Free Beowulf Passes at NYC Nerd Hotspots

Lately it seems like you can't take two steps in Manhattan without someone shoving a Beowulf screening ticket in your face. Yesterday hipster-nerds picked up passes at the East Village bar The Sunburnt Cow at release party for the Beowulf video game, which I'd assume is visually indistinguishable from the Beowulf movie which already looks like a video game cut-scene.

Today the free passes are being given out in true-blue nerd locations; Forbidden Planet and The Neutral Ground Gaming Room (Magic Players, holla!). Details after the jump.


Each pass admits 2, and the screening will take place at 8pm TONIGHT. Passes will be available at the stores between 12pm and 4pm.

This is a Village Voice sponsored event, and if you're part of their fairly awesome Movie Club mailing list you'll be automatically entered in a email-drawing for passes, but really, who can take that chance?

According to the ad in the Voice, only 50 tickets will be available at each location, so I'm guessing they'll go fast, particularly at Forbidden Planet. Possibly slightly less so at Neutral Ground, because the address the Voice published in their ad was, according to the store clerk I spoke to, "completely wrong". The completely right store locations are:

Forbidden Planet
840 Broadway (on the corner of East 13th Street)

Neutral Ground
15 West 37th Street
(between 5th & 6th Avenues)

Johnny's Magic Mix-up at Tenth Edition Prerelease

This twisted tale of mistaken identity comes to us from Geekanerd Johnny.

In the past few years I have taken a closeted liking to casually playing Magic: The Gathering. Last Saturday, I attended the prerelease of the Tenth Edition Core Set with my good friend at Neutral Ground. We were looking forward to it because neither of us have had the time to play in months. Little did I know that my participation in this event would end in shame...

While signing up for the tournament, the organizers accidentally entered my Zip Code as my DCI Number [an identification number for serious Magic players]. Now a Zip Code has five digits, and a five digit DCI Number means that you are a seasoned veteran who has played the game for well over a decade. So I was entered into the tournament as veteran player Sam W. Fog. I told the organizers about the mistake, but they never got around to fixing it.

Things only get worse for Johnny after the jump...

Also, to our surprise, this particular prerelease event wasn’t low-key-- a lot of famous players were in attendance. Now I’m a casual player, which is a euphemism for crappy player. However, Sam W. Fog is apparently a great player because for the first match they sat me across from Jon Finkel, one of the greatest players to have ever played Magic. The match-up ended up being a mistake, and while I was breathing a sigh of relief they reassigned me to play against Steve O’Mahoney-Schwartz, also one of the greatest players who has ever played the game. I lost. Badly. In front of a crowd that had formed around our table.

The next match was with a guy who I thought was just a normal person. However, during the third game out of a best-of-three series, yet another crowd formed around my game. This included such people as Brian David-Marshall (a M:tG historian and commentator) and Zvi Mowshowitz (another former Pro Tour Champion and famous M:tG strategy writer). The last game was a long attrition war that I lost due to my opponent playing Overrun. After the match, my friend informed me that I had been playing against Matt Blank, the owner of Neutral Ground.

So, after going 0-2, I decided to drop out of the rest of the tournament. Somehow I highly doubt that they ever fixed my identity problem, and thus, Sam Fog’s all time DCI record is forever tarnished because of me. So Sam Fog, I'm sorry and I tip my tall glass of M:tG shame to you!