branchandroot

Just in time for Christmas, Blizzard has started selling World of Warcraft in-game items for real world money! That's right, you can get a Pandaren pet or mini version of the the terrible Kel'Thuzad. In addition to being adorable, they cost $10, and do absolutely nothing useful in game.

$5 from the sale of the Pandaren goes to charity, at least.

I know at least five people who have already bought them and I am ashamed for every one.

The next live Rifftrax show will be December 16, with an encore on the 17th. This time the theme is Christmas shorts! Tickets are already on sale at some theaters, but I guess the 13th is when they will be widely available.

...I love shorts! Also, this reminds me that I need to find my copy of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, which is required Christmas viewing at my house now.

More here

Okay, I've seen a number of book rec posts here every now and again, so I was wondering - is there a community (either on LJ or JF - or both) that specializes in people asking for book recs (on fiction or non-fiction)? If there were something like that, it'd be great to see what people thought were good reads on any given topic.

Thanks!

From Offbeat Bride via Kotaku and solarbird</lj>.

Anli & Laura's Lesbian Gamer Geek Wedding

The offbeat bride: Anli, data analyst

Her offbeat partner: Laura, public servant

Location & date of wedding: The Old Stone House, NSW Australia — 5 September 2009

What made our wedding offbeat: We wanted a ceremony that reflected our geeky, romantic, pink aesthetic, while at the same time being profound and meaningful. Our ceremony was themed around the video game Portal and the anime series Revolutionary Girl Utena.

We incorporated lots of geeky details, from the table names (Revolution, Sierra, Katara and GLaDOS) to the choice of music. We also kept several traditional elements such as bouquets, dresses and bridesmaids. However, we both walked down the aisle unaccompanied and skipped the garter/bouquet toss.

...

And we walked down the aisle to an obscure piece of music from Utena.

Here's the music the couple used for their processional: Hikaru sasa niwa.

Go click on through to the Offbeat Bride story. There are lots of lovely photos, including a slide show.

As for the Portal part, a commenter on Kotaku pointed out, "So the cake wasn’t a lie afterall…"

After some consideration, I've decided to x-post this from the sparklefield because it's a very special kind of transcendent, as in...how is Twilight the first fandom to actually Go There with this sort of merchandising? Srsly.

***

I think I'll let the product speak for itself since I cannot -- well and truly cannot -- find the words:

You can now have RPattz's face buried in your crotch any time you wish. Think I'm kidding? Check out the completely classy detail painstakingly created for the panty lining.

*just looks at y'all*

Anthony Bourdain gets his own cartoon. :-D

Just Valve being awesome some more. This weekend, Team Fortress 2 is having a Halloween themed special with free hats to take from dead players. There is an egg* on the page which leads to TF2's backstory. Yes, this game now has a plot deeper than just two sides trying kill each other. As a bonus, the new page has another egg** that gives a nod to a popular TF2 character fanart.




~Egg spoilers~

* Zepheniah Mann
** Barnabas Hale

It was really pretty goddamn clever.

( For those who dislike links )

Also, this was an ideal excuse to bust out my brand-new ZP icon.

Yep, popslash is still around, and it's still the best! And there's still a popslash SeSa -- not the original DWNOGA, but the authorised sequel, Make the Yuletide Gay.

Even if you don't usually take part in challenges (like me), then SeSa is the one you shouldn't miss. There will be resources and mentors for all, and all the cheerleading you could want. Plus, at the end of it, you get your very own lovingly hand-crafted story to enjoy, something written especially for you.

If you've drifted away from popslash, SeSa is the perfect time to get back in touch. Sign up and have a lovely couple of months of nostalgia. And then stay!

Sign-ups for Make the Yuletide Gay are open until Oct 30th.

On spitting_image, we're going to have a special Halloween post called Night of the Bad Comic Artists. Submissions will be compiled and the post will be up on October 30th at 5 p.m. PST. Please submit images here!

Which came first?

Which came first for members of the comm who are fans of series and movies featuring live actors, particularly those based on literature (including comics/graphic novels):
being a fan of the original source?
being fan of the movie/television show?
being a fan of the actor(s)?
being a fan of spinoff materials such as fanfic or official fic? Hey, it could happen

As examples: Star Trek, any incarnation, or X-Men.

And how have these fandoms overlapped and interacted for you?

Maybe this has been asked before, but if so it was probably a long time ago, and we may have different comm members. Apologies to anime fans. I don't know enough about anime to include them in my questions, but feel free to comment

Machinarium is kind of a cute adventure game. It's pure point and click with some fun puzzles thrown in. Not very hard or long, I'd say about ten hours of play time. It lagged a little on my machine, which doesn't quite meet the minimum requirements, but nothing too bad.

You can try the demo on machinarium.net or buy it from several different sites. Costs somewhere between 15-20 euros.

Jason chooses a Halloween costume. Specifically, a vampire.

A fan animated the XKCD Loves the Discovery Channel comic. (It's even catcher in audio.)

Thought everyone would find this amusing.

Next week my gaming group is kicking off a new Supernatural RPG campaign. As the last step of character creation the GM is asking all of us to put together playlists for our characters. Now I'm lousy at this under the best of circumstances, but I'm particularly at a loss here.

My character is Latina (Michelle Rodriguez would be my PB if this was an LJ game), speaks Spanish and listens to Spanish-language music. I'd like to have some of the songs on her playlist to be in Spanish; unfortunately, I speak only a little Spanish and only have a handful of Spanish songs in my library.

So I'm asking for recs! Give me your favorite bluesy, rocking or otherwise suitable songs for a Supernatural style hunter! (or any other songs you love and think I should know!)

ETA: You guys are awesome! Keep the recs coming!