She Likes to Watch

You'll feel oh-so-cozy in a Tauntaun Sleeping Bag from ThinkGeek.com

Wondering what to get the sci fi geek on your list? Here are some suggestions

What do you get the geek who has everything?

Some holiday shoppers may find themselves struggling to answer that question.

Geeks, by and large, are a picky lot. And their preferences may seem peculiar to friends and relatives who aren’t, say, hardcore “Firefly” fans.

Fortunately, the folks at io9.com have plenty of gift suggestions for nerdy nephews, dorky dads and sci-fi obsessed spouses  — whether they’re fans of “Star Wars,”  “Transformers” or “Doctor Who.”

Pictured above is my favorite present — ThinkGeek’s Tauntaun Sleeping Bag, inspired by Luke Skywalker’s oh-so-cozy bed in “The Empire Strikes Back.” And you thought they smelled bad on the outside!

Seriously, though, this cute sleeping bag is a steal at $100. I  love the attention paid to even the tiniest details, from the plush lightsaber zipper pull to the “printed internal intestines.”

Other standouts from io9’s all-inclusive gift guide:

• Explore new planets with this totally awesome tricorder from “Star Trek: The Original Series.”
• Look and sound exactly like Optimus Prime from “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” with this voice-changing helmet.
• A must-have for “Terminator Salvation” fans: “How to Survive a Robot Uprising: Tips On Defending Yourself Against the Coming Revolution” by Daniel H. Wilson
• Now you, too, can enjoy a swig of the red stuff. “True Blood” vampires will love  Blood Caffeinated Energy Potion, served in a transfusion blood bag.
• Practice your “Zombieland” survival skills with the Zombie Shooting Gallery

Need more ideas for primo presents? The site also has a Sci Fi Fashion Gift Guide.

Suggestions range from a “Be Excellent To Each Other” T-shirt inspired by “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” to a trio of rad hats based on characters from the uber-popular Japanese cartoon “Naruto.”

You can find the awesome ninja socks mentioned at the bottom of the post at The Sock Drawer,  852 Higuera St. in San Luis Obispo.

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Image courtesy of ThinkGeek.com.

Local tattoo parlor is organizing a downtown zombie walk this Thursday

Do you feel trapped by your current situation? Stagnant? Dead in the water?

Now you can leave that boring desk job behind in exchange for a career path with real downward mobility.  Join the undead horde today!

Traditional Tattoo of San Luis Obispo is organizing a pre-Halloween zombie walk.

Exactly 113 walking corpses will invade the downtown San Luis Obispo Farmers Market on Thursday, Oct.29. The event is free and open to the public.

All wannabe zombies should sign up no later than today at Traditional Tattoo, 251 Higuera St. in San Luis Obispo, or online.

Traditional Tattoo will provide makeup, fake blood, makeup artists and movement coaches — plus videographers to document the shambling ghouls and their hapless victims.

All you have to do is show up on time in ripped, torn zombiesque attire. (You’ll receive a packet listing time, location, route and other pertinent information via e-mail.)

For more details, call Louie at 541-8282 or 784-0822, or e-mail him at  dropmanysuckas@hotmail.com.

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It’s also the last day to sign up for Traditional Tattoo’s air guitar competition, back for a second year.

This year, hard-rocking contestants are encouraged to follow a Halloween and horror theme. Prizes include tattoo gift certificates and a badass Halloween trouphy.

There’s also an audience costume contest, complete with tattoo gift certificate.

The Air Guitar Competition starts at 9 p.m. Friday at Downtown Brewing Co., 1119 Garden St. in San Luis Obispo. Tickets are $5 at the door.

Gory and gloriously funny, “Zombieland” brings new life to the zombie genre 

Columbus is the last guy you’d pick to survive a zombie apocalypse.

He’s a nervous, nerdy lad, a scrawny teen whose weaknesses include agoraphobia, Irritable Bowel Syndrome and a deep-seated, debilitating fear of clowns. He suffers from shyness and has very little experience with the opposite sex.

Yet, against all odds, Columbus has managed to make it much farther than most, thanks to his trusty double-barreled shotgun and a few handy axioms.  It’s these rules — which range from warnings about bathrooms and backseats to Rule 32, “Enjoy the Little Things” — that provide the cheeky, often charming narrative to  “Zombieland.”

Gory, gruesome and gloriously funny, “Zombieland” comes across as a hilarious primer for surviving the End of Days.

According to Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg, “Adventureland”), the zombie apocalypse began mere months ago when some anonymous sucker ate a contaminated burger. “You know mad-cow disease? Well, mad-cow became mad-person become mad-zombie.”

Now America is overrun with mean, nasty goo-spewing monsters.

These aren’t the shambling undead corpses of “Night of the Living Dead.”

Much like the frightening fast folks in “28 Days Later,” the zombies in “Zombieland” are ordinary people infected with a nasty bug that makes you violent, hungry and extremely irritable.

Again, the question arises: How the heck has a kid like Columbus made it this far alone?

He first teams up with Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson, priceless), a rowdy redneck whose zest for big guns, big cars and copious amounts of hard alcohol makes him a natural born zombie killer.

Then the guys encounter sisters Witchita (Emma Stone, “The Rocker”) and her young sister, Little Rock (Abigail Breslin, “My Sister’s Keeper”). Successful scam artists before the zombie apocalypse, the young women now specialize in cheating hapless survivors out of their cars, food and firearms.

As this unlikely quartet makes their way across the zombie-infested wasteland once known as the United States of America, Columbus is forced to reexamine his modus operandi. Could it be time to break some of his biggest rules?

Directed by relative newcomer Ruben Fleischer, “Zombieland” toes the line between goofy spoof and loving tribute almost as skillfully as “Shaun of the Dead.”

For George Romero purists, there are dozens of flesh-crazed fiends and gallons of gore. For the hipper, more jaded crowd of zombie fans, there’s frenzied video game violence, slick special effects and snarky dialogue.

And then there are the zombies — zombies of every shape, size and ethnicity. Pint-sized princesses. Soccer moms. Backwoods hicks. Undead celebrity impersonators. Even (gasp!) an evil clown.

There are so few humans in the movie, in fact, that brief cameos by “Year of the Dog” writer-director Mike White and “Pineapple Express” hottie Amber Heard stand out immediately. The movie’s surprise celebrity cameo — teased but not seen until the moment of truth — is well worth the wait.

Columbus and his motley crew, meanwhile, are so likeable that it’s easily to overlook the movie’s few flaws — such as the apparent lack of foodstuffs or the implication that there are only four (make that five) humans left on Earth yet to develop a taste for brains.

We’re content to simply go along for the ride, watching as four misfits named by a grade-school geography class duke it out with guts, grace and an ever-winking wit.

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Image courtesy of MovieWeb.com.

Can “Zombieland” triumph over “Shaun of the Dead”?

Zombies occupy a unique niche in the human psyche.

By definition, they’re reanimated corpses — undead denizens that crave human flesh. They can be swift or stumbling, relatively fresh or falling to pieces. And, since they’re already dead, zombies are nigh impossible to kill.

Zombies tap into one of mankind’s most deep-seated fears — the fear that one day our closest family members, friends and colleagues will suddenly turn on us. No warning. No escape.

Perhaps that’s the main reason zombies continue to have such a strong hold over our collective imaginations. They are the only supernatural threat for which there is no easy fix.

There’s been an renewed interest in zombie movies in recent years, including “28 Days Later” and the “Resident Evil” trilogy. Earlier this year, in fact, the Norwegian film “Dead Snow” terrified moviegoers with its depiction of undead Nazi soldiers attacking ski bums.

“Zombieland,” which opens in theaters today, is the latest gorefest to join the gruesome fray.

Woody Harrelson stars as Tallahassee, a cowboy hat-wearing, shotgun-wielding zombie hunter who enlists Columbus (Jesse Eisenberg, “Adventureland”) in his search of the last Twinkie on Earth. Along the way, they encounter Wichita (Emma Stone, “Superbad”) and Little Rock (Abigail Breslin, “Little Miss Sunshine”), two sisters engaged in their own battle for survival.

“Zombieland” looks like fun — at least, as much fun as a moviegoer can have while watching innocent bystanders being torn to bits. Yet it will have to try hard to secure a place in the bloodsplattered, debris-strewn hall of zombie movie classics.

When I asked my friends and co-workers to name their favorite zombie film recently, the results were surprising.

I expected a classic George Romero gorefest to top the list.

Although “Night of the Living Dead” and “Zombi 2″ warranted a couple votes, the clear winner was Britain’s “Shaun of the Dead.”

Just read this glowing review:

“As you know, I don’t normally go in for scary movies. … I liked (“Shaun of the Dead”) because it’s not taking itself too seriously; the folks making it were obviously just having a lot of fun, and their wackiness very successfully carries over to the audience.”

And this one:

“Never before had a zombie movie combined battling the undead with the music of Queen. Plus, by watching this, you learn a secret about killing zombies: Old vinyl records are an effective weapon. … Here you have a funny movie that managed to be scary as well.”

Clearly, “Shaun of the Dead” is that rarest of horror movies — a hilariously horrifying comedy with heart and guts. Literally.

In fact, the 2004 film is considered the world’s first rom-zom-com — or “romantic zombie comedy.” That combination makes it extremely accessible for easily frightened filmgoers and hardcore horror fans alike.

So, can “Zombieland” top “Shaun of the Dead”? It might take multiple midnight viewings to tell for sure.

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Image courtesy of MovieWeb.com.

Geek rocker Jonathan Coulton stands up for zombie office workers everywhere

Most zombie movies depict  as stupid, unreasoning brutes, incapable of forming any thought more complex than “Braaaains!!”

Brooklyn geek rocker Jonathan Coulton begs to differ.

In his song, “Re: Your Brains,” an undead dude explains his situation to his co-workers in a carefully worded memo. Zombies are just hungry guys, he says, who happen to enjoy snacking on the gray matter most of us keep between our ears.

“All we want to do is eat your brains,” Coulton sings. “We’re not unreasonable/ I mean, nobody’s going to eat your eyes …”

In honor of “Zombieland,” which opens Friday, here’s Coulton’s anthem to logical zombies everywhere.

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Thanks to Tom for the tip.