So this episode is what happens when our own wacky lady Irina meets an even wackier lady, Leslie Hall. In case you dont know Leslie Hall, she’s best known for her Gem Sweater Museum and her incredible hip-hop influenced music videos, like “Shoot them in the Brain.” Leslie has toured the world with her music and gem sweater collection, but chooses to live with her parents in Ames, Iowa. After arriving at MIT’s ROFLCon and waiting in line behind the likes of NPR, Wired and the UK Observer to interview Leslie, we decided that instead of asking Leslie the same ten questions over again, we’d do something different! So Irina handed Leslie the mic and here’s what happened. It’s a little strange.

Episode links: Leslie Hall, Gem Sweater, ROFLCon

By any non-petroleum means necessary. That is the motto that propels a dozen vehicles of various design along the “Escape from Berkeley” road rally from Berkeley, California to Las Vegas, Nevada. Part Cannonball Run and part Mad Max, these NASA scientists and junkyard fabricators aim to complete the rally, win the $5000 prize and forever cement their place in history. All fuel has to harvested along the route, none of it can be purchased. GETV’s Roving RoboReporter Violet Blue chats up a few of the eclectic participants who run their vehicles on switchgrass, wood chips, veggie oil and even a tasty bio-salad. The brilliance of the event has even put Stephen Colbert on notice.

Episode links: Escape from Berkeley, The Shipyard, Michael Michael, The Green Team, Prisoners of Petroleum, All Power Labs, The Spooning Cruisers (music), Photos (Laughing Squid), Colbert Report clip, Violet Blue

When Bryce Case, Jr. aka YT Cracker called the GETV team to say he was in San Francisco to record an album with MC Lars, Irina had an idea. “Let’s make a rap video!” she said to the two pillars of nerdcore, who emailed her a song immediately. A few days later, Irina and producer Nick the Dude rudely interrupted the musicians, threw them in a car and drove to the mission, where they filmed a video to go along with “Manifest Destiny.” Here is what Bryce wrote about the song:

“Manifest Destiny” is a song loosely about humans’ need to conquer and assimilate by metaphorically alluding to the eponymous period in the American Old West. Chiefly, human nature hasn’t changed, and the attitude of manifest destiny strongly relates to the modern day, specifically the Internet. In people selfishly following their own interests, naturally good and bad consequences arise. The Rondo Brothers produced the beat for us one night and the next day when we went back to their studio, Brandon played the instrumental and immediately thought manifest destiny would be a great topic for asong. Lars and I wrote the lyrics on the spot and a hit song was born.

Episode links: YTCracker, MC Lars, digital gangster, The Way of the West (footage), user Stomp (crowd sounds)

For the 11th year in a row, San Francisco film geeks came to worship at the Church of Peaches Christ this past summer of 2008. In case you are one of the uninitiated and unbaptized, the annual two-month-long event known as Midnight Mass is much more than a midnight movie. Irina sat down with the film freak phenom founder and creator, Peaches Christ aka Joshua Grannell, and got down to the nitty gritty details of how a humble (well, maybe not so humble) film student turned into a cult movie diva 2.0, became friends with John Waters, got her own VH1 show, started a religious movement, an SF film festival and got the man behind “Jaw Breaker” to produce her own feature film — titled “All About Evil” due out end of 2009 — and in general, spewed all kinds of fabulosity into the world of film geeks worldwide. Oh, and single-handedly created the status of “Showgirls” as a cult classic. Guests at Midnight Mass have included at least one person you and Rosie Palmer fantasized about during the early days of late night television. (Special shooting & post production thanks to Karim Amira)

Episode links: Peaches Christ

You think you know, but you have no idea…..how tough Chuck Norris really is until you read Ian Spector’s book “The Truth About Chuck Norris: 400 Facts About the World’s Greatest Human.” GETV caught up with Ian at MIT’s ROFLcon and – despite the fact that Irina only knows about “Walker, Texas Ranger” because it comes on after two back-to-back episodes of “Murder, She Wrote” – got to the core of the Ian’s obsession about Chuck. Or at least figured out that Chuck is suing Ian so we really couldn’t talk that much about what Chuck thinks about Ian, but Irina did make plans with the under-21-year-old author to sneak him into a bar for some illegal drinking. The book has since become a best-seller and we hope will pay for Ian’s medical school bills. (Special post production thanks to Jonny Dailey).

Episode links: Chuck Norris Facts, The Truth About Chuck Norris: Facts About the World’s Greatest Human, Chuck Norris (official site), Chuck Norris on Chuck Norris Facts, Walker, Texas Ranger, Murder, She Wrote

Welcome to the annual Gumball 3000 international road rally, where the players are rich and the spectators wish they were.

Episode links: Gumball 3000 (official), Gumball 3000 (wikipedia)

This video is what happens when you put RZA, chess and 3 dorky geeks who like to rap into one giant mixing bowl! The legendary rapper and award winning chess-master decided to start wuchess.com — a website and give part of the proceeds to scholarships for needy kids.

To promote the website, Wuchess and RZA had a contest on YouTube for the best 8 lines about chess. Irina wasn’t satisfied with her simplistic little video, so she got her friends and made this!

Episode links: WuChess, RZA, George Kelly, Doctor Popular, Karim Amara (special thanks!!)

Related on GETV: Hip Hop Chess Tournament

One man can make a difference! That tag line rang through every episode of the hit 80s tv show Knight Rider every Friday night as Michael aka David Hasselhoff raced his faithful K.I.T.T. into the hearts of millions of women — and men, really — in the world! In this episode, GETV catches up with the super star in San Francisco where the Hoff joined millionaires in the Gumball 300 rally. After Irina beat up the 500 other reporters trying to creep up on the Hoff, David tells Irina how he’s driving that same sleek black horsepower into the future, this time on the internets — the power of THE HOFF is so strong, he’s got his own social network where he makes dreams come true. Yes, you too can join HOFF SPACE and get your own HOFF BAG for those times when HOFF WIG is exactly what you need for the occasion.

Episode links: David Hasselhoff, DavidHasselhoff.com (HoffSpace), Gumball 3000

We spent some quality time at this year’s mega sci-fi spectacle Comic-Con, held annually in San Diego. Here we take a quick visual tour of the exhibition hall and the autograph lounge. How many faces and characters do you recognize?

Episode links: Comic-Con 2008, Photos

If you haven’t heard of Star Wars, stop reading now. If you have heard of Star Wars and especially Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, then you’re in for a treat. Alex spent several years working at Industrial Lights and Magic working on Star Wars #4, er, #1, and is also the founder of Pixel Corps, a “guild of digital craftsmen” where Alex trains future geekstars in everything digital. Irina interrupts Alex Lindsay’s video production bootcamp class and tortures him with deep meaningful questions such as — who was the first girl who flipped his boat? Turns out it was the lovely Lorraine…. Alex hosts This Week in Media and is a regular guest on the This Week in Tech. Alex also produces MacBreak Weekly.

Episode links: Alex Lindsay, Pixel Corps, This Week in Media