Thursday, August 19, 2010

Spider-Man: The Musical is back, Joss rules, and ThinkGeek coupon!

I've been pretty stressed for the past couple weeks because yesterday I had to give a presentation to the department on the research I've done in my first year of grad school (summary: not much). We physical oceanography students have to do these presentations every year, unlike the other oceanography divisions (bio and geo/chem) who only do it once towards the end of their second year. Why is our division so mean? Anyway, I'm usually pretty good with presentations (I've been told I have a "good presentation voice"), but I was more nervous than usual with this one, mostly because the people who presented before me were asked hard questions, and I knew I didn't have many answers to give beyond what I was already saying in my talk. I felt like I did kind of make a fool of myself with the questions ("Did you try looking at X?" "No, but that's a good idea, thanks, I'll look into it." "What would you expect if you did Y?" "I don't know, I should try that." "Can you explain why Z?" "I'm not sure... I'll look into that."). But at least it's over now.

Two entertainment tidbits I felt like sharing...

It's been a while since I mentioned Spider-Man: The Musical (aka Spider-Man, Turn off the Dark). It was originally supposed to open on Broadway back in February, but budget issues put it on hold. It lost some of its stars (Evan Rachel Wood as Mary Jane, Alan Cummings as Green Goblin) who have busy schedules and moved onto other projects. But it's finally on again (Variety). Reeve Carney is still on to play Peter Parker, Jennifer Damiano will be playing Mary Jane, and Patrick Page is the new Green Goblin. The show is scheduled to open on December 21, with previews starting November 14.

I just watched this interview with Joss Whedon at Comic-Con, regarding The Avengers. It just made me so much more excited, about Mark Ruffalo, Jeremy Renner, the two Chrises, and the movie in general. Favorite bits: "Mrs. Joss Renner" and "[Chris Hemsworth is] bigger and handsomer than a person is." I'm so in love with all of them.

Last quick note:
If you're a geek, you've probably at one point or other drooled over some clever t-shirt, awesome gadget, or cool toy at ThinkGeek.com. If you haven't seen their stuff before, then go to their site and start drooling. Anyway, if you're interested in buying anything from them, there's a promotion going on today only. The site was down last night for routine maintenance, but the notice they put up saying the site was down gave us a promotional code to reward us for our patience. So if you order before 11:59 pm Eastern time tonight (August 19), you can get $10 off a purchase of $40 or more by using the code SILLYMONKEYS.

I've got my eye on that "Look at me still talking when there's science to do" t-shirt for the boyfriend (that was what brought me to the site last night to discover the promotion). Maybe I'd even get one for myself. The "Rock Paper Scissors Lizard Spock" t-shirt is pretty good, too. Still toying with the idea of the magic wand remote, but that one costs a bit more. Well anyway, enjoy!

3 comments:

Ms.PhD said...

sweet! I'm totally going to get something from thinkgeek! that gives me 12 hours for online shopping..

Girls Are Geeks said...

If you haven't learned the line, "That's a great question, but it's beyond the scope of my research" it's a personal favorite. Also, you shouldn't hold out on one tiny piece of research each presentation so you can pull it out of your back pocket and go, "I do have that information!"

Also, I totally want to see Spiderman. I saw the chick playing Mary Jane in Next to Normal and I like her, so that should work.

Rosalind

Eleni said...

Ms.PhD - They have so much great stuff! Unfortunately I've found they're out of the "Look at me still talking when there's science to do" t-shirts. Darn.

Rosalind - Haha, I've used that "beyond the scope of my research" line before, but it didn't really apply in these cases. The line I was ready to pull out for this talk was "I used that [approach/parameter/analysis technique] based on previous research," to pull out in place of "My advisor told me to."

I thought the Spider-Man musical sounded like such a bad idea when I first heard about it, but it just might turn out being pretty cool. Hope the cast is good.