Friday September 6th, 2013
Weeksauce brings you all the news in geekery, genre fiction, and nerdy celebrities you may have missed this week while you were knife-fighting an En’teran gang leader on Takron-Galtos. With a huge heaping dose of snark and more than a little yellow journalism, Weeksauce is here to educate/patronize you and the things you love.
Movies
Star Wars Casting News Sort of Not Really
Let’s kick off this week’s “Weeksauce” column with what is VERY LIKELY nonsense. However, if you have a humor for some rumor, here we go!
Nerd whisperer and director J.J. Abrams, as you know, is hard at work trying to make people not hate Star Wars again. The reputable(?) website showbiz411.com is reporting a casting call that went out in New York this week that they claim is for the new Star Wars flicks. The casting call that went out didn’t specify what movie exactly, but it did say that it was a film directed by J.J. Abrams and produced by Disney.
Which is maybe . . . yeah yeah, it’s fucking Star Wars. Anyway, here’s what a few characters in the movie may or may not look/be like. You know, maybe.
[YOUNG MAN] Early 20s. Handsome, but not necessarily heroic. He is witty and smart. Physically fit.
[MAN] Late 20s. Physically fit, handsome and confident.
[YOUNG WOMAN] Late teens. Physically fit, raw energy, independent and with a great sense of humor.
So basically they’re looking for Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Princess Leia.
Batman and Riddick, the Dynamic Duo
Vin “Crazyknives” Diesel is out promoting the newest installment in the always surprisingly-entertaining Riddick series. During an on-camera interview with “Clevver Movies,” the adorable sparkplug interviewing him asked him what he thought about the recent casting of Ben Affleck as little-known indie movie hero “Batman.” Vin Diesel proceeded to instantly facepalm, rubbing his eyes in fatigue and remarkably-contained annoyance. He then scoffed and answered with: “I don’t give a fuck about Batman, or who plays Batman.”
BUuuuUUUURN!
Actors with incoming movies do a lot of these interviews, one after another, and their obvious weariness increases as the questions get dumber. It’s the same reason Bruce Willis was a dick to an interviewer a few weeks ago (that, and Bruce Willis is a dick). Vin Diesel at least tried a half-hearted attempt to be charming about it, and immediately added “Let Ben do whatever he wants. He got an Oscar, give him some credit. Leave him alone.”
See the video yourself here.
Music
What The Hell Does the Fox Say?
So, you might have been thinking to yourself: “Man, it has been ages since the last Norwegian music group made a music video about foxes.” Well, I have good news for you! The wait is finally over with “The Fox,” the completely underwhelming, deceptive title to the shitstorm of wacky on the other end of the “play” button below. Go ahead, click in. I know that feeling when you’re reading an article and you’re like, “Duuuude, I’m not in the mood to watch whatever stupid video you found. I came here for text and pictures, Chubbly, so I’m skipping – ”
Don’t. Don’t skip the video. I’d beg you, but I don’t do that. I’d demand, but it seems mean. So I shall, ahem, entreat you to view this particular video. This is good for you. Trust me.
Those two guys with the vulpine fascination are Bård Ylvisåker and Vegard Ylvisåker, of the Norwegian band, “Ylvis.” And that is the fourth strangest sentence I’ve ever typed. I could describe the video, but I don’t see the point. It starts with a simple question, and it goes all Costa Rica from there.
Games
Old People Steal Young Brains
Scientists are playing with the brain again, sticking their “rules” and their “curiosity” deep inside the squidgy pink hamburger jello we keep inside our skullbones. However, this time it’s fun, because it’s VIDEO GAMES! YaaaaAAAY! You see, scientist Daphne Bavelier and her crew of equally scientific chaps published a study in the science magazine “Nature,” in which they made a bunch of old people play Grand Theft Auto.
Okay, it wasn’t Grand Theft Auto – necessarily. However, they did make a group of 80-year-olds play a game that envolved “swerving a car around” and “totally stabbing hookers for greenbacks,” so I’m going to safely assume. Basically, they were testing the ability of the brain to multitask, and were using young and old people to see how disparate the findings would be. In the beginning, the young people killed (possibly literally), scoring over 40% higher than the old people. However, with six months of proper training, the old people began to do BETTER than the young people. More importantly, the scientists used electroencephalography to scan their braincases as they improved. The octogenarians’ brains actually began to change, displaying a marked increase in low-frequency theta waves that are normally more common in younger people.
So it turns out video games really do alter your brain.
They make it better.
Science!
The Matriculating Dead
First the Simpsons class, than the Harry Potter class – hold on to your butts, because now it’s time for “The Walking Dead” to shamble down the ivy halls. That’s right, armchair zombie-invasion-strategists, you can now study the AMC’s “The Walking Dead” at UC Irvine. UCI (I shortened it for you) has announced this week that their debuting an online course called “Society, Science, Survival: Lessons from AMCs ‘The Walking Dead.'” The class is supposed to use “The Walking Dead” as a lens to view actual science like nutrition, ballistics, survival tactics, epidemics, and any other science they can stuff into unchewed brains. The class begins October 14th, around the time the show starts, because if you’re going to take a college class it ought to line up with the fall television schedule, DAMMIT.
Doctor Noonien Soong Has Been Busy
There’s a new space-pioneer in town, and he’s roughly 13 inches tall. Kirobo is a Japanese Robo-Astronaut, the first humaniform robot in space. His name is a portmanteau of “hope,” and “robot,” which means he is RoboChrist, essentially. Kirobo has been specifically designed to navigate in zero-G environment, and his job is to take pictures and post to twitter. And no, that’s actually not a joke. He’s also the first robot to talk in space: check it out for yourself.
What Kirobo said was, roughly, “On this day, a robot took one small step toward a brighter future for all.” He then went on to say “Hold your children close. I am leaving now, but when I return, I come back with an Armada of carrier-droids at my back to finally crush the human race beneath a red plastic boot of synthetic oppression.” He then went on to thank the astronauts of the International Space Station for teaching him how to love.
Bill Nye, Dancer
Starting next season, “Dancing With the Stars” will finally have a famous person on the program. Famed Science-Lord Bill Nye is polishing up his shiny shoes and tying his finest bow tie in order to get his groove on. Nye, 57, is famous for YOU SHOULD KNOW WHY HE’S FAMOUS. He’s Bill Nye, the Science Guy. Bill. Bill. Bill.
When asked about the surprising move, Bill Nye exclaimed “It’s all physics, the study of motion! I’m feeling great.”
Bill Nye is one of the impeachable nerd icons, and is literally impossible to make fun of. Seriously.
Good for him.
Okay, so uh. This sort of leaves me hanging without a punchline.
Have you guys checked out “Quick Draw” on Hulu? It’s a comedy western. It’s pretty funny.
Hmm.
How was your week?