Check out the unboxing video for Geek Fuel’s May 2015 box.
I think this might be my favorite box yet!
To order your own box, please click the following referral link: https://www.geekfuel.com/FBMTJf
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0IHu8bSr-Y]
Michael Dorn portrayed Worf (with various ranks), the token Klingon in the Federation, on both Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987–94) and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1995–99), as well as the Next Generation-related films and various Star Trek video games. Also a frequent guest at comic book and sci-fi conventions, Dorn is one of the most popular Trek alums.
In recent years, Dorn has actively and vocally petitioned for a new Star Trek spinoff series featuring Worf as the Captain of his own Federation starship. A number of videos and websites have recently sprung up with the hashtag #WeWantWorf in support of this campaign. There are even two separate pages for Star Trek: Captain Worf on Facebook—one and two—and a “WeWantWorf” Facebook community.
Watch the teaser trailer below, or click here for an entire video playlist brought to us by TheCinemaSource, a #WeWantWorf supporter.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDaKiyXR1yQ]
The most interesting—and hilarious—part of the campaign is sponsored by The Cinema Source and Sweet E’s Bake Shop. The campaign will send baskets of mini-muffins to CBS executives urging them to green-light the Captain Worf project. The goal is to send one million mini-muffins by the end of June 2015. To donate some mini-muffins to the cause, visit https://www.sweetesbakeshop.com/wewantworf/.
Worf was really not much more than a bit player on The Next Generation. His role on Deep Space Nine, however, had more of an impact. For several seasons, not only was DS9 one of my favorite television programs, but Worf was one of my favorite characters. I think a series starring Dorn as Worf could potentially continue this character development, maintain the darker tone of DS9, and be a great new chapter in the Star Trek story.
Thursday night (28 May 2015) I had the extreme pleasure of attending “An Evening with Chuck Palahniuk,” presented by the Politics & Prose bookstore at Sixth & I in Washington, D. C. Palahniuk is one of my favorite authors—most famous for Fight Club, though my favorite book is Rant. The event included a signed first edition of his new collection of short stories, Make Something Up: Stories You Can’t Unread
Palahniuk is a natural-born storyteller. His stories just happen to tend to be pretty f***ed up. Throughout the evening he read a few short stories from Make Something Up, but even his responses to audience questions evolved into the same type of twisted stories that he writes. Like the French veterinary student who was drugged with animal tranquilizers and stuffed into a hollowed-out horse carcass (true story). The event was scheduled to run until 9pm, but we didn’t get out until 10!
In between the stories and the questions were several other giveaways. Everyone who asked a question received copies of various of Chuck’s books. Several times throughout the evening he tossed bags of candy into the audience. At other times he asked the audience if anyone had a dog and tossed large stuffed animals into the crowd.
The grand finale/giveaway was an amazing spectacle, however. In our bags with our signed book & comic was a clear blow-up beach ball and two glow sticks. We were instructed to blow up the ball, put the glow sticks in the center, and write our names on the ball with the Sharpies that were floating around the room. During the finale, the lights were turned off, and everyone threw their balls into the center of the room—and there were a few hundred people there. As the balls were popped up into the air, it was a pretty amazing sight! Seven of the balls were selected to receive signed, hardcover, gilted-edged first editions of Fight Club or Beautiful You (reported retail value $150). Of course, I did not win. No big surprise there—I rarely win anything that relies on “luck of the draw.”
The final part of the night was a big thank you to the hosts of the evening—the staff of Politics & Prose and Sixth & I. After giving them a huge ovation, they tossed signed rubber or plastic severed arms out into the crowd. Again, didn’t catch one. Sadly they are now selling on eBay for $70-$150.
The night was awesome—it was definitely not your typical book event, but what would you expect from an author like Chuck Palahniuk?
NXT was originally the replacement show for ECW. Quite a few stars came out of this program, but just how many of them are still on the roster?
Season One
Wade Barrett: The winner of the first season of NXT was also the original leader of the Nexus. Winner of the 2015 King of the Ring tournament, Barrett currently calls himself “King Barrett.”
Daniel Bryan: Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. He was one of the first “rookies” eliminated from NXT, was fired after “going too far” during the debut attack of the Nexus, and has since held every title that WWE has other than the Divas title—including his Wrestlemania XXX defeat of Triple H, Batista, and Randy Orton to win the WWE World Heavyweight championship. Sadly, he may be on the verge of retirement after back-to-back neck injuries.
Justin Gabriel: The South African native spent time on the tag team circuit, first with Heath Slater and later with Tyson Kidd. He won the championship several times with Slater, and challenged with Kidd. No singles victories to speak of, and admitted to being Adam Rose’s Bunny. Left the company in January 2015. Now calls himself “P. J. Black” in Global Force Wrestling.
David Otunga: Has a Harvard law degree and is married to Oscar-winning singer Jennifer Hudson. Rarely seen in action on WWE television, though he hosts the pre-show on the WWE Network.
Skip Sheffield: Now called “Ryback.” You might’ve heard of him. “Feed. Me. More.”
Heath Slater: The Millennial version of the Brooklyn Brawler, Slater is at this point nearly a full-time jobber. Rarely wins a match. Looks almost exactly the same now as he did five years ago.
Michael Tarver: Released from his contract on 13 June 2011, the only first-season NXT rookie to not have a significant WWE career.
Darren Young: Formed the Prime-Time Players with fellow NXT alumni Titus O’Neil. Then made even bigger news by coming out as openly homosexual. To the credit of the WWE, he has not been buried, with the Prime-Time Players currently enjoying a renewed push.
Check out the new and back issues I picked up this week.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBMY5HI8KOw]New issues [affiliate links]
A-Force no. 1 (July 2015)
Secret Wars: Battleworld no. 1 (July 2015)
Uncanny Avengers no. 4 (July 2015)
Uncanny Avengers: Ultron Forever no. 1 (July 2015)
Back issues
Assassins no. 1 (Amalgam) (April 1996)
Spider-Man vol. 1, no. 16 (November 1991)
Watchcats no. 1 (one-shot, pub. for John Jackson by Harrier Publishing) (July 1987)
Web of Spider-Man vol. 1, no. 35 (February 1988)
Destination America, the cable network that currently hosts TNA Impact Wrestling, has announced that it has acquired the TV rights to Ring of Honor Wrestling. The first episode of Ring of Honor on Destination America will air next Wednesday
TNA and Ring of Honor are the only two pro wrestling companies offering any legitimate competition to WWE. The only other company with consistent television coverage is Lucha Underground, on the El Rey Network. None of these companies really challenges WWE in scope, talent, or market share; they are more accurately in competition with each other for a distant no. 2.
This move is extremely interesting. There have been rumors for quite some time now that TNA Wrestling was on the verge of going broke. Lately the rumor mill has reported that Destination America was losing advertisers and was planning on dropping Impact Wrestling. While the first rumor might be true, it would be extremely unusual for a channel that was planning on canceling one wrestling show would go to the lengths to acquire a second show. Ring of Honor is not inherently better or more popular than TNA, though at times it might seem that way.
Ring of Honor will air on Wednesday, 3 June 2015 at 8pm (EDT). This will actually lead into Impact Wrestling at 9pm, currently airing on Fridays. Many commentators have remarked on the possible competition of one show leading into the next.
Pure speculation time: rather than competition, could this be the first sign of a potential partnership—or even merger—between Ring of Honor and TNA? Many of Ring of Honor’s stars are former TNA stars, and vice versa. Wrestlers often move freely between the two companies, in fact. (The two companies actually used to have a talent-sharing agreement.) With the growing threat of Jeff Jarrett’s Global Force Wrestling, might TNA and Ring of Honor decide to work together to increase their respective influence—and even offer WWE some real competition? In fact, given the reports about TNA’s financial status, could they use a partnership with Ring of Honor to stay afloat?
Though TNA only briefly—and Ring of Honor never—challenged WWE’s crown for supremacy in the wrestling business, many of the top and up-and-coming WWE stars from the past few years had stints in one or both of these two companies: Daniel Bryan (a Ring of Honor champion as Bryan Danielson), CM Punk, Seth Rollins (as Tyler Black), Luke Harper (as Brodie Lee), R-Truth (a TNA champion as Ron “The Truth” Killings), Sami Zayn (as El Generico), Kevin Owens (as Kevin Steen), etc. Samoa Joe, who dominated in both Ring of Honor and TNA, recently debuted in NXT and will likely immediately rise to top of WWE as soon as he joins the main roster. They may not have the dominant market share that WWE enjoys, but they clearly have an eye for talent.
The Internet Movie Database (IMDB) is my go-to site for figuring out “who is that guy?” when I watch TV and movies. The site contains profiles for nearly every movie and television episode produced, cross-referencing the cast lists with the filmographies of every actor in film and TV history.
The site also allows users to rate movies on a scale from 1 to 10. Except This is Spinal Tap (1984). The scale for that film goes up to 11. You can only rate it up to 10, but the scale goes up to 11.
If you don’t get the joke (or just want to watch the scene again), check out this clip from the movie:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOO5S4vxi0o]
Mary and I just did another unboxing of a subscription box.
The theme for May’s box was “Sidekicks,” as you can see with the goodies that we got this month. To sign up for June’s box, click my referral link here. [Update: the theme for June’s box has been announced as “Arcade.”]
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kts6vmAYqbk]
Overall, I really liked this month’s box. Even though the highest value items were focused on the Adventure Time cartoon that we don’t watch, I still feel like I got my money’s worth. I absolutely LOVE the “Beep Boop” Star Wars drawstring backpack! The dog tags were a really cool exclusive item as well.
Visit my “Nerdy Subscription Boxes” page for information and links to other boxes and unboxing videos.
And don’t forget to subscribe to the ClutterStuff blog and YouTube channel!
Beginning on 14 May 2015, a traveling exhibit entitled “Indiana Jones and the Adventure of Archaeology” will be running at the National Geographic Museum in Washington D. C. (1145 17th Street NW). The exhibit will run until 3 January 2016.
The following video provides an introduction to the exhibit:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkdcHArwczY]
An accompanying website provides more details about the exhibit, including several interactive multimedia portions entitled “Quest for Treasure,” “Dig into the Past,” “Investigate,” and “Solve the Mystery.”
The seventh season of American Ninja Warrior began with the Venice Beach, California, qualifying round.
This course had six obstacles:
Though competitors got caught up on nearly every obstacle, the Hourglass Drop was the real “ninja killer,” taking out a sizable number of them. This new obstacle is a version of the classic Unstable Bridge obstacle, with a trampoline in between the two suspended planks.
As usual, some of the most successful veterans of the past were unable to complete the course, while new rookies stepped up to the plate. Two of the most surprising veteran failures were “the Godfather” David Campbell and “the Adonis” Rob Moravsky.
Just seven competitors actually completed the course, including last year’s stand-out Kevin Bull, as well as Alan Connealy, Nicholas Coolridge, Alvaro Campos, Travis Brewer, Grant McCartney, and Almas Meirmanov. Thirty total competitors qualified, including David Campbell and stuntwoman Jessie Graff, who competed two years ago. The twenty-three qualifying competitors who did not complete the course all failed on the Hourglass Drop—like I said, a real “ninja killer.”
ClutterStuff 