Yvette's Inner Geek Blog

I’m almost two years late to the punch, but I can’t believe I missed this one. It’s a real article! Here it is on the Washington Post.

I need to share some other braintastic stuff I’ve come across recently. First, there’s the Museum of Scientifically Accurate Fabric Brain Art in Oregon. Its images stimulate my crafty nerd synapses and make me squee! My favorite is the Knitted Brain, which took one year for Dr. Karen Norberg to knit. There’s an article about her project here. It reminds me of the knitted digestive tract I came across last year but looks a lot more labor-intensive.

And then there’s the recipe for chocolate ganache-filed brain cupcakes by notsohumblepie in Seattle. “Because it is a well known fact that human brains are filled with chocolate ganache,” she says. Tee hee! They look delicious, and could be easily translated to a zombie-themed fest if the decorative icing were placed on a red velvet cupcake.

If you are in any way geeky, nerdy, or offbeat, you really need to check out her recipes… especially the ones labeled science and weird. They’re all complete with mouthwatering photos. Well, all of the photos are mouthwatering except the petri dish cookies. Having been a biology major at one point in my life, and having a vivid smell memory of petri dishes in the lab, the execution of her design with all their isolated colonies kinda makes me want to hurl. But you go ahead and enjoy!

Have you seen these pictures of eleven of the coolest geeked-out cars ever made? They include:

1. Classic Battlestar Galactica Viper
2. VW Microbus Ball (does is actually work? Even if not, I think it’s hella awesome in terms of art)
3. Circuitboard-covered Sedan (Ben has an aging Saturn and enough crappy old circuit boards laying around to actually make this one)
4. Pyramid Car (doesn’t look particularly aerodynamic)
5. Pac-Man Race Car (the driver sits inside Pac-Man’s head! Don’t get me started on the woman in a bathing suit and heels standing next to the car in this photo)
6. Subaru Outback Ecto-1 (ZOMG! All-wheel drive Ghostbusters awesomeness! This would be the only reason for me to ever get a white car.)
7. Multi-colored 5 1/4-inch Floppy Disk-covered Honda Civic
8. USS Enterprise NCC-1701.7 Shuttlecar
9. Star Wars Landspeeder (can’t go back and erase the wheel shadow on this one, George)
   
10. Jawa Sandcrawler (Um, I don’t think this one’s even close to scale…)
11. X-Wing car (with R2-D2 in the back)

What I really want to see now is a track race with the Pac-Man car and four Ghost race cars chasing him… until the Pac-Man car catches the power pellet that’s speeding around in front of him (like the bunny in a greyhound coursing).

Then Pac-Man would spin around to chase Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde for a set period of time and when he overtakes one, the Ghost car would have to do a Drive of Shame back to its pit.

Fans would be outfitted with paint guns and instructed to colorize the overtaken Ghost car, which would then be washed off in the pit and resurrected into the race.

There would not be a “first to cross the finish line” goal. Scoring would consist of points for overtakes, drafting, driving style, and zealotry of paint gun-wielding fans. At the racetrack entrance, fans would have to declare whether they want to be Pac-Heads or Ghost-Heads for the day and sit in the appropriate stands.

To round out the racing teams, Pac-Heads would also be entitled to support race cars in the likeness of Ms. Pac-Man and characters from the early 1980s Hanna-Barbera cartoon series: Chomp-Chomp the dog and Sour Puss the cat. Don’t forget about Baby-Pac! He would be the adorable team mascot. On the Ghost side, the mascot would be the evil Mezmeron, leader of the ghosts from the cartoon series.

The only thing that would make this racing scenario cooler is if it were possible to screw with physics in some science-y way so that the race cars could drive off the East end of the track and instantly reappear on the West end (and vice-versa). And then maybe have a grand finale demolition derby. Yeah, I think that would score some serious green and some hardcore fandom.

Any other ideas to make this live-action Geek Race a valid sales pitch?