1) Extremely Efficient Caffeine Delivery Systems. The Italians, they’ve really nailed something here. You roll into some hole in the wall, you ask for coffee. They don’t bring you coffee, they bring you espresso, for maximum caffeine density. You don’t even have to sit down if you don’t want to, you just do it like a shot. A chair would …

At Nerd World, there’s a very real mandate to inform the world of nerds about major events in the world of nerd-dom. Well, on Sunday November 18, at 8 PM on Fox, a major nerd event is about to rock your nerd world. An episode of The Simpsons will air, titled “Husbands and Knives,” that has the most inside comic book references of any …

Do yourself a favor. Go to the really big movie theater. Put on the grey sunglasses. And see Beowulf as the bards of old would have wanted: on an IMAX screen in 3-D.

Beowulf is so rich in craft and detail that you would think it took a million people a million years to make it. (Maybe it did.) Not only that, but it’s the least …

How do you not buy a magazine with Gollum on the cover? A publication about Gollum is to me what the One Ring is to Gollum himself: a must-have. This being said, the Entertainment Weekly sporting everyone’s favorite Ring-fiend and the headline “Return of the Ring” was a wank. A total wank. No new information about The Hobbit …

I have a confession to make. I love picketing. Every day, I spend four hours walking back-and-forth on a sidewalk in front of 20th Century Fox Studios. Four hours of protesting the movie and TV producers’ corporate greed. Four hours of light, low-impact cardio. Four hours of cool, breezy fresh air. Four hours of cars honking at me …

It’s probably a good thing that the “Dubledore is gay” story is old news. If J.K. Rowling dropped that bomb yesterday, it would be hard to resist writing a bunch of obvious jokes about this entry-level comedy-delivery premise. I mean, a gay wizard? Who could say no to that? It writes itself. I.E. it’s easy. Too easy. But the pull …

I don’t know if there’s anything nerdy in Venice. Though all that half-ruined masonry does remind me a bit of Gears of War. Anyway, that’s where I’ll be next week. Posting will be intermittent-to-nonexistent.

Except for Matt, of course. Matt’s going to be huge next week. A bit unfair, making him blog solo right when he’s starting out, …

My name’s Matt Selman. I write for The Simpsons. Well, I used to. (Strike!) Time.com has awesomely offered me a gig co-blogging on Nerd World. The other guy, Lev Grossman, seems pretty good at it so far. Lev is an actual journalist. He’s intelligent and funny and drinks four big glasses of wine at expense-account dinners. So why …

Matt will be co-blogging with me from hereon out. He’s very nice and smart and has actually done something with his life, namely working on The Simpsons for like forever. He’s in IMDB and has Emmies and everything. Please give him a warm Nerd World welcome! I don’t know what that means. I had wine with lunch, I’m going to go lie down.

YouTube pulled Sturmgeist89’s account, but it lives on in Google’s cache. Incredibly disturbing.

Pretend I’m a huge idiot. I’ll make it easy for you.

Here’s what I get. In the past two weeks, Google has announced two very similar initiatives: a new applications development environment for social networks, and a new applications development environment for cell phones. Obviously, I’m not a developer, so I’m not in a position to …

Dawn is the coldest time in the Mojave Desert. Dawn is also really, really damn early. It was at dawn that I rolled into the Southern California Logistics Airport, a deactivated Air Force base in Victorville, Calif., an hour and a half east of L.A. This was the site of the DARPA Urban Challenge. Why did they start the damn thing at dawn? …