Articles

Event Essentials: 10 Things Your Event Site Is (Probably) Missing (18.03.2018)

Events both big and small both make a handful of common mistakes. These can be things as key as forgetting to say where the event is held. Of course, mistakes like these aren’t indicative of a bad event. There are many events that make all of these common mistakes – yet the event itself runs perfectly. But your online presence is vital – it’s the portal through which people find your event and buy tickets. This list presents several common mistakes and should help you better communicate your event to people...
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Early art from Rebecca Sugar (18.01.2017)

Today Rebecca Sugar is a superstar – at least in the eyes of animation nerds like me. She’s the creator of Steven Universe and before that she was a writer and storyboard artist on Adventure Time. They’re both incredible cartoons well suited to her particular style. But before Rebecca Sugar commanded the helm of her own animated TV show, she created several artworks that hold up today and give an insight into her personal flair.She first came to my attention with her graduate film, Singles. Rebecca attended Cal Arts, a prestigious animation school with ties to Disney Animation Studios...
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Interstellar Corn-fest (12.04.2015)

There’s this scene in Interstellar where the family dinner table is filled with nothing but foods made up of corn. In this dystopian future, corn has become the only viable crop – so it’s corn for breakfast lunch and dinner. Interstellar may not be the best film ever, but it is a film of grand ideas.So it came to be that on a Wednesday night as our sharehouse settled in for a movie night to watch Interstellar, I served up a dinner menu consisting of 90% corn. This would be a meal that was more of an art experiment than a real dinner...
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A Fearless Adventure In Knowing What To Do (01.03.2015)

When the Valve employee handbook was leaked back in 2012, I was struck by just how bold the ideas were. Sure there’s the boss-less workplace structure, but what was truly compelling was the philosophies behind the book. ”This handbook is about the choices you’re going to be making and how to think about them. Mainly, it’s about how not to freak out now that you’re here.” Strip away words like “”financial return”” and “”game development”” and it suddenly sounded as though Valve are giving you advice on life in general. Makes sense for a company that espouses a healthy life/work balance...
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Breathe in, breathe out and Expand (12.20.2014)

Expand was one of the six games featured at PAX Australia as part of the indie showcase and it’s easy to see why. It has a clean, appealing graphic design, serene music and it’s a fresh twist on the simple platformer. Not to mention it’s home grown in Adelaide by developer Chris Johnson and composer/collaborator Chris Larkin. The controls are simple: you just gently push the thumbstick and navigate an expanding, changing concentric maze...
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Trans Day of Remembrance (20.11.2014)

November 20th is Trans Day of Remembrance – a memorial day that I only just learned about, but one that deserves commemoration. If you want to learn more about the history, this article gives a good background and explains the obvious truth that trans people should be respectfully treated as, y’know, people?
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Iñupiat culture in Never Alone (18.11.2014)

In a warm corner of the crowded gaming expo floor at PAX Aus, Upper One Games invited players to step into the cold and experience Never Alone. In this game you play as an Inuit girl and her friend, fox, as they traverse the harsh Alaskan landscape...
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Cosplay at PAX Australia (15.11.2014)

At this year’s PAX Australia, life imitated art as hundreds of fans walked the halls of Melbourne’s Convention Center dressed as their favourite video game characters. From the carefully hand crafted pieces to the casual costumes, they all came together to experience a range of panels, game showcases, and meet ups with video game enthusiasts from near and far. Although there were many cosplayers representing different games and genres, it was the League of Legends cosplayers that came out in full force.Laura Scott, also known as Saerianne, is a 19 year old cosplayer from Sydney. She attended PAX this year in three different League of Legends champion outfits: Arcade Miss Fortune, Janna, and Lulu. At last year’s convention, Laura says there were close to 20 League of Legends cosplayers but this year there was an increased influx and they came by the hundreds...
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Diversity Lounge at PAX Aus (27.10.2014)

In it’s second year, the giant gaming festival PAX Australia has already announced a raft of new features. There’s a bigger venue (with bigger theatres), Tripod and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra playing on the Friday night as well as a PAX Aus Diversity Lounge...
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Canned Geek appears on ABC Radio (12.10.2014)

The other week I had the pleasure of popping into the ABC radio studios and having a chat with reporter Tiger Webb about geek culture conventions for a story that aired on Radio National...
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A deluge of anime conventions (17.06.2014)

Earlier this year Melbourne lost its largest and longest running anime convention when Manifest announced it had come to an end. People pined and begged the Manifest volunteers to rethink their decision and resurrect their old con, but instead something else happened. Manifest was gone for good, but in a matter of months three brand new events had sprung up out of nowhere...
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The dubious world of geek dating books (19.5.2014)

I have a habit of digging into the compost heaps of the internet. Most recently, my search terms have included things like ‘neck beard,’ ‘fedora,’ ‘niceguy’ and ‘geeks who have no concept of how to treat women like people rather than a concept.’ This turns up a mountain of results, including tales of stalking and harassment, multiple blogs dedicated to showcasing the worst of online dating sites and even more articles analysing the trend of the fedora wearing straight male nerd who fails to understand women (and people in general) on a fundamental level...
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Comikaze is dead (6.5.2014)

The Queens Birthday weekend has always been a busy weekend for geek events, but this year will be the first year without the Comikaze 48 hour comic challenge. For the past nine years, the lovely folks at Pulp Faction challenged artists across Australia to set aside two days in the long week end devoted to creating comics anywhere from 8 to 24 pages long...
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Mysterious noodle armed figure dances for charity (2.5.2014)

Those of you with an internet connection may have heard tall tales of ‘the horrors’ that happen at a furry convention. Thing is though, that the really weird stuff is actually kind of baffling and amazing. Take for instance, the appearance of a noodled limbed, masked being who danced up a hundred dollars for the sale of the unicorn leotard they were wearing – all for charity, of course...
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A review of Room Party the card game (2.4.2014)

Room parties and playing games with friends and strangers are two of the best things you can do at a convention. Recognising this, a group of geeks got together to create their own card game that’s all about the best (and worst) things that happen at convention room parties. Playing a card might summon a neck-beard wearing cardboardinium armour to your party or maybe a D-list celebrity carrying some suspicious looking drinks will show up at the door – it’s all part of Room Party: The Game...
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Paperwork, border crossings and bombings: All in a days work in Papers Please (22.3.2014)

How arresting can a game about protecting your country’s borders through paperwork and policy really be? In the case of Papers, Please, you’d be surprised. Taking the role of an immigration officer, it’s your job to sort through visas, work permits and all matter of paperwork to separate law-abiding citizen from potential threat. The game is still in development and available only as an unfinished demo, but it’s already causing intrigue. The experience speaks for itself and I encourage you to try yourself – but if you need convincing, then read on to find out just how engaging a job simulator can be...
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Of course Disney crossovers are canon (14.3.2014)

The internet has been coming up with creative new ways to tie Frozen into the rest of the Disney universe. The most poignant theory being that Anna and Elsa’s parents died whilst sailing to attend the wedding of Flynn and Rapunzel from Tangled and that the wreckage of their ship is the very on that Ariel explores in The Little Mermaid. An alternate theory has the ship wash up on an island where the parents die – but not before having baby Tarzan!...
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"I'm not boring, just bored" (15.2.2014)

I like games because I don’t need to think,’ he said openly. She nods and doesn’t break eye contact with him. It’s a moment of surprising honesty; one you don’t expect to take place in the middle of a waiting room at CentreLink...
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Spider-Man and the Bystander Effect (4.1.2014)

There’s one story in particular that I tell more often than any other – especially to people I’ve only just met. It’s a story about a highly influential murder. Violent murders are an odd topic to bring up with strangers you barely know, but it’s an important story and one that a young Peter Parker would have been well served by...
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Manifest wraps up after 14 years (17.12.2013)

Next year is set to be another packed year, with over 100 geeky events across Australia and New Zealand. But one event that you will no longer find in the event guide is Manifest. After 14 years of being Melbourne’s premiere anime convention, it’s all over...
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The Spectrum of Gamers at PAX Australia (22.9.2013)

The Penny Arcade Expo represents almost every kind of gaming you can imagine. There’s tabletop, old school consoles, laser tag, card games, board games – they’re all there. But in June of 2013, something happened that caused some gamers to wonder whether they were welcome at PAX...
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Little Big Web 2.0 (22.8.2013)

So this is what we thought the internet looked like back in 2010. Apparently not too much has changed – other than it’s worth noting that when this video was originally created,there was barely any Little Big Planet machinima, despite its excellent puppet-style controls. This was created by Canned Geek co-creator Will Owen waaaaay back...
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Elizabeth and the Damsel In Distress (5.5.2013)

”Bring us the girl and wipe away the debt.” Sounds simple right? Yet Bioshock Infinite is a game that relishes in subverting expectations. What begins in a rescue the princess style mission unravels into a complex and affecting experience....
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Charity screening of The Room for Childs Play (4.4.2013)

We raised $895.55 for Child’s Play with just 50 people. Thanks for coming – it was an experience. Since 2007 Canned Geek has been the comprehensive guide to every event across Australia and New Zealand – and we felt it was about time we ran an event of our own. Oh Hi Doggie is a charity film screening of the cult classic The Room to raise funds for Child’s Play – a charity organisation which distributes toys and video games to children in hospitals worldwide. Sometimes charity means sacrifice. Other times charity means sitting through and laughing at a bad movie...
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TinyCon shot recipes (23.5.2012)

I recently attended the Queensland furry convention, Furry Down Under – an event which I can’t say enough nice things about. It was an amazing three days packed full of wonderful people and funny event – but it didn’t stop there…
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ER-20 earplugs review (1.11.2009)

The short version of this review is that if you like to go to music concerts then spending $30 on a pair of Etymotic ER-20 earplugs is the best investment you can ever make.
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Why Bully is better than Grand Theft Auto (6.10.2009)

As was already discussed on this podcast, I wasn’t too impressed by Grand Theft Auto IV. I’ve played most of the Grand Theft Auto games since Grand Theft Auto 2 on the PC and enjoyed seeing the constant advancement of the core gameplay mechanics. This peaked with Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas on the PlayStation 2. In that game freedom and fun reigned supreme and it was just as enjoyable to play as it was to sit with a friend and see what they would do. It might be that an epic police chase that started with accidentally running over a pedestrian and then was taken out of the city, through forest and desert until it ended with your fighter jet being shot out of the sky. The scope of the fun in that game was magnificent.But this article isn’t about comparing San Andreas and Grand Theft Auto IV. It’s about comparing another Rockstar game, Canis Canem Edit with Grand Theft Auto IV...
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The tragedy of Disney's Hercules (29.5.2009)

Did you ever see Disney’s Hercules? You might want to see it again sometime because I’m about to give you a new perspective on it. I’m also about to talk a lot about the story – so consider yourself warned if you haven’t seen the film yet and don’t want to hear any spoilers.Hit the jump to read on as I dissect the film and reveal the true tragedy in the story of Disney’s Hercules.Hercules is a solid animated feature that has its roots in Greek mythology, but tweaks the story a bit. In Disney’s telling Hercules is the son of Zeus (ruler of the gods and Mount Olympus) and Hera who are just thrilled to be parents. Less thrilled is Hades, Zeus’s brother and Lord of the Underworld...
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2:42 - The perfect song length (24.4.2008)

Over on The Morning News, Joshua Allen has written this humorous and eloquent article on the perfect song length. The crux of his point is that song writing should be to the point – conveying what it needs to and avoiding the superfluous. He makes a good case for his argument, backing up the ideal running time of 2 minutes and 42 seconds with such examples as The Beatles’ Lovely Rita and California Dreamin’ by Mama and the Papas...
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Rowling kicks Dumbledore out of the closet (21.10.2007)

During her first U.S tour in seven years J.K Rowling, author of the popular Harry Potter series (like you didn’t know already), has told her fans that she “always thought of Dumbledore was gay”. Confirming what quite a few fans already suspected.Rowling went on to fill in some of Dumbledore’s back-story. Telling the audience that he had fallen in love with the charming wizard Gellert Grindewald. However he was into the dark arts so Dumbledore had to destroy him. Rowling called it Dumbledore’s “great tragedy”.
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