Celebrate Your Geekdom
from The Legend of Neil:
Neil lovers, the fun continues as Neil enters the store and finds much more danger than he bargained for! Check out the second episode here! Catch up on the first episode if you haven’t caught it yet (is that even possible?!) For up-to-the-second reports, contests and other goodies be sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, or RSS. Oh and buy an official Legend of Neil t-shirt. It goes a long way to helping us get you more of what you love, more Neil!
Come see Cinematic Titanic Live! For more info visit Live Tour.
Violet
Official Nabaztag Website
Adopt a Rabbit
This gifted robot moves his ears, speaks 36 languages, reads, listens, his body lights up and he even detects the presence of other objects (by sniffing them). As he is permanently connected to the Internet, he can act, react, transmit or broadcast many types of content available over his network, news, messages, music, text, alerts, radio, etc.
He can hear you, obey your commands and even recognize things you give him to sniff.
Reading out books, or interacting with objects thus ushering in the pioneering of the RFID revolution are new skills Nabaztag:tag has acquired, adding to his multiple existing talents.
When connected to the Internet this marvellous Rabbit has infinite potential.
The first Nabaztag was born in 2005. He has since become an Icon for the new era of the Internet of Things.
from StarWars.com:
There is one week left to go in the Empire Muggs Back charity auction — a chance for you to score a fanastic one-of-a-kind piece of Star Wars art, while also helping out The Make-a-Wish Foundation.
Artists, comic book creators, toy designers, and celebrity fans have used their markers, paint brushes and glue guns to transform blank versions of Hasbro’s distinctive Mighty Muggs toys into unique pieces of Star Wars art.
These highly-collectible urban vinyl toys have been available in a variety of characters from Star Wars and Indiana Jones, among other comic book and film franchises. For this special project, called The Empire Muggs Back, Lucasfilm asked popular artists, comics book creators, toy designers and celebrity fans to take blank Mighty Muggs (donated by Hasbro) and transform them into their favorite Star Wars characters, scenes, ships and more.
“StarWars.com wanted to show off the talents of artists and fans, who represent a wide-range of artistic disciplines, in an unique way while raising money for a good cause we have long supported,” said Bill Gannon, Director of Online Operations at Lucasfilm Ltd.
Among the artists contributing to the project is Supervising Director of The Clone Wars animated series, Dave Filoni. “I have met several Make-A-Wish families due to my involvement in The Clone Wars and I have seen first-hand what a difference a little kindness can make for people,” he said. “It is a great privilege to get to be involved in a project like this, which combines my love of Star Wars with helping others. It’s the Jedi way after all.”
Over 60 one-of-a-kind customized Mighty Muggs toys are up for auction through August 14. To find out more about this project as well as see all the pieces and enter the auction, visit StarWars.com’s page dedicated to The Empire Muggs Back here.
Make-A-Wish Foundation grants the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions to enrich the human experience with hope, strength and joy. The Foundation is now the largest wish-granting charity in the world, with 65 chapters in the United States and its territories. With the help of generous donors and nearly 25,000 volunteers, the Make-A-Wish Foundation grants a wish every 40 minutes and has granted more than 180,000 wishes in the United States since inception. For more information about the Make-A-Wish Foundation, visit http://wish.org. To give to the Make-A-Wish Foundation and help courageous children experience their most heartfelt wishes, please visit our Giving Section.
from Weta:
Hey Weta fans,
This time I would like to draw your attention to a beautiful trailer for Peter Jackson’s upcoming movie The Lovely Bones. Weta helped out with design and specialty props as well as digital visual effects for the movie. We’re really looking forward to the release of the movie in December. See the trailer here! Enjoy!
In the News:
We are incredibly proud and pleased to finally be “back in Middle-earth” again and we’re full of anticipation of exciting times ahead. So, without further ado, we declare our range of Miniature Shields from The Lord of the Rings open for Pre-order!
New Products:
Running Out:
The Dragon’s Gold has been found!
The Hunt for Dragon’s Gold at Comic-Con was a race down to the wire. In fact, it was so close, it was a dead heat. The two winners were Jared Sarajian and Jeff Cox. The hunt was announced by Richard Taylor at the panel organized by our good friends at TORn (theonering.net). It took them just 45 minutes to decipher the series of clues placed around the Convention Hall. Read more!
This is how you find us online!
http://fans.wetaNZ.com/Magnus/ | Twitter: @wetaworkshop | Facebook: Weta Workshop
from The Guild:
We’ve been very busy since Comic-Con getting Season 3 ready for launch, but we wanted to catch up anyone who didn’t manage to meet us down there on what happened!
First, we had a booth and met probably thousands of fans over the weekend! Thanks to each and every person who stopped by the booth or waited patiently in line to meet us, we were overwhelmed with all the support! Web video is hard work with low pay, so meeting fans is the thing that gets us through the solitary-behind-the-computer months. We met tons of people; check out lots of awesome photos in our Flickr Guild Group.
Xbox, our sponsor, treated us to a party on Thursday night with Beatles Rock Band and 50 lucky fans who completed our scavenger hunt got to attend with us! It was a very fun “easter egg” evening.
Next, we had a completely sold-out crowd for our Friday Morning panel, where we screened our bonus Music Video and Episode 1 of Season 3. We surprised attendees with appearing IN OUR AVATAR COSTUMES. 😀 It was quite a thrill for us and we know the audience enjoyed it! Also, we revealed that Wil Wheaton will be appearing as a Guest Star in Season 3, and there will be a Guild Comic being made with Dark Horse Comics so it was an hour full of surprises. We wish every single one of our fans could have been there with us.
Here are links to The Guild Panel (minus the two videos screening) in 6 parts!
Panel Part 1
Panel Part 2
Panel Part 3
Panel Part 4
Panel Part 5
Panel Part 6
All of us had a fantastic time in San Diego, but we’re already back to work! We’re launching our Music Video, “Do You Wanna Date My Avatar” on Xbox Live Monday, August 10th, and excitingly the video will go everywhere on the 17th, embeddable and purchasable as a video and a song! After that, Season 3 will launch to Gold Xbox members on August 25th and then on MSN/Zune on the 1rst of September, rolling out every week throughout the fall. We hope you enjoy, it’s gonna be a bigger season that we’ve ever tried before!
Also, we have more convention appearances lined up in the coming weeks, so subscribe to our RSS, fan us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to stay up to date! 🙂
from ElfQuest:
Just got word that the first draft of the Elfquest screenplay is perhaps two-thirds, three-quarters of the way finished and we’re aiming to have a look at it by the end of the month. And because he’s feeling that the beast is finally coming under control (and because he’s that kind of sweetheart) director/screenwriter Rawson Thurber has made an offer exclusively to the readers of the Scroll of Colors. Here’s how he put it in a recent email to Wendy:
“What do you think about doing some kind of 10-question thing with the EQ community? You & Richard invite the community to submit their questions about the film adaptation and you guys select which ten you’d like me to answer. I type up my response. You guys dole out the answers one a week (or however you see fit).”
We think it’s a stellar idea, so here we go! I’ve created a new topic in the Scroll of Colors here.
There are some ground rules, which I as nastybad admin-thing will enforce.
1) This topic will be locked (just as “Ask Elfmom” was). Every so often (Rawson suggests every week; we’ll fine-tune that as we go) I will post a question that one of you has asked, along with his response. You’re free to discuss answers in other threads over in “Thunder and Skyfire” but we’ll keep this topic neat and organized.
2) Only questions submitted via private message within the EQ forum will be considered. This is easy to do; just click on the PM button at the bottom of any of my posts and off you go.
3) You may ask as often as you want but we will almost certainly only choose one question per person. Rawson may decide he wants to take on more than ten. On the other hand, he may also discover he can only answer a few, depending on his workload. We want to give a chance to as many different voices as possible.
4) You may ask anything you want but we will choose which questions to forward to Rawson. Hint: the more general, the better. “How do you make your choices what to keep and what to cut?” is more interesting than “Are you going to keep the scene in Book 3 where Lord Voll sneezes?”
It may take a few days for questions to come in and for Rawson to craft his replies, so keep checking back! Ayoooah!
Shade and sweet town meeting fun,
Richard Pini
I logged into MySpace today (something I avoid as much as possible) and had a friend request from Requiem for Delinquency. I followed the link for the obligatory “check it out before denying it” glance and was wowed by what I heard. What I had expected to be my usual 5-minute check of my messages before going on to other more important things that demanded my time and attention has now turned into over five hours of listening to streaming music on requiemfordelinquency.com while trying to find things to keep me busy at my computer so I can keep listening.
I’m the kind of person who listens to things on repeat for days, and sometimes weeks or months, on end. I get something under my skin and it just stays there. Unlike many people whose favorite things are constantly changing, once I become passionate about something, it becomes a permanent fixture in my life. My very first CDs were Enya‘s Watermark and Kitaro‘s Kojiki. Twenty years later, I’m still listening to those CDs on a weekly basis. I can see Requiem for Delinquency becoming another permanent fixture in my musical rotation.
Hobs End is the first album from composer Chance Morrison, who self-produced the project rather then trying to get the big labels to back him, and his grassroots approach seems to be working for him. It’s hard to put a genre label on the music as it is primarily electronica but is not as high octane as techno and trance or low octane as new age or chill. Each song has a unique hook to it (sound samples or effects), but the beat remains fairly consistent. While there are some faster tracks on the album it is balanced overall in mood (somewhat somber and sensual), making it the perfect dance selection for when the night is winding down but you aren’t ready to quit moving yet.
Some elements of Hobs End remind me of Bill Leeb projects such as Delerium and Fauxliage, but laced with Morrison’s own vocals rather than the sultry sirens who play guest vocalists in Leeb’s music. Requiem for Delinquency is the kind of electronica music you might find on a Six Degrees or Nettwerk label. (I’ll buy anything they release.) In other words, it may be self-produced but it sounds like a studio-backed production. Some tracks are similar to, but have more synth than, Robert Miles and Enigma compositions, but are not as heavily reliant on synth as Tangerine Dream or Vangelis tend to be.
I’m really searching for a way to describe Morrison’s voice but the only word I can think of is breathy. He almost whispers in a laid-back or mournful way that reminds me of Depeche Mode or Duran Duran. I say mournful because, listening to the lyrics, Morrison seems to be questioning the reality and depth of daily interactions, the life, love and experiences that we share with others. Sound bites from films and television shows call to mind images and ideas and then explore them. For example, in the track “The Work of Science” a sound bite from the classic science fiction film The Brain That Wouldn’t Die declares, “My eyes are deceiving me” and “What you see is real. What’s done is done and what I’ve done is right. It’s the work of science.” Then Morrison sings the refrain, “Will we remember what was real?”
Overall, the album is layered with rich sounds from a variety of instruments, both traditional and electronic. While his selection of instruments may be contemporary, the arrangement and use of them is similar to a classical composition and takes you on a journey of the mind. While Hobs End doesn’t have a signature sound to it that screams “Chance Morrison made me!”, it certainly stands out from the monotonous droning of most new electronica music. If you are a fan of Six Degrees or Nettwerk artists, do yourself a favor and check out Requiem for Delinquency.
You can purchase Hobs End at your local Barnes & Noble and Best Buy. If you prefer to shop online, you can buy the compact disc or download Hobs End at Amazon.com.
Requiem for Delinquency Links:
Official Website
MySpace Page
Facebook Page
YouTube Channel
When the show concept for Stargate Universe was first mentioned, I envisioned Lost in Space 90210, but this trailer actually has me excited. It’s more like Battlestar Galactica meets The Poseidon Adventure. I’m hopeful. Very hopeful.
Check it out in high quality at the Official Stargate Website.
Codex meets her new neighbor. The guys and girls of The Guild dish in separate channels.
from A&E Home Entertainment and The Jim Henson Company:
When a freak accident during an experimental space mission catapulted Astronaut John Crichton (Ben Browder) across a thousand galaxies to an alien battlefield, a groundbreaking cult classic was born with the epic, adventure-filled TV series Farscape. On November 17, the award-winning fan favorite show, which ran from 1999-2003 on Sci Fi and was named by TV Guide as one of television’s best cult shows ever, will commemorate its 10th Anniversary with the very first complete packaging of the series. Featuring all 88 episodes on 25 discs, with original aspect ratios (4×3 for Seasons 1-3, anamorphic 16×9 widescreen for Season 4) and 5.1 surround sound, Farscape: The Complete Series Megaset delivers the venerated program to its legions of loyal fans and a new generation for the collectible price of $149.95srp.
An imaginative fusion of live action, state-of-the-art puppetry, prosthetics and CGI, Farscape, produced by The Jim Henson Company in association with RHI Entertainment, featured mind-boggling alien life forms, dazzling special effects, edge-of-your-seat thrills, irreverent humor and unforgettable characters — all brought to rich life by the creative minds at Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. Strap in and hold on tight for the extraordinary adventures of John Crichton, as he finds himself surrounded by hostile aliens and soaring through the cosmos aboard Moya, a glorious living space ship. Hunted by the relentless Peacekeepers, he allies himself with Moya’s crew — Aeryn Sun (Claudia Black), Luxan warrior Ka D’Argo (Anthony Simcoe), azure priestess Zhaan (Virginia Hey), spritely Nebari thief Chiana (Gigi Edgley), Dominar Rygel, the deposed royal ruler of the Hynerian Empire and Pilot — to search for a way out of this inconceivably alien world and return home.
Farscape: The Complete Series Megaset contains amazing surprises, including over 15 hours of bonus programming:
In addition to the complete Megaset, on November 17, Farscape will also be available in single season sets. Each re-packaged DVD release in Farscape: The Complete Seasons 1-4 will feature over 18 hours of interstellar entertainment — 22 episodes on six jam-packed discs filled with hours of revealing bonus materials — for $44.95srp.
Prepare for Starburst!
