Most of you have probably heard of the SDCC, and a few of you have probably even been.  I have!  And I hope to go back some day.  But… sadly, this year was not that day.  HOWEVER, thanks the power of the internet there’s always a few (dozens) of great wrap-ups and post-blogs.  Even more impressive, is that lately there’s been more and more fun and entertaining VIDEO wrap-ups.  Those are always great!

This year I’ve got 2 – yes TWO – of those great videos for you!  The first is a crew of puppets causing mayhem in the sea of comicdon.  You might recognize these puppets from the exert video I linked last week with our good friend Dino Andrade!  The group is called Fliptoppers and they’re pretty funny.  I hope to see more reports from them in the future.

Now, you might’ve noticed another one of our friends in that video at (roughly) the 6:30 mark!  That’s right, it’s our pal (Fake) Stan Lee!  Always a riot himself, it just so happens that (Fake) Stan Lee also made his own video recap of this years San Diego Comicbook Convention.  I linked his last year but a  new year means another new (Fake) Stan Lee video – and trust me these videos are great!

So, there you go.  Two great and funny videos from this years San Diego Comic Convention.  I hope you enjoyed.  With any luck, maybe I can make a trip out myself next year and we’ll add that recap to the mix.  Until then, True Believers, all I can say is “Excelsior!”

Today, I will remedy that!  Because that is injustice.  Or just justice.  Or just ice.

BAM! Dino Andrade!   (dramatic pause of fireworks and horn section)   Voice actor!  Grand Poobah of Soul Geek!  Generally Awesome Dude!  Not a F1 Indy car driver.  But I bet he could be.  Maybe.   But if not, he could voice that race car in Pixar’s Cars 3.  For sure on that.  DINO ANDRADE!!

Now those of you who have been here a while will probably remember Dino from his most excellent interview on an earlier Chug-A-Freeze episode!  I have provided said podcast for you here, so that you might once more enjoy the Dino in all it’s glory.  Warning:  it’s a lot of glory and you probably shouldn’t swim for at least 20 minutes after enjoyment.  Just to be safe.

To slightly, somewhat wrap-up all that discussion:  Dino is a successful voice actor who has done voicework in a ton of video games, commercials, anime and such.   Some of his work includes voicing characters (mostly gnomes) in World of Warcraft, the Scarecrow in Batman: Arkham Asylum, Skull in PvP: The Series, various voices in Ghost in the Shell and Wolf’s Rain, as well as the voice of Pop from Rice Krispies cereal commercials.

On top of that, Dino went and made an amazing site called Soul Geek (see link on the right) to allow geeks and nerds of all walks of life to meet, greet, makes friends and hopefully find their own “soul geek.”  I’ve been praising Soul Geek since I first heard of it, because I think that the idea itself is great – but beyond that the people who work on it are amazing.  The best part is that Soul Geek isn’t just working, but it’s growing and getting noticed!  They got a mention on G4′s Attack of the Show as well as a ton of reviews on many geek blogs and magazines.  It’s the real deal folks, and I love to see it happen!

Okay, so, that gives you a great idea on who is the Dino and what the Dino is all about, but I hear a couple of you skeptics asking “But Joshua, why should I give up one of my rare and coveted follows to this Mr. Dino?”  A good question, and of course one that I am ready to answer!

BECAUSE I SAID SO!!

…did that work?  No? Never does.  Okay, let’s try this instead.  When you follow Dino you get some high-quality geeky tweets, also known as tweeks.  You will hear behind the scenes stories about Dino’s auditions and voice work projects.  You’ll get info about what’s going on at Soul Geek like their local Ladies Nights.  You’ll get links to hilarious videos of Dino being “interviewed” by a puppet at Comic Con this year.   Wait?  What?  Really?  Hmm… you know what, I’ll go ahead and share that one cause it’s to unique and goofy to just tease.  Dino get’s interviewed by a member of Fliptoppers.

… you know, I feel like I just wrote a whole lot of blog for no reason.  People, if you watched that video of Dino singing with a puppet and you DON’T think the man is follow-worthy I challenge you to question whether you even have a soul.

But, since you do have a soul, hit a follow on @dinoandrade and then head over to Soul Geek. (see what I did there?)

So you know about Dragon Age: Redemption already, but let’s take a moment to look at some of the other work Felicia’s already done.  Yesterday I skimmed over her webseries The Guild, a series about a group of people who play an MMO Game together.  It’s a comedy- and a great one- and I highly suggest it to anyone and everyone who likes gaming at all.  It’s available on their website, the XBox Live Market, the Zune Market, iTunes, MSN and Youtube, as well as DVD and Netflix.  Four seasons already and a fifth in the works.  Pretty good for a webseries right?

Felicia created, writes, and stars in both Dragon Age: Redemption and The Guild, but she’s also appeared in other webseries.  The one most people will know is Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog (also available on iTunes and DVD).  A musical by Joss Whedon and co-starring Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion.  She’s also a recurring character in The Legend of Neil – a parody of the Legend of Zelda.

But, what if you don’t think a webseries is a valid acting job?  (I don’t think anyone reading this blog would think that, but I’m just covering the bases here.)  Well, you’re in luck!  Because Felicia has done plenty of television work too!  If you’re a SyFy fan you’ll know her as the lead character from their recent original movie Red: Werewolf Hunter.   She was in the movie Bring It On Again (even if no one wants to admit it) and she really got her start as the character Vi in Buffy the Vampire Slayer for eight episodes.  She’s also been in episodes of the show House and Dollhouse… cause she apparently has a thing for real estate?

As awesome as being an actress is, the fact that she’s a nerdette actress is better.  I think her work on Dragon Age and The Guild are pretty solid proof she’s a nerd, but I can add more validation.  She’s made appearances at the Microsoft presentation at E3 as well as the Spike TV Video Game Awards.  She’s made multiple appearances at San Diego Comic Con.  She’s also a video game voice actor in Fallout: New Vegas as well as the upcoming Guild Wars 2.  See?!  Plenty of geeky in that redhead!

So, if you’re one of the ten people who read this and isn’t already following Felicia Day on Twitter… what are you waiting for??  Get over there and tag @feliciaday for a follow!

Dave at a Con getting his sketch on... sorta

Last weekend was the ever-impressive San Diego Comic Con, and if you don’t have the pleasure of following webcomic people who frequent such an awesome event then you won’t realize what your missing.  So, let me tell you what you’re missing.  Most of the time you’re missing inside jokes between creators, but there are also great pictures including the fan arts the creator is drawing.  There’ll also tell you about the panels and after parties so you get an idea of what’s going on and who’s having all the fun.

I’ve gone to one SDCC myself, and the event was amazing.  Every year after that I had to rely on blog posts that typically recapped the whole weekend days after it was over.  Now, thanks to Twitter, I’m able to feel in a small way like I’m still out there by following celebrities and webcomicers who actually ARE out there.  It’s actually pretty fun.

That said, I thought I’d suggest an artist for you this week, and though there are a lot of great people to follow I decided on Dave Kellett for a few reasons.  First, Dave is one of the first people I started following and one of the few I’ve never stopped following.  Since I follow Dave, I also know for a fact he really is one of the more entertaining follows – especially at cons.  Lots of pictures, jokes, sketches and such in his feed.

There is an alterieror motive I admit.  Just a few days before SDCC, Dave actually posted his 3000th Sheldon Comic!!  That’s a huge feet, and there aren’t a lot of comic people out there that have been doing such high-quality comics for so long.  Sheldon is one of the first webcomics I found, and it’s still one of the ones that can make me laugh almost every day.  After 3000 comics, that’s really impressive.

Plus, Dave’s started dipping his feet into Sci-Fi now with his new comic Drive which updates on Saturdays.   Both comics are great, and I fully recommend both to anyone who loves webcomics – which, hopefully all of you visiting this site do.  Love webcomics.

Anyway, jump over to Twitter and check out Dave’s awesome feed and then add him to your follow list.  You can thank me later.

Now, being a host of a cool geek-trendy show is probably enough to get some loving on Twitter – but Olivia has been on a roll of awesome lately.  She made a cameo in the summer blockbuster IronMan 2 as the reporter introducing Hammer’s presentation at the Stark Expo.  She’s currently the poster girl for PETA’s fight against the use of elephants in the circus, and Maxim recently placed her at number 8 on the 2010 Hot 100 list.  (Go go crazy unnecessary lists to quantify attractiveness!)  That’s a jump from 96 to 8 in one year – and you know a large portion of that is cause Olivia is on a hot streak.  (Puns are fun.)

Still, all that isn’t enough awesome for Olivia lately as she’s also taken a job as a journalist on the wildly popularly and vastly imaginative Daily Show as their Senior Asian Correspondent.  As if that weren’t exciting enough she’s also going to be staring in a new NBC sitcom coming out this fall called Perfect Couples.

Now all that is awesome, but what really defines Olivia Munn to me more then anything else is her role on a music video by Parry Gripp called “The Girl at the Video Game Store” where Olivia shows off her wildly alluring mix of nerd and hottie that is so rare yet so very, very enthralling.  Also, the song is really very catchy and worth a grab off iTunes.

So, roll your tongue back and pick your jaw up off the floor and then take a moment to tag a follow on Olivia.  You’ll thank me later.