For 24 hours (beginning at 12:00am EST on the 18th of January, year 2012), Wikipedia will go dark to the English-reading world.

The online encyclopedia made the decision to make such a bold statement in hopes of educating the masses on SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act), and the immense negative effects and restrictions that it could bring to the internet if it were to be made law. [...]

Earlier today, we shared with you the story that’s been sweeping the country about a homeless man with one of the best radio voices you’ll ever hear, a happy ending has already presented itself.

While doing a lengthy radio interview with WNCI 97.9 in Columbus, Ohio, Ted Williams — now clean-cut and looking in much higher spirits — talked about becoming an overnight sensation and how all he was really humbly looking for was a second chance. The radio DJs that brought him in, Dave & Jimmy, were so inspired by his story that they wanted to get him on the air, and see if they could get any job or work opportunities to come through for Ted. What happened after that was nothing short of amazing.

In the first part, the station fielded some calls from people who had been moved by the story. The first was associated with MTV and wanted to fly Williams out to LA for some work as a guest announcer on one of their shows. Next up came a pair of people who turned out to be two of the top voice over talents working today — even going so far as to show off their talents as the guy we hear on CBS promos and the woman we hear during the Academy Awards telecast — who wanted to offer Williams the chance to compete in a competition to find the next big voice. [...]

Fanboys (and some girls) everywhere, your fantasies have now become a reality.

Iconic adult magazine, Playboy, has a new pictorial in their Cyber Club called “Game On.” The spread is completely Tron themed, and acts as a tribute to the movie along with its brand new sequel, Tron: Legacy. The shoot mixes beautiful women with light cycles, body paint suits, and all the neon your little hearts can take.

Tron: Legacy comes out this Friday the 17th, and is the sequel to 1982′s Tron. The sequel follows Sam Flynn (Garrett Hedlund), the son of Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), as he seeks to find his father, who has been missing for over two decades.

Now, clearly this is Playboy and if you want to check out a glimpse of these bad boys, you must do so being fully aware that these are completely NSFW. That said, the images are more artistic and geek-hot than anything dirty, so if you’re of an open mind, go forth and enjoy! [...]

According to The LA Times, the popular online media-viewing website, Hulu, is getting ready to begin testing a system where users would pay $9.95 per month to watch their favorite TV shows on the site.

The set-up, which may start by late May, would allow anyone to freely watch the newest five episodes of shows from bigger networks such as Fox, NBC, and ABC, but would require you to become a paid monthly subscribers in order to see anything else and catch up with whole seasons.

It’s not known yet whether commercials would still play during a paid subscriber’s current video watching session, but that will likely be a major factor in whether a subscription is worth it or not. The report indicates that Hulu is second only to YouTube for video viewing, and brings in $100 MILLION just based on its advertising alone. Assuming that a company is even remotely greedy, it wouldn’t make much sense for them to stop the ads, despite this approaching fee. [...]

Popular actor/comedian Kevin Pollak has a new web-exclusive comedy series called Vamped Out, and it has debuted on the website Babelgum today.

The series is about a documentary filmmaker as he follows around a real, live vampire who’s trying to make it as an actor. Unfortunately, he can’t even land the roles of characters who are themselves vampires.

Pollak (Grumpy Old Men, The Usual Suspects) make his directorial debut on the series, and will also star as the filmmaker. Joining him is Jason Antoon (Contact, Minority Report) as the vampire subject, Samm Levine (Freaks & Geeks, Inglorious Basterds) and Seana Kofoed (Broadway’s Proof, Men in Trees).

Click on over to the other side to check out a trailer for the new web series Vamped Out, and be sure to head to Babelgum to check out the first episode now!

This isn’t the first time that Pollak has dabbled in the world of web-exclusive content. He previously hosted Kevin Pollak’s Chat Show, his own mini talk show with lots of special guests. [...]

When it was announced that Sony had decided to completely incinerate their plans for a fourth Spider-Man, as well as everyone involved from director Sam Raimi to stars Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst, we could only imagine who might step in and replace them for the proposed overhaul of the franchise.

Not too long after that, it was announced that (500) Days of Summer director Marc Webb would be the new man at the wheel, and now we’re beginning to hear the names that could become Spider-Man himself.

In a chat with Access Hollywood‘s Billy Bush, Logan Lerman was pointed out as a prime candidate for the new Spider-Man, and was then asked if he was in any sort of talks about the role. Lerman excitedly admitted that he has had conversations with Sony and the producers of the film, and that he’s hoping that more talks will follow. He also admitted that it was the producers who sought him out, and not the other way around — surely a good sign for Lerman, whether he lands the role or not. [...]

The LA Times is currently doing a special feature called Wizards of Hollywood, and it looks at all of the crazy skills and technologies that go into today’s movie-making processes. For this special feature that they’re running, Fox was kind enough to present them with a behind the scenes look with James Cameron and others into the making of Avatar, and the motion capture technology used in creating the Na’vi species.

The video is basically aimed at informing people of just how complicated the process of motion capture performances really are. Many people think that because it’s animated, then it must just all be done in computers, and this is not the case at all. Unlike hand-drawn Disney and Pixar animated films, for example, these movies actually require living, breathing actors to perform in the film with every bit as much of themselves as a live-action film would. Everything all the way down to their facial movements and reactions are scanned and entered into the computer so that the animated portions can be molded around them. [...]

We at Geeks of Doom love Halloween. The smell in the air, the leaves changing color to mark the occasion, and all of the old edited horror movies playing over and over on your TV make it one of the most entertaining and exciting times of year.

Back in 2006, we compiled a list of some of the best geek costumes on the market for those of you who do not yet have an idea as to what you want to be. It’s already been three years now, so we thought it was about time to compile another epic list of costume options for the undecided (which includes myself).

While checking these costumes out, keep some things in mind — most importantly: pretty much every costume that you see will have multiple styles of varying price and quality. The majority of the ones we have here are in the $30-$50 range, but you can find really high-quality “Deluxe” versions of the costume that will run you in the $100-$200 dollar range. These are for the folks who have money to spare and love authenticity. If you’re out of your freakin’ mind, there’s even Batman and Darth Vader costumes that will run you $700+ dollars. If you don’t like the one we’ve linked to, just search the character and check out all of the others that exist. Most costumes have children’s versions available, too. We’ve included some great kids’ costumes, but if you find an adult one you’d like for the little ones, just search it out! [...]

If you love movies like we do, then you’ve all been in this position before: you’re sitting in a crowded theater (sometimes right in the middle and surrounded by strangers you’d have to crawl over), and you suddenly have to go to the bathroom really, really bad. You sit there quietly, squirming in your seat, trying to figure out when the very best time to make your move would be. You hope the scene where everyone is sitting in a room talking out a gameplan will be the perfect moment, but deep down you fear that you will return to find out the zombies came in and ate everyone’s face right when they figured out the perfect strategy!

Well, fear not, someone got the brilliant idea of making a website where you can go and find the ideal moments for your much-needed potty break, right down to the very second. The site is called RunPee, and it knows your pain and is here to help. [...]

Once upon a time, someone somewhere created a sleeping bag re-creation of the Tauntaun corpse that Luke Skywalker used for warmth in that classic scene from Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. This someone was greatest online store ever created (proclaimed by I, anyway), ThinkGeek, and it was actually just a little April Fools silliness. Well, the gag was so popular, that people were called, papers were rustled, and ThinkGeek was given permission by George Lucas and Lucas Films to actually produce the sleeping bag, and you…yes, YOU can go and own one soon.

The sleeping bag (seen above, click to go large) is made of a nice, soft Tauntaun fur, and the inside is over-flowing with the natural comfort of intestinal embrace. Better yet (and my personal favorite touch) is the inclusion of a little lightsaber zipper, that allows you to cut open your desperate escape from the freezing cold winter every single time you use it! [...]

Jon Favreau‘s Iron Man 2 isn’t set to come out until May 7, 2010, but Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is preparing for the boom in business by hiring new employees, and you can go and apply yourself right now at Stark Industries! If you need to suck up, I suggest sucking up to the new CEO, Miss Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), who you would probably be working for more than Mr. Stark these days.

You’ll fill out the basic information, such as your name and location, before moving on to your skills and goals in your life and career. You’ll even be asked a couple of questions that you likely won’t know the answer to, which is always a good way to weed out prospective employees.

As a viral marketing campaign, it’s a pretty cool and original idea, but I’m not quite sure what it is yet. There is a terms of use agreement to OK, which mentions respecting other users and forums. It could be the ultimate Iron Man 2 social networking website, theoretically. [...]

A brand new website has been making waves as of late, and the time has come to spread the word of its existence. The website is called Flickchart and was created by Nathan Chase and Jeremy Thompson. In just its early stages, it has quickly abducted the hands of some of the ‘nets biggest movie geeks with the subtle begging for just one more click of your mouse; followed by another…and then just one more. Before you know it, you’ve chosen thousands of movies over thousands of others, and your mouse is a melted, warped plastic blob.

Basically, Flickchart is a new kind of social networking for movie fanatics. The site presents you with two movies and you simply choose one. However, as you do this more and more times, you repeatedly discover yourself in a vicious stalemate with your own personal preferences. While many of these selections can be incredibly painful to break through, there is also another catch: every single time that you click, your stats are calculated, and eventually, you will build your very own ultimate top 20 movies list. [...]

It has been a few days now since the E3 video game and electronics convention just came and went, leaving many exciting previews and announcements in its wake, but we here at Geeks of Doom wanted to put together a basic wrap-up for those of you who missed it all and do not yet know of all of the treasures that came of it. The big dogs in Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo all had exciting conventions, with Sony and Microsoft making some magnificent announcements. Included in this mass of geek-tastic announcements: A look at Microsoft’s motion-capture attempt with Project Natal, Sony’s motion-capture prototype, and games like Mass Effect 2, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Halo: ODST, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, God of War III, and others.

In celebration of the convention and all of the great things that came out of it, we’ve decided to put together this little recap of the biggest and brightest things that we saw. We will do our very best to offer information on the products, as well as the mind-blowing videos that were shown! To start, we’ll go over the three main outlets and what they presented to us. [...]

Not a ton of news here, but Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson sat down for the official Tintin website in celebration of the 80th anniversary of the red-haired comic character. The two appeared complete with their own umbrellas and bowlers hats.

In the video they explain that principal photography/motion capture work will begin finally in three days and the two joked about how instead of the young Tintin we’re used to, they’ll be using the current 80-year old Tintin… long, white beard and all.

Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn is the first film in the planned trilogy, and it’s directed by Spielberg. Peter Jackson will handle the second movie and it’s expected that the pair will tag-team the final movie. The movie stars Jamie Bell as Tintin, along with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as Thompson and Thomson, as well as Andy Serkis and Daniel Craig.

If you haven’t done it already, click the link for the official Tintin site. It’s all in French, but just find the button with the green light and the words Voir En Entier. [...]

A brand new viral website has been released for the upcoming comic adaptation The Surrogates, which is directed by Jonathan Mostow (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, U-571).

The Surrogates is a comic series that shows us a world where people are able to create perfect, in-shape, attractive replicas of themselves called “surrogates” to go and do all of their day-to-day stuff and communicate with other people’s surrogates while they remain safe and securely at home. One day, surrogates start getting murdered and this sets in motion a cop named Agent Greer who sends out his replica to find out what’s going on before having to actually go out himself to try and figure it out; as well as trying to put an end to surrogates in general.

The movie will star Bruce Willis as Agent Greer, as well as Radha Mitchell as Agent Peters and Ving Rhames as The Prophet. The movie is set to release on September 25, 2009.

Click over for the viral website link! [...]

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