Offbeat Worlds

Last year for the Superbowl, Volkswagen make geeks around the world happy with their depiction of a little boy dressed as Darth Vader trying to use the force.

This year, in keeping with the Dark Side theme, they have come out with yet another awesome commercial for the Superbowl. The ad features a group of dogs, some dressed in costume, barking the Imperial March. It’s both cute and awesome! Check it out!

And in case you want to watch last year’s ad again (and why wouldn’t you), here it is:

I found this linked through GeeksAreSexy.net and I had to share it. This is a truly beautiful science fiction film done on an extremely low budget.

RL7 is an eight-foot tall combat robot that goes on the run after malfunctioning with vivid memories of once being human. As its creators and the military close in, RL7 battles its way to uncovering the shocking truth behind its mysterious visions and past.

So, I know this is a few weeks late as far as being the beginning of the year, but since the first movie that I personally have been looking forward to this year only came out this weekend, I don’t feel that this is too late.

So here is a list of movies to look forward to in 2012.


JANUARY

Man on a Ledge – 1/13
The Divide – 1/13
Underworld: Awakening – 1/20
One for the Money – 1/27 (based off the hilarious Stephanie Plum novel by Janet Evanovich)
The Grey – 1/27

   

FEBRUARY

Chronicle – 2/3
Journey 2: The Mysterious Island – 2/10
Safe House – 2/10
This Means War – 2/17
Ghost Rider 2 – 2/17
Gone – 2/24
Lock-out – 2/24

   

MARCH

The Lorax – 3/2
Safe – 3/2
John Carter – 3/9
Mirror Mirror – 3/16 (Honestly looks terrible, but included because it’s fantasy)
The Hunger Games – 3/23
The Raven – 3/23
Wrath of the Titans – 3/30

   

APRIL

Cabin in the Woods – 4/13 (written by Joss Whedon!)

   

MAY

The Avengers – 5/4 (!!!)
Battleship – 5/18
Men In Black 3 – 5/25

   

JUNE

Prometheus – 6/8
Brave – 6/15
Jack the Giant Killer – 6/15
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Killer – 6/22
G.I. Joe: Retaliation – 6/29

   

JULY

The Amazing Spider-Man – 7/3
The Dark Knight Rises – 7/20

   

AUGUST

Total Recall – 8/3
The Expendables 2 – 8/17

   

NOVEMBER

47 Ronin – 11/21

   

DECEMBER

The Hobbit – 12/14 (!!!)

Obviously this list is incomplete, but if there are any missing from this list right now that you think should be added, please leave a comment and let me know. Remember, I’m trying to stick to mostly science fiction, fantasy, and action-adventure.

At the start of the year, a Doctor Who fan and Youtuber, LastWhovian, uploaded a beautifully cut-together fan trailer celebrating the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who. As a big Doctor Who fan myself, I had to share it with you.

And if you’re curious, the music a mix created by the same person, from “Starvation” by Thomas Bergersen (from Two Steps from Hell) and “Battle for New York” from the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 soundtrack by Brian Tyler.

The video game Dear Esther recently released an official showcasing its main selling point: the gorgeous graphics of the world within the game. I have to say, my jaw dropped while I was watching this. I don’t really care what the game is about, I want to play it when it comes out, just because it’s so pretty!

Watch the video below to see what I mean.

Dear Esther comes out on February 14th, 2012 (yes, Valentine’s Day).

So recently a lot of people have been playing Skyrim and are in love with it. I am one of those people. I have had a lot of people asking me how to increase different skills quickly and effectively without having to pay lots of coin. Here is a little guide to help with increasing your skills and how some skills can help others!

Smithing: Smithing is one of the most important skills to get to 100. You will be able to create some of the best armor in the game, extremely strong weapons and, well, it will be a pretty good coin maker as well.

Right before you reach Riverwood there will be a mine full of iron ore, this is an essential landmark for smithing. Every 48 hours or so it will replenish iron ore so it is a limitless amount of ore. In Riverwood, there is a stack of iron and steal ingots (five each) that also replenish every 48 hours or so. The key with those is if you are on the Imperial side you can freely take them, but if you are with the Stormcloaks, then you will have to steal them. Also collect every skin when you kill a animal since they can be turned into leather.

Whiterun is the best town to get your smithing up to 100 since the blacksmith there has everything you need. And if you buy a house there, it will be right next to Warmaiden’s, the blacksmith shop.

When you are ready to start your smithing, take all your ore to the smelter and smelt all your iron ore into iron ingots. Iron is the best to use because it only takes one ore per ingot. Then go to the tanning rack and turn all your skins into leather. When you are smithing only make iron daggers and leather bracers since they require the least amount of materials to make.

If you need more materials like iron ingots or leather, you have easy excess to them since you are right at the blacksmith shop. So buy whatever you may need and keep on smithing until you reach 100 or need to go back out for more materials.

So if you keep making iron daggers and leather bracers, you will reach 100 in no time and will be able to craft Dragon and Daedric armor! Also keep all the iron daggers and leather bracers because they will come in handy for enchanting.

Enchanting: Enchanting is another extremely helpful and useful skill to get to 100. Not only does it help make weapons and armor stronger but it can also help fortify your attributes. While you are out adventuring, collect every soul gem you come across. There are several different types out there: Lesser, Petty, Common, Grand, and Greater soul gems. There is also a soul gem is called a Black soul gem. Black soul gems are special because they capture the souls of any person you kill.

When you get a good chance, go to the College of Winterhold and buy the spell Soul Trap. Whenever you kill something or someone cast Soul Trap to collect the soul. If you have a weapon with soul trap enchanted on it, you can use that as well so that you won’t have to worry about magic. That is how you collect souls in the gems.

Whenever you collect weapons or armor with enchantments on them and you are not using them, DON’T sell them right away. Disenchant them first that way you permanently learn the enchantment and can use them to enchant other weapons and armor.

Remember all those daggers and bracers you made while getting your smithing up? Well, its time to get those out and use them. Enchanting is a three step process. The first step is choosing the item, so either the dagger or bracer. The second step is to choose the enchantment you wish to use, preferably something that will give it higher value. The final step is to choose the soul gem. Depending on which soul gem you use will determine how strong the charge is on the item you are enchanting. If you use a Lesser or Petty soul gem then the enchantment will be weak, and the value will go down as well. But if you use a Greater or Grand soul gem then the effect will be stronger, with more of a charge on the weapon and a higher value. When you are done getting your enchanting up feel free to sell all your daggers and bracers for extra coin and make some profit off your hard work.

TIP: If you do the Daedric quest “Azura’s star” you can get a soul gem that can always be reused and will never go away. This is a extremely useful artifact to help with enchanting. Also when you get enchanting to 100 you can duel enchant (putting two enchantments on one item) which can really boost your skills.

Alchemy: Alchemy is a quick skill to get to 100. Alchemy may not seem useful at first but in the end it is really helpful. One of the easier ways to get it up is with some of the coin you got from selling your enchanted daggers and bracers. Go to any town’s alchemist and buy every ingredient and recipe they sell, wait 48 hours and buy everything again. Repeat this as many times as you need. If you’re lucky, they will sell Daedra hearts — good for making Daedric armor or weapons.

When you’ve bought everything you want, read the recipes so you will have some potions you can make right away. Keep making potions until you reach 100. It may sound simple because, well, it is that simple, but here is where it gets good.

You can make potions to fortify your skills/attributes such as enchanting and smithing. If you drink a fortify enchanting potion for stronger enchantments, and enchant grieves, bracers, a ring and a necklace with fortify smithing, that will help make items stronger. When you go to make those items, drink the fortify smithing potion and… Well, you could have a armor rating of over 1000.

Pickpocket: Pickpocketing may not seem like the best skill to 100 but if you have three extra skill points to use this could be a effective skill to put them in. When you reach it to 100 you can get a perk of extra 100 pounds carry weight, which is hey! more loot to carry.

Easy way to do this is to enchant some armor with fortify alchemy, then make a potion of fortify enchanting, enchant bracers, grieves, a ring, and a necklace with both fortify sneaking and pickpocketing. That alone should increase your chances of successful attempts. If you are still having trouble with sneaking or pickpocketing, then make a potion to increase your sneaking and pickpocketing.

Well those are some easy skills to get to 100 and they can make you some pretty good coin as well. I hope that this guide helps you increase your skills or answer any of your questions.

This is a link for alchemy, it is a full list of potions and what ingredients you will need to make them.

List of Potions and Ingredients

This is a link to an easter egg in Skyrim. It is a invisible chest that carries lots of loot, and well, I’ll let the video explain everything. It’s extremely helpful for smithing and enchanting.

As someone who in seventh grade did her science fair project on the Solar System (and got an A and a first place ribbon for, I might add), and for her Science and Culture class in college wrote a paper on how black holes are portrayed in film (both correctly and incorrectly), I have always had a huge interest in space.

So when I came across this article published by SyFy’s blog Blastr, I had to share it with you guys. Plus, this website is called Offbeat Worlds. What could be more offbeat than these odd worlds?

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Apparently there are nine planets that have been discovered recently that are so incredible they sound like they should only exist in science fiction. But they don’t! They are real planets.

DIAMOND PLANET

Apparently there is a planet out there in space that is made completely of diamond. Not just covered in diamond, but it one giant, solid diamond. And what’s even more amazing than that? This diamond planet is larger than Jupiter, the biggest planet in our Solar System! Holy crap!

PLANET TrES-2B: EVIL WORLD

Discovered by NASA’s Kepler spacecraft, this planet is so dark that it hardly reflects any light. Scientists theorize that this may be because of a lack of reflective clouds and light-absorbent chemicals on the surface of the planet, but they have no definite reason to explain it. And the weirdest part about this planet is that it also glows red. Is it glowing because the planet’s gets heated to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit by the star it orbits? Or could it possibly be evil? O_o

KEPLER-16B: REAL LIFE TATOOINE

Like the famous desert planet in Star Wars, this planet is the only planet discovered that actually orbits around two suns. Double sunset for the win!

HAT-P-2B: SPEED RACER

This planet is on the move! At 8 times the weight of Jupiter, and only slighter later, this huge planet does not waste time when it travels around its star. It takes only 5.6 in Earth days for it to complete an orbit!

HAT-P-1B: BIG FLOATER

Another enormous planet, in fact it is 1.38 times the radius of Jupiter, this planet is so lacking in density that it could float on water.

UPSILON ANDROMEDAE B: A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE

This planet hit the extremes in temperatures. One side is so boiling hot that it reaches a temperature of 2700 degrees Fahrenheit, and the other is so cold that it is frozen in solid ice at -148 degrees. The reason for this is because one side of the planet is constantly faces the star it orbits, and the cold side is constantly facing away. But the extreme temperatures isn’t even the strangest part: the hottest part of the planet is not the part that directly faces the star, but a part off to the side. Apparently, according to Blastr, this can be compared to sticking your hand in a fire and getting burned on the foot.

GLIESE 876 D: MUSTAFAR

The lava planet where the epic showdown between Obi-Wan and Anakin took place is actually a real planet! Gliese 876 d is a planet that is covered with oceans of lava, and apparently when the nearby star shines on it, it glows yellow. That’s a hot place!

KOI-55 B: LIGHTNING BUG

This planet, though smaller in size than our Earth, is holding the record for shortest year, or time to orbit around its star: 6 hours. It takes this planet only 6 hours to travel around its star!

WASP-17B: THE REBEL

This planet is the only known planet to spin in the reverse direction of its star. The only explanation scientists have for this odd phenomenon is that something huge passed by the planet and pulled its spin in the opposite direction.

To read more about this planets, you can read the original article here: “9 real-life planets so outrageous you’d swear they were sci-fi”

All images © copyright their respective owners.

Since we are now posting more about video games, I feel it is appropriate to share this video by RoosterTeeth.

Mostly because it’s freaking hilarious.

Hello everyone, my name is Broc and I am Offbeatworld’s new author for gaming. I will be doing posts of my experiences playing different games during the week, and some of my strategies for games that I play, such as Skyrim, Call of Duty, Halo, etc. Also if anyone has any questions about games or gaming in general, I have been gaming for a long time and will do my best to answer any and all questions.

So the past few weeks I have been playing a lot Skyrim. It is a soul sucker! I am currently level 52 with 100 in smithing, heavy armor, enchanting and one-handed weapons. I’m working on two-handed right now, as well as range of course. My sneaking and range are both in the 80′s and for me that’s high since I like to get in the enemies’ faces and hack and slash.

I have almost gotten every achievement for the XBox 360, but I’m missing the Daedric artifacts, pitpocket 50 people, learn 20 shouts (only need one more), and read 50 skill books, which I almost have as well. To say the least I have been playing a lot the past two weeks since I have almost logged 100 hours.

Putting aside Skyrim for now, about two weeks ago Stephanie and I went to a LAN party for Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary and it was awesome! We had a lot of people there, well over 16 people with lots of TV’s and XBox’s. We played regular team slayer, some infection, king of the hill, and a few rocket races, one where a weird glitch happened; I’ll try and get a video of it up on here. We also played SWAT capture the flag and I destroyed on that… well actually I destroyed them every game :p But it was lots of fun!

Well thats all for now. Like I said I’ll try and get that video up for you all of the glitch, with a description. Have a great day everyone!

OffbeatWorlds has a new and exciting announcement! A new author!

My boyfriend Broc, who is a huge gamer, will be starting to post about gaming here on OffbeatWorlds. I will still be doing posts on movies, books, and geeky news, while Broc will be doing the gaming posts.

So keep an eye out for his posts in the future!