First up, folks, just to expand a little on our hiatus situation… we’re aware we haven’t always been the strongest supporters of the notion of a break in play in the past (although, at least one of us has argued that hiatuses – hiati? – are actually a good thing), but it’s become a case of if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. We will, however, be back next year, fresh as an especially fresh daisy and ready to roll with the opinions and the reviews and general snarkiness – and with a whole new look, as well!
In the meantime, let us quickly address a sampling of the letters we received in the last month, shall we?
First up, a word from Siena:
Thanks for the fall t.v. round up! I am really looking forward to Once Upon a Time!
Hey, us too, Siena! And you’re welcome.
And then, from Emily Mason:
What a great D&D memoir!! I only recently started playing with my friends at college and I am loving it. Great that you included the picture from "Community", that's what made my friends and I want to try it out. I'm so glad to see it's not just a "guy thing", and I am totally going to start putting my dice in the freezer! They really deserve it!!
Thanks for the kind worlds, Emily! May you forever roll only 20s.
Next up, JJ wanted us to know some stuff, and ask us some stuff, as well:
I just wanted to say that I am a fan of your awesome site and i only wish you’d update more.
(Wow, JJ is going to be pissed about our hiatus, huh?)
I really like your movie reviews and your reviews of old cartoons, have you ever thought about doing some videogame reviews and maybe some comics ones too, because that would be kewl. I really like the geek versus geek (it makes me think of spy vs. spy from the old Mad magazines, remember those?) and I wish that Operation Film Geek would get back into writing Reviews, it’s been a really long time since the last one! ! finally I wonder if you could tell me, what does it mean, the line up the top that says “you don’t have to live on Bob.”? I don’t think I understand all of the others, either. I don’t really know where the One True City is, and also I don’t really know about “Tasche Station”. The ones I do get, I think they are hilarious. But do explain the Bob one please. Love GeekSpeak, I come back all the time and always find something I haven’t read or that I want to read again. Thank you!!
JJ
To begin, JJ, thank you for your excellent letter! We sincerely hope you won’t mind our hiatus too much; we will really try to update maybe even just a little while we’re on vacation.
Now, on to the “You don’t have to live on Bob” question. You know what? You are not the first to ask for an explanation of our occasionally obscure geek culture references up there on the top right hand corner of every page, and so here we will explain all of our tags, for anyone who might have been wondering:
[1] "WWBD?" – What Would Buffy Do?
[2] "Good morning, campers." – Good morning, Colonel Jack O’Neill of Stargate Command.
[3] "Out of Office Reply: have gone to Tasche Station to pick up a power converter." – Luke Skywalker really wanted to go there to do that, remember?
[4] "Fully functional." – Like Data!
[5] "We help the helpless." – Like Angel!
[6] "Time Travel, Dark Magic, Warp Speed, Armageddon... just another day at the office ." – A FUN office!
[7] "Possible futures, improbable pasts and alternate nows." – What it says, really.
[8] "Where magic is fact, science is fiction, and monsters are not only cool, but often, hot." – You get this one, right?
[9] "We're on a mission from Zordon." – Mighty Morphin Power Rangers!
[10] "Universal Translator set to technobabble." – Mostly Star Trek, that one.
[11] "Fascinating." Indeed, Mr. Spock.
[12] "Calling occupants of interplanetary craft." – A concept song by The Carpenters
[13] "En route to the One True City." – From Roger Zelazny’s Amber books
[15] "Team Edward." -- Twilight. We’re not going to apologize for it, either.
[16] "Wherever we go, here we are." – The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension, paraphrased
[17] "Go Speed Racer." Go, Speed Racer! Go, Speed Racer, Go!
[18] "Now with polarity 100% pre-reversed." – A reference to Stargate SG-1’s Sam Carter
[19] "Our only superpower is sarcasm." – Self-evident.
[20] "We'll trade you these stembolts for some gold-pressed latinum." A reference to Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
[21] "Fringe Division." – Fringe, obviously.
[22] "Which way to Pandora?" – Avatar!
[23] "Allied to the Star Kingdom of Manticore." – From David Weber’s Honor Harrington novels
[24] "Rogue Demon Hunters." – Like Wesley, when he first joins Angel Investigations
[25] "If it has monsters or magic, spaceships or spies, prophecies or the paranormal... we're there." – Self-explanatory, no?
[26] "Surprisingly difficult to kill." – just like Daniel Jackson!
[27] "Keepers of the Sacred Chalice of Riix." – Lwaxana Troi, of Star Trek: The Next Generation, is the actual Keeper of this chalice (she is also heir to the Holy Rings of Betazed, among other things)
[28] "Korval." – A reference to Sharon Lee and Steve Miller’s Liaden series
[29] "Once again, the day is saved." – thanks to… the Powerpuff Girls!
[30] "If you're not too busy having sex with our mother." – A paraphrase of Buffy’s greatest ever last line, in the episode “Earshot”
[31] "For cryin' out loud!" – cf. Jack O’Neill, Stargate SG-1
[32] "Come with us if you want to live." -- The Terminator, natch.
[33] "Action is our reward." – Paraphrasing the Spider-Man theme song from the 80’s cartoon.
[34] "Brave and gentle and wise." - Astroboy!
[35] "As was foretold." – We love us some prophecies.
[36] "So say we all." - Battlestar Galactica, reboot
[37] "Chosen." – Mercedes Lackey’s Heralds of Valdemar
[38] "Dead. Wrapped in plastic." – As was Laura Palmer, of Twin Peaks fame
[39] "You don't have to live on Bob." – Titan, A. E.
[40] "For anyone who thinks an Apocalypse or two sound like fun." – ‘Cause who doesn’t dig a (fictional) Apocalypse?
[41] "Do we deconstruct your segues?" – A paraphrased quote from Xander Harris in Buffy’s second season
[42] "Applicants to the Evil League of Evil." - Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog
[43] "Anyone for Armageddon?" – Just a general question
[44] "Damn you to hell!" -- Planet of the Apes
[45] "We know kung fu." – A reference to both The Matrix and Chuck
[46] "Greetings, programs!" – TRON
[47] "Strange things are afoot at the Circle K." -- Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure
[48] "Make it so." – Captain Picard.
[49] "Curse your sudden yet inevitable betrayal." – From the pilot episode of Firefly.
[50] "If you want us, come and claim us." – We paraphrased Arwen’s immortal line (forgive the pun) in Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring
[51] "We want to do bad things to you." – From the theme song to True Blood
[52] "Amateur Time Lords." – A Doctor Who reference
[53] "Yowsers!" -- Inspector Gadget
[54] "We can name the Childlike Princess." – From The NeverEnding Story, of course. (Her name, by the way? Moonchild.)
[55] "Awesome." – various sources, but in this case we took it from the boys on Supernatural
[56] "There is no spoon." - The Matrix
Whew! There, now you know all our secrets.
We just have time for a couple more… like this one, from Lara M, who says:
HI! I am a big fan of GeekSpeak and so imagine my surprise when I got to the end of a very smart and entertaining post about romance in comics at a website called heroesandheartbreakers.com and then found out that it was written by two GeekSpeak writers, Rachel Hyland and Brad Crammond. And one of them is the editor-in-chief no less!! That is so cool, and I started thinking that maybe you could post to your Facebook group when a GeekSpeak writer is published somewhere else. You guys (and gals) are all so clever and funny I just like to read everything you write.
Thank you and keep up the great work.
Lara M.
Wow, Lara, we’re touched that you’d like to keep apprised of all of our writers’ non-Geek Speak-y activities. We’ll see what we can do, and thank you so much for getting in touch!
And finally, this little note reaching back into the depths of the past, from Rachel:
Nothanger Abbey's Mash-up--by Vera Nazerian (who wrote Mansfield Park & Mummies) Northanger Abbey and Angels and Demons
Rachel very kindly gave us the heads up after Rachel Hyland and Kate Nagy asked where might the Northanger Abbey monster book be at the conclusion of their mammoth Monster Mash-Up piece examining more than thirty of examples of the genre then in existence.
Further investigation has shown that the book is actually called Northanger Abbey and Angels and Dragons -- oooh, even more exciting!
Thanks for the heads up, Rachel!
And thank you, thank you, to everyone who has ever written in to us. As always, we can’t print every letter we receive, but we adore getting them and will miss you all while we’re away. If you should find yourself missing us, do feel free to let us know…!
We trust you will have a wonderful holiday season, and we look forward to seeing you in the New Year! (If you haven't done it yet, why not like us on Facebook for follow us on Twitter, so you'll be sure to know when we're back?)
-- The Geek Speak Staff