Sunday, May 31, 2009

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Fonts Matter

Nodding my head vigorously in agreement to this. Book design matters, y'all! A font can make or break your reading experience.

(Via Bookninja)

But Where's The Little Han?

WANT! The question, though, is... does it smell authentic?

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Music Confessions

Take away my gay card, because I'm just totally over Madonna's nonsense.

I actually like Fergie. Her songs are stupid, but they're just pop, and pop is kinda stupid by definition. I think she can sing, though, and anyone who can overcome a meth addiction, snag Josh Duhamel, and maintain an outrageously ripped body (I want her abs) deserves some respect. Plus, she's Stacy from Kids, Inc.!

Mariah Carey can't sing. She can caterwaul, but she can't sing.

I don't actually think Beyonce is very attractive.

Why did the women of the 1960s go insane for The Beatles as sex symbols? Dudes were ugly!

Monday, May 25, 2009

2500 Ways To Say Nothing

If you can believe it, this is the 2500th post on Bourgeois Nerd. In December, we'll celebrate our fifth year of publishing. (I'm already preparing the retrospective for said anniversary.) Twenty-five hundred posts and four a half years of my nonsense? It's a wonder the Internet is still here.

Anyway, YAY! and thank you to my tens and tens of lovely readers; without you, I would never have had the strength to go on. (So you know who to blame for all this, now.) Soon, hopefully, we'll have a new, improved look and it'll all be onwards and upwards! Or, at least, mediocre and banal, as usual.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

One Of The World's Conundrums

What irony from the gods, what quirk of evolution, what sheer cosmic perversity has instilled in humans the propensity to turn into cooing piles of goo upon seeing even the most predatory animals, such as lions, due to sheer cutness? I know there's research that says that we've evolved an "Awww!" response to babies (something to do with the proportions of eyes to head and head to body and such) to make us more prone to protect and nurture the little horrors, and that's probably why certain animals, pandas for instance, are so incredibly cute to us, but does that explain why we find adult lions and bears and whales, and even certain kinds of reptiles and fish and even invertebrates, adorable?

Skimpy Sunday











(Via Jason Curious [NSFW]; Bill in Exile [NSFW]; Roids and Rants [NSFW]; Hot Flash [NSFW])

Friday, May 22, 2009

Star Trek

I wasn't going to write about Star Trek, because everyone has already seen and commented on it, but then I felt guilty, that I was shirking my duty as one of the Internet's most preeminent nerds (just got with it), so here are my thoughts.

In short: I liked it. Finally, a Star Trek with some hot mancandy on display!

I mean, seriously, the women on Star Trek have always been hot, but the men? Eh, not so much. I mean, Riker? Harry Kim? Odo? Tom Paris? Yick. I mean, yeah, Picard and Sisko are hot if you like stentorian voices and bald heads, but they're not eyecandy. Meanwhile, Chris Pine? HAWT! Those blue eyes make you tingly. And he totally gets half-naked and shows off his basket! (What's really funny is that I swear they're a pair of 2(X)ist carbon fiber trunks. I see them in email ads I get. Just about the gayest underwear ever.) The new Chekhov? Twinkilicious! He can pilot my "wessal" anytime! The new Bones is Karl Urban: Caesar/Hermes from Xena! Zach Quinto's hot, and I've always thought John Cho was cute. The U.S.S. Kelvin was well named, too, because its crew got my temperature rising, George Kirk and Indian-Picard chief among them. (Kudos to the casting director, BTW, on Kirk pere; he really looked like someone who could be related to Chris Pine.) And Eric Bana always brings the beefcake. He looked surprisingly good bald and pointy-eared. Talk about your tribal tatoos, too! Probably had a barbed wire one around his bicep.

I've heard some complain that Engineering just looked like a factory (and that's probably where they shot). I wasn't bugged by that, because TOS Engineering was very industrial, too.

Tyler Perry as the head of Starfleet or the Academy or whatever? All I'll say is that apparently, in the future, we still wax our eyebrows.

Some say, "But it's not Star Trek! It doesn't have a message, it's just a big dumb action movie!" To which I say: first, the Trek movies aren't messagey like the shows are, anyway. Second, I do think there was a message (besides, "Kirk is awesome!"), about grief and how we deal with it, the contrast being Nero and Spock and Kirk.

If that age makeup is an accurate picture of how Winona Ryder is going to look in twenty years, girlfriend should call herself very, very lucky.

J.J. Abrams, as everyone else has noted, needs to step away from the lens flares and the "people on the edge of an abyss, hanging on by a finger."

I admired the use of incidental music, of all things. Not only was it pretty, but I think it was utilized with a touch of restraint and propriety that a lot of movies don't have. Sometimes it overpowers, instead of enhances, movies, but not this time.

Did anyone else keep having to remind themselves that Sarek wasn't being played by James Cromwell? Because that actor really, really looks like James Cromwell. They didn't alter the timeline so much that Zefram Cochrane suddenly got a bowl cut!

Favorite bit of fan-service: the mention of Admiral Archer's beagle. Seriously, Porthos was the best damn thing about Enterprise.

About the whole "alternate reality" thing? I'm totally cool with it. It's a well-established concept in the Trek universe that keeps the old stuff as it was but lets the new stuff go wherever it may. It really was the best solution.

Can't wait for the next one!

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Sci-Fi Confessions

I don't think Dune is really all that good a book.

I like the Ewoks, and have no problem believing they beat the Empire. First, it was one battle, on their home terrain, with the element of surprise. Second, they did have some Rebel help. Third, there was a big space battle going on overhead, with the Emperor and Darth Vader busy with Luke. If the Empire been able to pay attention, the Ewoks would totally have been toast, but as it is, it's really not all that mind-boggling that they beat them. And, I'm sorry, I think they're cute.

I really don't think David Tennant was all that great a Doctor. Frankly, I found him irritating, twee, and ticky.

Even weeks after the fact, I still feel betrayed and bewildered about the Battlestar Galactica finale. Why, Ronald D. Moore, whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?!?

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Monday, May 11, 2009

Suggestion Box

As has been the case for... well, probably almost as long as this blog has existed, plans are currently in the works for a Bourgeois Nerd makeover. We've hit a few snags and detours and had a few brokedown-and-abandonment-by-the-side-of-the-road-with-a-white-towel-in-the-windows, but it actually looks like we're closer to the goal than ever before. Therefore, before our last big push, I wanted to get the input of you, the tens and tens of you beautiful readers, on Bourgeois Nerd's new look. I won't promise any suggestions will actually be incorporated, but I'm always open to a good idea, and would love to hear everyone's thoughts. Leave a comment or shoot me an email!

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

"I AM Big! It's The Dog Parks That Got Small!"

Chanel is the world's oldest dog at 21 (thought she doesn't look a day over 19). Somehow, I'm sure there's a dog older out there, but it's a cute story anyway.

(Via Towleroad)

Tuesday, May 05, 2009

I Prefer To Be Called A TREKKER, If You Please! *Adjusts Pocket Protector, Coke-Bottle Glasses With Tape In Middle*

Trekkies bash new film as "fun, watchable."

I admit to being enough of a fanboy (though really more of TNG and "modern" Trek than the Original Series) to have been very, very leery of this new movie. I don't like prequels in general anyway (I mean, WE KNOW WHAT HAPPENS ALREADY), and we not that long ago lived through the disaster that was Enterprise, so another trip to the "past," where everything looks a few centuries more advanced than it did forty years ago and mini-skirts have made a surprising comeback, so I was not all that keen to see this movie. But the more I've seen and heard, the better it's looked, and now I'm actually not only planning to see it, but kinda looking forward to it. (It doesn't hurt that there are actually a lot of cute guys in it. Trek hasn't always been overfilled with the mancandy, you know. I mean, Riker? Data? Please.)

Monday, May 04, 2009

May The 4th Be With You!

Happy Star Wars Day, everyone! Feel free to peruse Bourgeois Nerd's Star Wars archives in celebration!

Sunday, May 03, 2009