This Week in Geek - 30/04/2012

A showcase of this week's finest geek and geek related activities for the week. Mark your calendars.

Longer Term

• Anime - The Masters of Studio Ghibli - Silver Spring, MD - now through June 17
• There’s a pretty amazing array of Miyazaki films showing over the next few weeks at the AFI Silver Theater. The bad news is most showings are mid-afternoon. The good news is many of them are shiny new 35mm prints. Here are this week’s films:
• Porco Rosso - Tuesday through Sunday (between 11 AM and 1 PM)
• Kiki’s Delivery Service - Wednesday at 12:35 PM
• Only Yesterday - Wednesday at 7:00 PM

A haunting image from the Ghibli Museum
image by Francesco G

• Comedy - Gilbert Gottfried - Washington, DC - May 4 through May 6
• Its Gilbert. You know, Gilbert. Sputtering, cutting, and sarcastic, much like the guy from MAT303 who hated everyone in the class but would show up again and again so he could keep hating them? Maybe that was just me. But if you want to hear Iago from Aladdin tell you nearly an hour of truly filthy jokes in the way only he can, then your time has come.

Wednesday

• Futurism - Futurist Bookgroup - Washington, DC - 7:30 PM
• Geeks, on a whole, don’t live here. We tend to live in the past, in the future, in alternate timelines and dimensions far away. We visit the here and now pretty regularly (note that most of us are employed, as an example) but still... The futurist bookgroup down at P&P is made for the kind of geek that like engineering in her fiction and dreams in her reality. This month its the discussion of The Third Industrial Revolution and its implications for distributed resource development. Yeah, that’s the stuff I need to knock the rust off my brain.
• Post-Punk - We Were Promised Jetpacks at Black Cat - Washington, DC - 8:00 PM
• Kilt-clad, post-punk, Scottish, emo. Check out the link to get a taste. I have to admit that by the time the music stopped, I had forgotten that I wasn’t listening to my own music. The Black Cat site says the group combines “the soaring emotions of a U2 anthem with the frenetic energy of post-punk.” I just know I like it.

Friday

• Pure Geek - Star Wars Day - Throughout the galaxy - All day
• Please, please don’t make me explain this pun and why this day works as The Star Wars Day of note in the English language. It broke my heart enough having to explain it to my folks. It’s the Fourth. Toss on the trilogy, get together with some friends, crack out your lightsabers and remember being a kid.

Saturday

• Comics - Free Comic Book Day - All the good comic shops - All day
• Be sure to check the participant list on the site, but this, this is the awesome idea for hooking folks in. Maybe its a friend who never got exposed as a kid. Maybe it is your kid. Maybe its you after years away. Sure, we can wait for the trades. Sure, we can just order online. But there’s something special to heading into your local shop once a month, once a week to pick up your pulls. There’s something about the community that springs up, the ability to meet your fellow fans, that scent of ink and dust and plastic that is a comic shop.

I can't be the only one who sees this and thinks, "America! Fuck yeah!"
image by Sarah Stierch

• Space - Space Day at NASM and Udvar-Hazy Center - DC and Chantilly - 10AM to 3PM
• If you’re in the DC area you probably ran outside to get fly over pictures as the surviving shuttles were carried off to their final destinations. The NASM out by Dulles continues that moment with celebrations and exhibitions this Space Day. The festivities of the day will focus around welcoming the Discovery home, talks with astronauts, and all sorts of mission planning activities.
• Entertainment - Tilted Torch Birthday Blowout - Washington, DC - 9:00 PM
• Maybe it's some combination of my inner five year old defining geek as someone who bites the head off live chickens and my healthy regard for physical forms in motion. No matter the root causes though, few live performance types please me more than burlesque style sideshows and that’s what the Red Palace has been giving DC more of lately. Personally, I’m a fan, and this weekend is a great excuse to get out and see what it's all about (especially if you skipped the Dr. Who show last week).

Did we miss something? If you have an event you’d like to promote that isn’t on this list, leave a comment or email us. Other weekly reoccurring events are listed on our website (such as Rocky, CCG tournaments, crazy themed happy hours). For more information, check out the calendars at DC Geeks.