This Week in Geek (1/20/2020–1/26/2020)

Welcome to This Week in Geek, your guide to events of interest to the Minnesota geek community for the week of Monday, January 20, to Sunday, January 26.

Twin Cities Monday Night Backgammon

What: Gaming
When: Monday, January 20, at 6:00 p.m.
Where: Minneapolis Richfield American Legion

Enjoy a night of backgammon with two tournaments. Entry to this event is $5, and this is a great chance for both pros and newcomers to learn this classic game of strategy.

Creative Night

What: Arts, Community
When: Monday, January 20, at 6:30 p.m.
Where: Event Horizon at the Waterbury Building

This event invites participants to let their creativity shine with drawing, painting, crafting, or whatever their hearts desire at Creative Night, a weekly event put on by Crafty Geek and the Geek Partnership Society. Meet new people, show off your creative side with them, and maybe learn a thing or two.

GPS Figure Drawing Salon

What: Arts, Educational
When: Monday, January 20, at 6:30 p.m.
Where: Event Horizon at the Waterbury Building

The Geek Partnership Society’s Arts Initiative hosts a figure-drawing salon at the Waterbury Building on the third Monday of each month. For a $5 fee, attendees can participate in a three-hour drawing session that “will include short, medium, and long poses, which allow artists to engage with the subject in varying ways” and that “will use a combination of nude and costumed models to support and foster fantasy and science-fiction art.” The goal of hosting this event is to “cultivate a community of artists to share ideas, support each other, and create.”

Monday Night Pinball League

What: Gaming, Food & Drink
When: Monday, January 20, at 7:00 p.m.
Where: Surly Pizza Upstairs

Come play some silverball with fun folks at Surly, enjoy some pizza, have a beer, and cool your heels on a Monday night. This pinball league will meet Mondays, and is open to participants regardless of their pinball skill—you don’t have to be a pinball wizard to have fun. There will be prizes for top scores, and a points-based skill level. Thanks to Surly’s collaboration with Tilt Pinball bar, they’ll have a number of pinball machines, including a Star Trek: The Next Generation machine.

Terror Tuesday: Stage Fright

What: Movies
When: Tuesday, January 21, at 6:30 p.m.
Where: Alamo Drafthouse Twin Cities

Terror Tuesday, a horror-screening series at the Alamo Drafthouse Twin Cities, seeks to liven up weeknights with blood-pumping terror. Tickets are $5, and as always, the Alamo Drafthouse has a variety of food and drink available to enjoy with the film. This week’s screening is Stage Fright, an Italian murder epic that sees what happens when the cast and crew get locked in an abandoned theater with an ax-wielding killer. Expect neon-soaked thrills and gore. Tickets are $5.

Café Scientifique

What: Educational, Science & Technology
When: Tuesday, January 21, at 7:00 p.m.
Where: Bryant-Lake Bowl

Café Scientifique—presented by the Bell Museum of Natural History—is “a happy hour exchange of ideas about science, environment, and popular culture, featuring experts from a variety of fields on diverse and often provocative topics. This month’s topic is yet to be announced, but previous topics have covered a mix of illuminating scientific topics.Tickets are $6 to $15, online or at the door

Pokémon Go Trainer Tuesdays at Parkway Pizza

What: Gaming, Food & Drink
When: Tuesday, January 21, at 7:00 p.m.
Where: Parkway Pizza

A trainer strives to catch them all, and gain prowess and respect. This weekly event at Parkway Pizza is an opportunity to catch fun drink and food specials, meet other aspiring trainers, and square off against worthy opponents to win status and power. You can and will win, even if winning may just mean having a good time meeting other pocket-monster fans.

Wibbly Wobbly Wednesday

What: Trivia
When: Wednesday, January 22, at 7:00 p.m.
Where: Driftwood Char Bar

Join your fellow Whovians and trivia fanatics at the Driftwood Char Bar on Wednesday night for Minnesota’s only regular Doctor Who–themed trivia night, brought to you by the creators of TC Trek Trivia. This is an all-ages event with no cover, so expect seats to go quickly. This month’s theme is “Happy New Year, Fam.”

Crafty Geek/Make It Sew

What: Arts, Meetup
When: Thursday, January 23, at 7:00 p.m.
Where: Event Horizon at the Waterbury Building

The Geek Partnership Society’s Crafty Geek club and its sub-club Make It Sew meet Thursday evenings at the Waterbury Building and invite you to “bring your crafty stuff to do” or to “hang out and work with the crafty stuff we have here!”

The Thing

What: Movies
When: Thursday, January 23, at 8:00 p.m.
Where: Parkway Theater

Come see the body-horror and Antarctic-isolation classic The Thing at the Parkway this Thursday. The Thing is a John Carpenter classic set at an Antarctic base focusing on a small team dealing with a terrifying and unexpected being with the capability of assuming its victim’s shape. Tickets are $9 in advance or $11 at the door. See our Throwback Thursday review of The Thing here.

Protospiel MN 2020

What: Gaming, Arts, Educational
When: Friday, January 24, at 10:00 a.m. through Sunday, January 26, at 5:00 p.m.
Where: Best Western Plus Bloomington

This weekend-long event is all about getting professional feedback for games you are looking to design. Protospiel will also allow you to try all sorts of new games before they hit Kickstarter and the market. Make new friends, expand your horizons, and try new stuff. Registration for designers is $75 for the whole weekend; testers are $15 for the weekend.

Minnesota Quidditch Yule Ball 2020

What: Books, Nightlife
When: Friday, January 24, at 8:00 p.m.
Where: TCF Bank Stadium

Witches, wizards, and muggles are all invited to the party of the year: the Minnesota Quidditch Yule Ball. Dance the night away with your wizarding chums, and enjoy Harry Potter cosplay, decorations, refreshments, and merchandise. This event is a fundraiser for the Minnesota Quidditch team, and formal, semiformal, or costume attire is encouraged. Tickets are $35 for couples, $20 for individuals, or $52 for thruples (or really any group of three).

Heavy Petting: Vilification Tennis Gets Put Down

What: Comedy & Theater
When: Friday, January 24, at 10:00 p.m.
Where: Bryant Lake Bowl

It may be time for the Jellicle members of Villification Tennis to ascend to the Heavyside Layer (aka—be euthanized). So, celebrate the non-human animals that choose to live—or tolerate living—with us with this pet-focused Vilification Tennis special. As always with Vilification Tennis, expect a night of irreverent-comedy fun.

Outpost Anime 2020

What: Conventions, Arts, Family
When: Saturday, January 25, at 1:00 p.m.
Where: The Waterbury Building, Suite 106

Enjoy a day of community brought on by Anime Twin Cities. This free event will include craft workshops, cosplay, screenings, games, prizes, and more. This is the sixth-annual Outpost Anime event, and will be family friendly, so come on down and brave the cold for a day of togetherness in fandom.

Queen of Swords Press Third Birthday Party

What: Books
When: Saturday, January 25, at 2:00 p.m.
Where: The Irreverant Bookworm

Celebrate three years of the local small-press publisher Queen of Swords with books, snacks, prize drawings, and more. Queen of Swords is a woman- and queer-run local publisher that has been producing books for three whole years now, and surviving in the increasingly challenging publishing world. This is a great chance to learn how they’ve held out, and to celebrate a local success.

Weekly Comics Chat

What: Comics, Meetup
When: Saturday, January 25, at 3:00 p.m.
Where: Midtown Global Market

The Girls Only Comic Club hosts a Weekly Comics Chat on Saturday afternoons where there will be shared opinions, drinks, and fries for comics fans. Additional information about this event is posted on the Girls Only Comic Club’s Facebook group. Individuals interested in attending are encouraged to join.

Burlesque Battle of the Stars: Trek vs Wars—Search for the Jedi

What: Comedy & Theater
When: Saturday, January 25, at 7:00 p.m.
Where: Historic Mounds Theatre

While it’s generally unproductive to compare apples to oranges, geeks love to imagine their idols fighting (hence Aliens Vs. Predator, Batman v Superman, et al.). To continue that noble spirit, this burlesque event will face the optimistic post-scarcity, meatloaf-foreheaded-alien-filled Star Trek against the war-torn, space-wizard-filled universe of Star Wars. Expect a night of slightly different-looking green-alien babes, dorky hilarity, and reverence for two properties that are amazing in their own ways. Tickets are $35. Per the organizers, latinum and credits are not accepted. Presale tickets are sold out, but there will be some walk-up tickets available.

Transvestite Soup Presents: The Rocky Horror Picture Show

What: Film, Theater & Comedy
When: Saturday, January 25, at 11:55 p.m.
Where: Uptown Theatre

At 11:55 p.m. on the last Saturday of every month, the Uptown Theatre screens The Rocky Horror Picture Show, the “longest-running midnight movie of all time.” Transvestite Soup is the Twin Cities’s shadow cast for the showings, performing for your pleasure as part of the cult classic’s well-established tradition.

Shieldmaiden Sunday

What: Gaming, Meetup
When: Sunday, January 26, at 12:00 p.m.
Where: Source Comics & Games

Shieldmaiden Sundays are a dedicated space for female nerds and geeks at Source Comics & Games. This is a recurring weekly event providing a space for women to play games, chat about comics, cosplay, or just enjoy the company of other geeks. See the calendar for more events!

So, which of these events will you be attending? What events would you like to see featured in the future? Let us know in the comments section below or contact us via email. And don’t forget to add your events to the Twin Cities Geek Community Calendar!