This past weekend, I had the most excellent opportunity to see the opening chapter of The Hobbit in 48fps 3D format. The Internet, of course, has been abuzz for the last few weeks in anticipation for this film, debating as much about the new High Frame Rate (HFR) format as the movie itself. I even made a preliminary post about it last week. If you read my prior post, you’ll know I had some m... »
Unless you have been living in a cave, you probably know that Peter Jackson’s new mega-opus The Hobbit hits American screens very soon. You probably already know a couple other things about the project: This is the first film of a trilogy, which is odd because the original book is only about 300 pages long. It was filmed in HFR, aka High Frame Rate, which means it runs at 48 frames per secon... »
Every few months, a geek debate flares up on the social networks, about whether it’s proper in geek circles to cosplay (aka wear a costume) from a property that you do not personally know much about. Specifically, this debate often centers around “booth babes,” aka ladies who have been hired to work booths at the larger sci-fi and gaming conventions, many of whom are paid to loo... »
Crossposted from Tin Lizard Productions. Around seven or eight years ago, Jerry Belich and I founded Killer B’s Improv Movie Show. For those of you who don’t attend CONvergence or shows at HUGE Theater, Killer B’s is something like a hybrid between Mystery Science Theater 3000, J-Men Forever, and Comedy Sportz. I find clips of oddball film footage, edit them together, and remove ... »
This past weekend at CONvergence, I was honored to be the very first guest on a brand new podcast named Geeks Without God, a show that celebrates funny, geeky atheists. I’m pretty sure they only asked me to be on the podcast because they knew I could complain about Prometheus for a full half hour, but hey, that works for me! The Geeks Without God podcast is the brainchild of Tim Wick, Molly ... »
This is cross-posted from my blog at Tin Lizard Productions. A few days ago, Roger Ebert posted on his blog that he didn’t think that the ubiquitousness of Internet-armed cameras was a good thing: I find this news concerning because it results in a degradation of the art of photography. … [Camera users] are performing a social ritual, and little of what results is worth saving or seein... »
This last weekend, I joined the Chicago Skeptics on a tour through Wisconsin's own Xanadu of kitsch, House on the Rock. This was followed by a lovely concert by the fabulous George Hrab. I initially wasn't going to post about the House on the Rock here at Mad Art Lab, as the House on the Rock is pretty much the antithesis of science and logic. It's a museum without labels, where at ... »
THE BACKSTORY Yesterday, I had the privilege of attending a St. Pi-trick's Day party, hosted at the home of Marie Porter of Celebration Generation fame. You may have seen her geeky cakes, costumes, and/or other artistic endeavors popping up around the web. You may have even seen stories about how her home was hit by a tornado around a year ago, and how part of her home's restoration invo... »
