Nerd Culture Podcast

The nominations for the 2014 Academy Awards have been announced and to be honest, there were few surprises, except perhaps the exclusion of Saving Mr Banks. And, although there was no doubt that 12 Years A Slave would be included, I believe the number of nominations are excessive. I know that this is a controversial opinion, but I believe that film is highly over-rated.

And, on a side note, how the hell can Star Trek: Into Darkness be nominated for visual effects?! The use of fake Lens Flare should automatically exclude your film from any nominations! 🙂

2013 featured some great films, and some exceptionally strong performances, so I don’t envy the Academy members’ task to choose the best of the best from the list below.

Continuing the tradition from last year, I’ve included my Picks (who I want to win) & Predictions (who I think will win) for the winners of Best Picture, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress & Director in the list below.

Best Picture
American Hustle
Captain Phillips
Dallas Buyers Club
Gravity
Her
Nebraska
Philomena
12 Years a Slave
The Wolf of Wall Street

My Pick: Her
My Prediction: 12 Years a Slave

Best Actor
Christian Bale, American Hustle
Bruce Dern, Nebraska
Leonardo DiCaprio, The Wolf of Wall Street
Chiwetel Ejiofor, 12 Years a Slave
Matthew McConaughey, Dallas Buyers Club

My Pick: Leonardo DiCaprio
My Prediction: Leonardo DiCaprio

Best Actress
Amy Adams, American Hustle
Cate Blanchett, Blue Jasmine
Sandra Bullock, Gravity
Judi Dench, Philomena
Meryl Streep, August: Osage County

My Pick: Cate Blanchett
My Prediction: Cate Blanchett

Best Supporting Actor
Barkhad Abdi, Captain Phillips
Bradley Cooper, American Hustle
Michael Fassbender, 12 Years a Slave
Jonah Hill, The Wolf of Wall Street
Jared Leto, Dallas Buyers Club

My Pick: Barkhad Abdi
My Prediction: Jonah Hill

Best Supporting Actress
Sally Hawkins, Blue Jasmine
Jennifer Lawrence, American Hustle
Lupita Nyong’o, 12 Years a Slave
Julia Roberts, August: Osage County
June Squibb, Nebraska

My Pick: Lupita Nyong’o
My Prediction: Jennifer Lawrence

Best Director
David O. Russell, American Hustle
Alfonso Cuaron, Gravity
Alexander Payne, Nebraska
Steve McQueen, 12 Years a Slave
Martin Scorsese, The Wolf of Wall Street

My Pick: Martin Scorsese
My Prediction: Steve McQueen

Click More for the rest of the nominations (more…)

Episode #74 features:

News: Disney Star Wars canon changes / Comics Sales up 9% / Is MoS2’s Wonder Woman a Kryptonian?

Popcorn Junkies: The Best Worst Movie, The Trip, & Machete Kills

Contest of Champions: The Borg vs The Xenomorphs (Aliens)

Azerothian Times: Inventory changes

And holy crap how awesome is Crystal’s ‘Borgified’ Xenomorph picture!

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Check out this cool link that goes some way to explaining why a Xenomporph would be lethal to a Borg, and why the holographic bullets worked.

2014 is here and it’s always been interesting to me to see how other countries around the world ring in the new year. So I decided to take that concept and see how various video game locations would celebrate the holiday. I took a trip in my video game time traveling contraption and saw first hand how it all goes down…

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During the Darkmoon Faire, aspiring Battle Pet Trainers can do a daily fight against Master Trainer Jeremy Feasel for the chance of getting a Darkmoon Eye pet (amongst other things).

This guy claims he is the best, and he can be a challenge, especially his pet Fezwick, but with my strat he is actually a bit of a push-over 🙂

Pets Needed:

Slot 1. Infinite Whelpling : Tail Sweep, Healing Flame, Early Advantage
Slot 2. Any Shale Hatchling : Burn, Poison Spit, Stone Rush
Slot 3. Rocket Chicken : Missile, Toxic Smoke, Launch

Notes: Any Shale Hatchling is fine, but it’s Speed must be > 280 & any Mechanical with anti-Beast attacks is fine, but it is vital that its Speed is > 294

Strat:

Judgement – Start with the Infinite Whelpling and spam Tail Sweep. It should only take 3 attacks to kill Judgement. Then when Honky Tonk swaps in throw down an Early Advantage and then swap to your Shale Hatchling.

Honky Tonk – Stone Rush, Burn, Burn. If at any time Shock and Awe stuns you, swap the Whelpling back in for a round and then back to the Hatchling.

Fezwick – Throw in a Poison Spit if you can then swap to your Mechanical. Toxic Smoke, and then spam Missile to victory.

Good luck getting the Eye!

Welcome to my Beasts of Fable dailies guide.

Once completed, the initial Beasts of Fable quest opens up the Beasts of Fable Dailies which can be picked up from your faction’s Battle Pet Trainer in the Vale of Eternal Blossoms.

They involve defeating the same Legendary Pets you defeated in the initial quest and are split into 3 quests, Beasts of Fable Book I, Beasts of Fable Book II & Beasts of Fable Book III.

The main benefit of completing these dailies is to get rewards like Pet Treats (which grant Pet leveling XP bonuses), Panda pets, and Battle Pet Upgrade Stones. Unfortunately there is no XP gained from these battles so there is no point in bringing a leveling pet. But by using the Pet Treats combined with my Leveling Guide you’ll have plenty of level 25 pets in no time so don’t worry about that.

Below you will find the strategies I use to battle these Legendary Pets and complete these dailies. It is unbelievable just how RNG some of these fights are. Strategies that worked perfectly one day will completely fail the next. So please keep that in mind when doing these battles.

Like all of my Battle Pets guides, you can swap out any of the pets for their alternatives if you need to.

Click More for the guide 🙂 (more…)