I’m sure by the time I finish writing and coding this post, it will not be, as the title says, early morning, but I’m claiming artistic immunity. Or something.
- I’ve only heard through the grapevine about the ‘Fake Geek Girls’ article posted on Forbes, mainly because I didn’t want to raise my blood pressure any higher than it already was, but on my morning travels through the blogosphere I found a great rebuttal to the article on Sexy Videogameland. Even the comments are readable, well thought out, and full of rational discourse rather than the typical “no u suk!11!!!!!!!1”
- I stumbled upon (Not StumbledUpon) Magnet Stories’ Valentine’s Day post discussing relationships and dating in the golden age of social media. In a world where society encourages you to follow all of your friends (and many of your enemies as well – what’s that old saying about keeping enemies closer?) on every social media platform available, you can often find yourself knowing much more than you realize about a potential partner after only one date, which takes away much of the thrill of getting to know someone. Technology has its advantages and disadvantages, as this blog post clearly talks about. There’s still much to learn about the effects of social media and the internet on relationships of all kinds, not just romantic or sexual ones, and this post definitely brings up some good points that should be studied and expanded on in the future.
- Last week, I purchased tickets to see the second revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Evita, starring Elena Roger, Ricky Martin, and Michael Cerveris. “True Musical Fans,” who often think along the same lines as the “Real Geeks” discussed in the article above, will probably throw their noses in the air (much like the upper class detractors of Eva in this musical), but I am a fan of Mr. Webber’s music. Always have been, and probably always will be, no matter what When I found out about Evita’s return to Broadway, I was overjoyed to imagine I might get the chance to see one of my top five favorite musicals on stage. Did it live up to my expectations? In four words, oh my god yes. Entertainment Weekly reviewed the production about a week ago, touching on many of the facts about this new production that I find especially interesting. Most interesting, perhaps, is the Broadway debut of actor Elena Roger, the first Argentinean to take the title role in a major production. She adds her own special something to role, a certain flair that wasn’t there in performances before. That certain flair is certainly aided by a new orchestration which adds a more Argentinean sound to the production. If you’re in the area, I’d recommend you go see the production on those notes alone, but I can’t end this paragraph without both a nod to Ricky Martin and Michael Cerveris. Martin’s take on Che, the everyman foil to Eva, is wonderful, full of contradiction, good looks, charisma, and a surprising maturity. He’s definitely come a long way from his boyband/pop singer years. Cerveris is the piece of the puzzle I was most worried about, but he tackles the roll of Juan Perón very well. Eva and Perón’s duet “I’d be Surprisingly Good For You” was one of my favorite parts of the show, and my heart went out to Perón during the last songs of the musical as Eva dies. (Whoops, spoiler alert? Although I’m not quite sure if spoiler alerts are necessary for actual historical events, especiall considering the musical begins with the news of Eva’s death.)
- QR Codes: Not Just For The Uber Geeks. The title says it all. Those squiggly little bar codes you’re starting to see on every surface ever out in public are called QR codes, and I’m a big fan of them. Their biggest draw is as an easy way to grab information from somewhere to store it. From URL’s to contact or event information, as long as you have a QR Code reader (something easily downloaded to your smartphone), you can read it. I even put one on my personal business card which links to my online website and portfolio. I have a feeling QR codes only going to get bigger as more people start using them and more uses are devised, so go play around with them.
- Marvel’s Nextwave is the Rocky Horror Picture Show of comics. It doesn’t sing, it doesn’t star Tim Curry, and the entire main cast of characters doesn’t crossdress (although one character has an entire closet full of dresses…), but it is one of the greatest cult hit comics in Marvel’s history. The great guys over at Multiversity Comics do a great job at fancasting, so I was excited to see they’d tackled Nextwave as their next project. Even more so when I completely agreed with their choices. I would totally watch this movie, as long as the Official Nextwave Theme Song was used.
Fannish Potpourri 