Geek Drama

by Jennifer Braun
Answer: DAVE GIBBONS, SHANIA TWAIN, NICOLAS CAGE, ENID BAGNOLD

The eight links provided were all linked to by actor/author/geek icon Wil Wheaton in his blog WWdN. Those links can be found in the corresponding eight journal entries:

1. http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2008/05/reinventing-uh.html
2. http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2008/06/squawking-like.html
3. http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2008/08/i-thought-i-was.html
4. http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2008/03/im-kind-of-in-l.html
5. http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2008/04/geek-tour-remin.html
6. http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2008/03/monday-brain-sc.html
7. http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2008/03/my-con-sars-let.html
8. http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2008/04/regarding-gta-i.html

Taking the appropriate word from each entry yields the following four phrases:

Head Quarter

• Uncapitalized italicized word - awesome
• Word after "online" - comic
• Singular of this entry's category - book
• Singular of word after the third occurrence of "their" in one paragraph - artist
• Word before a hyphenated word with three consecutive identical letters - from
• Present tense of the word before a three-word title - watch
• First group honored in Thing the fourth - men
• Word composed of the 10th, 4th, 6th, 9th, and 11th letters of the word preceding it - story

The answer to the clue AWESOME COMIC BOOK ARTIST FROM WATCH MEN STORY is Watchmen illustrator DAVE GIBBONS.

French Quarter

• Year of the date we should never forget - 1999
• First letter of the mentioned holiday - C
• Last letter of the entire entry - M
• First letter of his friend's name - A
• Career that's a form of the word after "above all" - entertainer
• Word before the word with a Q but no Z - of
• First word that Ryan says - the
• Last word in the paragraph with a word with three hyphens - year

The answer to the clue 1999 CMA ENTERTAINER OF THE YEAR is country singer SHANIA TWAIN.

Fiscal Quarter

• Word featured in the names of two italicized franchises - Star
• Word after "idiocy" - of
• umber in the paragraph with the mustelid - two
• Ones digit of the amount for which the dub album was purchased - 0
• Last digit of the phone extension - 0
• Sum of the first three digits of the four-digit time stamp - 7
• 18th word before "Engineering" - next
• Word that's both preceded by and followed by the word "a" - movie

The answer to the clue STAR OF 2007 NEXT MOVIE is Next actor NICOLAS CAGE.

Last Quarter

• Last word of headline - This
• Singular form of the last noun before "stick" - author
• Word before the first colon in the column's text - wrote
• Word before a two-letter acronym - a
• Item in the club name other than a beverage - book
• Word before an acronym containing a punctuation mark - about
• Two words composed of the three letters plus the space before the letters "nched" - a pi
• Five-letter loose homonym of the plural of the word before the second "Jack" - horse

The answer to the clue THIS AUTHOR WROTE A BOOK ABOUT A PI HORSE is National Velvet author ENID BAGNOLD.