Forever Geek |
- Dungeons and Dragons Cupcakes
- Tales Of Their Death May Be Greatly Exaggerated
- The Art of Tim Burton
- Call of Duty: Elite to Enhance Online Gaming
| Posted: 01 Jun 2011 04:30 AM PDT We at ForeverGeek are huge fans of cupcakes – especially geeky cupcakes. And what is geekier (or nerdier, perhaps) than Dungeons and Dragons? If you are looking for inspiration for your forays into the kitchen as a cupcake maker, there is no other place to look than Instructables, where there is a very comprehensive set of instructions on how to make Dungeons and Dragons cupcakes.1 These cupcakes do not rely on a specific cupcake recipe – the instructions actually leave the cupcake recipe all up to you. What will take some work is drawing figures from D&D (get someone to sketch for you if need be) and preparing and tracing the chocolate. The final products are as seen below.
I don’t know about you, but these cupcakes look too good to touch and eat! Then again, if you make a huge batch and save some for “viewing purposes”, you’ll be okay. If you are a real cupcake enthusiast – the kind that can actually bake cupcakes and design them – then you might also be interested in the Cupcake Contest that is running till the 19th of this month. All that you need to do is whip up a batch of your award-winning cupcakes and document each step. You need to upload photos or videos of the entire process in order to qualify. What’s at stake? An iPad2! Me – I am content to look at these wonderful creations and maybe grab one or two for a snack.
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| Tales Of Their Death May Be Greatly Exaggerated Posted: 01 Jun 2011 04:01 AM PDT
That of course is not withstanding their plans for same-day digital release of comics. Now, as a reader, I find myself in a quandary here. I feel like a dog with two bones, with my loyalties torn. Let’s take these reactions step by step. So, we can expect revamped characters “reflecting today’s real world themes and events”. Well, I’ve heard this before, and although I hope this will lead to a more racially diverse major cast (but new characters please, not just the traditional icons being given a tokenistic new skin colour), I fail to see why this requires a universe-wide reboot. Surely this is dependant on good stories being provided by good writers? Another reboot – AGAIN? Without another ten year gap? Infinite Crisis gave us an unfulfilled promise of the return of some pre-Crisis style stories, which other than Grant Morrison’s efforts and the recent ‘Sorcerer Kings’ arc in Superman/Batman, we have seen nothing of. What about the promised Earth-5 Captain Marvel? What happened to that then? Fans had been clamouring for the return of the older stories without sacrificing the newer material, yet once again DC has abandoned them. Let me spell this out. Continuity drives trade-paperback sales. We only have to look at Marvel’s success with this matter. In Marvel, everything counts, no matter how dire it was. It may be reinterpreted, but it counts. Why would a new reader want to read the Teen Titans’ Judas Contract now? Infinite Crisis re-established these stories relevence. What about the last few years? Do they count? Are we moving to another Earth, while the old one carries on in the background? Older readers like myself have been betrayed, AGAIN. And who but the older readers have enough cash to buy all fifty-two first issues? Additionally, I have mixed feeling about the same-day digital release. Yes, it opens the field to new fans, although trying to read a comic on a mobile phone seems to me like something would be missing. Now I love digital comics, they are so much easier to store, and my home no longer needs bookcases on every spare square foot of wall. Yet as a former comic shop manager, I feel betrayed again. They have been cut out of the loop, and will this lower the cost of purchase? If DC really wanted to preserve the comics store, then the digital comics release should maybe be rolled out in a network-marketing format. The local comic store is the agent, to whom a reader could sign up to, or even simpler, attribute sales according to post/zip code. You sign up for the comics through Comixology or whomever, input your location with your membership details, get introduced to your local store via your membership, and have the LCS gain a little something from each sale. This is in DC’s interest, it is far easier to browse a real store than flick through endless pages, and this could stimulate back issue and more importantly trade paperback sales. OK, business pundits will say ‘what precisely are the LCS adding to the process of digital distribution’? Other than advertising all upcoming events by their very existence, stimulating trade paperback sales, encouraging the growth of the community and helping provide brand loyalty? Oh, nothing much. They are only the backbone of the industry, and in business terms, spread the risk, rather than just relying on large chain stores. Your local comic shop more than likely opened due to a love of the medium. It certainly wasn’t with the plan to get rich. Having said all this, as a fan of the medium, I do look forward to the new incarnations. I simply wish that we didn’t have to lose the old (well, not that old) versions that we know and love.
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| Posted: 31 May 2011 04:31 PM PDT
If you’re in Los Angeles between now and the end of October, you should head over to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which is hosting the life work’s of visionary director Tim Burton, master of the gothic fairy tale. The art exhibition, which contains more than 700 pieces, has been shown in New York City, Melbourne, and Toronto, and now it’s landed in L.A. The Tim Burton retrospective contains all sorts of images, props, costumes, photos, puppets, and storyboards, including everything from handwritten ideas to Johnny Depp’s Edward Scissorhands costume. There are also tons of never-before-seen sketches and artworks from Burton’s personal collection, and when you enter the exhibit you’ll hear accompaniment from Danny Elfman’s music from Burton’s many movies. But even more than an art exhibit, it’s a complete examination of Burton’s life, split into three parts that show how he became one of the most unique and acclaimed entertainers of our time. For those who can’t make it to the L.A. exhibit, this website has dozens of photos of the pieces on display (though it only barely scratches the surface).
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| Call of Duty: Elite to Enhance Online Gaming Posted: 31 May 2011 02:06 PM PDT
It’s not a game, and it’s not an MMO. Activision‘s new Call of Duty Elite is an “online service,” similar to Halo‘s Waypoint or Bungie.net, enhancing gamers’ multiplayer experience within the CoD franchise and offering expert tips and endless interactive features for the hardcore faithful. The idea behind Elite is that while players already spend a large part of their daily free time playing CoD online, this huge community has no networking tools to take full advantage of that experience. And players will be able to access CoDE from not only their game console but from the Web and mobile devices like their iPhone or Android phone. One of the key features of the new service is the ability to create and join clans and groups, so that you can play against other community members of equal skill, or even your friends or demographic group. Activision plans to schedule regular events and competitions for Elite members, and another tier of the service will provide players with in-depth coaching and strategizing on how to improve their performance. Stats will be tracked dynamically — across all future Call of Duty titles, starting with Modern Warfare 3 — so that you can see for yourself how your performance improves or declines, what your strengths are, what you should work harder at developing, and so on. A beta for Call of Duty Elite will take place this summer (sign up here), in preparation for the service’s full launch alongside Modern Warfare 3 in November.
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