Nerd Girl Hall Of Fame: Katrina Hill, The Action Flick Chick

Everyone knows some dude who’s into chick flicks . . . I mean really into chick flicks, to the point where you start to wonder. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with it, I guess, and there’s no doubt that he has an easier time talking to wo

men supported by all the valuable insights into feminine psychology he’s gleaned from traveling pants and pianos and ABBA musicals, but . . .

Well, every now and then an extraordinary individual comes along from the other side of the Force, and you meet a chick who’s far more into Iron Man than Steel Magnolias. Katrina Hill, a Texas babe also known as The Action Flick Chick, is one such woman. She developed an enthusiasm – nay, a gloriously nerdy reverence – for action f

licks in her youth, thanks to the unhealthy influence of her brothers.

As a result she’s a Nerd Boy’s wet dream: a smart chick with a hot body who games and cheers at explosions; a girl hard-wired to thrill at the perfect on-screen kill; a fox who can kick your ass at your video game of choice and make you not mind the humiliation so much after she shoots you a sultry glance; a lady who can identify a Russian-made RPG the way most girls can identify a pair of Ferragamo heels.

And the girl has some strong opinions: Her favorite action movie? The classic Tremors (1990). Favorite classic action movie kill? Rambo IV. Favorite fantasy bad ass to train with? Solid Snake. Best horror action flick ever? The Dawn of the Dead remake. You might argue her choices, but I wouldn’t get within arm’s reach while doing so – Action Flick

Chick has a license to kick ass, and she ain’t afraid to use it.Katrina runs the Action Flick Chick blog, where she expounds at length on the merits of the movies, the heroes, the actors, the explosions, and the pure excited terror that defines the genre. She’s passionate about her vocation, escalating the fine art of video violence from the banal to the sublime. A kind of sexy Texas Kali Yuga, she recently won Gamette of the Month at busygamer.com, and is a powerful contender for Gamette of the Year 2010 (You may vote for her here – once a week, please). She’s an ardent Twitterist, and recently cosplayed The Baroness from GI Joe – and I can so totally see it.

Her site is an on-line shrine to all thinks destruction-related, with a delightfully horrific slant – she recently interviewed the cast of The Human Centipede, for instance. Her extensive and well-written reviews tell you exactly what you want to know about a flick, a TV show (she recently reviewed the season finale [as if six episodes is somehow a ‘season’] of the AMC hit zombie-fest The Walking Dead, of graphic novel fame), or live events (she covered the Dallas ComicCon for Attack Of The Show). She’s also the recipient of the first annual G4TV Next Woman Of The Web award. She and her avatar also star in "The Action Chick" webcomic.

Call her a professional fangirl or an up-and-coming webstarlet, the fact is that Katrina is a sassy, smart and sexy nerd girl with a penchant for violent entertainment and an outstanding eye for pop culture trends. I forsee big things for her. And if you’re wondering why I selected her, specifically, for this rare honor over all of the other worthy Nerd Girls out there, it was this tidbit from her interview with Busygamer.com that won me over:

Tell us one of your super secret nerdy fantasies…
Being part of a super-secret black ops team with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the crew of the Firefly, blasting both vamps and reavers while simultaneously playing the x-box 360 all night

long.

Buffy. River. Willow. Zoe. Kaylee. And Katrina. Fighting Reavers and Vampires. Oh, and a bunch of violence-prone hunky guys with guns (plus Wash and Xander) but . . .

I think I might need to change my trousers.

Congrats, Kat! Our newest inductee into the Nerd Girl Hall Of Fame!

Nerd Girl Hall Of Fame: Temperance Brennan

Dr. Temperance Brennan ("Bones")

Shows like CSI and other procedurals can't hold a candle to the hit crime drama, Bones -- and it's not because of David Borneaz's hunky shoulders. It's because of the ultra-nerdy Dr. Temperance Brennan, a forensic anthropologist (see? I'm aroused already) who works at the Jeffersonian Institute, amongst an army of fellow nerds who figure out the identity of unknown human remains.

Dr. Brennan ("Bones" -- she specializes in them) is not overtly sexy -- indeed, it's her understated sexuality that makes her so appealing. On the show she rarely goes for the revealing, sticking instead to the tasteful -- but somehow that just makes her more attractive, not less. Bones has a smokin' body and a striking face (thanks in large part to Emily Deschanel's gorgeous bod), but it's her mind that's the sexy thing here.

Oh, she's no blushing virgin on the show -- in fact, her detached demeanor and empirical world-view make her almost refreshingly blunt about sex -- and she has her share of geeky partners over the show's many seasons. Dr. Brennan's distinct lack of social issues surrounding sex, and her logical, rational approach to . . . well, everything, including sex, gives  her an allure that you just can't buy with a garter belt and stockings. Indeed, it's her disdain for poorly-conceived cultural ideas about mating that makes her a hottie. You just can't have a brain that stuffed full

of amazing facts and laser-beam logic and take a divine prohibition against masturbation seriously, for instance.

It doesn't hurt that she surrounds herself with a lab full of doting geeks -- the female of the species in this case unusually attractive for a non-profit scientist, on the whole -- who see her genius surpassing their own, and don't resent it. Her best friend Angela is an image specialist with a far more common take on sexual matters -- and it is she, therefore, who advises Brennan on the lustier parts of the books she writes in her spare time. Angela's a perfect counterpoint to the stoic, Vulcan-like elegance of Brennan, a grown-up hippy chick who was just too darn brainy to spend her life backpacking through India. But her earthiness isn't the attraction in the show, it's clearly designed to act as a contrast to the distant, detached sexuality of the show's primary.

Therefore it is my pleasure to announce Dr. Temperance Brennan as this week's fictional Nerd Girl Hall of Fame inductee. Skeletal microfissures indicating a time of death have never been so sexy.

Nerd Girl Hall Of Fame: Danica McKellar

I said I'd profiled a real nerd girl this time around, as opposed to a fictional one. At first glance you might think I went back on my word -- and the word of a nerd is sacred. But I didn't. Our inductee this time out is Danica McKellar, who you may remember as Kevin Arnold's (Fred Savage's) love interest on the bubblegum sitcom The Wonder Years.

I'll cop to having a crush on Winnie (Danica), which is perfectly legitimate since we were roughly the same age at the time. Winnie (Danica) was wicked cute, and had all the makings of a first class nerd girl.


But we aren't inducting Winnie Cooper, fictional nerd girl. We're inducting Danica McKellar, real life nerd girl.


She's always been hot, but this beauty has brains to spare: she even has a mathematical therom named after her! Danica studied mathematics at UCLA, graduating with highest honors (summa cum laude) in 1998.


As an undergraduate, she coauthored a scientific paper with Professor Lincoln Chayes and fellow student Brandy Winn. Their results are termed the 'Chayes–McKellar–Winn theorem'. Otherwise known as 'Percolation and Gibbs States Multiplicity for Ferromagnetic Ashkin-Teller Models in Z2.'




Danica's Erdős number is four. If you know what that is, you're a hardcore mathnerd. If you understand the significance, you know that Danica is likewise a hardcore math nerd. And as super-hot as that is, it's not the best thing about Danica (and no, I'm not talking about her adorable face or her luscious body). The best thing about Danica is that she's putting her brains to work on behalf of all of our daughters in a series of specialized math books designed specifically for preteen and teenaged girls.




Since most math books are written by men and are as much fun to read as cold pancakes with no syrup, Danica penned a much more appropriate style designed to appeal to the native sensibilities of younger girls. It's tragic how much girls are discouraged from doing math in school -- or at least doing well at it. Not only are teachers and the system in general prejudiced against the idea that girls can excel at mathematics, but social pressures on girls from each other to bag math as boring, boy stuff is profound. As a father of a young daughter facing that already in elementary school, I fully appreciate just how much a series of books like Danica's is needed.



Her three books are Math Doesn't Suck, Kiss My Math, and the brand-new, scalding hot-off-the-presses Hot X: Algebra Exposed!, which I'm proud to plug in my blog. And if you want to see the steamier side of this mathnerd princess, check out the video to her Maxim photo shoot!

Now, I'm sure that plenty of women out there are concerned that someone who is such a positive role model for young nerd girls is scandalously seen in her skimpies, but the fact is that her beauty and her brains make up one complete person . . . that we want to drool over. The idea that you have to be a Slagathor in order to do math is just crazy. I'd prefer my math teachers to have looked like this. I might not have been a liberal arts major, then.


Thanks, Danica!