The Geekly with a Twist: September 16th-22nd

Hey all, Annaleigh back again with your weekly installment of history in the Geek-verse.  Today, I’ve got a special treat for you all…at the end of the article.  Stay tuned for an extra special Find of the Week at the end of this week’s Geekly!

September 16th, 1963: “The Outer Limits” premiers on ABC.  You can watch the original series on Hulu.

September 17th, 1951: Cassandra Peterson is born in Manhattan, Kansas.  She would grow up to become the icon for many horror movie fanatics as the Mistress of the Dark herself: Elvira.

September 17th, 1976: NASA unveils the shuttle Enterprise in Palmdale, California.  (That’s about 370 miles and 175 years away from Enterprise NX-01, for those of you keeping track.)

September 18th, 1709: Samuel Johnson, the lexicologist who would later in life publish the first dictionary of the English language, is born in Lichfield, Staffordshire.

September 18th, 1982: The first ever “:-)” is used in an online message by Scott Fahlman, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University.

September 20th, 1965: The crew assignments for Gemini 8 are announced.  Among the crew are Command Pilot Neil Armstrong.

September 21st, 1866: Herbert George Wells, one of the men later referred to as the “Father of Science Fiction,” is born in Kent.

September 21st, 1937: “The Hobbit” is first published by George Allen & Unwin in the UK.  Due to the wide critical acclaim and financial success, J.R.R. Tolkien would be asked to write further novels in his “Middle Earth” and, as such, he went on to write one of the most influential fantasy novels of the century- The Lord of the Rings.

And, for your Twist of the week: it was tough not to go with something Middle Earth themed for today, but, in a throw back to one of my original articles here on SciFi4Me (The Lush Presents: Drinks for the Coming Apocalypse!) I give you The Red Weed (as inspired by movie adaptations of The War of the Worlds).

THE RED WEED

Fill a shot glass with Vodka.
Drop 3-4 drops of your choice red liqueur or liquor slowly into the shot glass.  (I used Hot Damn! but you can also use things such as Campari, which has a nice orange-y Mars color to it, or grenadine.)

And now…for what you’ve all been waiting for…an extra-special Annaleigh’s Find of the Week feature on Rainbow Darkness Studios.

A college student in for art and graphic design as well as a housewife, this very talented young lady started out making jewelry purely for fun.  As her collection grew, she moved to Etsy (first in March of 2010 and then under the name “RainbowDarkness” in May the same year).  Everything she does is a personal creation, inspired largely by Geek culture.  As I write this, she’s got Harry Potter, Zelda, Pokemon, World of Warcraft, Dexter, Steampunk, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Repo!: The Genetic Opera, Kingdom Hearts, Portal, and Final Fantasy pieces in her shop (which only covers the easily named stuff).

Recently, after admiring her stuff for some time thanks to being turned on to her work through a Regretsy post about April’s Army (one of the most unique charitable causes I’ve ever found), I was able to order from the delightful artist.  Let me put it this way: I don’t think I could be happier…at least until I order again.

From her gaming potions to her new “bubblies,”  she does custom orders sure to satisfy the gift-giving needs for any geeky girl on your list.  Her prices are extremely reasonable (between $4.50 and $47.00 currently for entirely handcrafted pieces) and she combines shipping!

The best part?  She’s an absolute Geek herself, between her never-ending love of everyone’s favorite evil ginger Joss Whedon and Buffy the Vampire Slayer as well as her gaming tendencies, I think we can only expect more and better to come from Rainbow Darkness Studios.

You can visit her website at www.rainbowdarknessstudios.com, her store on Etsy, or her page on Facebook.  Stop by and tell her I sent ya. 🙂

Rainbow Darkness Studios banner used with permission from Stephanie Williams of Rainbow Darkness Studios.  All artwork has been photographed and is used with permission.

Until next week, Geeks!