doctor_who_50th_anniversaryWe are still animal sick here at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office. We are on so many antihistamines, if our doctor were to centrifuge our blood, he would fondly touch his lab equipment and then die while Badfinger’s Baby Blue played in the background. I personally verbally communicate via sneezing now, and once I can figure out how to tag the obvious “you” at the end of my currently-mastered explosively sneezed, “Fuck!”, I can let the rest of my language mastery go the way of the Pog.

So we have whiled away the past 24 or so hours by playing rousing games of the bafflingly entertaining party game Cards Against Humanity, which is like a game of Trivial Pursuit as played by the attendees of The Cereal Convention in volume two of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. It is one of our favorite games, although when it comes to the geek front, it is a little anemic.

Or at least, it used to be. Since Cards Against Humanity is published under a Creative Commons license, anyone can, under the right circumstances, create their own cards for the game. And Crisis On Infinite Midlives contributor Lance Manion has pointed out to us that an improv comedy outfit called Conventional Improv has come up with a card set based on Doctor Who. And some of those cards are pretty solid and funny.

Not, you know, “Bigger, blacker cocks” funny, but very, very decent. And you can check a few of them out after the jump.

The folks over at Slacktory, who have previously released Derp Editions of trailers for Die Hard and The Avengers using blooper reel footage, uploaded a new trailer for the rebooted Star Trek. Watch as Spock acts uncharacteristically humorous, Kirk is even more of a goof and Bones, well, he still acts like Bones.

It amazes me that even the blooper scenes somehow still manage to have lens flare. J.J. Abrams, what kind of a monster are you?

They call him Dandy, Space Dandy. He captures aliens for money, is obsessed with boobies, and hangs out with a talking cat. He is also the latest project from Shinichiro Watanabe, creator of Full Metal Alchemist, Cowboy Bebop, and The Animatrix. Space Dandy has the potential to be really awesome…or really goofy. I liked Cowboy Bebop specifically because it tended toward the dark and away from the goofy. Guess we’ll have to see.

Space Dandy debuts tonight on Adult Swim at 11:30pm. Set your DVRs accordingly.

Via io9.

shield_logoThere is a dearth of comics news between Christmas and New Year’s, for the same reason there is a dearth of anything else going on other than liquor sales during that same time: everyone is on vacation.

So on days like these, while we are trying to get our heads around our inevitable Best of 2013 posts to appear later this week, we’ll take what comics-related news we can get. And what we got is the birthday of Iain De Caestecker, the dude who plays Fitz on Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Which normally would be about as comics-newsworthy as The Crow: Wicked Prayer star Edward Furlong picking up yet another drug-related arrest, but in the case of De Caestecker’s birthday, he got himself a gift from Marvel’s Chief Creative Officer Joe Quesada. A present in the form of a Quesada drawing of his character. With a monkey.

You can check the image out after the jump. Or not. Look, this is as good as it’s gonna get today, folks. You’re just lucky you didn’t get 500 words about Reb Brown approaching a stranger and asking if they want their groceries bagged in paper or plastic.

SpideyMMASo, apparently there is a mixed martial arts league in the United Kingdom that formed last summer to search for the “UK’s Hardest Man”. Per MixedMartialArts.com :

The event is a single-elimination tournament held over a period of some weeks, with modified MMA rules:
•No weight division.
•Contest is held on a 12×12 mat, with no ring or cage enclosure.
•1st round is ten minutes duration.
•There is a one minute time limit on the ground.
•Standing guillotines are prohibited.
•6 oz amateur MMA gloves are worn.
•Winner of the tournament gets £3000 (aprox US $4,500)

The bouts will be held at Southampton, England’s Exile Gym, a respected MMA facility.

Which is all well and good, but the most recent fight the league uploaded to its Facebook page is Spider-Man…taking on Batman and Robin. Yes, sounds like a very serious competition indeed.

Check it out, after the jump.

Good morning! Happy Christmas, for those of you that subscribe. For the rest of you, I hope you are at least getting the day off to get up to whatever debauchery you get up to on the days you typically take off. Me? I’m at my mother’s. My day has/will consist of an hour and half train ride, quiche, the opening of presents, the installation of a new TV, roast beast, and another hour and a half train ride back to the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office. Then I will start drinking. I hope your day will be at least as exciting as mine.

One thing we will also have today, that I am sharing with you all, is this spoof by the Nerdist Channel of a Blade Runner Holiday Special, in the spirit of the Star Wars Christmas Special. Go grab yourself a cup of whatever libation you use to start your day (I suggest whiskey, because I always suggest whiskey), pull up a chair and enjoy!

Harlan Ellison, Angry Man.  Est. 1934

Harlan Ellison, Angry Man. Est. 1934

Somewhat recently, Harlan Ellison and his wife were invited to a dinner with some wealthy muckety-mucks that ended with a screening of the new moving Saving Mr. Banks, the story of how Disney tried for 20 years to turn Mary Poppins into a movie. Author P.L. Travers took significant issue with the way Walt Disney treated her book property and, despite allowing Poppins to be made, would never agree to allow another of her works to be adapted again. Ellison thinks Travers gets the short end of the stick in the movie, much as she did in life by Walt Disney. He has taken to his YouTube channel to speak truth to the Disney “Octopoidal Matrix” which “owns everything in the world that Geico doesn’t”.

I’ve not seen the movie, but Ellison’s rant kind of makes me want to now. He feels that movie is nothing but propaganda that burnishes “Uncle Walt”‘s image and serve as Oscar bait. As an author with quite fervent feelings himself over how his own work is used, he sympathizes with Travers and disapproves of how she comes off in the movie – even going so far as to say that one particular pivotal scene never happened and that half the movie is made up. The movie struck a raw nerve in the man, who has never been shy about speaking his mind on a good day. Check it out after the jump.

sdcc_logoVery little time here at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office today. I am here alone with Parker, a cat who was neutered earlier today. And Parker is treating me in exactly the manner one would expect to be treated by a creature whose testicles I had removed by fiat. So I need to keep an eye on this little fella, who is currently only seemingly motivated by contempt towards me and the urge to lick his Hot Zone, in violation of doctor’s orders, to try and grok what terrible thing has happened to him.

However, there is one tidbit of San Diego Comic-Con news I’d like to report: pre-registration for next year’s convention for people who attended this year has been pushed back until after the new year.

The opening shot of this Star Wars and Bohemian Rhapsody mash up reads, “A long time ago in a karaoke bar far, far away…” and that is about right. Bohemian Rhapsody: Star Wars Edition is a labor of love from the Arizona geek community. It is exactly what you think might happen if a bunch of cosplayers got a little too drunk at the San Diego Hyatt bar after the SDCC Saturday night Masquerade and got busy with a camera and Pro Tools. And we are all the better for it. Ok, Sexy Boba Fett at 1:29 and Sexy Vader at 1:45 are kind of disturbing, but that’s why I’m never far from a bottle of whisky and a shot glass. But, there’s more to enjoy here than to cringe over and it’s always great to see what kind of cool projects a fandom can produce. Enjoy!

According to the fine folks over at io9:

The Students and Faculty of the Digital Video Program at University of Advancing Technology in Tempe, Arizona, produced this video with the help of their cosplayer performers. Stephen Panagiotis, Jamall Richards, and Paul DeNigris wrote the new lyrics, and Adam Newton provided the vocals. Hit the closed caption button to follow along with the lyrics.

Ok – laptop, closed captioned lyrics, bottle of whisky. I have my plan for the evening. I hope Rob understands…