Geek of the Week

There is one group that has been neglected for long enough, and I'm seriously itching to learn about all you geeks and friends of geeks who peruse our pages. Don't be shy — nominate a Geek of the Week!

Tell us why your fave geek deserves the title, whether she has named all her gadgets after characters in Doctor Who, if you've caught him on tape while he ritualistically prepares for online Gears of War matches, or maybe she has choreographed an interpretive dance to the BSG theme song. It's all fair game and high time we celebrate the geek in all of us! Post your pics and YouTube vids to show us why they are so adorably geeky. Oh, and outing your fave celeb geeks is fully encouraged also!

To learn how to post to our Geek of the Week Group, read more

For some geeks, this week is all about the countdown to the fifth movie release in one of the most geeky series we've ever seen: Harry Potter. While fans await the release of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by sipping on Butterbeer and wondering if the chemistry between Harry, Hermione and Ron will be strong as ever, I'm wondering what's next for Emma Watson, the adorable, witty and fun female in the group. This weekend's Parade Magazine featured a cover story, We’re all so grown-up!, which proved the actress and her counterparts are more than ready for adult roles and perfectly happy to acknowledge their eternal geek cred.

Why do we love her? It comes down to geeky girl power. Highlights of the interview include:

• “There are too many stupid girls in the media,” Watson observes, her dark eyes lighting up. “Hermione’s not scared to be clever. I think sometimes really smart girls dumb themselves down a bit, and that’s bad.”
• “I’m a bit of a feminist. I’m very competitive and challenging.”
• “When I was 9 or 10, I would get really upset when they tried to make me look geeky, but now I absolutely love it. I find it’s so much pressure to be beautiful. Hermione doesn’t care what she looks like. She’s a complete tomboy.”

Source: Parade Magazine

You really just don't hear enough about the Hanson brothers these days, save for their appearance on VH1 One Hit Wonders list and the occasional award show. In fact, I didn't even realize how much I'd missed ironically singing their "MMMBop" song (or maybe I wasn't being ironic) with my girlfriends until I read their answers to the Switched Questionnaire about technology.

Apparently, the bros are grown up, have a new sound, self-released album and the youngest of the trio Zac Hanson - pictured at left - is almost a geek. I say almost because he doesn't quite match the geekiness of Hilary Duff. Highlights include:

• What's the longest time you've ever spent playing a video game in one sitting and what game was it?
  I played Final Fantasy X for 10 hours when I first got it.
• What cell phone do you have right now and what do you love/hate about it?
  I have the BlackBerry 7130c. I hate the scroll wheel. I am left handed but the scroll wheel is on the right side.
• Name one thing you wish your iPod/cellphone/laptop (any gadget) could do that it doesn't do now?
  Make me coffee, and tone my abs.
• Blackberry, Sidekick, or Treo?
  BlackBerry. Being able to sent a PIN message to someone and know they will get it in 3 secs is pretty cool.
• Are you getting an iPhone? If so, why?
  Yes. I have a MacBook Pro, and the iPhone will be the best Phone to sync with all of my programs. Also Apple stuff rocks, so the more of its products I can use, the better.

Check out the full interview on Switched.

Yesterday I gave the parking attendant near work my business card so I could get on the list to get a parking space (yes, San Francisco is that crowded) and he looked at me and said "geeksugar? You can't be geeksugar, you look like a movie star." In his defense, I was wearing giant sunglasses and he's one of those really sweet old men. In my defense, geek is chic people. My evidence? R&B superstar Amerie recently confessed she is hooked on The Sims. She is quoted in Contact Music as saying: "I am addicted to The Sims. I live out a virtual life online. I think it's seriously cool, but I guess it's kind of dorky. I've got Kelly Rowland into it too, and now we hook up in the game. Beyonce tried to join us, but she wasn't into it. Also I love to read science magazines. It's not very R&B I know." I say anyone who can rock the mic and stage like these two need not worry. Chic indeed.

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Apparently before Jennifer Aniston was known for carrying her beloved BlackBerry around with her everywhere she goes, she had a brief stint as a promo girl for Microsoft. Molly found this hilarious promotional instructional Windows 95 video starring Aniston and Matthew Perry, which must have been made soon after Friends first aired. It features Aniston and Perry taking a tour of Bill Gates' office, or what Perry calls "Ground Zero of personal computing - the nerve center of the world's biggest software company." Predictably, Aniston plays the "goof" who learns how to launch programs and upgrade to Windows 95, which she says is "easier than changing your dry cleaner." Also prominent, the signature Rachael do. It's too wonderful people, too wonderful.

This video is part one in a four video series - yes, it gets better! To watch the other videos, read more

Christian Nold, a London-based artist describes technology as such: "It is not the neutral, rational instrument that it is portrayed as; instead it appears to be a heady and unstable mix of authoritarian control and anarchic mischief." His project, which is called "emotional mapping" or "bio mapping," encourages volunteers to wear GPS devices and lie detector sensors while exploring various neighborhoods in cities across the world. This system is said to detect people's emotions as the data is combined with their accounts of what they felt and saw. From this compiled data, he hopes to offer a commentary on the subjective nature of reality. His first U.S project brings him to San Francisco for five weeks where individuals will leisurely explore various areas of the city while mapping it with their emotions.To learn more about Christian and his interesting projects, click here.
Do you know of someone that should be my Geek of The Week? You can nominate that person by adding them to the Geek of the Week group, read more

Wonder where Will Smith picked up his impressive Rubik's Cube skills in The Pursuit of Happyness? Thanks to one of the world's top competitive Rubik's Cube champions Tyson Mao, Smith was able to learn how to master the mind-boggling cube for his leading role.
When Mao's younger brother Toby taught him how to solve the cube in July 2003, it was only a matter of time before Mao could solve the puzzle faster then his brother...that is in less than two minutes- blindfolded of course. When not covering their eyes, Tyson and Toby are 'speedcubing' wizards, solving the cube in less than 20 seconds and taking part in competitions all over the country. Twenty-two year old San Franciscian native Mao has only been beat by two of the world's top 3x3x3 blindfolded Rubik's Cube competitors. This and the fact that he was one of the 'geeks' in the hit reality show Beauty and the Geek last year, makes him a perfect geeksugar geek of the week.

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BuzzSugar recently got the chance to interview the lovable Jack McBrayer, who plays the sweet and innocent NBC page Kenneth "30 Rock," and because I utterly adore him and the show, I asked her to scope out his geek cred. Turns out, he's much less geeky than his on TV persona but he is pretty tech savvy.

In her interview, BuzzSugar asked Jack if he ever Googles himself, which in my opinion is one of the best questions to ask a potential geek. He replied: "I don’t. I did it once, and all you have to do is find one person who’s mean and saying hateful things... all it takes is one person, you know? All I care about, if my friends and family are enjoying the show, that’s all I need." A geek chic actor who loves his friends and family? Be still my heart.

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Battlestar Galactica stars Katee Sackhoff and Jamie Bamber showed up at the Grand Slam SciFi Summit last weekend and gave my new favorite magazine, Geeky Monthly, a little extra face time. I know I've said it before, but Battlestar Galactica has a lot of street cred as a geeky, smart and fun Sci-fi show these days. In fact, it seems to attract non-geeks and geeks alike despite being about the end of the world and Cylons.

Of course pointing out that Katee Sackhoff and Jamie Bamber like Geek Monthly, or at least don't mind posing with it, is just my backwards way of saying how much I love it. The magazine is dedicated to anything and everything that geeks love: Toys, Anime, TV shows, Movies, Games and DVDs. According to its website we can expect the lowdown on all sorts of things from the latest apply-to-the-forehead headache cure to how technology is being used in haute cuisine. "You can geek out about just about anything as long as it’s interesting," says Jeff Bond the mag's Editor-in-Chief. We all know that's my motto.

The magazine also caught up with the other stars, including Smallville's Justin Hartley, who quite frankly is just adorable, read more

Cool cat David Krumholtz plays the part of mathematical genius Charlie Eppes on CBS' NUMB3RS. Eppes works as a professor of mathematics at a California technical university and helps his FBI agent brother Don Epps (played by Rob Morrow) solve crimes using math. His left-brained talents give him the ability to de-construct any complex or practical situation into a mathematical model. He uses this model to offer insight to the FBI about certain crimes. Multiplying 4 number digits at the age of three, attending Princeton at thirteen, and studying at Stanford and MIT makes this mathematician a perfect geek of the week! Do you know of someone that should be my Geek of The Week? You can nominate that person by adding them to the Geek of the Week group, read more