Trisha Lynn – Page 14 – Geeking Out About…

Trisha’s Short Video of the Day: A Wrinkle in Time in 90 Seconds

2011-01-18 Trisha Lynn2 Comments

Back when I was in elementary school, the one book I had a love/hate relationship with was A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle. We read it in our GATE class because it was a Newbery Award winner and one of the first science fiction books aimed at children.

I thought the plot of the book was rather cool, but I wasn’t great at sticking to the same chapters as the rest of the class or turning in the vocabulary homework. As a result, the D- I got that semester was the lowest I ever received and I got into trouble with my parents.

If I’d made a video like this when I was a kid, I wonder if my teacher would have raised my grade? Continue reading “Trisha’s Short Video of the Day: A Wrinkle in Time in 90 Seconds” →

Trisha’s Short Film of the Day: “Idiot with a Tripod”

2010-12-28 Trisha Lynn

Normally, I’d be posting this from either Manhattan or Brooklyn in New York City. However, thanks to this year’s December Snowpocalypse (or my other favorite, Snowmygod), I’m typing from my parent’s kitchen table where I will be mostly stationed for the next two days until my re-booked flight takes off on Thursday morning.

Call me crazy, but despite the awesomeness of being with my family, I really wish I were back on the East Coast experiencing the blizzard and its aftermath with the rest of my co-residents. Luckily, at least one New Yorker was inspired to make art from the storm: Continue reading “Trisha’s Short Film of the Day: “Idiot with a Tripod”” →

Trisha’s Take: Using the Force as a force of good

2010-12-10 Trisha Lynn

SWGeekette Katie2 — Katie poses with her very own custom Star Wars drawing by Scott Zirkel (c) Carrie Goldman

When Carrie Goldman wrote about her daughter Katie who was teased when she brought her Star Wars-themed water bottle to school because “Star Wars is for boys, and not girls,” and the Internet and cast and crew members from “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” proved that was most definitely not the case, I kept a close eye on the story.

Even though I’m not specifically a Star Wars fan, I do know what it’s like to be bullied or teased for looking and sounding or just being different from the other kids I grew up with. When I was younger, I lived in a pretty suburban area in Orange County, California. From when I was in kindergarten to when I was in the sixth grade, I had quite a few strikes against me: a) I’m Asian, b) I was smart, and c) I had (and still do have) a bit of a speech impediment.

Even now, as a grown woman working in a somewhat posh office in downtown Manhattan, I often feel awkward because I don’t dress like the other women who work in the office, and almost all of my geeky pop culture references go completely over the heads of the other people I work with. To throw in some more pop culture references, in an office full of Joan Holloways, I am a Peggy Olsen.

Having said that, I think even adult geeks can take heart from Goldman’s most recent update about Katie: Continue reading “Trisha’s Take: Using the Force as a force of good” →

Geekly Speaking About… “Top Gear USA” Episode 2

2010-12-01 Trisha Lynn

rsz_top_gear_usa_ep2 — I still say the blue Aston Martin is prettier

My ongoing technical difficulties have persisted, but now that I’ve finally got a clue and later edited out the parts with the poor audio, I’m happy to say that the analysis and live commentary on “Blind Drift,” the second episode of Top Gear USA is ready for your listening pleasure.

You can check it out below or in the right sidebar:

Please join us next week on Sunday, December 5 at 10:00 pm Eastern, when Kara Dennison and I (and perhaps a special guest) will be concluding our three-episode test and hope to answer the question: “Is this show actually any good?”

COMING SOON: “Geekly Speaking About…” goes live!

2010-11-28 Trisha Lynn

Due to my ongoing microphone problems, U.K. TV expert Kara Dennison and I are testing something new out tonight, courtesy of TalkShoe.com. Tonight, starting at/around 9:45 pm Eastern Standard Time (GMT – 5:00), we’ll be launching the “Geekly Speaking About…” live podcast series with our viewing and discussion of the second episode of “Top Gear U.S.A.” on the History Channel.

We’d love for you to join us, and to do so, all you have to do is sign up for an account, and after you’ve logged in and right around 9:45 pm Eastern tonight, click on the “Join In” button to hear the call and participate in the text chat room. The best part is that once we’ve finished recording the show and our afterthoughts, the show website will be automatically updated with a file you can download to listen to if you were unable to join us tonight.

If all goes well, we’ll be doing more live podcasts on a regular basis, and we look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Trisha’s (Long) Video of the Day: “Runaway” by Kanye West (NSFW, lyrics)

2010-11-27 Trisha Lynn1 Comment

I am not an ardent fan of hip hop by any stretch of the imagination, but I do appreciate it when something a hip hop artist does is neat, cool, or utterly mad.

I’d say that this maxi-music video from Kanye West, featuring “Runaway” and other tracks from his new album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy qualifies as being utterly, utterly mad.

The short film/long music video debuted on October 23 in a massive publicity campaign which spanned MTV, MTV2 and BET; luckily, it has also been uploaded to the Internets in a commercial-free version: Continue reading “Trisha’s (Long) Video of the Day: “Runaway” by Kanye West (NSFW, lyrics)” →

Vincent D’Onofrio’s directorial debut to be picked up for distribution?

2010-11-24 Trisha Lynn1 Comment

In addition to being able to hear “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” actor Vincent D’Onofrio speak about his experiences directing his first movie, a slasher/musical called Don’t Go Into the Woods, the audience members at the Center for Communication screening and Q&A of the film heard from D’Onofrio himself that he had a meeting with people from Tribeca Films to pick up the film for distribution. However, when contacted, a spokesperson from Tribeca Films declined to comment.

Shot on a budget of $100,000 in upstate New York, the Don’t Go Into the Woods centers around an indie rock band who while taking a break from their “daily distractions,” end up disappearing one by one and dying from gruesome deaths, singing all the while. D’Onofrio and his collaborators Sam Bisbee, (co-executive producer, co-screenwriter and composer) and Joe Vinciguerra (co-executive producer and co-screenwriter) answered questions at the Q&A session, which was moderated by Brad Balfour from the Huffington Post.

About the production process, D’Onofrio said that there isn’t a big difference between writing a love song and writing a song about death, and added that there wasn’t any CGI used in the production. Also in attendance was one of the actors, Cassandra Walker (Ashley), who said that while she heard the music before reading the script, the concept was a bit wild to her.

Finally, D’Onofrio proved that he was well-versed in horror film lore by expounding a bit on “refrigerator logic” and how it applies to his film:

Further details about a release date for Don’t Go Into the Woods will be added to this article as they become available.

Thanks to Lyssa Spero for contributing to this article.

Geekly Speaking About… “Top Gear USA” Episode 1

2010-11-22 Trisha Lynn5 Comments

rsz_top_gear_usa — From l to r: Adam Ferrara, Tanner Foust, and Rutledge Wood hope you'll enjoy the U.S. version of "Top Gear"

Thanks to some technical difficulties which were not present when we conducted our tech test about 1.5 hours before its premiere last night at 10:00 pm, we were unable to produce the audio for the live commentary between myself and Kara Dennison as we watched the first episode of the U.S. version of “Top Gear.”

Thankfully, there was nothing wrong with our fingers, and so just in the nick of time, we hied ourselves over to Google Chat to record our thoughts about the first episode of “Top Gear U.S.A.” on the History Channel: Continue reading “Geekly Speaking About… “Top Gear USA” Episode 1″ →

Desert Bus for Hope 4 rolls out… for the children!

2010-11-20 Trisha Lynn1 Comment

As a liberal-minded geek, I try and donate to charity whenever I can because I believe that helping other people and being altruistic is a pretty cool thing. Also as a kid, I spent almost an entire week strapped to a bed at the Childrens Hospital of Orange County in California after a kidney surgery.

As a result, every year since Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik from Penny Arcade started their annual toy drive called Child’s Play, I’ve tried to buy a toy from the list that I know will be used to help a kid just like the one I was. Whole groups of people have created satellite organizations to help raise more money for the charity, and my favorite out of all of them is Desert Bus.

Two years have passed since I originally blogged about their efforts, and I thought that this time, I could recap a little bit about the typical things you could see the Desert Bus Crew doing if you happen to tune into the live driver cam at 4:00 am local time in Victoria, B.C. for about an hour: Continue reading “Desert Bus for Hope 4 rolls out… for the children!“ →

How Padme Amidala, Yoda, and the Internet are standing up to bullies for a Star Wars-loving mini-geekette

2010-11-19 Trisha Lynn27 Comments

SWGeekette Katie-CatTaber — Katie and Catherine Taber are proud that they love Star Wars (c) Carrie Goldman and Dana Patrick

No matter what kind of geek you are, there’s something that all of us share in common which makes us different from aficionados, hobbyists, and dabblers.

When we were younger, we got teased and bullied. A lot.

In his book The Happiest Days of Our Lives, writer/actor Wil Wheaton wrote extensively of how being a little smarter and a little more shy than other kids in his elementary school classes lead to his taking one in the face during an “innocent” game of dodgeball. The fact that Wheaton went on to star as an actor in such geek-centric TV series like “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and “Eureka” doesn’t completely obscure the fact that he still feels and remembers that pain from over 25 years ago.

Katie, a first-grader in the metro Chicago area, had her own “dodgeball moment” recently. See, Katie really loves the Star Wars franchise. In fact, she loves it so much that according to her mother Carrie Goldman, a blogger at ChicagoNow.com, she asked for a Star Wars water bottle to go with her backpack when they went shopping for school supplies at the beginning of this school year. However, four days ago, Katie changed her mind about her special find: Continue reading “How Padme Amidala, Yoda, and the Internet are standing up to bullies for a Star Wars-loving mini-geekette” →