Nerd News in Brief

I am pleased to report that Church, Matt, Jason and I have finally unraveled one of life's great mysteries. We have concluded, after weeks of preliminary testing, that Google Wave exists solely to aid in the creation of my regular Nerd News in Brief segment.

Now you know.

And speaking of, I've still got a bunch of Wave invites if anybody needs one. Maybe you can use it to write your own Nerd News in Brief.

'Cause that's what it's for!

• In-See-Four-Elle on Dee-Vee-Dee: At long last the DVD release of Nerdcore For Life has finally been announced! In addition to shopping the feature around for a European cable release, London's Journeyman Pictures has agreed to help release the film to the all-important home viewing audience. The nerdcore faithful should be able to order their copies mid-month.
• Tis the Season: Wrockers Dawlish and the Archies have favored the Wizarding World with the first ever Wizard Rock Advent Calendar. Peep Wrock the Advent throughout the month of December for a new free tune every day.
• Old Dominion: Also on the WRocking side of nerd culture, longtime friend and supporter Snidget has decided to set up her own festival in Virginia. Hit up the official web presence of Sonorus 2010 for further details and a current list of performers. Big ups to Matt for keeping me in the loop!
• When You Were Young: Harry and the Potters fans looking to expand into the Wizard Rock periphery will be interested to hear that the guys have just reissued Good is Dumb by Ed and the Refrigerators. In celebration of that album's 10 year anniversary it has been recast in its original CDr format, in an expanded 2-disc, deluxe edition with nearly 60 bonus tracks. But wait; there's more! In addition to live shows and demos, you'll also get a linocut-printed patch, extensive liner notes and a certificate of authenticity. Snazzy!
• All His Drug Use is Accidental: And speaking of 10 year anniversaries, Orlando geeky guitar-slinger Marc with a C has just celebrated his with the release of the RetroLowFi: 10 Years of Marc with a C collection. Get the full scoop (and the exhaustive track-list) via this interview at Examiner.com.
• Shortayyyy: As Mega Ran recently pointed out, The Lonely Island has just been nominated for a Grammy in the Best Rap/Sung Collaboration category for their T-Pain collab "On a Boat." Muthufuckers.
• Really Rad: From Antisoc comes this link to Asylum's "History of Horrible Rap Music." Unfortunately, as it eschews the Black Eyed Peas' "My Humps," I am afraid I must declare said list invalid.
• The Blastmaster: As announced via Twitter last week, MC Lars is currently in talks with the great KRS-One regarding a future collaboration. If there is a word to express my delight concerning this development, it is surely "squee."
• Shocking: Thanks go out to my Twitter pal Taloas for hipping me to this amazing sight. It's Dr. Zeus & the Masters of Lightning using Tesla Coils to set balloons on fire. All to the tune of The Legend of Zelda theme.
• Is it Live?: Jarod of Alienbobz has released his proposed recording list for the month of December. Check out this post for the full list, which includes a number of notable nerdcore gigs.
• Yo, Yo-Yo: My southern brother Doctor Popular has just launched a brand new site redesign. It's the same Doc you've always loved in a shiny new package!
• A Renewed Challenger: Also on the recent redesign tip is my boy Anthony and the Game Music 4 All crew. Along with this relaunch comes such delightful amenities as forums and a dedicated netlabel. Way to make the rest of us look bad, guys! ;)
• Sea-Town: Meanwhile, a brand new project is brewing from Thunderball of Southside/Metaforce fame. Peep his newly unveiled blog Seattle Hip-Hop to stay abreast of all the crazy-ass shit that comes from the Emerald City.
• True Neutral: If you've ever secretly hoped to see the varying personalities of your favorite Time Lords classified D&D style, then you are in luck. You are also a very special kind of nerd.
• Don You Cloak: Church ran across this piece on LARPing at, of all places, the web site for the Salt Lake City Community College Globe. For the record, the part I found most interesting was that only 62% of the LARPers in question believe they're nerds.
• Obligatory: Also from Church comes our regularly scheduled geek chic round-up. First, a dose of nerd superiority from Eunice Beatrice H. Braga of the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Next, stare into the hipster abyss with Chicago Now's Will Braggadocio. And lastly, there's whatever the hell this is.
• Get Up, Get Coffee: Last week saw the birthdays of many prominent nerds. MC Frontalot and Hex Warrior both turned a year older, as did Jonathan Coulton. With that in mind, enjoy this phenomenal AMV of his track "Code Monkey."

Culture Vultures

Because of its unfortunate secondary placement in this blog's mantra of "nerd music and culture," I feel I sometimes neglect the all-important non-musical elements of nerd life. I spend lots of time talking about the significance of nerdy music and where you can find it, and I often allude to nerd culture as this grand, nebulous concept, but I rarely pin it down. I seldom define its dimensions. I almost never make it concrete.

Today I hope to break this trend.

You see, just as the music that I feature springs forth from hundreds of talented and undeniably geeky individuals, my love of nerd culture is similarly nourished by others. Blogs are, by their very nature, cannibalistic; so, in the same way that MC Frontalot and Uncle Monsterface help feed my need for musical geekery, a cavalcade of other bloggers slake my thirst for true nerd culture.

You likely already have a stable of the standard geeky cultural destinations in your aggregator of choice – your io9s and your Topless Robots – but there are other, subtler options.

So where do I go when I want to read nerdy things written by nerdy people? Let me tell you:

Techland

The mainstream does not, as a rule, understand the nerd culture phenomenon. They can wax poetic about how Big Bang Theory represents a cultural paradigm shift where nerds can be legitimate protagonists, and they can drone on and on about the dreaded "geek chic," but they just can't seem to grok what we're really about. To them we are at best an unfathomable mystery and at worst another momentary oddity. The caveat to this statement is TIME magazine. More specifically, it's TIME's Lev Grossman. He's sort of our inside (outside?) guy, the one cat on the more conventional journalistic tip that speaks with our voice.

I originally began following Lev through his work at TIME's NerdWorld blog, a project that recently transformed into the newly unveiled TechLand. This new blog shares all the principle earmarks of NerdWorld, focusing on things like gaming, gadgets, comics and TV – all of which are core elements of nerd culture.

Lev manages to avoid the principle pratfall of professional blogging by walking that narrow line between analytical exploration and personal narrative, and along the way manages to craft posts that are both insightful and genuinely entertaining. Plus he and I share joint blog comment custody of a certain Church H. Tucker. So there's an additional bond.

The Life and Times of Jarvis Slacks

I have long held the opinion that a proper nerd can geek out about practically anything, and Jarvis Slacks is proof positive of this postulation. Whether he's sharing his impressions of Borderlands, trying to unravel the complex web of teen angst and poor decision-making that led to the popularity of Jncos or putting those snooty-ass cavemen in their place, he always comes across like a nerd's nerd: intelligent, sardonic and literate as fuck.

Jarvis is an educator by trade, and some of his best stuff comes from that well-worn but still totally serviceable "exasperated teacher "pastiche. (Holler at his Twitter for more info.) Still, for my money there's no one I'd rather see go on a political tear than Jarvis. His takes on subjects like Fox News and why you shouldn't trust the police are like perfectly polished nuggets of geeky genius.

If you're a fan of Halo, Battlestar Galactica or leftist politics, Jarvis is your man.

Wolf Gnards

Wolf Gnards is a blog for people who take their ridiculous pop culture minutiae seriously.

Wait; skip that. Wolf Gnards is the blog for people who take their ridiculous pop culture minutiae seriously.

For the uninitiated, I would describe this blog as a solid bitch slap to modern entertainment media. While most rags (both dead tree and digital) linger over John and Kate or can't seem to get enough of golf pros and their traffic accidents, Wolf Gnards is calculating how long Bill Murray spent in Groundhog Day's temporal loop and the proper bangs-to-face ratio for aspiring indie girls.

To break it down Wolf Gnards style, the blog is essentially snarky pop culture + math. And that shit always = nerd.

Plus, can you really go wrong with a blog that's name is a Monster Squad reference?