Han Solo gets his own movie and 6 other reasons nerds will celebrate today

Nerds, dorks, dweebs and ironic hipsters unite! Today may seem like just any other day, but today’s headlines show that this is the moment when nerd power reached its cultural apex, and geek-culture slowly descended its blanket of uncool upon our whole culture.

1) A “Game of Thrones” version of Risk has been unveiled. Now instead of having to choose between watching another winter in Westeros and attacking Europe with 20 armies shaped like roman numerals, children and weird adults everywhere can attack King’s Landing with several Targaryen dragons.

2) The website Nerdist reported on a real-life battle between two competing robot factions, Megabots of the U.S. and Suidobashi Heavy Industry of Japan. “I want to punch them to scrap and knock them down,” declared one Japanese robot builder in Suidobashi’s challenge video.

3) Han Solo is getting his own movie. Han Solo has always been a contradiction in terms: the coolest kid in the intergalactic universe. Whole generations of young Americans defined themselves as either a Han Solo or a Luke Skywalker – much as cool kids defined themselves as Beatles or Rolling Stones fans. Now Solo will get his own movie in 2018 based just on the backstory of how he became the dashing, noble scoundrel that he is.

4) A detailed rulebook for WWE wrestling announcers has been leaked. This is the WikiLeaks of dweebdom, revealing the reasons announcers have stopped calling WrestleMania “The grandaddy of them all” – it “makes WrestleMania feel old.” Even grown men who are spending their Saturday mornings watching men fake wrestle in tight spandex don’t like to be reminded of their wrinkles.

5) Paul Feig, the original god of “Freaks and Geeks” fame, announced that goobers everywhere can take comfort in knowing that the new Ghostbusters ride will look just as lame as it did in the 1980s.

6) The legendary pirate Jack Sparrow showed up at a children’s hospital in Australia and charmed everyone. Arrrr....

7) Those few who don’t know how to hack computers, now have a user-friendly way to exact revenge-of-the-nerds-style-revenge on bros everywhere: You can now install an app to see who is unfriending and unfollowing you.

This story was originally published July 8, 2015 at 10:08 AM with the headline "Han Solo gets his own movie and 6 other reasons nerds will celebrate today."