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    This Week in Geek: Avatar Parodies, Space Invaders and IE 6 Dies

    Maurice MitchellBy Updated:2 Comments3 Mins Read

      Who Says Star Wars Costumes Have to Be Expensive?

      [Pic of the Week from LA Times]

      Daylight Savings Time (DST) starts March 14th, and while Arizona kicked DST to the curb years ago, I know many people struggle under the old “Spring forward, fall back” rule. It started me thinking about space travel and DST. Can you imagine what would happen if astronauts had to adjust their clocks to keep up with Earth time? With their day length of 24 hr 39 min, Mars-dwellers wouldn’t have two much trouble, but what about Moon astronauts adjusting for a day 29 days long? Turns out they don’t even bother with all that nonsense and just use Coordinated Universal Time, which is less subjective. So, score one more point for Arizona! It’s like we’re living in space.

      This week’s news covers Mad Magazine, 80s Video Game movies, the Phantom and Internet Explorer dying…finally. On with the news…

      1. Sergio Aragones, the artist of the gut-busting Groo the Wanderer, has done it again. MAD Magazine has a series of strips parodying Avatar in their next issue and I may just buy my first copy in ten years. Check out a sneak peek at Film. It’s amazing how specific the jokes are.
      2. TOSSUP: There has been only one good video game-to-movie translation, Tomb Raider, and yet a movie based on Space Invaders and another on Missile Command is coming soon: Which 80s game would you rather see made into a live action film: Q-Bert or Donkey Kong? [SciFiSquad]
      3. Looks like we’ll finally get to see the abominable mini-series on the classic superhero Phantom after all. SyFy just announced that they’ll be airing it in June. This is a full six months after it aired in Canada and one viewer described it this way:

        “I am Canadian and I don’t consider myself lucky at all for seeing that. I had to play the d*** thing mostly on fast forward, too many flaws to even count them. Acting was really poor, storyline, well, you don’t care too much…action sequence very poorly executed and the costume, yeurk… ”

        I can’t wait. [ComicBookMovie]

      4. Happy Trails: Because Google, YouTube and pretty much the entire Internet is dropping support for Internet Explorer 6, a mock funeral was held for the ten-year-old browser. For it’s time, it was highly advanced and reached a peak market share of 95%. Considering there are elephantine zero-day exploits for IE8, however, it’s hard to imagine people still use it, but 15 to 25 percent of surfers still do. These people probably also wear “Members Only” jackets and use Windows 2000. [Nerdlogue]

      What do you think of this week’s news? Don’t just lurk there, let us know your awesome opinions in the comments!

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      <span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="42840 ">2 Comments

      1. Nigel G Mitchell on

        1. Avatar is ripe for parody. I agree – I stopped reading Mad Magazine almost a decade ago, but that might get me to drop a fiver on it.
        2. I'm not sure I agree that "Tomb Raider" was the only good videogame movie. Then again, I can't think of another one, so never mind. Missile Command and Space Invaders really had no plot, so I can see them making up agood story for them. Then again, I imagine a CGI Independence Day-like scene of flying saucers coming down on Earth in neat rows. TOSS-UP: Q-Bert because I can actually see that as a cute kids' movie. "Donkey Kong" could be a sequel to the horrific "Mario Brothers" movie.
        3. *sigh* I'll probably still watch it.
        4. IE 6 was the beginning of the end. But I don't understand mourning it. Did anyone hold a funeral for DOS? Or Windows 95? Do we have to honor every version of every popular software that comes out?

      2. Maurice Mitchell on

        1. I still haven't bought it yet and I'm not even sure where to buy it. Not sure what that says.
        2. I was going to do a top ten list of movies based on video games, but literally stopped at three and even that was a stretch. TOSSUP: Donkey Kong could be an action-adventure film with a giant CGI ape fighting with a plumber in a high-rise building. Q-Bert would be cute though.
        3. It's like a car wreck, you don't want to look but…
        4. I think it's amazing that people even care myself.