What do bakers of cupcakes and geek unconferences have in common? A lot it turns out. Both spawn high amounts of sugary fueled goodness, encourage collaboration for common tasty goals and openly share the processes to reach them. CupcakeCamp, modeled after BarCamp, encourages campers to make, bake or just eat cupcakes. Tastings are self organized into time slots, thrown up on a wiki and judged for taste, style and originality.
In this episode, Violet Blue — GETV's roving baked good's correspondent — takes you deep into the yeasty wide world of cupcakes and CupcakeCamp, created by none-other than lovely Internet Femme Fatales Ariel Waldman, Lynn Poshy, Cindy Li, and Marianne Masculino. If you think cup cakes are just slutty muffins, get ready to have your paradigm shifted. You'll then know not to miss the next CupcakeCamp coming up on December 7th at the Satisfactory in San Francisco.
In this episode, Irina found herself an embedded reporter in the manly brown leather and earthy wood enclave of serious tech guru Leo Laporte. In case you haven't listened to or watched one of Leo's 14 netcasts, feel free to Google his name. Not only is he famous on the Internet, he's also won an Emmy for his work on MSNBC. At Leo's cottage studio in Petaluma, Irina and producer Nick were surrounded by microphones and were LIVE on TWiT — Leo's daily tech talk show — as they recorded two episodes of GETV — one you see here and one for a later surprise. Being live is not something Irina is used to, so some regular TWiT viewers gave her a talking to in the chatroom! But Leo's candid interview is a treat for his fans — he tells us his first crush was a man (leo WAS wearing a pink shirt) and reminisces about the summer of 1970 when he wore a blazer and an ascot. His family moved from the east coast to Santa Cruz where young Leo was shocked to see a girl in a bikini! Leo is his incredibly charming self and he talks about always giving the audience what they want! Here at GETV, we BLEED for our audience and we certainly never worry about our ratings. So what do you want next? Tell us at media@geekentertainment.tv.
While Irina was in NYC doing fancy schmancy things for Columbia Journalism School, she called her long-time Flickr friend and graffiti artist Royce Bannon to catch up. Irina met Royce when he was the photo editor of The Source hip hop magazine ? he sent her a hand-painted tshirt that she wore an early episode of GETV. Irina and Royce discuss how he got into what he's into. Royce Bannon aka R. Bizzle is a member of New York's infamous Endless Love Crew and his work will be on display on the west coast at LA's ThinkSpace Gallery from Jan. 9 - Feb 6, 2009 in a show called "From the Streets of Brooklyn." (GETV would like to thank Matt Matossian of For Your Imagination Studios in NY who shot this episode for us. He is also the world-famous Shirtless Apprentice)
After seeing that the old confederate state of Virginia went and voted for Obama, the GETV crew make some history of its own by pulling an all-nighter and doing a first-ever spot-news deadline episode! BUT ITS CUZ OBAMA IS PRESIDENT ELECT! We had to go out and party with the people of San Francisco and stop by the Current TV and Digg party to show you what it was like out here in the West Coast of A.
So this episode is what happens when our own wacky lady Irina meets an even wackier lady, Leslie Hall. In case you dont know Leslie Hall, she's best known for her Gem Sweater Museum and her incredible hip-hop influenced music videos, like "Shoot them in the Brain." Leslie has toured the world with her music and gem sweater collection, but chooses to live with her parents in Ames, Iowa. After arriving at MIT's ROFLCon and waiting in line behind the likes of NPR, Wired and the UK Observer to interview Leslie, we decided that instead of asking Leslie the same ten questions over again, we'd do something different! So Irina handed Leslie the mic and here's what happened. It's a little strange.
By any non-petroleum means necessary. That is the motto that propels a dozen vehicles of various design along the "Escape from Berkeley" road rally from Berkeley, California to Las Vegas, Nevada. Part Cannonball Run and part Mad Max, these NASA scientists and junkyard fabricators aim to complete the rally, win the $5000 prize and forever cement their place in history. All fuel has to harvested along the route, none of it can be purchased. GETV's Roving RoboReporter Violet Blue chats up a few of the eclectic participants who run their vehicles on switchgrass, wood chips, veggie oil and even a tasty bio-salad. The brilliance of the event has even put Stephen Colbert on notice.
When Bryce Case, Jr. aka YT Cracker called the GETV team to say he was in San Francisco to record an album with MC Lars, Irina had an idea. "Let's make a rap video!" she said to the two pillars of nerdcore, who emailed her a song immediately. A few days later, Irina and producer Nick the Dude rudely interrupted the musicians, threw them in a car and drove to the mission, where they filmed a video to go along with "Manifest Destiny." Here is what Bryce wrote about the song:
"Manifest Destiny" is a song loosely about humans' need to conquer and assimilate by metaphorically alluding to the eponymous period in the American Old West. Chiefly, human nature hasn't changed, and the attitude of manifest destiny strongly relates to the modern day, specifically the Internet. In people selfishly following their own interests, naturally good and bad consequences arise. The Rondo Brothers produced the beat for us one night and the next day when we went back to their studio, Brandon played the instrumental and immediately thought manifest destiny would be a great topic for asong. Lars and I wrote the lyrics on the spot and a hit song was born.
If you're watching this episode and don't know what a LOLcat is, that's like going to France and not knowing what's inside an escargot shell. But never fear, we try to 'splain it to you in the first few moments so that everyone, n00bs and all, can have fun at the LOLzoo! Creators of the wonderfully funny icanhascheezburger site met up in San Francisco's animal habitat to celebrate the publication of their book, for which they had to cull through millions of images of LOLcats so you can enjoy them in the comfort of your own home. GETV was on hand to interview hoomans and animals to get their thoughts on all kinds of issues — language, domiciles, noms and LOLs!
For the 11th year in a row, San Francisco film geeks came to worship at the Church of Peaches Christ this past summer of 2008. In case you are one of the uninitiated and unbaptized, the annual two-month-long event known as Midnight Mass is much more than a midnight movie. Irina sat down with the film freak phenom founder and creator, Peaches Christ aka Joshua Grannell, and got down to the nitty gritty details of how a humble (well, maybe not so humble) film student turned into a cult movie diva 2.0, became friends with John Waters, got her own VH1 show, started a religious movement, an SF film festival and got the man behind "Jaw Breaker" to produce her own feature film — titled "All About Evil" due out end of 2009 — and in general, spewed all kinds of fabulosity into the world of film geeks worldwide. Oh, and single-handedly created the status of "Showgirls" as a cult classic. Guests at Midnight Mass have included at least one person you and Rosie Palmer fantasized about during the early days of late night television. (Special shooting & post production thanks to Karim Amira)
You think you know, but you have no idea...how tough Chuck Norris really is until you read Ian Spector's book "The Truth About Chuck Norris: 400 Facts About the World's Greatest Human." GETV caught up with Ian at MIT's ROFLcon and - despite the fact that Irina only knows about "Walker, Texas Ranger" because it comes on after two back-to-back episodes of "Murder, She Wrote" - got to the core of the Ian's obsession about Chuck. Or at least figured out that Chuck is suing Ian so we really couldn't talk that much about what Chuck thinks about Ian, but Irina did make plans with the under-21-year-old author to sneak him into a bar for some illegal drinking. The book has since become a best-seller and we hope will pay for Ian's medical school bills. (Special post production thanks to Jonny Dailey).
A long time ago in a galaxy far far away.. well, ok maybe not THAT long ago, but in internet years it feels like forever since the musical Vlog Deathmatch challenge that Doc Pop and Irina (almost) pwned in May 2007! We decided to repost the video here during the week that our new producer Nick settles into San Francisco — he just drove cross country from Buffalo, NY! The Vlog Deathmatch is a community event that is open to anyone who wants to throw down a challenge to the vlogging peeps (basically, anyone with a camera) — so when we heard about the music video challenge, Irina knew she wanted to use her rapping skills (ahem) to kill the other vloggers! GRRR! Memorable Vlog Deathmatchers include Veronica Belmont, who won for best air guitar video and the Rey Brothers for some really unmentionable monologue challenge, but their promotional video is a winner in my book! Miss Behavens for Lake Titicaca in the Drunk Underwear Karaoke challenge and another mindblowing promo from Casey McKinnon! Vlog Deathmatch FTW!
This video was created while Eddie and Irina were still with their "sugar daddy" Podtech, and couldn't have been done without Nora McDevitt and Lee Cummings.
This video is what happens when you put RZA, chess and 3 dorky geeks who like to rap into one giant mixing bowl! The legendary rapper and award winning chess-master decided to start wuchess.com — a website and give part of the proceeds to scholarships for needy kids.
To promote the website, Wuchess and RZA had a contest on YouTube for the best 8 lines about chess. Irina wasn't satisfied with her simplistic little video, so she got her friends and made this!
One man can make a difference! That tag line rang through every episode of the hit 80s tv show Knight Rider every Friday night as Michael aka David Hasselhoff raced his faithful K.I.T.T. into the hearts of millions of women — and men, really — in the world! In this episode, GETV catches up with the super star in San Francisco where the Hoff joined millionaires in the Gumball 300 rally. After Irina beat up the 500 other reporters trying to creep up on the Hoff, David tells Irina how he's driving that same sleek black horsepower into the future, this time on the internets — the power of THE HOFF is so strong, he's got his own social network where he makes dreams come true. Yes, you too can join HOFF SPACE and get your own HOFF BAG for those times when HOFF WIG is exactly what you need for the occasion.
We spent some quality time at this year's mega sci-fi spectacle Comic-Con, held annually in San Diego. Here we take a quick visual tour of the exhibition hall and the autograph lounge. How many faces and characters do you recognize?
If you haven't heard of Star Wars, stop reading now. If you have heard of Star Wars and especially Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, then you're in for a treat. Alex spent several years working at Industrial Lights and Magic working on Star Wars #4, er, #1, and is also the founder of Pixel Corps, a "guild of digital craftsmen" where Alex trains future geekstars in everything digital. Irina interrupts Alex Lindsay's video production bootcamp class and tortures him with deep meaningful questions such as — who was the first girl who flipped his boat? Turns out it was the lovely Lorraine.. Alex hosts This Week in Media and is a regular guest on the This Week in Tech. Alex also produces MacBreak Weekly.
Irina has been shadowing dragstar Heklina around San Francisco for so long, she may as well get a Tranny Chaser t-shirt! You can get one for yourself at Heklina's legendary party called Trannyshack — mucking up our fair city weekly for 12 years, the club night has been officially recognized by our own special mayor, Gavin Newsom. No Cher or Barbara Streisand here, these drag queens do songs by Arcade Fire, Peaches, Missy Elliot, Bjork and the inimitable Kate Bush. Heklina has hosted Mary Wilson of the Supremes, Charo, Gwen Stefani and NY party monster Lady Bunny. Ana Matronic of the Scissor Sisters performed frequently at Trannyshack before moving to New York. Heklina IS a super drag geek and here we get a piece of history and a totally different kind of geek.
While some of tech nobodies thought some kind of Apple event crowded out San Francisco with geeky types, Irina knew better. Tens of thousands of people pummeled our fair city with their presence to attend the WWWDC — the World Wide Wrestling Developers Conference, where nerdy alter ego's of pale weaklings body-slammed each other deep into the night! Irina's wresting twin, The Kazakhstane Krusher — no impostor like Borat (the entire film was shot in Romania!) — Irina was born in the nuclear waste fields of the former Soviet republic, and has the anatomic anomalies to prove it. Some of those anomalies are included in her signature moves, the K-Rocket Launchers! Lets see what kind of damage the bone-thin denizens of geekdom can bring in the wresting ring!
June 11 is John Wayne's birthday and what better way to commemorate the Duke's enduring legacy than the John Wayne Memorial Balloon Fight at Alamo Square in San Francisco? Don't answer that, let's let Irina try.
Ben Huh, chief cheezburger of I Can Has Cheezburger has turned his love of LOLCats into a popular site and even scored a book deal. While at MIT for ROFLCon, he stepped into the role of Stephen LOLking to explain the mysteries of his Universal Theory of LOLS to Irina.
