NASA astronaut Steve Swanson is the current commander aboard the International Space Station. He and his fellow astronauts designed the mission patch for Expedition 40. It’s a nice insignia, but Swanson’s first design, shown above, was even better. Before submitting the design to NASA, he and his daughter modified it to show the ISS and the crew members’ names. NASA still rejected it.

"He wanted something that was kind of badass," revealed Mary Swanson, Steve's wife, in a call with collectSPACE, "and Klingons are kind of badass."

Steve and Caroline Swanson's original idea for the patch borrowed its shape and trifoil logo from a patch created for the Klingon Brotherhood, as seen on the 1990's television series, "Star Trek: The Next Generation."

"Steve grew up watching 'Star Trek,'" Mary explained. "We watched reruns early in our marriage. We watched 'Next Generation' pretty religiously. So, yeah, he is somewhat of a fan."

NASA vetoed the design over copyright concerns. But at least Swanson took his Klingon t-shirt into space!

CollectSPACE has more details on the design process for the Kingon insignia. -via Boing Boing

It's not wise to eat a Wookiee. But I'll make an exception for Jenn's Chewbacca Donuts. She made them for today, which is National Donut Day. She used pre-made maple bar donuts, which are rectangular donuts with a maple glaze. Jenn added black and white piping for the face and chocolate frosting for the bandoleer.

The Chewbacca Donut has no pants. So, once again, Chewie won't get a medal.

A suggestion for Jenn's next project: make a donut Millennium Falcon that is to scale with this Wookiee. 

-via That's Nerdalicious!

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The Emperor strode forward, reached out his hand, and force-choked a geek in the audience. Then Palpatine demonstrated a level of control previously unseen in any Jedi or Sith. Watch the betrothal of these two geeks at the Minneapolis Comic-Con.

-via When Geeks Wed

Comic book panels are meant to correlate to each other, as parts of a whole page, but when you take a single comic panel out of the page and read it totally out of context from the rest of the issue things tend to get lost in translation, and the whole thing seems downright dirty.

Sure, some comics contain such laughably bad dialog that you don’t even need to single out certain panels to get a laugh, but in this case we’re talking about stoic, stuffy superheroes like Batman, Superman and Captain America, guys who don’t normally crack a smile, much less crack wise.

Bask in the comedic glory of 43 Out-Of-Context Comic Panels That Prove All Superheroes Have Dirty Minds and remember- they’re only dirty in your mind!

(Photo: David Roark/Disney)

It's been 33 years since Mark Hamill rescued his father and defeated the Emperor in Return of the Jedi. He's getting ready for his role in the upcoming Episode VII. Since Lucasfilm is now owned by Disney, Hamill is at Disney World in Florida to make appearances for Star Wars Weekend. He's also working hard to ensure that he's in good fighting shape, as he explained to the Orlando Sentinel:

I’ve altered my diet. I’ve started working out. There’s that.  But on the film itself: I toured the departments, I’ve looked at wardrobe, and I saw the creature shop. I went around and met all the cast people, saw the technicians working on some new things.

Of course, Hamill isn't as young as he used to be. So he's training intensively with Mickey Mouse, a Jedi known for his prowess with the force and a lightsaber.

-via Geekosystem

UPDATE 6/6/14: Here's a video of Hamill at Disney World. Thanks to John X. Graham for sending it in!

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You might think of Grand Theft Auto as a video game, but the user interface of GTA 5 makes it a platform for creative types -even to the point of creating movies. This GTA sequence will look familiar to you -it’s a remake of the motorcycle chase scene in Terminator 2: Judgment Day! John Chapman and his team went the extra mile to get it right -and it wasn’t a quick project. They even have bloopers after the credits. Really. -via Gamma Squad

It’s a story as old as geekdom itself- guy gets engaged, guy reveals geeky obsession to fiancée, fiancée dumps him for being too geeky.

It’s a real shame when it happens, it’s generally an unfair thing for geeks to have to go through, but sometimes it really is the guy’s fault.

Case in point- a Murray Hill, New York resident by the name of Chris Kooluris spent two years and over $32,000 turning a bedroom into his ultimate 80s arcade dream and ended up letting his relationship fall apart, because he was so obsessed with his game room that he paid his fiancee less attention than his precious coin-ops.

In this instance she might have stuck with him if he’d kept his obsession in check, but now he's left with nothing but Pac-Man fever and an empty coin slot where his heart used to be.

-Via Gothamist

There have been many different illustrators applying their own signature style to artwork based on the stories of J. R. R. Tolkien, from my fav Ian Miller to Pauline Baynes and even Tolkien himself, but few have applied a style as appropriately antiquated as Russian artist Sergei Iukhimov.

Sergei's watercolor works capture iconic scenes from the books in a style reminiscent of medieval Russian Orthodox iconography, and his works have been used in Russian language publications of Lord Of The Rings, adding a touch of the strange and surreal which brings these scenes to a whole new level of epic fantasy awesomeness.

You can see more of Sergei's works at Live Memory and egelantier's Tumblr.

-Via io9

The Slender Man myth has jumped out of the computer screen and into the courtroom in one of the strangest, and most ridiculous, attempted murder defenses ever.

Two twelve year old girls from Waukesha, Wisconsin are claiming they brutally attacked a fellow classmate to appease the Slender Man- the girls stabbed their "friend" nineteen times and left her for dead in a park, but the victim managed to survive by staggering to the road and finding help.

One girl claims she was sure the Slender Man would kill her family if she didn’t appease him with murder, and they’re both sticking by their claims that the Slender Man is real.

Here's more on this strange case:

Weier told police that Slender Man is the "leader" of Creepypasta, and in the hierarchy of that world, one must kill in order to show dedication. Weier said that Geyser told her they should become "proxies" of Slender Man — a paranormal figure known for his ability to create tendrils from his fingers and back — and kill their friend to prove themselves worthy of him. Weier said she was surprised by Geyser's suggestion, but also excited to prove skeptics wrong and show that Slender Man really did exist.

So did the girls simply let their imaginations, and their dark impulses, get the better of them, or is the whole thing something they cooked up hoping to avoid being tried as adults?

-Via Kotaku

How well do you know fictional planets from movies, TV, books, and video games? Anyone who calls themselves a science fiction fan should do well in this quiz on made-up planets at Buzzfeed. After all, it’s multiple-choice, which should make it easy. At least that’s what I thought, until I scored a dismal 12 out of 21. But you will do better. All those years of watching cheesy science fiction movies on TV are finally going to pay off!
 

Color's, a beauty salon, makes incredible works of nail art. Many of the nails they will put on your fingers are inspired by the hit anime series Attack on Titan. I'm particularly impressed with how the beauticians rendered the Colossal Titan. Like the skinless monster on the show, they're slightly disgusting.

The artists haven't limited themselves to Attack on Titan. You can see nails inspired by Sailor Moon, Dragonball Z, Kill La Kill, and other anime series at Crunchyroll.

The film Guardians of the Galaxy is scheduled to be released on August first. The movie is based on the Marvel superhero team that first debuted in 1969, although they have undergone many changes over the years. Still, many of us were not aware of the group until we started hearing about the movie. And in the few weeks left before it opens in theaters, we get to deconstruct it as much as we can without any proof of its quality. But if you look at it in a certain way, as Dorkly illustrates in their latest comic, it’s liable to be awesome.  

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The Catbus scene from Hayao Miyazaki's My Neighbor Totoro is one of the most iconic scenes in anime history, and even middle aged adults get a childlike look of wonder in their eyes when they see that strange cat-shaped bus come bounding down the road with a Cheshire cat grin plastered across his puss.

Fans have always wanted to experience this moment in person, and now you kinda sorta can via Oculus Rift headgear.

Game designer Nick Pittom teamed up with animator Keith Sizemore to create this dreamy VR Catbus sequence scene, which can be experienced in the Oculus Rift headgear's still fairly rough looking virtual space, and the only thing this scene is missing is the strange stench of the Catbus because you know an animal-vehicle hybrid of that size has a unique smell about it...

-Via Nerd Approved

The thrilling anime series Attack on Titan has been a huge hit. Fans around the world have found the story of humans standing against annihilation to be compelling. We've previously seen some of the fan art and tattoos that these fans have made. Now let's look at amazing works of cosplay.

Yuki Goddess a professional cosplayer in Thailand with an impressive portfolio of work, including many costumes inspired by Attack on Titan. Here's a particularly clever one that shows the hero Eren Yeager in battle.

Here's one of the most ingenious, original costumes that I've ever seen. Drabblemeister uses a hoop skirt to show Carla Jaeger being eaten by a titan. (via The Mary Sue)

He's not out of diapers yet, but this toddler is ready to defend humanity. Here's a very young Captain Levi of the Survey Corps. His father, TOMY_papa, made the costume.

It's Christmas time at the Survey Corps' headquarters. Everyone got into the spirit of the season at a cosplay shoot in northern California last year.

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An everyday teenage boy gains superpowers from mad scientist’s accident and then fights crime. Sound familiar?

Above Average brings us a one-shot short film that compresses all the most common superhero tropes into four minutes -including how many lines the token female gets. This is like reading all the comic books at once!  -via Uproxx