A prank that could turn out to be a nerdtastic treasure

Wednesday, April 1st, 2009

I have spent many a keystroke showing the love for my favorite pop-culture store, Fairfax’s own ThinkGeek. And it, like many sites on the Interwebs today, pulled April Fools’ pranks on their readers. (Hey, Google — mucho props for the Gmail “Autopilot.”) In all its geektasticness, ThinkGeek put up a joke product today reminiscent of a classic scene from “The Empire Strikes Back”: a Tauntaun sleeping bag for your little “Star Wars” nerd. (The Unicorn Chaser and Squeez Bacon were also ingenious.) The thing is, a LOT of people fell for this fake cool product and a LOT of people really want it to be very real, so ThinkGeek is promising its peeps that they’re getting on the horn with George Lucas’ peeps to see if they can actually make it happen. Stay tuned. I don’t have any kids, but I’ll totally keep it around for when I show them “Star Wars” for the first time.

I have no idea who came up with this entertaining animated video, but the Kenyan tourist bureau should hire them post-haste.

Movie-quote junkies can appreciate this: the 100 best movie lines in 200 seconds.

Who isn’t driven crazy when you need to call some company’s customer service, and are forced to talk with a computer to get the job done. (Oh, if they only somehow understood obscenities.) This hand-dandy link for Dial a Human! is a must for those who love to speak with an actual person, giving you the 411 on what numbers to dial to get somebody real on the phone.

Chances are, most of us will never have to deal with a zombie attack. Yet if you ever find yourself in this apocalyptic scenario, these are the first people you’re supposed to kill. Dang it, nerds are fifth on the list!

Cooking by Numbers takes cooking and turns it right round, baby, right round. Whereas normally if you’re gonna get your chef on, you find a recipe and THEN go get the needed ingredients, this interesting site takes what you already have in the fridge and the cupboard — like, say, beef, butter, chocolate, coffee and eggs — and tells you what you can make. Of course, you have more options with the more stuff you have lying around. Thankfully, noodles and sauce is always a choice.

Got a great link? Send it to me at novapoppin@gmail.com. Here’s your video of the week. Watch it and you’ll never hear Katy Perry the same ever again.

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Tags: geek, links, Star Wars, video