Ah, it’s so nice to have the return of television shows. Castle was good as always, Community was great and 30 Rock was hilarious. I’m intrigued by The Event; it had a slow start but really built up, and I’m hoping the show goes somewhere (that is, doesn’t bomb like Flashforward where nothing happened). We’ve got Undercovers and SVU recorded but haven’t watched either yet.

So, um, welcome back, TV. We missed you.

Three days ago “Geek and Gamer Girls” was released on the Internet. Those of you who missed it can watch it here, but basically it’s a song where four chicks sing about how they’re geeks. The intention is good but ultimately misguided, and the song ends up really just being an enormous embarrassment. I admit that I spent most of the video cringing.

The first thing I noticed is that it’s less of a song and more of a list put to music. At its core, the song’s lyrics are just references to TV shows, video games, board games, and other things that are traditionally considered geeky. That doesn’t prove that you’re a geek – it only proves that you have a cursory knowledge of some things that aren’t considered to be mainstream. It’s probably hard to come with lyrics for a song like this, but maybe that’s a sign you shouldn’t be writing one altogether.

I think I’m questioning the need for a song like this altogether. Was it in question that there are a bunch of girls out there who play video games – and that a portion of them are good looking? Why does that need to be declared in a song? Yes, most geeks are still guys, but females are a still growing minority. There are far better ways to make such a declaration, anyway; take a look at Felicia Day’s The Guild for an example.

But the part that gets me the most is that, in a song about girls who are geeky, there’s a fairly lengthy rap session by Seth Green. I don’t understand why his cameo is necessary. I get that the original song (Katy Perry’s “California Gurls”) has a rap section with Snoop Dogg in it and maybe they wanted to reflect that in this song, but it seems contrary to the point of the song. Clearly the song is meant to be some form of anthem for geek girls, but then you have a guy perform in roughly one third of the song? The song is about empowerment, and having a guy in it waters it down, I think.

Ultimately I think the song falls flat and really just ends up hurting the cause (whatever you defined it as) more than helping it. And unlike other people on the Internet, I’m not insulted that the song references things that I like. It’s really just an unnecessary piece of fluff that sets back female gaming. The right way to do it would have put the girls in a Gears of War group, have them go around wrecking other teams, and then laughing over the mics.

Yes, everyone has heard that the asshole who was going to hold a Quran book burning has decided to cancel, as long as the imam that’s behind the community center near Ground Zero moves the center’s location. Now the guy says he won’t move and blah blah, they’re going to have a meeting, whatever. Honestly it seems like blackmail to me: either you move the center, or we burn the Quran. Maybe we should issue something like that to the Tea Party. Disband forever, or we’ll set some crosses on fire. … Then again, maybe not.

Anyway. Where one crazy person disengaged, another crazy has stepped up to fill the void. Westboro Baptist Church, my favorite group of people of all time, will burn the Quran instead. According to one of their blogs (I won’t link to it because they don’t deserve the clickthroughs):

The Westboro Baptist Church will burn the Quran and doomed-american flag on 9/11/2010.

The false prophet Terry Jones caved-like all false prophets do, and like we told you he would.

We will burn your Quran on 9/11/10 to tell the world that the Muslims are the servants of God-and they will bring the final affliction to Israel and the Jews according to the promises of God.  … Meanwhile we will also burn the flag of this doomed rebellious disobedient nation of proud sinners.  While you sissy brats browbeat and jockey with the false prophet Terry Jones-pretending like the lives of those soldiers are your political and personal pawns-we will tell you the truth.

Now here’s the conundrum. They’re going to simultaneously burn the Quran and the American flag. Crazy Christians were going to burn the Quran, and crazy Muslims burn the American flag. Crazy teabaggers who hate Muslims want to see the Quran desecrated, but they’ll have to do it while watching their flag be desecrated – and people who want to see the American flag in flames will have to do it at the risk of watching their own holy book burn. It’s so crazy!

Actually, I have to commend Westboro for achieving what seems to be rather impossible: somehow pissing off everyone at once. At the same time, they’ve also made it easier to write them off – hell, most of us have already acknowledged that they’re batshit crazy. So will enemies join forces against a common threat? The heat will be on!

Dear person sitting behind me on this flight who had her knees up against my chair so I was really uncomfortable,

I hate you.

P.S. How did you find this post?

I never read comic books or graphic novels when I was younger, and in retrospect I feel like I missed out on something. I’m not really sure why I never did; perhaps I hung out with the wrong crowd for that sort of thing. I was too busy reading books for English class, and in my spare time I was reading The Belgariad and other fantasy genre novels. More than anything, though, I think it was one aspect of being a self-hating nerd, where I scoffed at people who read manga and things like that. (Actually, that’s still true.)

The main reason I bring this up now is because it’s being thrown back in my face. In particular, now that Hollywood has run out of ideas, they’ve turned to adaptations of graphic novels as a way to generate cash, and I feel lame because I don’t have a personal connection with what they’re releasing. I only read Watchmen after the film came out. I know Wanted was a piece of crap, but I’m still vaguely interested in reading the book. Scott Pilgrim actually started coming out when I was in college, but I’d like to think that I would have read it. It’s too late now, though; reading it would make me a poseur.

And yet, at the same time, I sort of want to start reading some. Maybe I’ll start with Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman.