I do not play the game, but if you do, then you will certainly appreciate this.

Modern Warfare 3 Frag Grenade Shot

This concoction is courtesy of The Tipsy Bartender. That name alone should give you an idea of how much fun you can have!

So how do you make the Modern Warfare 3 Frag Grenade Shot? You’ll see how to make these precisely in the video below, but just in case you get too caught up in watching that beautiful lady, here are the recipes. You need three mixes:

SOAP MACTAVISH
1/2oz Green Creme de Menthe
1/2oz Limoncello

JAGERNAUT
1/2oz Baileys
1/2oz Jagermeister

VLADIMIR MAKAROV
1oz Black Vodka
Half fill with Energy Drink

I don’t know about you, but the ingredients used are rather tempting. And with the name Modern Warfare 3 Frag Grenade Shot, this will be a sure hit at any party with gamers in attendance, don’t you think?

Here’s the video.

Can you top this?

You are not a bigger fan of Raiders of the Lost Ark than Jamie Benning is. Don’t even bother trying. Out of nothing more than love for the film, Benning has released his own 2.5-hour documentary on the making of the film that goes more in-depth than any doc approved by Spielberg or Lucas.

I don’t know how he did it, but Benning’s film, Raiding the Lost Ark, is chocked full of incredible details, footage, and even interviews Benning conducted himself, that have never been seen by the public until now. It’s a staggering achievement, considering Benning had no access to the Lucasfilm archives or any of the big names responsible for making the film. Ten months in the making, Benning devoted his own time, money, and resources into reading, interviewing, and gathering every fact he could find, all to create this incredibly comprehensive, entertaining documentary. It contains collected materials from videos, stills, tie-in comic books, original animations and artwork, and much more.

If you’re trying to remember where you’ve heard the name Jamie Benning before, then you probably saw one of his previous documentaries. He made one each for the films of the classic Star Wars trilogy, which proved wildly popular on YouTube — until Fox’s legal hounds had them yanked. (You can still watch all three of them on Vimeo).

Read more about his work on Raiding the Lost Ark at Empire Online, and watch the entire film above. Follow Benning’s future work at Filmumentaries.com.

If you are into history and execution-related stuff (not to mention bones), then this bone guillotine model will certainly catch your attention. While I am not particularly into gory things, this bone guillotine model did make me look twice. Even three times.

Bone Guillotine Model

You have to admire the work that went into the bone guillotine model. Even a cursory look reveals the details that have been put into it. And no, the bones are not from humans, but animals. The bone guillotine model was found in Dorset. An expert has determined it to have been made by a prisoner of war – presumably French, naturally – between 1805 and 1815. Yes, this thing is ancient, and it is a wonder just how it still is in one piece!

This bone guillotine model is a rare find, as explained by expert Amy Brenan:

Napoleonic prisoner of war models made from bone and ivory are hard to come by. Many designs such as the model battle ships, spinning jennies and guillotines are so intricate that they disintegrate overtime and this makes any surviving examples extremely rare. The sheer skill in creating a working model of the guillotine coupled with its social significance at the time, has made the guillotine models particularly desirable.

No one who has seen even just the photo can argue with that! And, naturally, this collectible is selling for a crazy price of £4000 – £8000 (about $6300 – $12,600). Still want it?

Via The History Blog

If this is the case, then you might be interested in the recently launched stamps series by the UK’s Royal Mail. The series is none other than artwork from the stories of children’s book author Roald Dahl.

Who doesn’t recognize that name? After Charlie and the Chocolate Factory captured the attention of people of all ages all over the world, Roald Dahl became a household name – if he wasn’t before that. I particularly remember him for his story The Witches. I still am not sure if that is to blame for my fascination with witches, but that is one tattered book in my bookshelf.

In any case, even if you are not a hardcore philatelist, the idea of getting your hands on these fun Roald Dahl stamps is a worthy one.

The Roald Dahl stamps are illustrated by Quentin Blake, who has been the artist behind Dahl’s works. Dahl fans will be delighted with stamps featuring The Twits, Matilda, The Witches, Fantastic Mr Fox, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, James and the Giant Peach, and The BFG. These children’s books, I think, should be introduced to every kid.

While the author certainly does not lack recognition and acclaim as a writer, these Roald Dahl stamps serve as icing on top of the cake. As his daughter Ophelia Dahl states, “My dad wrote thousands of letters home throughout his life and never dreamed that one day one of his own characters would grace a stamp.”

Take a look at the Roald Dahl stamps yourself.

Now who is in the UK and willing to send letters via post?

Via Design Taxi

We can’t do anything about that but wait, although you have the option of stoking the fire of anticipation by watching the teaser again and again. Or reading up on the movie over and over. Or you can just head on over to The Big Bad Toy Store and get your very own Dark Knight Mr. Potato Head.

Dark Knight Mr. Potato Head

If you are a fan of spuds, then you will need no convincing to get this toy. If you don’t have a single Mr. Potato Head in your home, what better time to start collecting them than now?

You have two options: Standard Grade and Collector’s Grade. The former will give you:

• The item is brand-new, in mint condition, and sealed inside its packaging.
• Packaging condition is verified to be 80% mint (C8), or better.
• Standard Grade items are suitable to display in the package, or to open.

For the latter, you’ll have:

• The item is brand-new, in mint condition, and sealed inside mint packaging.
• Packaging condition is verified to be 90% mint (C9), or better.
• If you upgrade, our warehouse will carefully choose items in mint condition.
• Each item will be wrapped in a clear poly-bag for protection during shipping.
• Collector’s Grade items are meant to be displayed in their packaging.

You only need to add $2 to get the Collector’s Grade toy.

The Dark Knight Mr. Potato Head is available on pre-order basis and is estimated to be available by June 2012. If you order from The Big Bad Toy Store now, you get a $2 discount from the list price of $19.99. That should leave you with enough to get the upgrade.

Did the 1992 “Death of Superman” storyline from DC Comics send you into a fit of fanboy fury? Max Landis, son of director John Landis and writer of the film Chronicle, was pretty ticked by it. His 15-minute rant-slash-reenactment is required viewing for all true comic book fans.

Landis himself directs and retells the story of Superman‘s death and return, while a bunch of his friends act out the story he’s telling. Among the many, many guest stars Landis enlisted for his short film are Elijah Wood, Mandy Moore, Simon Pegg, Matt Bennett, Ron Howard, Chris Hardwick, Morgan Krantz, Kelsey Gunn, and many more, all of whom prove entirely game for Landis’ lo-fi, low-budget dramatizations.

Despite the angry ranting over the endlessly illogical plot points and wacky play-acting by his goofball friends, in the end Landis does make an excellent point about how this pivotal moment in comic book history changed the medium forever — and not for the better.

Just be warned: watching this video is not recommended if you’re turned off by excessive profanity. Because of this, it’s most definitely NSFW.

In fact, today’s post just might make you appreciate flowers more than ever. Without the usual connotations that come with it. These flower pictures are the work of American photographer David Lachapelle, and while they might not be as geeky as the flowers Robin wrote about some time last year, they will certainly catch your eye and keep you hooked as well.

Lachapelle calls his work “Earth Laughs in Flowers”. Obviously, the photographs have flowers – all sorts – in focus, but it is the surrounding details that make the difference. And such a huge difference does the setups make!

Forget mushy and sloppy flower arrangements. Think vivid, dark, brilliant – all exploding in one image! Think cigarette butts, dismembered dolls, water guns, and ripe fruit that looks like the flavor is bursting out of them. Oh, and don’t forget the mobile phone and medication.

Lachapelle’s work is more than about the universal symbol of the month of February. It “explores the fragility of society and ideas of vice and vanity”. It might be difficult to internalize that concept without seeing the photos, but once you go through the gallery below, I trust that you will not walk away without getting the message.

Make sure to click on the thumbnails for the full Earth Laughs in Flowers experience.

This week, ForeverGeek posted our annual Movie Calendar, and this year, we selected 10 movies as our “Must See” picks for the year. Which is the one you’re looking forward to the most?

In the poll, you’ll find our 10 Must See films of 2012. (See the Movie Calendar page for the full list of more than 100 films hitting theaters this year. And we’re adding more all the time, so remember to bookmark it!)

Anyhow, if you are into calendars that serve a different kind of purpose, you will love the Mapping Stereotypes Calendar Project by Alpha Design. As you can read from the title, however, this is definitely not for you if you are rather sensitive about political correctness and everything else remotely related to the concept. The Mapping Stereotypes Calender Project might very well be the furthest thing from political correctness.

The idea is to take the map of the world – or parts of it – and change the labels on the countries depending on the perception of a group of people. You can easily see how wrong this can go. Then again, you have to bear in mind that this was done with all silliness in mind. Just laugh it away and not take it too seriously.

With that warning being thrown out there, I shall let the maps speak for themselves.

Mapping Stereotypes Calendar: World According to the United States of America

World According to the United States of America

Mapping Stereotypes Calendar: Europe According to the United States of America

Europe According to the United States of America

Mapping Stereotypes Calendar: Europe According to Greece

Europe According to Greece

Mapping Stereotypes Calendar: Europe According to Germany

Europe According to Germany

Know what I mean now? If you only took a short time to go through the maps, take a look again with a more open mind this time. These maps – and a whole lot more – are part of the Mapping Stereotypes Calendar, which you can purchase at Alpha Designer.

Calvin & Hobbes Art Print

As all fans of Calvin & Hobbes know, Bill Watterson shunned all tie-in merchandise for his creation, never selling so much as a bumper sticker. So it’s a very big deal that one lucky buyer is about to get an incredibly rare art print signed by the artist.

The original watercolor illustration Watterson created for the 1989-90 16-Month Calvin & Hobbes Calendar is going up for auction on February 23rd, where it’s expected to fetch a price upwards of $50,000. Heritage Auctions is selling the piece as part of its “Vintage Comics & Comic Art Signature” event at the Fletcher-Sinclair Mansion.

Calvin & Hobbes creator Bill Watterson was exceedingly single-minded in his artistic integrity, refusing the huge piles of cash he could have made from authorizing licensed products like plush toys and posters, and ending his strip’s run after ten years at the height of its popularity. Comic strips mean something to the incredibly private Watterson, and his insistence on never compromising is one of the many traits that made Calvin & Hobbes so special.

The only art prints Watterson ever created he gave away as gifts, and it is one of these gifts that is now being sold. Heritage claims that the piece is in pristine condition, and is signed to “Rick Marschall,” whom Watterson gifted it to.

Click here to visit the Heritage Auctions listing for this Calvin & Hobbes art print, where you can bid on the piece in secret and read more details about it.

However, I don’t think that you can deny the pleasure of actually wrapping your fingers around a nice pen and writing things down on a sheet of paper. And nowadays, when it comes to notebooks, I think we can all agree that Moleskine is one of the more popular brands out there. This is not to say that I actually use them – I think they are overrated notepads – but they do come up with cool collections now and then.

LEGO Moleskine

The LEGO Moleskine collection notebooks feature imprinted covers, which in themselves make buying a notebook worth considering. You do get more perks such as a LEGO-themed bookmark, stickers, and LEGO graphics. There is even a LEGO patch which you can play around with.

Open LEGO Moleskine

Via Freshness Mag

Designer Nikita Kovalev has thought of a different way to use firepower by creating gun doorknobs that will be a fun addition to any gun lover’s furnishings. Her work, as shown on Behance, is an impressive set of pistols, as you can see below. The concept is called the Bang Bang Handle.

Bang Bang Handles

The site does not divulge a lot of details about the designs and how Kovalev went about conceptualizing the Bang Bang Handle. That does not take away one bit from designs, though, does it?

We also know a little bit about the pistols, but that’s about it.

9 mm Makarov (PM, GRAU index – 56-A-125, unofficial name – “Makarov”, “Makar”, “Macaroni,” “Makarych”) – semi-automatic pistol, designed by the Soviet designerNikolai Fyodorovich Makarov, in 1948
. MP from 1951 until now is the personal weapon of the Soviet and post-Soviet armed forces and law enforcement.

Now if you want to see the Bang Bang Handle “in action”, here’s what it could look like.

Black Bang Bang Handle

I don’t know about you, but that would be pretty cool sight. Then again, I have worries that the handle would break if a little bit of force is used on it. Also, I wonder how keys come into the picture?

LEGO Lord of the Rings: Gollum

We’re salivating with each new reveal that comes along from LEGO for its upcoming Lord of the Rings toy line. We’ve seen several character posters, but today we’ve got your first look at the killer minifigures for the entire Fellowship and several baddies, including Orcs, Uruk-Hai, Gollum, and Nazgul.

Above you can also see the new character poster for Gollum, which really nails the malevolent part of his personality. Of all of Tolkien’s characters, Gollum was probably the hardest to translate to LEGO form. But he’s instantly recognizable, so I think it works.

These official images of the Lord of the Rings minifigures (below) were sent over by the great folks at LEGO, who are hard at work putting the finishing touches on their lineup of LEGO Lord of the Rings toy sets. LEGO is expected to unveil their boxed sets at Toy Fair in two weeks. Stay tuned!

I think my favorites are Gimli and the Nazgul.

LEGO Lord of the Rings minifigures

LEGO Lord of the Rings minifigures

This is not the real opening credits sequence from The Dark Knight Rises. But it should be.

Turkish graphic designer Doğan Can Gündoğdu created these fake opening credits for Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises for, according to a Tweet, a “video lesson.” One assumes this means it was made for a lesson of some kind related to the Communication Design in Bahcesehir University reference in his bio.

Can you imagine? Creating something of this caliber for a college lecture? Or from the other perspective, can you imagine what it would be like to walk into your classroom and have this as the centerpiece of the lesson you sit through? Beats the heck out of any school lesson I ever heard.

Gündoğdu’s take on the tone of The Dark Knight Rises is just brilliant. He totally gets the importance of conveying that eight years have passed since the last film, and establishing the setting of where we pick back up with the story. He even incorporates the Bane chant heard in the official trailer.

You don’t even need to take a second look at this photo to make the decision to make a go for it, do you?

Alien Brain Hemorrhage Cocktail

Doesn’t that look like a disgusting thing? It’s so disgusting it becomes good! And actually, if you think about it, the Alien Brain Hemorrhage Cocktail seems rather complicated to make. That is, if you base it on the looks of the drink. (Then again, I am no bartender, so I really have no idea.)

The nice surprise is that it seems that anyone – maybe even I – can make a shot of Alien Brain Hemorrhage Cocktail! According to Latin Rapper, all that you need to do to make the Alien Brain Hemorrhage Cocktail is to get together some peach schnapps, Bailey’s Irish Cream, Blue Curacao, and Grenadine Syrup. Of course, you need a shot glass.

First you pour some peach schnapps into the shot glass – about halfway full. You then take the Bailey’s and gently pour it over the peach schnapps. Just before the glass gets totally full, add some Blue Curacao to the mix. The last touch is to add a few drops of Grenadine Syrup. The result? Something that you might actually believe is an alien’s brain hemorrhaging!

Apparently, the Alien Brain Hemorrhage Cocktail is from Scotland (I guess they have some alien specimens there), and here is a video which can show you how it is made. Be warned: offensive language is used.

Last week we picked your brain about your favorite fantasy world. This week, science fiction gets its day. What’s your favorite scifi universe, and why?

This isn’t a poll about your favorite science fiction movie, video game, or novel. It’s about the setting, the living, breathing world where the story takes place. Which one do you find the most intriguing, the most exciting? Which one would you most like to visit?

Vote in the poll above, and then if you like, head down to the Comments below and tell us why you voted the way you did. Or, if you don’t see your favorite universe listed in the poll, select “Other” and then write-in your vote in the Comments.

Here’s a quick breakdown of the poll:

• Alienverse: It’s yet to be confirmed that Ridley Scott’s upcoming Prometheus is a prequel to Alien, but it sure looks that way.
• The Forerunners’ Universe: The galaxy as built and influenced by the ancient Forerunner society in Halo.
• A Galaxy Far, Far Away: The setting of Star Wars.
• The Matrix: Both the scorched “real world” and the “interactive neural simulation” of The Matrix films.
• Pandora: The alien moon where Avatar takes place.
• Star Trek‘s Universe: Where starships and their crews boldly go and see what’s out there.
• The 13 Colonies of Cobol: The universe of the human and the Cylons as seen in Battlestar Galactica (either series).
• The Whoniverse: all of time and space as visitable in the TARDIS at the whims of Doctor Who.

[Image credit.]

This gal from Los Angeles, California impressed me with her sewing skills, if only because the only time I tried making a dress in high school Home Ec, it was an utter disaster! Seriously, this high school teacher married to a scientist rocks!

She got hold of some Star Wars sheets, of which there is no shortage of, I assume. She then proceeded to get her hands and imagination busy and created this wonderful DIY retro Star Wars dress. Male or female will certainly stop to take a second look at this.

DIY Star Wars Dress

By the way, the sheets that she used for this dress are not your ordinary sheets. They were a gift from a friend: original 1977 Star Wars sheets! Okay, I can hear some of you shouting – what a way to treat vintage sheets! Then again, if you look at the result, I suppose that it is a forgivable act.

This is the back of the DIY retro Star Wars dress, and you can see that some thought was put into how the design of the sheets would come out with the dress. I think it’s perfect how she was able to put C3PO into each of the straps.

DIY Star Wars Dress Back

I have a feeling that you want to see that skirt spread in all its glory. Well, here it is. Feast your eyes on the print.

DIY Star Wars Dress 2

Guess how much this cost to make? About $6 in materials!

Doesn’t this make you want to try your hand at making your own DIY retro Star Wars dress – or any other similar idea? As I have no skill at all when it comes to sewing, I suggest you visit Cation Designs for the details instead.

eFX' Avengers prop replicas sneak peek

You know The Avengers movie must be getting closer when licensee companies are making announcements. In my inbox today was a press release from eFX announcing their line of Avengers movie replicas, and showing off a first peek at what they have in store.

eFX Inc. has acquired the worldwide rights to create Marvel collectibles, and they’re not stopping at The Avengers movie. They’re launching a full line of products based on Marvel characters from both the films and the comic books. Prices are expected to range between $49 and $1,500, or possibly even more depending on the size and artistry of the collectible. All products will be available to buy at eFX’s website, and at select retail locations and conventions.

Included in their first batch of products are replicas of Captain America’s shield, Thor’s Mjolnir hammer, and a full-scale Iron Man Mark V mask. Based on the preview image they sent, it would appear that Cap’s helmet cowl will also be among the available products, as well as Thor’s silver headpiece. The first replicas will be on display at WonderCon in Anaheim, California from March 16-18.

Past replicas manufactured and sold by eFX include items from Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Disney, and more. Not bad for a company that’s only four years old.

Anyhow, there is so much to the TV series that I think a lot of people have not seen every Doctor Who episode that has been made. There are, of course, the die hard fans who can tell you all about the 11 doctors and everything they have done. I think it’s safe to say that you’re not alone if you have not seen the first series. Or even the second, or the third. That is why we have all sorts of guides, such as this Doctor Who Timeline.

Thanks to the efforts of BabelColour, you now only need 10 minutes of your time to be able to say that you have seen every Doctor Who episode. Yup, 10 minutes! That’s about as long as it will take you to eat a slice or two of pizza, or maybe as long as it will take you to finish your first cup of coffee for the day.

The video first came out in 2008, but as we all know, more has happened to the doctor since then. Here’s BabelColor’s updated video of every Doctor Who episode. It might be a little longer than your usual online videos, but hey, at least the end you will be able to say that you have indeed seen every single episode!

You’ve probably never wondered to yourself, “What would it be like if Aardman did DC Comics superheroes?” (Aardman, in case you don’t know, is the claymation studio behind Wallace & Gromit, Chicken Run, Arthur Christmas, and lots more.) Today you’re going to find out exactly what it’s like.

Cartoon Network is prepping a block of programming known as “DC Nation,” which is exactly what it sounds like — a group of new shows, shorts, and more, starring DC superheroes. Just one way Cartoon Network is promoting DC Nation is with this clever one-minute short from Aardman that features several DC characters behaving like children (and featuring real childrens’ voices). It’s kooky, it’s campy, and you have to watch it.

If this whets your appetite for DC Nation, here’s what you can expect:

• Green Lantern – a slick-looking CGI cartoon featuring the saga of the Green Lantern Corps
• Young Justice – action-packed traditional hand-drawn animation starring Superboy, Robin, Kid Flash, and more
• Tons of DC-influenced short films and short-form series, including a chibi-style Teen Titans, LEGO Batman, and loads more. The commercial embedded below offers a quick preview of the two flagship shows and the various short spots, and I think I even spotted some of the promo spots for Monolith’s Gotham City Impostors in there. The Aardman bit above fits in with these many other shorts, and word has it more of these DC/Aardman mashups are on their way to DC Nation.
• Beware the Batman (coming in 2013) – a CGI cartoon that presents a new take on the Dark Knight that’s darker and more serious than The Brave and the Bold
• Blue Beetle – a live action show based on the Jaime Reyes version of the character is in production, but it’s unknown if it’s a full-length series (perhaps planned for ’13?) or a series of shorts
• DC News – MTV-like news breaks with quick-cut features on happenings in DC Comics, movies, TV shows, video games, and more.

DC Nation is expected to kick into gear sometime this Spring.

Indiana Jones Engagement Ring

This piece of jewelry is not an ordinary gift, though. A guy going by the name Homerliwag on Reddit gave the ring to his girl friend when he popped the question. I suppose that not all girls will appreciate being presented with this Indiana Jones engagement ring, but if you think about it, the thought and work that was put into the ring might very well be enough to impress a lady! Of course, if that lady can’t resist Indiana Jones, then the story ends right here.

Homerliwag did put a lot of effort into his engagement ring. One look at the schematic can tell you that!

Indiana Jones Engagement Ring Schematic

Indiana Jones Engagement Ring in Box

Plus points for creativity! Now what theme would you choose if you were to give a similar gift? Think, and choose wisely. V-Day is coming up.

Via The Mary Sue

Stormtrooper Cake

This is a cake. Let me say that again. It’s a cake! A life-sized, totally realistic, and yes edible Stormtrooper cake. And it looks better than a lot of the Stormtrooper costumes I’ve seen.

I’m a big fan of Charm City Cakes in Baltimore, thanks to their dearly-departed (and surprisingly geek-friendly) TV show on the Food Network, Ace of Cakes. (Its final season aired last year, and I am indeed still bitter.) Their incredible, realistic or stylized cakes are always amazing. But they’ve got some serious competition in the form of Amanda Oakleaf Cakes, of Winthrop, Massachusetts.

Oakleaf baked and built this remarkable cake for a scifi convention earlier this month. It weighed more than 300 pounds, stood 6′ 4″ tall, and had enough cake to feed 600 people. It took ten people almost two weeks to plan, build the wire-and-metal frame, and finally fill the frame with cake (which was done just two days before it was to be eaten). The frame was filled entirely with cake, except for the lower legs, which were filled with Rice Krispie Treats.

Can you imagine?! Just… wow.

I’ve seen enough cooking shows to know that fondant — the sugar dough used to cover cakes these days with smoother, cleaner lines than frosting — does not like sticking to vertical surfaces. It’s much heavier than frosting, and doesn’t have any inherent stickiness. Oakleaf says on their blog (where you can see lots more photos of their process) that they “had to invent completely new cake making methods so it could be put together modularly onsite and hold its fondant over long vertical stretches.” I absolutely believe it. There’s simply no way traditional cake-making methods would work for a dessert of this size.

Though it’s certainly their biggest and most elaborate cake, it’s hardly Oakleaf’s first geek-friendly creation. Take a look at their website to see more awesomely geeky treats.

Kudos to Oakleaf Cakes for raising the bar for geeky desserts! Charm City, you’ve been called out.

Stormtrooper Cake: building the helmet

Stormtrooper Cake: filling the frame with cake (life-size photo reference is at left)

Jamie Regan got in touch with us to see if we would be interested in his creation: a DIY NES PC. According to him, he built this baby because he has too much time on his hands, the lucky guy. I think that even luckier is the fact that he had the creativity, skills, and patience to tinker with the device to come up with a something “new”.

NES PC

It is not that surprising that Jamie was able to pull this off as he is a qualified electrician. Still, he says, the whole project took a lot of time and effort. Go through this post and see if you agree with him that this is the best NES PC mod ever built.

NES PC Inside

Those are the innards of the device. Jamie says he wanted to keep things “as discrete as possible” so he lined the area around the disk drive with metal to achieve a neater appearance. Naturally, he also built in USB ports – two of them.

NES PC USB Ports

If you want more USB ports, you can always purchase a cheap USB hub.

I suppose those were the easy parts, as Jamie shares that the most difficult thing was to create the back panel. As you can imagine, he had to cut out space for all the inputs needed in the back panel. He still did a pretty good job in spite of the challenge.

NES PC Back Panel

Here are some of the things that Jamie used to create his DIY NES PC:

• ASRock A330GC Mini Itx Motherboard
• Mini ITX PC DC-DC Power Supply Board 120W PSU 12V
• Samsung SN-208BB 8x DVD-RW
• RAM SATA Laptop Drive
• Seagate Momentus 7200.3 SATA 3Gb/s 160-GB Hard Drive
• 1 GB Ram DDR2 ( 2x 512MBs )

If you want to make one yourself, and you need some help, get in touch with Jamie via email: jamie_regan1@hotmail.com. And if you want to make an offer for the DIY NES PC, you can also ask him about that!

If you live near one of ten select AMC theaters, you (or rather, your kids) can watch the 3D edition of The Phantom Menace with special “young Anakin” 3D glasses, a collectible freebie, and take part in activities geared toward younglings children.

On February 10th, Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace arrives in theaters in 3D, and Lucasfilm is playing up its appeal to kids with parties that will be free to attendees at ten select theaters. Ticket holders at these theaters will receive, at no extra charge, a collectible Star Wars Fighter Pod toy from Hasbro and a pair of the stylin’ “Anakin Skywalker Podracer 3D Glasses” you can see below. They’ll also get to enjoy a special LEGO play area, Darth Maul face painting, Star Wars character appearances for photo ops, and live demonstrations of the upcoming Xbox Kinect Star Wars video game.

The ten theaters participating in these exclusive activities are:

• AMC Southlake 24 in Atlanta
• AMC Loews Liberty Tree Mall 20 in Boston
• AMC South Barrington 30 in Chicago
• AMC Highlands Ranch 24 in Denver
• AMC Tustin 14 at The District in Los Angeles
• AMC Ontario Mills 30 in Los Angeles
• AMC Empire 25 in New York
• AMC Garden State 16 in New York
• AMC Mesa Grand 24 in Phoenix
• AMC Emeryville Bay Street 16 in San Francisco

Okay geeky guys and gals, be honest. I know Episode I is monotonous. We’re talking, could-have-been-made-by-Ben-Stein’s-teacher-character-in-Ferris Beuller kind of boring. But there are exclusive Star Wars collectibles up for grabs here, and Lucasfilm’s press release says they’re only available “while supplies last.” And you know those goggles especially are going to be all over eBay the afternoon of the 10th — and people will buy them.

Are the collectibles worth the price of admission?

Now, do any of you remember Keds? The brand is still around, but I remember it as the “cool brand” when I was high school. The kids whose parents could afford Keds always stood out. I haven’t been in high school for eons, so I really would not know what the cool sneakers brand is these days, but these new concept Keds designs by Lumen Bigott might just propel the brand to a whole different level. The graphic designer and marketer decided to combine two things that many people utilize on a daily basis: sneakers and social media.

Enter Keds social media shoes.

Okay, there are people who do not wear sneakers regularly, but can you think of more comfortable footwear? And sure, there are a lot of people who could not care less about social media (and maybe are better off because of it), but these Keds social media sneakers are worth a look.

Keds social media sneakers: Facebook

Facebook Shoes

Keds social media sneakers: Twitter

Twitter Shoes

Keds social media sneakers: Google

Google Shoes

Keds social media sneakers: Flickr

Flickr Shoes

Keds social media sneakers: YouTube

YouTube Shoes

Keds social media sneakers: Wiki

Wiki Shoes

Keds social media sneakers: Dribble

Dribbble Shoes

Before you get all excited and ask around where to buy these Keds social media sneakers, remember they are mere concepts. I am sure that if you are adamant about having one, you can find a custom shoemaker somewhere to help you out. I’m sticking to my Ipanemas.