This Week in Geek: The Greater Good and the Old Ones

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

Cease all chanting, wait 90 seconds, then try restarting.
(by André "Gigopepo" Persechini)

Longer Term

• Convention - NecronomiCon - Providence, RI - Thursday through Sunday
• It isn't really in our neighborhood, but there’s no better place to host the festival honoring Howard Phillips Lovecraft than in his hometown of Providence. The devotees of his horror stories (and/or the Old Ones) probably wouldn’t mind the pilgrimage to spend four days examining not only literature but science, history, exploration, art and other HP themes. Worth it just to meet up with the creators of HP Podcraft.
• Convention - Intervention - Rockville, MD - Friday through Sunday
• You can trust us; we’re from the Internet. The prereg contests have wound down as we close in to the final days before the convention, but there’s still time to snag passes online. Here’s a few highlights from the impressive guest list: Paul (of "and Storm" fame) and Mark Frauenfelder of BoingBoing, not to mention the slew of webcomic, music, and artist guests.
• Faire - Opening of the Maryland Renaissance Festival - Crownsville, MD - Saturday and Sunday
• If you have geeky kids, or garb that you love to dress your less-than-geeky kids up in, this is Children's Weekend at the faire. All the kidlings under 12 get in for free. There’s also special performances and kids’ activities throughout the weekend. (September 2nd, Labor Day, celebrates the other end of the spectrum as everyone over 61 gets in free). For the rest of you, peruse the list of events to find whatever Pirate, Scottish, Irish, or just plain alcohol themed weekend best suits your faire tastes. And go grab some badass steampunk art and gear from Iron Antler Forge (and check out our podcast with Daniel).

Don't forget your camera! This is the 2012 First Place photograph
(by Micah Humbert)

Thursday

• Movies - Three Flavour Cornetto Trilogy - Check link for theaters - Starts at 5:30PM
• For those of you unfamiliar... oh who are we kidding, if you've read this, you've seen Shaun of the Dead (it’s about as safe as assuming you've seen Boondock Saints). Some of you may have shamefully skipped out on the glorious violence of Hot Fuzz. And now that the trilogy is closing with The World’s End (autoplaying trailer link), Regal is offering the chance to see every parallel, every in-joke, and every headshot for $20. You should see them, after all, it's for The Greater Good.

Saturday

• Gaming - Taste of Shakespearean RPGs - Washington, DC - 1:00 to 6:00PM
• Three games will be showcased at this event. Forsooth! is an RPG revolving around your improv acting ability as 3-6 players attempt to recreate a long-lost Shakespearean work. A Tragedy in Five Acts has players testing their charisma in an attempt to talk their way into the lead role (wait, wasn’t there something your 11th grade English teacher said about how all Shakespearean tragedies end? Eh, probably not important). Finally, there’s Fiasco ( and a quick link to its TabeTop) but with the expansion that sets the disaster squarely in Elizabethan England. Also, DC’s Shakespeare Theater Company is going to be there to promote their shows: Much Ado About Nothing and Measure for Measure.

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 recurring 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.