Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit … Memorize it, kids. It could come in handy. If Lorem ipsum can work as a centuries-old, standard placeholder for text, why not for speech? Consider the awesome applications: political conversations over the holidays; awkward, totally unexpected, sexual advances by a friend; foot-tapping queries about your Internet-browsing history; traffic stops by your local boys in blue. (On second thought, don’t give coppers the Lorem Lip. They don’t seem to have much of a sense of humor these days.) In fact, the mysterious, quietly-omnipresent Lorem ipsum we all know and love has been used as a text placeholder, almost as long as there has been text … almost.

Bored with telling the same stories at every Fourth of July, Thanksgiving and Super Bowl party, ancient Chinese Buddhists living circa 650 C.E. decided it a far better idea to share their holy texts with loved ones via print: enter stage-left, the first movable type, Chinese woodblock. Using rag paper methods learned from the far reaches of the Islamic Empire (Mesopotamia 3,000 B.C.E. being the birthplace of cuneiform handwriting and, eventually, putting all that to paper), these scholarly Buddhists, notably Wong Jei in 886 C.E. who printed a scroll for his parents, believing it to bring them good luck, set about printing many a scroll filled with kindly, Buddhist tenets. These kind ideas were met with mass silencing and murder of the printers by their own government, not to mention the burning of those very nice scrolls.

Fast forward to 1450-55 C.E.. Johann Gutenberg replaced the wood and clay, blocked type (whole pages set vs. individual characters) with metal type and printed the first substantial, commercial book with individual, movable type: The Gutenberg Bible. Some sixty years after that, Martin Luther would use movable type to tell the Catholic Church a thing or two about a thing or two.

On Hallowe’en Night 1517, Luther tacked his Ninety-Five Theses on a church door in Wittenberg, Germany, arguing against the Church’s “sale of indulgences”: basically buying one’s way out of purgatory. Before the Church could say “Hail, Mary!”, scores of Luther-fans, using Gutenberg’s printing press method, helped spread The Ninety-Five Theses all over Europe, much to Catholicism’s dismay.

By the by, there are forty-six surviving copies of original Gutenberg Bibles, most of them resting peacefully in Germany. There are, however, eleven in the United States. If you know how to have fun the right way, including throwing around words like incunabula, and are fortunate enough to live near The Huntington Library, Yale, Harvard, the Library of Congress, Indiana University or any of the other American venues, I suggest you treat yourself to one of mankind’s wonders of ingenuity, before the growing masses of half-wits and jelly beans make the printed book completely obsolete.

Anyhoo, to the point of all this: Lorem ipsum is merely dummy text used until permanent text is put in place. Designers and printers have long realized that potential clients will be distracted by actual content when perusing a spec piece of print: pamphlets, books, theater bills, advertisements, etc. Lorem ipsum looks just enough like a natural distribution of letters and phrases to fool the brain, without taking focus off the layout. First recorded usage of Lorem ipsum is c. 1500 C.E. when an anonymous printer used it to create a type specimen book. The interesting thing is that whilst it looks like Latin, it also looks like random twaddle. It is, in fact, a combination thereof.

Lorem ipsum actually comes from two sections of Cicero's De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, or The Extremes of Good and Evil, written in 45 C.E., in Latin. If you're just geeky enough, and I know you are, you'll scroll down to see the full, standard Lorem ipsum passage used by printers and designers. You'll then note one of Cicero's sections, from whence the passage comes. The letters marked in bold make up the now-standard, fill-in text of Lorem ipsum. It's like taking bits of text from a Simpsons comic book and creating your own language: Eat my shorts, man! becomes Atmy ort sma! Finally, if you're still interested, Cicero was translated for us, lovingly, by one H. Rackham of Cambridge, Mass. in 1914. Note his work below, as well.

Like so much political discourse, Lorem ipsum is simply a Straw Man, or an Aunt Sally, as the Brits call it: superficial, space-filler taken from original ideas and used to create the illusion of words and meaning, until something better comes along. Try the Lorem Lip next time your boss wants to know why you've logged so many hours at hamstergrrls.com or your prof asks if this is your own work.

"Well, sir. You see, lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Right? Oh, and also, atmy ort sma!"

If you say it with confidence and add proper gestures and facial expressions, it will take them a few minutes to figure out what's going on. If that doesn't work, there's always Ctrl+Z, kittens!

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For the truly geeky ... read on!

“There’s an awful lot of weird, pasty people in here, myself included.” So went my recurring, silent observance throughout this year’s Comic-Con, striking oft as I flitted hither and thither through the San Diego Convention Center, like a frantic mosquito seeking an open window on a muggy, Malibu, summer’s day. The pastiness was not truly what struck me, nor was the definitive weirdness. The real oddity was, like in so many gatherings where we geeks gather en masse -Renaissance Faire, Disneyland- the convergence of and shoulder-to-shoulder conditions pressed upon so many individuals not generally prone to mainstream socializing. Moi? I haven’t left my Hotel del Coronado much since 1934. Dr. Lucy, my ghostie cohort? 1904. Judging by the bevy of pale and malleable bodies endeavouring some severely awkward social interactivity, they’ve not left their abodes since 1904 either. Need more than just one fat Slave Leia? Dr. Lucy’s Comic-Con 2012 Gallery of Oddities!

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Natch, Being Human is right up my alley. As I am wont to do, I started with the U.K. version, then warmed to the U.S. iteration. Being Human U.S. is a strikingly spooky adaptation and, being a ghostie girl myself, it only makes sense that the beauteous, lead ghost Sally is my personal, vicarious fave. She’s far lovelier and more delicate than those mooks over at Ghost Adventurers, has a great pair of getaway sticks and is spades more genteel than those wheats running Ghost Hunters International. (Note to GHI: You don’t always have to be saying something in the dark. Silence is lovely sometimes and, moreover, we know you’re there.)

Thanks to the good folks in the SyFy publicity office and press room, particularly Kelly and Blair, Dr. Lucy and I were afforded a brief, press roundtable with the stars of Being Human and their executive producer, Anna Fricke, prior to the Being Human panel discussion in the Indigo Ballroom at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront. Dr. Lucy snapped some pics and I had the opportunity to chat with Anna and the actors whom portray Sally, Aidan and Josh. Anna divulged no details about Season 3, which airs January 2013, but did offer some tantalizing teasers about where our supernatural friends are headed, come winter.

“More levity”, “less dark” and “more solidarity” were E.P. Anna’s cornerstones of what’s to come. Season 2 went down some pretty dark roads indeed and the characters enacted some serious choices.

“Season 2 ended up being a very dark, crazy, bananas place where everybody had to make very life-threatening choices and decisions. Obviously, we have to see, did they get themselves out of those decisions?,” Anna offers. Anna also admitted to more flashbacks.

“We always have flashback because we love to do the wardrobe! (laughter) It’s great to delve into the past to see where they’re coming from, what made them who they are today.”

To continue, a very brief interview with Meaghan Rath, Sam Witwer and Sam Huntington:

GTBAG: Where do all the characters go this season, inwardly?

Sam Huntington (Josh): Aidan protecting Aidan. This is something we tackled this year. (laughter)

Sam Witwer (Aidan): There you go.

Sam Huntington (Josh): I think Josh’s primary goal this year on the show was to be, he’s the mother, you know? He wants to keep everyone safe. And he wants desperately to get everybody what they want. It’s uh, he’s needed to ask Aidan for a lot of help. That’s true. Because of his knowledge, because of his strength. It’s because of Josh’s newness as a supernatural being and his lack of knowledge. So uh, yeah , I think Josh has grown a tremendous amount. This season he really does come into his own, in a big way. Yeah. Yeah!

GTBAG: How do they progress? How do they grow together?

Sam Witwer (Aidan): We already know how they progress.

Sam Huntington (Josh): There’s no hope. (laughter) We have no hope.

Sam Witwer (Aidan): You know what’s great? We’ve really had a chance to collaborate with the writers this year. So, I can say with a good amount of certainty that its going exactly where I would have it. I, I love the direction it’s taking.  My character gets to be around people and that allows him to be awkward and allows him to be sad and also more dangerous considering what happened last year and it’s kind of a sweet spot for the character, in terms of him being interesting. And these two guys have so much new stuff to deal with it’s ridiculous, but we can’t tell you what.

Sam Huntington (Josh): That’s the tricky thing. That’s because we were all left in such uh, you know, horrible, extreme situations last season it’s like, to say anything about what, the result of that.

Sam Witwer (Aidan): Yeah, it takes us a year and a half after the last season.

 

At that point, the kind yet efficient talent manager swept through and corralled the attractive trio to another table, all before

Miss Meaghan could give her thoughts on Silly Sally’s forthcoming journey. What I did get, was a close-up of her smashing, heart heels!

What about Aidan and his coffin, some of you may wonder? Well, all Anna would tell me is this:

“Sam is such a fine actor. We don’t want to see him in a coffin for thirteen episodes.”

 

 

Some are born Geek, some achieve Geekness and others have Geekness thrust upon them. For those of us whom are verily Geek-at-Heart, we shall not be shedding the title as quickly as a West Hollywood hipster sheds his iPad the moment Apple bids him so. Whilst many will claim the title of Geek, as to be Nerd/Dork/Geek/Wonk is très chic, it is a dangerous, double-edged lightsaber ... wait, they're columnar in shape. Anyhoo, we may live blissfully in our own, little biospheres; yet we are easy targets, like a wounded dolphin, or the only kid dressed up like a pilgrim the Wednesday before school lets out for Thanksgiving Weekend.

From sea to nerdy Cameron-submersible sea, forest to dorky Bigfoot forest, Skywalker Ranch and beyond the solar flares, this proudly pale populace has some serious ideas about what is fun and what is not. Summer is here and it can be a tough time for us, what with the sun, the outdoors and the prospect of a proper, dress-up holiday still months away. Never mind all that; we know what makes for real summer fun and with all due respect to the rest of you, to quote The Big Bang Theory's Dr. Sheldon Cooper, "You're having fun wrong."

Summer can be a bit of a free-radical situation for us: left to fend for ourselves amidst the plains and savannas of a deconstructed season, fighting against the harsh summer sun and the expected, traditional, normal outdoor activities of the average, summer reveler. In adult-life, as in school, just because it's summer, doesn't mean the wedgies cease. In such situations, it is only natural to seek the like-minded. When the broad landscape is dotted with the frequently unavoidable herds of roaming, aggressive, beefy, sunny, beachy, geek-squashers it is often necessary for the more fragile, the proverbial 98-pound weaklings, to gather and move in clusters. The sand-kickers can’t get us all if we move as one.

If it is entirely plausible that you could spend a joyful afternoon at Peet's Coffee having a serious debate about whether Han or Greedo shot first, you just might find the following summer alternatives to beach volleyball, backyard BBQs and 5K mud runs great fun indeed. I cannot advise on alternatives in your backyard, but as a Cali Girl, I will gladly walk you through some of my Golden State's finest, oft air-conditioned, cerebral, summer dork attractions.

• San Diego Comic-Con: Certainly a toss-up, as to whether this should take the number one or two spot. In the end, it had to be crowned as supreme. Comic-Con is Mecca for con geeks the world over, even the new breed of geek: the poseur. C-C has become the new Studio 54. Few at the 1970s, iconic, NYC discotheque probably actually loved disco. Today, it's questionable how many Comic-Con attendees even read comic books, let alone have a passion for the medium. Still, decades after Richard Alf et al gifted the Geek World with the original SDCC and after all the poseurs have moved on, when The Big Bang Theory runs its course, the real fans will still faithfully flood the San Diego Convention Center each July, giving the San Diego Fire Marshal four sleepless nights every summer.

• Disneyland: Like Salieri to Mozart or Sean Penn's Emmet Ray to Django Reinhardt, were there no Comic-Con, Disney would clearly reign on this list. If you’re fortunate enough to have an annual passport, chances are good you can’t get enough of Star Tours and its fifty-some possible scenarios, The Haunted Mansion, Indiana Jones, a Johnny Depp-frosted Pirates of the Caribbean and browsing ad nauseam the Capodimonte-laden glass shelves of Main Street's Disneyana. We Disney devotees do enjoy the occasional, audible snort of derision at new attractions and additions and love to regale newbies and family first-timers with behind-the-scenes Park trivia (especially those of us whom worked there). Overall, it is our church of sorts and if you don’t like Goths, stay away mid-September through January, for The Nightmare Before Christmas overlay at The Haunted Mansion is really, honestly, to die for, kids.

• Renaissance Pleasure Faire: This one’s the original, yon friends. It's usually over before summer solstice hits, but you'll find plenty of other faires up and down the state. Yet, prithee, this is the Hamlet of Renaissance festivals. Oft simply called "Southern" or "Ren Faire", it’s been around since what feels like Queen Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh were playing footsies behind hogsheads and if you’re well-acquainted with Faire, then you know the tacit rules of conduct: no polyester, no real names, no Victorian Gary Oldmans from Dracula, keep your tongue in character and do not ask us if our costumes are hot. It's almost always 100 degrees and with the exception of our cleavages, we're swathed head-to-toe in leather, velvet, suede and fur. What thinkst thou? Faire is no place for steampunk and there’s also an internal, heated and on-going debate about Captain Jack Sparrow, because he’s a "made-up pirate". Of course, most of the pirate guilds are themselves comprised of made-up pirates. I give you geek.

• Conan: Deserving of a Larry King suspenders & glasses/Arnold sausage snap combo-pantomime, this day trip can’t be beat, even by the Masturbating Bear. Whether you're a lucky local of beautiful downtown Burbank or saving up your game tokens for a Golden State sojourn, a Conan taping is probably the second best taping you can attend in The Valley. Tickets are free, but the online lottery is hit 'n miss. Still, if you can nail a date and don't mind being in Burbank on a weekday, you’ll be better than just about everybody back home on the farm.

• Huntington Library and Gardens: Word nerds, book geeks and art history-snarks, this is your perfect afternoon, except Tuesdays and only from 10:30-4:00 in the summer, 12-4 otherwise. Of course, if you want to miss traffic getting out of the Pasadena-area, you’d best try to be out of the parking lot by 2:30, 3:00 tops. Home to a Gutenberg Bible, an Ellesmere manuscript of The Canterbury Tales, scores of early-Shakespearean papers, Audubon folios and a selection of 18thC. French and English decorative arts that would make Sofia Coppola swoon, the quiet and hidden treasure of L.A. museums is clandestinely tucked away in upscale, residential San Marino, an old money suburb of Pasadena. If you’re drawn to English incunabula, powdered wigs, French Lace roses and think Joshua Reynold's Sarah Siddons as Tragic Muse is just downright hot, then you’d better get going. Traffic will be a total nightmare in about forty minutes.

As a bonus, I must toss in The Hotel del Coronado. Though not a geek-oriented destination in and of itself, unless you’re bonkers for Victorian architectural detail, it is home to our favourite geek ghost, Miss Hannah Hart, ghostdame of The Hotel del Coronado. What?! You don’t know Miss Hannah Hart? Zowie!, as she would decry! Best get yourself over to GoodToBeAGeek.com and introduce yourself to this sassy and brassy, 1930s, Old Hollywood dame whom finds your casual wardrobe and slack-jawed vernacular a disgrace. Boyz-o! Does she have some opinions about you!

Clearly, because we are Geek, I rest assured many of you will disagree with my list, if only to dispute its hierarchy. Moreover, I expect others will rant and rail over omissions and inclusions. Please, do share @JennyPopCom or @GoodToBeAGeek. Like learning a Hotel Del ghostie girl is as bonkers for Carl Barks comic books as I am, it's always a thrill to learn where more of my own kind roam at will, without threat or fear of a good swirly.

 

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