Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Jew Harp

I love weird musical instruments much more than your traditional fair guitar, bass, and drums. I have seen the mouth harp before, but I was unaware till today that is is referred to also as the "jew harp." and it is actually called the khomus. Please enjoy this informational video about the jew harp with wonderfully awkward narration from this guy.




Tuesday, September 6, 2011

Dragon Con 2011




Dragon Con is the largest Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Comic, and Gaming convention in the Southeast. Nestled in the heart of Atlanta, Ga and spanning five hotels, Dragon Con has gone from a Fantasy/Tabletop Gaming Con with 1,400 people to a massive multimedia and cultural event with over 40,000 attendees. Whether its panels with Sci-Fi celebrities, gaming rooms, all night raves, or just checking out amazing fan costumes you will find something at Dragon Con that can appeal to the awesome in you.

This year was Dragon Cons 25th year, and it rang in it's quarter decade birthday with a full line up excellence. The guests this year included: Edward James Almos, Tricia Helfer, Micheal Hogan, Nicholas Brendan, Eliza Dushku, Felicia Day, Will Wheaton, and Carrie Fisher. All of the celebrities we had the pleasure of meeting were wonderful and gracious, and put on some great panels.

The Battlestar Galactica panel, while it was a wonderful conversation of fan questions and cast members recollecting on their time on the show, it also addressed the status of the spin-off show Blood and Chrome. Kevin Grazer, scientific consultant for BSG, was present to filter some fan questions about the fate of the Prequel. To his knowledge the show is finished, but whether or not it will become a Sci Fy Channel show or a web series is still up in the air. At this point, all that is known is that it will focus on the human/cylon civil war and focus on younger Adama much like the web series from the show.

This year featured a stellar performance from an an all new cast of the Buffy Horror Picture Show and The Dr. Horrible Sing-Along Blog. If you have ever seen a live Rocky Horror performance, then you can guess what the Buffy Horror Picture Show is like. If you don't know, then let me explain. Performers lip sync and act out The Buffy episode Once More With Feeling and likewise, they do the same thing for the Dr. Horrible. As a Whedon fan, this is one of my favorite events of the whole weekend.

The Dragon Con parade started ten years ago and has become a landmark event for the people of Atlanta who would other wise not attend the Con. The parade is a cavalcade of awesome fans in costume marching through downtown Atlanta. This years it included new marching groups like Game of Thrones and Aperture Labs plus old favorites like The Ghostbusters, Madalorians, and the houses of Hogwarts.

The Doctor Who presence at this years Dragon Con was incredible. you could not turn around without seeing a Sonic Screwdriver, Human Tardis, or Amy Pond. Compared to last, you can clearly see that Stephen Moffat's writing and Matt Smith's Doctor are impressively more accesible to a larger audience and hopefully this means that we might get to see some Doctor Who celebrities at the con soon (fingers crossed). The big Doctor Who event this year was the US premier of the new series episode Night Terrors (which I will give a full review over on The Unicellular Review later). People from the BBC America were there to intro the episode along with a short but sweet video intro from Matt Smith himself.

Other events included and awesome Commentary of the Torchwood episode Countrycide by Gareth David-Lloyd (Ianto Jones), a killer Buffy Panel, awesome all night partying and karaoke withe cast members of The Guild and Eureka , plus the always entertaining Dragon Con TV. It would be way to hard to wrap up all that we did in one post so I am not going to try and just stop here. The only bad thing about Dragon Con is its over before you know it and you can never do everything you want, but you owe it to yourself to be there next year. While you should be getting pumped for Dragon Con 2012, I want to go ahead and plug The Alabama Phoenix Festival this May. While not as large as Dragon Con, it is shaping up to be awesome and has real potential to become something similar, so visit their site and like them on Facebook.

Oh and one last thing, I learned how to play Munchkin this weekend (D&D light) and can't wait to host some tournaments at my place.