​Note: The real news is that Sir Ian McKellen has announced on his website (really, mentioned, but every nerd site everywhere is reporting it so it might has well have been a press release) that The Hobbit will start filming in New Zealand in July, and will take a year to film the two planned movies. However, since director Guillermo del Toro and producer Peter Jackson have yet to select/announce a young Bilbo, I wonder if this production date is wishful thinking on someone's part.

Really, it doesn't matter. I just wanted to be able to use the horrible headline "Ian McKellen Can't Kick The Hobbit," so that everyone who uses it after -- AND THEY WILL -- will have to bow down before me and hideous pun mastery. And so I have.

​Every March 17th, everyone is Irish. We watch parades, drink green beer and toast St. Patrick for apocryphally banishing snakes from Ireland and other wonderful feats we assume happened. And like Christmas and Easter, St. Patrick's Day has its own colorful mascot -- the tiny leprechaun, clad in green, obsessed with gold, and talking in rhyme like a bad Irish stereotype. He's a trickster character, but doesn't really mean any harm... most of the time. For some reason, most leprechauns that end up in pop culture are invariably kind of evil. I mean, there are some leprechauns you nae wanna mess with, no matter how big their pot of gold is. Here are the 8 nastiest of the bunch.

The insane odyssey that Dolph Lundgren has been on since his amazing Elvis/drum solo/karate tour de force appears to have ended, not with a bang, not with a whimper, but Dolph Lundgren coming out in boxing robes and singing "Eye of the Tiger." I assume the only reason the world did not crack in two at the sheer awesomeness is because Dolph didn't sing it solo, but with the contestants of whatever crazy Swedish talent show this has all been part of. However, Dolph does join a group of cheerleaders for a second (FYI I've seen actual cheerleader-themed hardcore pornography that was less suggestive than their routine) so that's fun. Oh, and Sylvester Stallone sent a video congratulations to Dolph for whatever the hell it is he's been doing. It's very kind of Sly, especially given the fact his face seems to be melting. As always, thanks to Tomb for the tips.

If you weren't swayed by my review of the Pride & Prejudice & Zombies prequel Dawn of the Dreadfuls, Quirk offers this trailer, which, to be frank, is totally, totally awesome. It might be better than the actual book. I mean, I liked the book a lot, of course, but man I would love to watch a movie about give Victorian girls with samurai swords who train in their dad's dojo and wander the English countryside decapitating the undead. This is like Kill Bill but in the 19th century and with zombies. Which makes it largely unlike Kill Bill, but there are still girls with swords. Gotta give me that.

​Hand Banana said:

If you think about it, the great irony of this contest is that many entries will be overlooked because Rob doesn't know about them. In effect, their obscurity prevents them from being judged as adequately obscure. How do you quantify obscurity exactly? If you don't know what it is, how do you know how many others do. I'm curious as to your methodology, Bricken.

Me too. Hand Banana has raised an excellent point about my inability to judge this contest with any kind of accuracy, a point which was confirmed by my reading all 600 fucking entries this weekend. There's a lot of obscure shit in there. What was I to do? This: Pick out what seemed to be the most obscure shit, and then pick randomly. Hopefully this won't piss anyone off, but after The Great Other Story Debacle of 2010, at least you're in sizable company; besides, I may not be the best judge of obscure nerd loves, but 1) I have been a professional nerd for 9 years, so I know a thing or two about a thing or two and 2) it's my site, so whatever. First two special honorable mentions: one for Damask, and his ode to algebra, and one for RobP and his love for the second Punic War; they both wrote a lot on how they loved these exceedingly odd but not altogether unknown subjects, and it was very, very nerdy. Now, some super obscure shit and winners after the jump.

Peter Graves died yesterday from a heart attack at the age of 83. He'll likely be best remembered for his role as Jim Phelps in Mission: Impossible, as well as the gladiator-movie-loving pilot in Airplane! However, whenever I think of Peter Graves, I always remember his countless B-movies, many of which were featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000. The Beginning of the End, Parts: The Clonus Horror, and my personal favorite, It Conquered the World, from which the above speech is taken. Man, It Conquered the World is a terrible movie, but Graves delivers his crazy speech (about Lee Van Cleef, who collaborated with an evil space cucumber) with dignity and gravitas. Mission accomplished, Mr. Graves. RIP.

I really need to get back to playing Final Fantasy XIII and trying to find some kind of emotional balance after posting The Other Story, so let's just get right to it: What's the most obscure nerdy thing you love? Is it a character, a toyline, a comic book, a videogame, an anime, what? Think about it this way -- what's one thing that you just adore, but when you mention it your nerd friends, they have no idea what you're talking about?

For me, it's MegaMania, an Atari 2600 game. Maybe some folks my age remember it, but never as fondly as I do. It was a Galaga-type shooter, except there were 10-different waves of enemies, all with different shapes, colors and movements patterns. It was like fighting intergalactic Lucky Charms, and I loved it.

Now it's your turn. One entry, contest ends at 12:01 am EST on Monday, March 15th. There'll probably be two winners, one for most obscure entry, and one for most obscure entry that I also personally love. Obviously, if you say things like "Parappa the Rapper," you're not going to get very far, so take your time and think about it. Meanwhile, I'll be playing FFXIII and trying to forget that my readers are almost uniformly horrible, soulless people.

​Nerd actors have it all. Their own signing booth at Comic-Con, their own fan-made action figures, and all the sweet nerd ass they can handle on a regular basis. But sometimes they get itchy. Sometimes they try to branch out into other avenues of entertainment like literature, or painting, or even... music. Oh, the music. Too many actors have assumed that dramatic skill translates to golden pipes, and, with a few notable exceptions, they've all been proven horribly, horribly wrong.

The problem is, these guys don't learn from one another. Just because a beloved nerdy TV star in the '60s made an inappropriate and terrible album, they never assume total singing failure will happen to them as well. Indeed, the whole Golden Throats CD collection from Rhino spotlights these misguided warblers The lesson? If you're on a popular nerdy TV series or movie franchise, don't suddenly assume that makes you some kind of a vocalist, people. It doesn't, and here's 10 chilling examples as proof.

So remember that Buck Rogers webseries I told you about, oh, three or so months ago? The one made by Jim Cawley and pals of those Star Trek New Voyages fan films? Well, TR commenter Tony_F alerted me to this new clip of Buck trying to talk his parents into letting him fight in World War I. It certainly looks better than your run-of-the-mill fan film, but it's not the most action-packed of scenes. Two things to note: 1) Yes, that is Erin Gray as Buck's mother. This switch from love interest to mom is unsettling to me, and the fact that she's supremely dowdy in this scene isn't helping. 2) Buck, I believe the line you're looking for is "But I was going into Toshi Station to pick up some power converters!"

Corey Haim was found dead this morning of an apparent drug overdose. It is not known at this time if the overdose was accidental or intentional. Haim, along with fellow Corey Corey Feldman, starred in films such as... okay, pretty much Haim's only claim to nerd fame is Lost Boys, but a lot of people like that movie and it was mentioned in today's Daily List, which is creepy, so let's just roll with it. Hopefully this is just an elaborate Hollywood charade and Keifer Sutherland finally turned Haim into a vampire or something.