1. Death Star Tea Infuser

Source: Think Geek

You like tea, you say? Well you haven’t really experienced tea until you’ve infused it courtesy of one of the most well recognized weapons of mass destruction in fiction. Mmm, tastes like Alderaan.

2. Chop Sabers

Source: Think Geek.

3. Glowing Lightsaber Ice Pop Maker

Source: Think Geek.

4. Han Solo In Carbonite Ice Cube Tray

Source: Think Geek.

5. Lightsaber Candlestick

Source: Think Geek.

6. R2-D2 Bottle Stopper

Source: Think Geek.

7. Death Star Bottle Opener

Source: Wikipedia.

8. R2-D2 Trashcan

Source: Think Geek.

9. Darth Vader and Stormtrooper Salt & Pepper Shakers

Source: Think Geek.

10. Darth Vader Toaster

Source: Woot.com

11. Han Solo In Carbonite Chocolate Bar

Source: Think Geek.

12. Darth Vader Cake Pan

Source: Think Geek.

13. Darth Vader & Princess Leia Aprons

Source: The Daily Eater.

14. Dark Side Bib

Source: Techie Tykes

15. Death Star Cookie Jar

Source: The Awsomer.

16. Space Slug Oven Mitt

Source: Craziestgadgets.com

17. R2-D2 Peppermill

Source: Amazon.com

18. LED Faucet Lights

Source: Think Geek.

19. Darth Vader & Stormtrooper Spatulas

Source: Williams-Sonoma.

20. Dark Side Roast Coffee

Source: Think Geek.

21. Vader Coffee Mug

Source: Think Geek.

22. Drinking Glasses

Source: Amazon.com

23. Coaster Set

Source: Think Geek.

24. Star Wars Cookbooks

Source: Amazon.com

25. Star Wars Cookie Cutters

Source: Cookiecuttersearch.com.

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<iframe src="https://s3.amazonaws.com/movotoblog/2013/06/star-wars-kitchen/index.html" height="720px" width="587px" scrolling="no" frameBorder="0"></iframe></br><a href="http://www.movoto.com/blog/novelty-real-estate/25-star-wars-accessories-you-need-for-your-kitchen">25 Star Wars Accessories for Your Kitchen</a> By Movoto

This post was written by Mitchel Broussard

Mitchel is a (fairly) recent college grad from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette where he swears he made a name for himself by graduating cum laude and receiving the Doris B. Meriwether Scholarship for an outstanding underclassman two years in a row. Which probably isn't nearly as impressive as it sounds. In his spare time he likes to ponder humanity's existence, question the meaning of life, and play video games.

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<iframe src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/movotoblog/2013/06/print/print.html" height="600px" width="587px" frameBorder="0" scrolling="No"></iframe></br>By <a href="http://www.movoto.com">Movoto</a>

There’s been a lot of buzz around the concept of 3D printing in recent years, and it only seems to be getting louder as more devices capable of “printing” solid objects from a computer hit the market or receive crowd funding. The intensity of discussion about them reached a crescendo recently when plans for a fully 3D-printed gun hit the Internet (and were subsequently pulled), and now we’re even hearing about new plans to build entire houses using the machines.

It’s that last bit that got the Movoto bloggers interested, naturally. We’re used to seeing houses built out of wood, brick, steel, and even glass by contractors and teams of workers. But the idea of an entire house being printed out by a machine connected to a computer? That sounds like the stuff of science fiction.

Like most of my fellow bloggers, I’m a huge sci-fi buff. Given that we’re due to get our own 3D printer here in the Movoto office soon, I pretty much couldn’t be more excited by the possibilities the technology introduces. So, with that, I thought I’d look into exactly how realistic it would be to print the components needed to build a house using one of these devices. The answer: not at all.

In fact, it would take 220 years, four months, and 11 days for a single machine to print all 27,735 bricks required to construct an average-sized 2,500 square foot, two story house. Not only that, they would cost $332,820 in plastic. This isn’t even considering a variety of other issues, costs, and delays that could arise.

Keep reading for a glimpse into what I learned while researching this monumental undertaking of manufacturing.

3D Printing: Building the Future

The concepts behind modern 3D printing were devised in the late 1980s by a man by the name of Charles Hull. Since Chuck first started his “rapid prototyping” of various objects using large, expensive, slow-working machines, 3D printers have gotten smaller, less expensive, and, well, a little bit faster.

I decided to base my calculations on the MakerBot Replicator 2, one of the most popular and widely used consumer-level 3D printers available today. One of these machines will set you back $2,199 and uses a printhead that melts plastic and lays it down into overlapping layers as it cools in order to build objects.

Now that you’ve got some background, it’s onto the process.

How I Printed a 3D House

The first step to figuring out how long it would take to print a house on a unit like this was to ask an expert. Thankfully, we have one. Movoto software engineer Daniel Culveyhouse is the person who spearheaded our plans to acquire a 3D printer and graciously offered to lend his know-how to the project. I obviously accepted.

For our building unit, we picked a standard-sized brick, which measures 8 x 3.5 x 2.75 inches. Based on the print speed of the Replicator 2, we calculated that it would take 2.9 days to print one solid brick of plastic at this size using the machine’s mid-range .255 millimeter detail setting (this is a brick, after all, not a highly detailed figurine).

What’s more, the amount of ABS plastic required to create one brick (262 cubic centimeters) would cost about $12 per brick (MakerBot sells 1kg of ABS for $48 and each brick weighs 262g). By comparison, Home Depot sells standard red clay bricks at 30 cents a pop.

Based on our calculations for a 2,500 square foot, single level home built using a single 8-inch layer of bricks for its walls, the components would take 220 years, four months, and 11 days to print and cost $332,820.

You can see how much time—and money—it would take to print a house the size of yours using the calculator we created above.

No matter how large or small your house, this process is, of course, ridiculous. Then again, so is building a house using plastic bricks spit out one at a time. With that in mind, I wanted to figure out how many of the machines it would take to get the job done within a reasonably normal amount of time. Given that constructing a traditional home takes around four months, I decided to use that as a time frame. Since one Replicator 2 could make about 40 bricks in that time, it would take 2,011 machines to print all 27,735 bricks in the same time period at a total cost of $4.4 million for the hardware alone (at $2,199 per printer).

All of these estimates don’t take into consideration potential hiccups with the process, such as printing errors and clogged print heads. These will only add to the time (for cleaning and reprints) and cost (for wasted plastic).

The Reality of 3D Printed Houses

Like I said, this process is ridiculous—no matter how you look at it. Still, it had to be done in order to make some sense of all this hubbub about how you’ll supposedly soon be able to print everything from cars to houses. The truth of the matter is that you won’t, despite the fact that the technology will keep getting cheaper and faster with every passing year.

When you read stories about houses being built with 3D printers, the people proposing these projects aren’t talking about doing so using the sort of devices you and I can get for our homes. For example, that house I mentioned at the start of this post would be built using a 20-foot-tall printer capable of creating components 7.2 x 7.2 x 11.5 feet in size. Others are planning to use bizarre lattice-like structures that are much easier (and faster) to print.

Still, it’s really exciting to think that even with small home 3D printers, we’re inching closer to the stuff of sci-fi, with the meals, clothes, and other capabilities of Star Trek’s replicators seeming like less fiction and more science. I’ll just be happy when I can print a replacement for the chess piece that went missing last week…

This post was written by Randy Nelson

Randy spent the last dozen or so years writing about video games for publications like PSM and Nintendo Power, but now he's decided to get "serious." That's why he's helping create a blog that wraps houses in bacon and explores the history of toilets, naturally.

I remember seeing the movie in the theater back when it came out in 2009 and thinking it was utterly fantastic—if not a bit of a tear-jerker in the beginning. But although I loved the film, there’s always been something about its plot that bugged me. I can’t help but feel that its star, Carl, should have just sold his house when he had the chance.

For those not familiar with the plot of the film, it boils down to an elderly widower (Carl) refusing to sell the home he shared with his late wife to land developers. Instead, he decides to tie helium balloons to it (like you can in our “Up” calculator) and fly it to Paradise Falls, a place the couple always said they wanted to visit. Along the way, Carl and a young stowaway named Russell have a grand adventure. In the end (spoiler alert!), Carl doesn’t end up living in the house after getting it to Paradise Falls. No, he basically steals a zeppelin and presumably lives in it.

After seeing everything Carl goes through to essentially end up a thief with a stolen airship for a home, I had to ask:

• Should he have just accepted buyout and gotten on with his life?
• What could Carl have done if he had?

On the upside (or the “Up” side, if you’ll pardon the pun), Carl made a new friend and fulfilled a promise to his late wife. It’s very heartwarming, to be sure. But viewed through an economics-focused lens, it simply didn’t make any sense. There’s no real value in his sentimentality.

To stress this point, I decided to take a look at what Carl could’ve done had he just made the financially sound choice and sold his home to the developer at the beginning of the film. (I hope he at least sold the land it was on off-screen.) But first, I had to figure out just how much Carl’s home was worth.

The Cost of Carl’s Home

This is a quick version of the evaluation process we usually undertake for fictional properties. For it, I needed to know:

• Where Carl’s house was
• How large it was
• The price per square foot based on comparable properties

There have been some pretty strong cases made for this house in Berkeley, CA being the inspiration for Carl’s home, based on comments made by the film’s director, Pete Docter, and the research of others (plus the fact that Fenton’s, the ice cream shop from the end of the film, is a real place in nearby Oakland). So, Berkeley’s our location.

As for the size, an exact replica of the house has already been built by a developer in Utah. It’s 2,800 square feet. Comparable homes in the Berkeley neighborhood where the likely inspiration for the “Up” house is located average $359 per square foot. That gave me a price of roughly $1.1 million for Carl’s house. So, yeah, it was worth a lot—not including the (admittedly tiny) piece of land it was on.

What Carl Should Have Done

Source: Flickr user Sue Waters

Or, he could have made every day an adventure and spent around a quarter of his money on a luxury RV like the Country Coach Inspire. This way, if any annoying kids came to his door, he could’ve simply driven away. The same goes for a boat. Carl could’ve spent half his money on a really sweet yacht and become a salty sea dog, mastering the waves and complaining about how noisy dolphins and gulls are.

With the money he didn’t spend, he could’ve done what I would do and set up a charity in the name of his beloved Ellie to provide scholarships to young girls (and boys) who wanted to get into zoology, archaeology, and other “adventurous” professions. When you look at it that way, what Carl did by flying off in his house and leaving it marooned on a plateau might have seemed romantic, but was actually pretty selfish.

(Literally) Moving House

Here’s the thing: Carl didn’t actually have to sell his house. He could’ve moved it somewhere else—on a truck, not through the sky—and lived in it. I looked into the costs of physically moving a house and found that it costs between $12 and $16 per square foot. In this case, Carl could have sold his lot and moved the house to another one for around 40 grand (plus the cost of the new land to put it on).

Sure, Carl seemed happy enough at the end of the film, but I have to wonder if, in the back of his mind, he realized what a financial mistake he’d made. That, and if he was frantically trying to plan his escape to Antarctica. You know, for when the authorities realized he was flying around in a blimp belonging to a man who died under very suspicious circumstances while he watched.

This post was written by Randy Nelson

Randy spent the last dozen or so years writing about video games for publications like PSM and Nintendo Power, but now he's decided to get "serious." That's why he's helping create a blog that wraps houses in bacon and explores the history of toilets, naturally.

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<iframe src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/movotoblog/2013/06/sin/index.html" height="720px" width="587px" scrolling="no" frameBorder="0"></iframe></br><a href="http://www.movoto.com/blog/top-ten/sin-cities/">The 10 Most Sinful Cities in America</a> By Movoto

Move over, Las Vegas, NV—there’s a new capital of sin in America. Oh, you’re still pretty bad, but it turns out that St. Louis, MO has you beat when it comes to the big seven: Pride, lust, greed, wrath, envy, gluttony, and sloth.

Now, you’re probably asking yourself, “What’re those crazy Movoto bloggers up to this time?” Well, you see, we’ve just been asking ourselves some of the big questions again. You know, like how many Tribbles would it take to fill your house or how a Pokémon lives. Or, in this case, what the real Sin City is.

Everyone knows that Las Vegas has made a name for itself—and attracts nearly 40 million visitors a year—by being a bastion of “sinful” activities: adult entertainment, gambling, drinking, and general debauchery. But what about the real sins? The ones in the Good Book. The ones in the movie “Seven?” We thought it would be fun to figure out which cities are making names for themselves in those (mainly less fun) moral offenses.

We’ve already told you which one claimed the tarnished crown; here’s the full list of the 10 most sinful cities in America:

1. St. Louis, MO
2. Orlando, FL
3. Minneapolis, MN
4. Pittsburgh, PA
5. Milwaukee, WI
6. Cincinnati, OH
7. Miami, FL
8. Buffalo, NY
9. Detroit, MI
10. Las Vegas, NV

See—Las Vegas is still on there. But nine other big cities proved to be more sinful based on Biblical criteria. Read on to find out how we reached our conclusions, and why living in these cities is a bit like a real life Dante’s “Inferno.”

How’d We Come Up With Our List?

Unlike most of the city rankings we’ve already done, we already had some criteria set out for us coming in, namely the Seven Deadly Sins themselves. However, one can’t simply find statistics on things like “prevalence of lust” and “occurrences of wrath”—well, actually you can, but you have to get creative. Luckily we’re sort of known for that around here.

So, in order to make this ranking, we had to translate the sins into some criteria that makes sense for modern city living. That’s how we came up with the seven we ended up using:

• Strip clubs per capita (Lust)
• Cosmetic surgeons per capita (Pride)
• Violent crime per year per 1,000 residents (Wrath)
• Theft per year per 1,000 residents (Envy)
• Percentage of disposable income given to charity each year (Greed)
• Percentage of obese residents (Gluttony)
• Percentage of physically inactive residents (Sloth)

With those figured out, we looked at the 95 most populous cities in the United States (we had to exclude Baton Rouge, Birmingham, Indianapolis, Toledo, and Tucson since they don’t report some of this data) to see how they stacked up in each criterion. We ranked each city from 1 to 95—with 1 being most sinful and 95 being least—and averaged the scores across all criteria to come up with our final list of 10 most sinful locales.

Keep reading to find out why we chose each criterion to represent its corresponding sin and which cities most embodied that particular moral failing.

Lust: Where Vegas Still Reigns Supreme

Source: Flickr user Tiger Girl

Unsurprisingly, Las Vegas ranked first. Specifically, North Las Vegas, NV did, with one strip club for every 2,808 residents. Las Vegas, NV proper came in second at one for every 3,406 people. Another desert city, Scottsdale, AZ, ranked third with one strip club for every 4,511 residents.

Pride: Where Your Looks are What Matter Most

Pride was one of the trickier criteria to decide on, since it can have a variety of meanings. What we eventually landed on has to do with the fact that the sin of pride has also been called the sin of vanity. With that in mind, we went with the number of cosmetic surgeons each city has, seeing as few things say you take a lot (or too much) pride in yourself than having your appearance surgically altered.

According to Yelp, Scottsdale, AZ has the most cosmetic surgeons per capita with one for every 1,812 people. Irvine, CA was a close second with one for every 1,827 residents. Anaheim, CA—also in Southern California—has one plastic surgeon for every 2,246 people who live in the city.

Wrath: When Things Get Violent

Unlike pride, wrath is pretty easy to equate to things that happen in a city. For this criterion we went with reports of violent crimes as cataloged by the FBI. Specifically, we looked at combined incidents of murder (and nonnegligent manslaughter), robbery, aggravated assault, and forcible rape for our most populous cities on a per year per 1,000 residents basis. We can’t say the “winner” surprised us much, unfortunately.

The dubious distinction of most wrathful city went to Detroit, MI, with 24 violent crimes per year per 1,000 residents. St. Louis, MO was second with 20, while Memphis, TN was tied with Oakland, CA in third with 16 apiece.

Envy: When You Want What Isn’t Yours

Source: Flickr user Twanda Baker

Where’s your stuff most likely to get stolen? Honolulu, HI. The island paradise sees 76 reported thefts per year per 1,000 residents. That’s 11 more than St. Louis, which has 65. Atlanta, GA rounded out the list of cities where the crooks have sticky fingers with 53 thefts every year per 1,000 people.

Greed: When Giving Back Isn’t a Consideration

When thinking about greed as a sin, we initially started looking at things like personal wealth, but we decided that was a little unfair. So, we turned to charity—specifically, the percentage of disposable income each city gives to charity on a yearly basis, from Philanthropy.com’s research into “How America Gives.”

Laredo, TX turned out to be the most stingy, giving only 2.8 percent of disposable income to charity each year. Fremont, CA gives 3.2 percent, with Reno, NV only slightly better at 3.3 percent. (Detroit was tops, giving a whopping 11.2 percent.)

Gluttony: Where Eating Never Ceases

While overeating is just one of several contributors to obesity, being overweight is still most commonly caused by the overconsumption of food (and lack of physical activity, which we’ll get to in a sec). With that in mind, we looked at the percentage of residents in each city classified as obese by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as an indicator for this sin.

Detroit landed another, er, “win” here, with 34 percent of its residents classified as obese. Tulsa, OK nearly tied at 33.9 percent, while Memphis was a close third at 33.8 percent.

Sloth: When Getting Off Your Keister’s a Chore

For our final sin, sloth, we probably couldn’t have asked for a better criteria than the number of people who aren’t meeting government physical activity guidelines. Like our data on obesity, this information came straight from the CDC.

Tulsa came out on top here (after struggling to get off the couch) with 32.4 percent of its residents labeled “inactive.” Minneapolis, MN was second at 30 percent, while St. Louis, MO and Orlando, FL tide in third at 28.8 percent.

Where Sin is In

To be clear: We’re not saying you’re a bad person if you live in one of the cities on our latest Kind of a Big Deal List—but there’s definitely some Old Testament-level sinful stuff going on around you. Or, hey, maybe you’re reading this post in a strip club right now. In which case, we hope you’re tipping big and keeping your hands to yourself, you perv.

Thumbnail image source: Flickr user Skinny Lawyer

This post was written by Randy Nelson

Randy spent the last dozen or so years writing about video games for publications like PSM and Nintendo Power, but now he's decided to get "serious." That's why he's helping create a blog that wraps houses in bacon and explores the history of toilets, naturally.

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<a href="http://www.movoto.com/blog/novelty-real-estate/fortress-of-solitude" alt="Superman's Fortress of Solitude for Sale, Super Mortgage Needed"/><img alt="Buy The Fortress of Solitude" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/movotoblog/2013/06/images/fortresssol-3.png" title="Buy The Fortress of Solitude" /></a>

Source: Wikipedia

There are many things that have fascinated me about the Superman mythos, but one that always stuck out in my mind was the Fortress of Solitude. My younger self imagined the massive structure as Superman’s giant playhouse. Now that I’m older, part of me still thinks of it as such. Because of this, I thought it was fitting to write one of our fictional evaluations on the Fortress of Solitude. After suiting up in my best Kryptonian armor, I set out to battle the Man of Steel’s house of crystal.

What did I find out? By my estimates, the Superman’s colossal fortress would be worth more than $813 trillion. Yes, you read that correctly. If that piece of green Kryptonite didn’t scare you away, keep reading to figure out how I did it.

The Tools of Novelty Real Estate

Returning readers know this part by now. It’s like a superhero origin story, even. To write a fictional evaluation, I usually need a property’s size, location, and comparable properties. Only this time I tried something new. Think of this as my own novelty real estate reboot. Instead of my standard three criteria, I needed to know two things:

• What the Fortress of Solitude is made of
• The Fortress of Solitude’s size

With these two pieces of information I was able to come up with an estimate for the value of the Fortress of Solitude. I should note, however, that the price doesn’t include all the multitude of zany rooms that have appeared in the Fortress. (Who has a replica of their office in their crash pad?)

But before I get to the heart of the matter, you’ll need a brief history lesson. I promise no fanboys were hurt in the making of this abridged history.

Fortress of Solitude: Better Than a Couch Fort

Source: Wikipedia

Like a list of Superman’s powers, the Fortress of Solitude has changed a lot since it was first introduced. Superman’s sort-of safe house (it has been broken into a number times) was first called the Secret Citadel. This version, introduced in Superman #17, was built into a mountain on the outskirts of Metropolis. A couple of years later, the Secret Citadel had morphed into a freestanding castle located in a “polar waste.” The first time that the Fortress is explicitly discussed is in Action Comics #241 in which, through the power of forgetfulness, it is once again located in a mountain near Metropolis.

I should also note something about the name itself. The name “Fortress of Solitude” originally appeared in Doc Savage pulps. In fact, an argument can be made that Superman’s creators essentially ripped off the idea. Old Doc’s Fortress was located in the Arctic and acted as a retreat for the mysterious man.

When it came time to make a decision for which version of the Fortress to use, I decided to go with the one located in the Arctic. I thought this version was the most well known. With this out of the way, I needed to find what material comprised the Fortress.

What is the Fortress of Solitude Made Of?

Most—but not all—versions of the Fortress of Solitude are constructed out of a Kryptonian crystalline material known a sunstone. Since there are no Kryptonian crystals in the real world, I needed to pick a substance as a stand-in. Some common crystals are: diamonds, salt, and snowflakes.

I can tell you right now that Superman doesn’t have a citadel made from salt or snowflakes.

I’ve never purchased an engagement ring, but based on the sheer amount of stuff you need to know before you buy a diamond, I might never get engaged. In other words, without Kryptonian diamonds handy, I went with the kind that is actually found on Earth.

How Big Is the Fortress of Solitude?

To figure out the Fortress of Solitude’s size, I first found Supe’s height and used this to calculate the dimensions of ice-cold crib. According the DC Comics Wiki, Superman is 6’3”. Once I knew his height, I found an image of him standing in front of the Fortress of Solitude and was able to estimate its height. I estimated that the Fortress of Solitude is roughly 7,065,000 cubic feet with a surface area of 141,300 square feet. (Talk about a fortress! Even Superman probably gets lost in this thing. His voice has to echo forever.)

To come up with this number, I made a number of guesses. As I mentioned earlier, depending on what version of the Fortress of Solitude we are talking about, the size would be vastly different. I chose the newest iteration of the Fortress of Solitude, which is dome-like.

Using Superman’s height, I was able to estimate the dimensions of the dome. Essentially, I found the volume of a sphere and then cut it in half. The same goes for the surface area of the structure.

How Much Is A Crystal Palace Worth?

Source: Wikipedia.

The Cullinan Diamond, discovered in 1905, is the largest diamond on record. It came in at 4 inches by 2.5 inches by 2.12 inches.

How does this help me figure out the cost of Superman’s shiny super-shack?

My basic assumption is the outside of the Fortress of Solitude is covered with diamonds. You and I both know that Supes doesn’t have a leaky roof. So, if the entire crystal dome that Superman calls home is made up of crystal segments that are the size of the Cullinan Diamond, it would take 2,034,721 of them to cover it.

If you mind is blown, it should be.

The estimated value of the Cullinan Diamond is $400 million. Do you even want to know how much that would be? Our course you do. Here’s the price tag: $813,888,400,000,000.

That’s more than 813 trillion dollars. It doesn’t even include the price of all his rooms and gadgets.

Superman might already be a good guy, but there’s one thing I’d really like him to do to be truly—flood the diamond market so I can afford that engagement ring.

Editor’s notes: Sunstone has many properties, the most famous of which is its ability to store information. I took this into account when I decided on what crystal to use in my evaluation. It turns out that, under the right circumstances, you can store information in fused quartz, which—as the name suggests—is quartz that is superheated into a glass-like substance. Once it is heated, however, it is no longer crystalline. Still, if you’d like to build the Fortress of Solitude out of quartz, one of the most abundant minerals on Earth, you’d expect to pay handsomely as well–$21,159,015, which is a very conservative estimate.

This post was written by David Cross

+ David Cross is a writer for Movoto and former journalist. He attended Ohio State and Florida State universities.

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<a href="http://www.movoto.com/blog/infographic/hockey" alt="Boston Beats Chicago 4-3 in the Stanley Cup Fan Finals"/><img alt="Boston Beats Chicago in Stanley Cup Fan Finals" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/movotoblog/2013/06/images/bostonchicago-chart-3.png" /></a>

For hockey fans in Boston and Chicago, this might be one of the more memorable NHL Stanley Cup Finals ever. These are two of the more storied franchises in the National Hockey League, and arguably, two of the more fired-up hockey towns in the United States.

After starting out the year with an unbelievable 24-straight-game winning streak, the Blackhawks enter as the top-seeded team in the league. Meanwhile, Boston just swept Pittsburgh, which, behind Chicago, had the second-best record in the league this year.

So, let’s take a peek to see which city has the overall advantage from a hockey fan’s point of view. We wanted to take into account the team’s successes this year, as well as what a hockey fan’s experience would be this week.

On the Ice Comparisons: Chicago Wins

We broke down the on-ice comparison into two sections: All-time wins and current season wins. It was a close call. So close, in fact, that there wasn’t a winner. Remember, you can tie in hockey.

• Stanley Cup Wins: Boston has six Stanley Cup trophies in the team’s coffers. By comparison, Chicago has a mere four trophies to call its own.
• All-Time Wins: When it comes to a head-to-head competition, Chicago has the lead. The Bruins have an all-time record of 261-235 against Boston. The teams have tied 79 times.

With five criteria to go, Chicago and Boston are tied at 1-1 goals each.

Let’s see what the cities are like outside the rink.

Off the Ice Comparisons

Step away from the zamboni and things skew quickly. While the ‘Hawks might be a better team on the ice, the Bruin fans have more in the brains department and their wallets.

• Education: According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 80.2 percent of Chicago residents have at least a high school degree. By comparison 84.2 percent of Bostonians have at least a high school degree.
• Unemployment: Jobs in the Windy City are more difficult to come by. Chicago has a staggering 10.4 percent unemployment rate. The home of the Bruins, on the other hand, has an unemployment rate of 6.4 percent.

What type of fan would you rather saddle up next to at the bar during a tense overtime thriller? How about a smart Bostonian willing to buy a round.

That’s another two goals for Boston.

Bars and Crime: Mass. Fans Are Actually Outnumbered

Boston fans get a bad rap for being pretentious and a little unruly at times. What are the options for fans who want to go out and watch the game at their local brew pub? As sports fans know, watching your team at a packed bar is camaraderie at its best.

• Bars: According to Yelp, there are almost three times as many bars of any type in Chicago than there are in Boston.
• Crime: While having a few brews in Chicago is nice, fans might want to be careful while they stumble home. According to City-Data.com, which gives a “crime index” for major cities in America, Chi-Town is a bit more dangerous.

So, what’s the verdict? There are a lot more options for watching a hockey games in Chicago, but your chances of an angry fan socking you in the mouth in the alley are higher, too.

How Did they stack up? Tied 1-1.

Housing: Bruin Fans Are More Likely Homeowners

Since we’re a real estate company, we factored in housing. According to our data, it’s more expensive to purchase a home in Boston than in Chicago. The median list price per square foot for a home in Boston is $441. In Chicago this figure is significantly lower–$150 per square foot.

The verdict is that a hockey fan in Chicago has a better chance of owning a home in which he or she can build the perfect hockey cave. This means the Blackhawks took the goal.

Bruin Fans Beat Blackhawk Fans (In This Survey, At Least)

Taking everything into consideration, Boston beats Chicago 4-3. Take that, Blackhawk nation! Now if only the actual Stanley Cup was as easy to predict as this survey, we’d win a lot more office bets.

This post was written by Nick Johnson

If you’ve got an article and you want people to know about it, who ya gonna call? Nick Johnson! Our PR Director is the go-to person for the latest Movoto blog articles & news. He’s also the dodge ball champion of Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines.

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<iframe src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/movotoblog/2013/06/nerd-cave/index.html" height="720px" width="587px" scrolling="no" frameBorder="0"></iframe></br><a href="http://www.movoto.com/blog/real-estate-tips/ultimate-nerd-cave/">The Force Is Strong With This Ultimate Nerd Cave</a> By Movoto

By now you know that we’re basically a big bunch of nerds here at the Movoto Blog. (Did our evaluations of Stormwind Keep from “World of Warcraft” or ranking of the nerdiest cities in America give us away?) So, as you can imagine, when we get to talking about what our dream houses would be like—we do an awful lot of thinking about homes here at Movoto—the discussion invariably turns to how we would make them as nerdy as possible without ending up with something that looks like Pee-Wee Herman’s house.

Our solution was two words: nerd cave.

You’ve probably heard of man caves. A nerd cave is like that, but for nerds. It’s a dedicated space we can do with as we please—in other words, make as nerdy as possible.

Our mutual admiration of the nerd cave concept understandably led to a detailed discussion of just what our ideal bastions of nerdom would contain. Since we’re a diverse group of nerds, we all like different things: hobbies, games, TV shows, movies, books, and so on. So we decided that if were were going to share an “ultimate nerd cave” concept with our loyal readers, we’d make it an amalgamation of our various likes.

Take a look at how we’d build the ultimate nerd cave if money was no object.

Seating and Furniture

The Iron Throne
From: HBO
Cost: $30,000

How could any self-respecting nerd not get this for their cave if not constrained by a budget? Sure, it’s 30 grand, but it’s the mother-loving Iron Throne from “Game of Thrones.” You know, just like that jerk Joffrey sits on looking all smug and jerky. Only it could be you sitting on it. We admit it doesn’t look very comfortable, but who needs their posterior to feel nice when they’re commanding ultimate power?

La-Z-Boy Legend Sectional
From: La-Z-Boy
Cost: $4,000+

We decided to compromise in terms of seating arrangements for those of us who prefer something a little more comfortable than the Iron Throne. Those who opt to park their rear ends on these luxury theater-style recliners from La-Z-Boy won’t be ruling the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, but they probably won’t need to see a chiropractor once they get up. Plush, replete with storage, and very recline-y indeed.

Nintendo Controller Walnut Coffee Table
From: Bohemian Workbench
Cost: $2,300

We think Movoto director of marketing Chris Kolmar’s initial reaction upon seeing this piece of furniture pretty much sums it up: “Holy crap that’s awesome.” Part piece of art, part icon of gaming history, this handmade glass-topped table might actually be able to draw attention away from your Iron Throne—for a moment, at least.

Star Wars Wampa Rug
From: Think Geek
Cost: $130

If man caves can have faux bearskin rugs, our nerd cave can do that one better with the pelt of a wampa, the abominable snowman of Hoth that takes Luke captive at the beginning of “The Empire Strikes Back.” With this in the room, you’ll be force-ing yourself to resist wearing it like a blanket and scaring those brave enough to venture into your sacred hideaway.

Total so far: $36,430

Wall Decor

Han Solo Frozen in Carbonite
From: Sideshow Collectibles
Cost: TBD ($2000 estimated)

Sticking with the “Star Wars” theme, no good nerd with unlimited funds would be able to pass up adorning their wall with a life-size replica of Han Solo frozen in carbonite. Unfortunately, Sideshow Collectibles, the company behind many a mind-blowing premium “Star Wars” collectible, hasn’t put a firm release date or price on this massive piece of decor but we’re willing to wait if it means making our dream room complete.

Alien Wall-Burster
From: 3dwizart
Cost: $1,200

Here’s just the thing to liven up your cave—in that anyone who sees it will immediately have a fight-or-flight reaction (mainly flight). Standing 7 feet tall, this 3D sculpture of H.R. Giger’s terrifying xenomorph from the Alien franchise looks like it’s bursting out of your wall. Sure to save on fiber drinks and laxatives.

Total so far: $39,930

Home Theater

XBR-65X900A 65-inch 4K 3D Ultra HD TV
From: Sony
Cost: $6,999

Movies and TV shows make up a big part of what shapes nerd kind, from the cinematic likes of “Star Wars” to televised classics such as “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” Watching them is going to play a big role in any world-class nerd den, and we want to do it in the best way possible. That’s why our room would have a huge, brand-spanking-new 4K resolution HDTV—that’s four times as detailed as current HD—that’s even capable of taking older materials and making it look sharper than a morgul blade. This Sony is absolutely bleeding edge.

FMP-X1 4K Media Player
From: Sony
Cost: $699

While current Blu-ray discs will look even better on a 4K TV like the one we picked, to really see the full potential of these next-generation sets we’re going to need real 4K Ultra HD content. That’s where devices like Sony’s 4K Media Player come in. It downloads 4K movies and TV shows from the Internet since current discs aren’t big enough to hold them. The selection will be slim at first when it hits later this year, but is sure to grow.

Total so far: $46,628

Gaming

Falcon Northwest Mach V High-End Gaming PC
From: Falcon Northwest
Cost: $3,300 and up

Nerds might play a lot of games, but we don’t play around when it comes to making sure they look and run as good as possible. That’s why our ultimate nerd cave would be equipped with a top-of-the-line gaming PC like this rig from one of the best names in the business (connected to our 4K TV). It’s not cheap, but it can run anything you throw at it without breaking a sweat, remaining able to handle the latest games—and otherwise avoid obsolescence—longer than lesser systems.

Dream Arcades Vision 32 Multi-Game Arcade Machine
From: Dream Arcades
Cost: $3,199 and up

Just like there’s no better way to play cutting-edge games than on a blisteringly fast PC, the experience of playing retro games doesn’t get any more perfect than on an actual arcade machine. Dream Arcades makes a number of authentic coin-on cabinets updated with modern features such as LCD displays, including the V32, a unit with dozens of classic games pre-installed and designed to work with your own PC if you wish. For added authenticity, we’d have our own custom tokens made.

Marvel’s The Avengers Pinball Machine
From: Stern Pinball
Cost: $5,699

Since we’re building an arcade in our cave, we had to include the coin-operated video game’s counterpart, the pinball machine. While many pinball manufacturers have gone belly up, Stern Pinball is going strong, making and releasing new tables such as our pick: “The Avengers.” This dazzling machine features modern digital scoring and effects, bringing Earth’s mightiest heroes to life—check out that huge Hulk!—for a breakneck game.

Sultan Gaming Table
From: Geek Chic
Cost: $12,950

Rounding out our gaming setup is the Rolls Royce of tabletop play. To call the Sultan a “just a table” would be like saying the Taj Mahal is “just a building.” When it comes time to play your favorite RPG or board game, this masterpiece of handcrafted wood opens to reveal a luxurious gaming surface and individual stations for each player. And yes, there are cup holders. Anyone who leaves a water ring on this beauty is officially out of the group.

Total so far: $71,776

Odds and Ends

Speaking of beverages, our room’s going to need a cool place to keep ‘em. We chose this glass-fronted one (Danby, $199). Since we’re going to be too busy watching movies and playing games, we also needed a cleaning droid—aka the Roomba—to keep our retreat from non-nerdiness spic and span (Roomba, $549). Then, of course, we budgeted $2,000 for some awesome art, toys, collectibles, and gizmos (unfortunately this was off the table).

The grand total for our little slice of Nerdvana: $74,524. Hey, we did say price was no object.

Of course, we’re not factoring in all the priceless experiences we’re bound to have in our geeky Shangri-La, nor the copious amounts of Cheetos and Mountain Dew that’ll be fueling our adventures. Now we just have to find a house to put it all in.

This post was written by Randy Nelson

Randy spent the last dozen or so years writing about video games for publications like PSM and Nintendo Power, but now he's decided to get "serious." That's why he's helping create a blog that wraps houses in bacon and explores the history of toilets, naturally.

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<a href="http://www.movoto.com/blog/real-estate-tips/third-hand-smoke/" alt="Buy WoW's Stormwind Keep"/><img alt="Buy WoW's Stormwind Keep" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/movotoblog/2013/06/images/thirdhandsmoke-2-20130606.png" title="Third-Hand Smoke is Ruining Your Home" /></a>

There’s no disputing that smoking tobacco is dangerous. There’s enough evidence that, by now, most people should know that smoking causes cancer. Still, there are a variety of different ways people can be exposed to the chemicals found in cigarettes that lead to cancer—the most common of which is second-hand smoke. There is, however, another type of exposure that has started to make its way into the public mind in the past several years: third-hand smoke.

There are few smokers in the Movoto office, but as real estate professionals we do know that those looking to buy and sell homes might have to deal with houses that were affected by third-hand smoke. If you don’t know what it is, here’s Movoto’s guide to third-hand smoke and housing.

We’ll start with the basics: a literal definition of third-hand smoke.

What is Third-Hand Smoke?

Third-hand smoke is a term created by a research team from the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center. It refers to the chemicals that remain on the surface of objects after they’ve been exposed to second-hand tobacco smoke. In other words, third-hand smoke is the residue that is left after the smoke clears out; it can be found on carpet, counters, and clothing. Both smokers and non-smokers can be at risk of tobacco-related illnesses through contact with these substances, whether through inhalation, ingestion, or touch.

What Can Third-Hand Smoke Do to You?

Researchers argue that after second-hand smoke clears from a room or confined area, its various components—specifically chemicals—coat surfaces after a short amount of time. Some have argued that these chemicals can react with nitrous acid to create carcinogens found in tobacco products. If you aren’t familiar with the term, carcinogens are substances that are linked to cancer.

According to the New York Times, researchers found 11 carcinogenic compounds that could be in third-hand smoke including:

• Hydrogen cyanide
• Butane
• Toluene
• Arsenic
• Lead
• Carbon monoxide
• Polonium-210

Nonetheless—and this is important—research into third-hand smoke and its health effects is still ongoing. In other words, the full effect of exposure to the substances that have coated your house or car (or other objects) isn’t fully known. This means that while some have argued that third-hand smoke is worse for you than second-hand smoke, there’s still more testing needed.

How Long Does It Take for Third-Hand Smoke to Leave?

We searched long and hard for a clear answer to this question. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to find a source that specifically states how long third-hand smoke can stay in an area. However, according to this document, third-hand smoke can linger on surfaces for hours and even days. In other words, turning on a fan or airing out a room doesn’t cut it. Studies have shown that second-hand smoke takes at least two hours to dissipate.

How Does Smoking Affect Housing?

The simple answer to this is that smoking in your home is going to hit you in your wallet. A survey of Ontario real estate agents showed that smoking in your home can lower its value by up to 29 percent. To be clear: if you had a home worth $100,000, smoking in it can drop the price tag to $71,000. That is a huge price difference.

Here’s another example: According to the U.S. Census, the median sale price of an American home in 2010 was $221,800. This means that smokers could lose about $64,000 on average.

The Canadian survey goes on to state that 44 percent of real estate professionals believe smoking lowered a home’s value. Of these professionals 32 percent said smoking lowers a home’s value by by 10 to 19 percent, while another 32 percent of those surveyed believed it lowered the value by 20 to 29 percent.

In addition, the survey found that 88 percent of brokers believe it was more difficult to sell a home in which someone has smoked. More interesting, 27 percent of brokers stated that buyers are unwilling to purchase a home in which someone has smoked.

How Do You Remove Third-Hand Smoke?

Now that you’re good and scared (or at least well informed), you probably want to know how you can remove third-hand smoke from your home, car, or other spaces. You shouldn’t worry. It’s not difficult, but it can be time consuming—and it might be expensive. Like most things, you will get what you put into trying to rid your third-hand smoke. Here are some tips:

• Thoroughly clean walls with very hot water mixed with detergent.
• Paint your walls with as much as three layers of paint.
• Steam clean your carpet. Even better, remove your carpet.
• Wipe down all flat surfaces—smoke residue isn’t limited to walls.

The dangers of smoking and residual effects such as second-hand and third-hand smoke is easy to see. It harms your health. But if this isn’t a deterrent, think of how much it hits your wallet, and we aren’t even talking about the cost of cigarettes. Smoking decreases the value of your house. Thankfully, you know of a solution–even if its a difficult one.

This post was written by David Cross

+ David Cross is a writer for Movoto and former journalist. He attended Ohio State and Florida State universities.

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<iframe src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/movotoblog/2013/06/NYC/index.html" height="720px" width="587px" scrolling="no" frameBorder="0"></iframe></br><a href="http://www.movoto.com/blog/real-estate-tips/20-things-about-new-york-city/">20 Things You Should Know Before Moving to New York City</a> By Movoto

1. Honking Horns are a New Yorker’s Ambien

At first, you’ll move to New York City and the sound of traffic will keep you up. But then, a strange thing happens: The traffic begins to soothe you. “It’s like the ocean, no?” you’ll explain to your bewildered mother. Then, when you go visit your parents in the ‘burbs, the sound of silence will literally freak you out. “Am I about to get murdered?” you’ll lie awake thinking—as you count the hours until you’re back in the city.

2. Stars: They’re Just Like Us! (Really, We Mean It, Just Pretend They’re a Nobody!)

Don’t stare at them, don’t smile knowingly at them, don’t even quickly glimpse at them—and for God’s sake don’t ask for their autograph. You’re a New Yorker: You don’t freak out over star power.

3. This is What $1,600 a Month Gets You (No, Really!)

For the privilege of living in the Upper East Side, you’ll pay $1,600 for this room with just a twin bed and fax machine.

4. “Cozy” Means You Can Reach Your Fridge From Your Bed

Ads for an apartment on Craigslist often say “cozy.” At first, you’ll think this means a nice little one-bedroom, maybe with some exposed brick or a fireplace. Nope: It means you can probably touch your fridge from your bed. Seriously, there are hundreds of apartments in this city that are 200 to 300 square feet. Sometimes you’ll have to shower in your kitchen or store your clothes in the oven. And many of them cost upwards of $1,000 a month.

5. This is Your Outdoor Space

If you want a patch of grass to call your very own in NYC, expect to pay at least $400 per month more in rent. Meet your new “private outdoor space,” the fire escape.

6. Tuesday is the New Friday

In New York your job is your life—10 hour days are the norm (even if you’re just an assistant). This means that by Tuesday, you’re exhausted and in need of a cocktail (or seven). The good news for you is that NYC has one of the best bar scenes on Earth (we have a cocktail named after our most famous borough, Manhattan)—and you never have to worry about drunken driving (woot subway!).

7. Your Bodega Guy Doubles as Your Therapist

Without a car, going to the grocery store is a hassle.So New Yorkers get almost everything they eat and drink from their corner bodega. This means your bodega guys sees it all—that 3 a.m. bottle of cheap Chardonnay you’re using to console yourself after another bad date, your affinity for Chubby Hubby and Cool Ranch Doritos after a long day at work. It won’t take long before the two of you are on a first name basis—and it won’t take long after that ‘til you start to dish on your problems. After all, with the rent you’re paying, it’s not like you can afford a real therapist.

8. You Will Never Eat a Bagel Anywhere Else Again

Sure, pizza in NYC is incredible, but there are (albeit only a few) better slices in America (ahem, New Haven). But when it comes to bagels, we rule. Soft on the inside, crusty on the outside, and slathered in cream cheese, mmmm.

9. You’ll Never Set Foot in the DMV Again… Because You’ll Forgot How to Drive

Driving in NYC is best left to the taxi drivers. The traffic is insane, no one obeys traffic lanes and you can forget about parking for less than about $20. You’ll take the subway or taxis everywhere—and pretty soon, you’ll come to love it (just read on your iPad and chill until you’re deposited at your destination). Years go by, and almost by accident, you wonder if you’ve forgotten how to drive—but you don’t really care.

10. You Will Eat Whatever You Want—and Not Gain Weight

NYC has some of the best food on earth—at all price points. You can easily spend $500 at Per Se for one of the best French meals of your life or $2 for a slice of pizza that will blow your mind. And you can get pretty much any type of food delivered anytime you like. You’d think all these delicious eats would make the pack on the pounds, but they won’t—you literally burn them off because New Yorkers walk everywhere (that restaurant’s one mile away—no problem!). Oh, and thanks to Mayor Bloomberg, you’ll be forced to look at the calories on menus of any chain restaurant, so you can forget about your appetite after that!

11. Black is the New Black

We follow fashion like Anna Wintour is looking over our shoulder (because she literally is), but no matter what “new” colors hit the runway, black will always be our first love. We cheat with the occasional pink or red or blue, but we always go back to black.

12. Manhattan is Simply “The City” (There Are No Other Cities!)

To everyone from the rich bankers to the cab drivers, Manhattan is “The City.” No explanation needed.

13. You Won’t Blink at Paying $30 for a Spin Class…

Spinning, yoga, Pilates—the notoriously thin New York woman takes these calorie-torching, body-buffing courses seriously. So not only can you expect to pay $20 to $30 per class—you can expect to get waitlisted for the class.

14. …or at Paying $14 for a Cocktail

The cocktail will come with organic juice or special ice or a sprig or something or another—and that’ll make you rationalize that $14. Seriously, the price tag will barely even register. Because compared to your dinner tab, it’s really nothing.

15. Seamless is Your New BFF

Seamless, an online service that will deliver you food from one of a zillion restaurants (you do it all online! you don’t even have to talk to anyone!), is every New Yorker’s BFF. Seriously, there are days (too hot, too cold, too rainy) when you will order both lunch and dinner from there. (It’s OK, we all do it.)

16. You’ll Learn to Make Your Job Sound a Lot Better Than it Actually is

Go to a party, bar, event (or just leave the house) and the first question anyone will ask is “what do you do?” Most likely, you have some boring job in finance or law that will literally make the other party’s eyes glaze over. So you’ll “enhance” what you do so it seems like you get paid handsomely to save lives or launch businesses or whatever. They’ll do the same.

17. You’ll Begin Judging People Who Pronounce Houston Street Wrong

There are eight million people living in NYC, and we’re literally living on top of one another. So sometimes we just don’t want to see another tourist. And one of the surest signs you’re a tourist (other than the usual suspects like wandering with a map around Times Square or taking the “Sex & The City” bus tour) is that you pronounce Houston Street like the city in Texas. It’s pronounced HOUSE-ton. This may seem trivial to you now, but give it a few months.

18. You’ll Start Reading the Tabloids

You may not be a fan of the national tabloids, but move to NYC and you will start reading the New York Post or the New York Daily News. No seriously, you will try to resist buying a copy with your morning coffee, but it will be impossible. Who can resist those crazy headlines?

19. Brooklyn is the New Manhattan

It used to be that Manhattanizes scoffed at the thought of “going over the bridge.” And yes, there are still some who do. But Brooklyn is having its moment; it offers some of the best restaurants in the five boroughs (seriously, just try getting a ressie at Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare), its art scene is world class (hello Williamsburg), and plenty of celebs call it home (Maggie Gyllenhal, Solange Knowles and Michelle Williams, to name a few). How times have changed: Some Brooklynites scoff at the thought of “going over the bridge.”

20. We Complain (A Lot), But Wouldn’t Live Anywhere Else

NYC has got arts, culture, music, and restaurants that rival anywhere on Earth, but it’s expensive (the cost of living is 70 percent above average), smelly (it’s possible that a solid quarter of New Yorkers refuse to wear deodorant on the subway), and if it starts raining you can’t get a cab and flimsy umbrellas at the bodega will suddenly cost $15. And we New Yorkers complain about all—but we wouldn’t have it any other way.

This post was written by David Cross

+ David Cross is a writer for Movoto and former journalist. He attended Ohio State and Florida State universities.

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<a href="http://www.movoto.com/blog/novelty-real-estate/world-of-warcraft-stormwind/" alt="Buy WoW's Stormwind Keep"/><img alt="Buy WoW's Stormwind Keep" src="http://s3.amazonaws.com/movotoblog/2013/06/images/stormwind-infographic.png" title="Buy WoW's Stormwind Keep" /></a>

For most gamers, there’s nothing like getting lost in a rich interactive fantasy world. That’s certainly one of the biggest reasons why I play games. What makes these places so memorable—beyond the daring feats that players like myself perform as their characters—are the iconic locales and buildings that comprise them and give them their personality. We recently evaluated one such place, Hyrule Castle from “The Legend of Zelda”.

So, when it came time to decide on our next fictional evaluation, I already had video game castles on my mind. When it comes to those, there are few as iconic as Stormwind Castle—aka Stormwind Keep—from “World of Warcraft”.

This piece of virtual property has been a regular sight for players of Blizzard’s blockbuster MMO (massively multiplayer online game) since “World of Warcraft” was released nearly 10 years ago in November of 2004. Towering over the human kingdom of Stormwind in Elwynn Forest, it’s served as a place where adventurers take on epic quests (“Penny’s Pumpkin Pancakes” anyone?), players meet in the game, and more than a few virtual weddings are held. So, its high walls and even higher towers were an easy choice as far as iconic gaming properties go.

So, how much is it worth? Were it a real property, the cost of taking up residence in Stormwind Keep would be $10,392,742—a pittance, really, compared to some of the other fictional castles my guild and I have evaluated here at Movoto. Why so cheap? Well, there’s a story in that, as well as how I came up with that price tag. If you’d like to hear how my grind for knowledge went, then join my raiding party and keep reading, fellow adventurer.

How I Did It (or How I Wish There Was a Gold Farmer For This)

If you’ve already checked out some of our other evaluations of “unreal estate” here on the Movoto Blog, you’ve probably read about our methodology before. If not, it’s high time you learned how we work our magic.

The case of Stormwind Castle is similar to others we’ve done; in order to put a price on it, I had to determine:

• The size of Stormwind Castle
• Where it would be located in the real world
• The cost per square foot for similar real estate in that location

The process of determining the size of things that don’t exist here in the boring real world is always fun, so let’s start there.

Sizing Up King Varian Wrynn’s Seat of Power

For those not familiar with “World of Warcraft” (there have to be a couple of you), a little background is in order. Stormwind is the only remaining human kingdom in the game, located in Azeroth, one of the three continents that form the Eastern Kingdoms. Stormwind Castle (or Keep) is part of the capital, Stormwind City.

Stormwind Keep has taken a couple of forms in the game. There was its original appearance, introduced in 2004, and a renovation that occurred as part of the Cataclysm expansion that was released on December 7, 2010. For my evaluation, I went with that most recent incarnation, which is situated in a Stormwind City transformed by devastation (gee, thanks, Deathwing!) and the passage of time.

In order to determine the castle’s size, I first turned to images of it snapped from various angles—including overhead—by players of the game. These were good for getting a look at it from all sides and poring over small details. They weren’t good for actually determining scale, however.

To do that, I had to… play the game. For work. I have a tough job, I know.

In the game, I traveled to Stormwind City as my male human hunter, a fairly average-sized character in the grand scheme of the dramatically proportioned universe of “World of Warcraft.” Once in the castle itself, I was able to stand in front of various elements and take screenshots, which I then used to determine scale by comparing my character’s shoulders to a point of reference—in this case, a square stone slab. Like in our Hyrule Castle evaluation, I was able to take the average 21-inch shoulder width of a sticky fellow like my character and use it to figure out the dimensions of the slab.

After that, I used an overhead screenshot of the castle with a grid overlaid onto it to carefully measure the length and width of each room.

Before we continue, I have to address something I found pretty surprising: There’s not a lot going on inside Stormwind Castle. In fact, the whole place only has a courtyard, main hallway, petitioner’s chamber, throne room, war room, garden, and library. Despite being tall, it’s also only one story (at least that players can access or has actually been modeled in the game world). This means it’s almost like a giant-scale stone bounce house; a debuffed castle, if you will.

Given that, the total floorspace of Stormwind Castle is a “mere” 47,219 square feet (about half the size of Princess Zelda’s abode). But where is it? Let’s tackle that next.

Putting Azeroth on the Map

What’s just as fun as figuring out the size of buildings that don’t exist in our reality? Getting to find where they’d be located in our world. Sometimes, games, books, and movies are set in real locations. With “World of Warcraft,” that’s not the case. But its world and architecture do share some similarities with ours, which definitely helps virtual real estate evaluators like yours truly.

To place Stormwind—and, most importantly, its castle—on a map of the real world, I needed to find a place on Earth that I felt matched well in terms of geography and architecture.

Using the castle’s Western European inspired architecture as a starting point, I zeroed in on the United Kingdom straight away. I saw plenty of similar castles during my research, but looks were only part of the equation. I realized that I needed to find a castle that was bordered on one side by a river like Stormwind and was also near forests and hills or mountains. Something on the Western coast of an island, as Stormwind is on the continent of Azeroth, would also be very befitting. Eventually I found one castle that met all of my criteria in Wales, the “castle capital of the world.” The fortress in question is called Caernarfon Castle and it located in Caernarfon, Gwynedd, Wales, on the Western coast of Great Britain.

So, with a place narrowed down, I just had to find some comparable properties to get my price.

Placing a Price on a Castle

Caernarfon Castle. Photo: Herbert Ortner

As it turned out, my estimate of $218 per square foot was pretty close to what our in-house novelty real estate guru David Cross had found for his piece ($203 per square foot). Pretty impressive, considering we’d used totally different homes to reach our numbers.

Speaking of numbers, all I had to do now was some more math.

Adding It All Up

All of the necessary info in hand (or on-screen at least), I was ready to work some mathematical magic to down this boss of a problem. By casting a powerful multiplication spell using the elements of size and price per square foot, my 47,219 sqft castle in a land where homes cost $218 per square foot was transmogrified into a piece of property costing $10,293,472.

Like I said above, that doesn’t seem like much for a castle, but for all its perceived majesty Stormwind Castle amounts to what is basically a giant stone playhouse (c’mon guys, even the Ruins of Lordaeron is bigger than your mighty castle). It’s just made more convincing by the surrounding world that Blizzard has managed to forge for “World of Warcraft.”

Oh, speaking of the game, I figured that since you can’t actually buy Stormwind Castle, I’d come up with something related that the $10 million plus value I ended up with could buy. That something is a whole lot of monthly subscriptions to “WoW”—enough for one month of play for 686,707 people—or one very, very long 66,036 year subscription for one person. That’s barring price increases and any eventual game expansions, of course. Or, you could buy in-game gold through various sources; 7.6 billion pieces at the going rate.

This post was written by Randy Nelson

Randy spent the last dozen or so years writing about video games for publications like PSM and Nintendo Power, but now he's decided to get "serious." That's why he's helping create a blog that wraps houses in bacon and explores the history of toilets, naturally.