Sci-Fi Storm

Fashion Week may belong in New York City, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have our own version of it, and have it at the center of geekdom – San Diego Comic-Con!

Our dear friends at Her Universe, in conjunction with Hot Topic and Nerdist Industries, will bring the first-ever full-scale “Geek Couture” fashion show and design competition to SDCC this year, which runs July 24-27, 2014.

As part of the fashion show, Her Universe is offering a fashion design competition – amateur designers 18 years old and older can submit designs to HerUniverse.com inspired by anything that is celebrated at Comic-Con. 30 contestants will be chosen to participate at the show, modeling the fashions themselves or with their own model. Two winners will be chosen – one by a panel of judges (including fashion experts), and the other by the audience. The prize? An opportunity to co-design, with Ashley Eckstein, an exclusive Her Universe fashion collection for Hot Topic.

Check out the official release for more info! And my daughter is trying to figure out how to age five years in the next couple weeks 🙂

With the growing popularity of Star Wars Weekends at Disney’s Hollywood Studios theme park in Walt Disney World, it is perhaps not surprising that they are adding a fifth weekend this year. And maybe not surprising that the theme is “Join the Rebellion”, which will likely tie in Star Wars Rebels. But what is surprising that perhaps the biggest part of the weekends, the Hyperspace Hoopla that happens at the end of the day and features a “dance off” of sorts with the Star Wars characters, is apparently not going to happen this year.

Check out our sister side WDW Untangled for more and continuing coverage of Star Wars Weekends.

Universal Orlando Resort is finally telling the world some the details about the expansion everyone knew was going – the expansion of the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. Some of the details we basically knew, but others are a surprise – and the expansion is so big, they haven’t even revealed all the details yet, so there will be more surprises yet to come.

In advance of their “A Celebration of Harry Potter” event which starts tomorrow and goes through the weekend, Universal spilled the beans on details about the expansion, which brings the Harry Potter experience over to its other park, Universal Studios Florida, and connects the two via a ride on the Hogwarts Express. They even kicked it off with a webcast, featuring some of the stars of the movies: James Phelps (Fred Weasley), Matthew Lewis (Neville Longbottom), and Evanna Lynch (Luna Lovegood):

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So, how do you scare a guy who kills zombies all the time? Catch him a little off guard…

Norman Reedus, who plays zombie-killer Daryl Dixon The Walking Dead, was in Japan for a press junket promoting the second half of the season along with a number of other members of the cast and crew, including Andrew Lincoln (Rick Grimes) and makeup artist/producer Greg Nicotero. And while they were there, they decided to pull of a little prank on Norman…they invited Nick Santonastasso, who was born with no legs and only one arm and has been making a name for himself online for pranking people as a zombie, to come out to Tokyo with them, be put in full makeup, and then come out and scare Norman while he’s trying to shoot a short promo spot in front of a camera.

See the whole thing here…
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While details of what is exactly going to be in it, Walt Disney World finally broke ground at its Animal Kingdom park to add the new land based on James Cameron’s Avatar – more than two years after it was announced.

And not only was Mickey Mouse present, but a Na’vi as well – as well as (pictured, l to r) George Kalogridis, president of Walt Disney World Resort; Meg Crofton, president of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Operations, United States and France; Tom Staggs, chairman of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts; Jon Landau, producer of Avatar; Bruce Vaughn, chief creative executive for Walt Disney Imagineering; and Joe Rhode, creative executive for Walt Disney Imagineering.

Check out the video as well for what they said about Avatar.
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I totally missed this during the actual holidays, but here it is…bookmark for next year!
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I know it is late in the shopping season – I’ve been uber-busy this year, but you might still have time…here are a few of the things we like out there…most of which we’ve purchased!

With three science-fiction-loving girls in my house, there was never much in the way of appropriate clothing you could get for them for gifts…until about four years ago. Today, their wardrobes and my wallet seem to be aimed at Her Universe, founded by an actual Jedi – the voice of Ahsoka Tano, Ashley Eckstein. Covering not just Star Wars, but Doctor Who, The Walking Dead, Star Trek, and Syfy programs, clothing and other merchandise specially made for women with awesome designs abound. And you can also get items at ThinkGeek and Hot Topic (in the stores as well!) Still no merchandise for men…yet.

For the men at least, if you are a fan of Warehouse 13, did you know that star Eddie McClintock, who plays Agent Pete Lattimer, is an artist? For the last few seasons he’s designed and sold T-shirts for the show, and the final season T-shirt is not only available for sale, but you can GET IT SIGNED BY HIM for free! It may be too late for Christmas, but who doesn’t like an extra gift after the holidays? And while you are at it, check out his original artwork for sale.

Speaking of ThinkGeek – I’m not a coffee drinker, but I do like a hot cup of tea, and I can be a bit of a tea snob. More recently I’ve delved into the realm of loose leaf teas, but they can be difficult to use – I’ve got two of those round mesh tea infusers (including a Mickey head one I picked up at WDW), but if you’re dealing with fine cut tea, they never really seem to close properly and you get pieces of tea in your drink. But then I found this TARDIS tea infuser, which looks perfect. I haven’t tried it yet because it’s a Christmas gift to myself, but the design looks to be just what I want – fill from the top, fine holes on the bottom…problem solved.
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This was just an amazing performance by the OSU band at halftime, performing a movie-themed set from this past weekend, featuring Superman, Lord Of The Rings, Harry Potter, Jurassic Park and Pirates Of The Caribbean.

I even said at one point, “If they make it eat somebody, it would be AWESOME!” I wasn’t disappointed. 🙂
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This is somewhat local to me, although I haven’t seen it yet…

The town of Salem, Massachusetts has an art program called “ArtBox”, which paints up typically drab utility boxes on streets to be nicer. One box on Bridge Street happens to have been painted as the TARDIS from Doctor Who. But it seems someone thought it might be confused for an actual Police box.

Once rumors started that they might paint it over (although it was later learned they may have only planned to alter the “POLICE” reference at the top), a “Save the TARDIS” campaign started. But now it appears that there are no plans at all to alter the TARDIS, as confirmed by Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll.

Amanda Dunham from Salem started painted the utility box two weeks ago, but received an email saying that some citizens “were concerned” it could be mistaken for the real thing – a police call box, not a time machine.

Of course, for decades in this area police call boxes were very small devices like public fire alarm boxes, not walk-in detention units with built-in telephones…

Ok, I’ve put some of the best pics I got from this past weekend’s trip to Star Wars Weekends – man, it was blasted hot! We ended up taking it easy and some of the stuff was family oriented, and I’m still getting used to the new camera. But you can see the pics over at our Google+ photo album here.

It was a great time. Ashley Eckstein was great as usual – always friendly and remembers everything. And you could see her HerUniverse shirts being worn everywhere! It was good to see Sam Witwer again as well – he’s really funny in person.

Warwick Davis also put on a short but amazing show called “An Ewok’s Tale”, which covered his early life (very humorously) and how he got the part of an Ewok in Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi that later turned into a starring role, as well as his later roles. It included footage I’ve not seen before as well.

If you are a Star Wars fan and can get to Florida for a weekend, this is well worth it! This coming weekend is the last for this year, but it seems pretty certain there will be more next year!