylor explores issues of copyright in the information age, mashing up the media landscape of the 20th century and shattering the wall between users and producers. He is also the web producer of HomelessNation.org, a web project dedicated to bridging the digital divide and allowing everyone to participate in online culture. Brett is one of Canada’s first video bloggers and has been working with youth and media for over 10 years, and is a founding instructor of the Gulf Islands Film and Television School.

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by Damon Martin

“Save the cheerleader, save the world”

It seemed like such a winnable premise. A comic book come to life on the small screen, with genuine comic book writers being an integral part of it all, and a television network willing to sink time, money and production into the series to make sure it’s a winner. That’s the beginning that was the hit series Heroes, which soon became the dwindling ratings show Heroes, and is now the canceled TV show Heroes. How did a show with so much promise and critical acclaim become such a superpowered fail for NBC??

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by Brett Warner

My younger brother used to play softball and during the games, I would wander about the nearby train tracks or bum around in the small playground. (My main concern that summer was whether Agent Mulder could really be dead — he wasn’t, though in retrospect it might have been wiser for my then favorite show to go out while it was still ahead.) One day, there was another young kid on the swing set and he had this small, red, egg-shaped video game on a key chain. It had a funny name and my fifth grade eyes glazed over as he explained how the thing worked. “These are gonna be the next Beanie Babies,” he promised. I think I probably told him that was stupid. Shows what I know.

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