I went to my first renaissance faire 14 years ago. I lived in Ohio at the time, and I went to the Southern Ohio Renaissance Festival. It started each year in August and lingered into October weekends. On my first trip I fell in love with the costumes, the shopping, the food and mead, the atmosphere, and The Swordsmen. I made it a point to see their show twice. I loved the contrast between going in the blaze of the August sun with humidity soaking the air and then attending in October wrapped in a warm cloak and lining up for hot chocolate. I had opening weekend marked on my calendar at least six months out.
I get a lot of raised eyebrows when I spill my weekend plans for the faire though. This isn’t unusual, but the stereotypes people hold about renaissance festivals and faires are surprising. I hear a few topics that come up repeatedly:
[click to continue…]
If the Mayans are correct, doomsday is scheduled for Dec. 21, 2012. That gives you less than two years to get ready. Good thing I’ve gathered many of the tools and equipment you will need to survive, right here in this list.
Sure, rational human beings might disregard this as nonsense — but it never hurts to cover your bases. I mean, if George Lucas believes it could happen, it stands to reason that he already has a gased-up Millennium Falcon in his backyard, ready to blast him off to another galaxy. The question is, how will you prepare?
[click to continue…]
You’d think I would have traveled by the Floo network to visit Whimsic Alley, a Harry Potter fan’s dream store. Alas, I just parked at the first available meter. I’ll work on apparating for next time.
Though many think that Whimsic Alley is just an online retailer, it is so much more. Their enchanting retail location is nestled among the museums and stores of the Miracle Mile area in Los Angeles. An actual size Dobby looks out at you from a large window display. You see witch and wizard robes, books, candy, and a mandrake among other decorations in the storefront. There was already a lot to look at before I even entered. I was excited to go in, but not before I carefully examined everything in the windows. By the time I finished, I was practically bouncing up and down with joy. I walked through the front door and squeaked. Or maybe it was a squee. I’m sure I’m not the first person to have this reaction.
[click to continue…]
From CubicleBot: Many of the following gadgets will make you more productive and organized at the office, but they will also make you warmer, thinner and more intimidating with noticeably whiter teeth. If that isn’t a combination for upper management I don’t know what is.
[click to continue…]
The latest book in publisher Quirk Classics’ line of literary mashups comes to us courtesy of author Ben H. Winters, the same man behind another mashup classic: Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. This time, his daunting task was to take Leo Tolstoy’s 19th century novel Anna Karenina, regarded by many to be the best novel ever written, and somehow turn it into a book with robots, cyborgs and interplanetary travel without ruining the essence of the original story.
Amazingly, Winters managed to pull this off and tell a pretty damn good science fiction story in the process. He also managed to spark in me a insatiable desire to one day own a companion robot, because if they ended up being anything like the ones featured in Android Karenina that would totally kick ass.
[click to continue…]
If you have a favorite robot from a movie or television series, chances are it has been reproduced and offered for sale at some point. Here are nine examples of insanely expensive, giant replicated robots that you could actually own.
[click to continue…]
Summer is coming, and if your family or significant other is planning on dragging you away from all your modern conveniences in order to spend a week camping in the woods, you’ll need some crafty gadgets to pass the time. Here are 10 examples that will help.
[click to continue…]
When I say “shouldn’t”, I’m not sayin’ it’s wrong. In fact, these 13 bacon-flavored products may be oh so right.
[click to continue…]
Seth Grahame-Smith’s Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has started something of a phenomenon out of shoehorning monsters in contexts where they clearly don’t belong—a phenomenon that publishers have been quick to capitalize on. Generally, you would expect that cranking out material in this fashion would lead to some pretty horrible reads, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised with both Grahame-Smith’s follow-up Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, as well as Steve Hockensmith’s Dawn of the Dreadfuls prequel.
[click to continue…]
