Ego! Ego! Ego!: Geekiness Archives

June 30, 2008

Hi, Mike!

OK, so I'm reading through Mike Birbiglia's old Secret Public Journal entries, and I found this one in which he says: "I don’t even Google myself anymore; I get “Google alerts.” Which means the Google Robot emails you when you’ve been mentioned on a blog or a website."

That kind of made me go, whoa! What if Mike has totally seen the times I blogged about him here? That would be awesome! Because I adore Mike. He and Gabriel Iglesias are my co-favorite comedians of all time (they are both too incredibly awesome to favor one over the other). He probably hasn't checked me out on account of he is probably blogged about all the time because he tours and is on Comedy Central and stuff, but hey, let a fangirl have her fantasies, okay?

So: Mike, if you're reading this, Hi! You are awesome!

And, if you're not Mike, hi anyway. And if you don't know who Mike is, I linked a couple of his bits from this entry, or you can get his special, "What I Should Have Said Was Nothing," from Netflix. Check him out.

File under: Geekiness
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June 17, 2008

Firefox 3!

Well, I was a good little Mozilla fan and downloaded the new Firefox today. Apparently they're going for a record number of downloads, so everybody upgrade their Firefox!

I'm not entirely sure I like the new look, frankly, but I've always been a little resistant to change.

File under: Geekiness
Posted at 01:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

June 16, 2008

I Made This!

We here at Youhaas Global take our fake music very seriously.

How seriously, you ask?

So seriously that we have seven fake guitars, and will be acquiring an eighth with the purchase of Guitar Hero: Aerosmith in a few short weeks.

So seriously that I made guitar hangers for our fake guitars this weekend so they wouldn't just be piled up by the TV.

Yeah, you read that right.

Continued...

File under: Geekiness
Posted at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)

June 10, 2008

Dethklok Show = BRUTAL

So, I'm a fan of Metalocalypse. I saw the Dethklok show in Berkeley and had a great time, so when I heard Dethklok would be playing the Fillmore in SF, I had to go. Right? Right.

So last Thursday, I get all dressed up (ok, jeans, muscle-t, and docs dressed up, but still), get my shit together, and drive to the city. I find parking (eventually), meet my buds BreakManX Cody and Megs, and we go inside. The Fillmore has a full bar, so we all get drinks (which would prove to be a mistake) and find a good spot up near the stage.

So far so good, right?

Continued...

File under: Geekiness
Posted at 10:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

June 03, 2008

I am... an Iron Man fangirl
Well, it's official.

I'm an Iron Man fangirl.

The first time I saw the movie (for my review), I loved it. I was a trifle bored in the early bits, because it's paced like a drama and I had managed to get in an action movie mindset (courtesy of Tony nearly getting blown up in the opening sequence). But once Tony had become Iron Man, I was stoked enough to ignore how freakin' long it seemed to take to get there.

Then I saw it again with some coworkers, and I was blown away. The bits I had thought of as slow were suddenly full of nuance. This is a superhero movie with actual character development, wtf? I saw it again with my Mom for Mothers Day, and (as anybody who follows my Twitter or Facebook status knows) saw it twice over this last weekend. That brings me to a total of five viewings. And I want to see it again.

Oh, yeah, I've got it bad.

There's just so much detail in the film, it's amazing. Every time I go, I catch something new. My latest discovery was that the news crawls we see on TVs in the background are actually pertinent. That blew my mind. Jon Favreau is an awesome director, and I really, really hope that the other two Iron Man movies he wants to make get greenlit.

It's also put me on a Paul Bettany kick -- he voices Jarvis, the sentient (and rather sarcastic) computer system that runs Tony's house and helps Tony build and use his armor. You may remember him from films like Firewall, Master and Commander, and The DaVinci Code (which is a horrible movie, good grief). He was also the marvellous Chaucer in the delightfully fluffy "A Knight's Tale." Yay.

So. Anybody want to go see "Iron Man" with me? I promise not to mutter the dialog along with the characters... at least not too loudly.

File under: Geekiness
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May 09, 2008

GHIII

This guy is spot on about how freaking impossible GHIII is at the higher levels. Also, very very funny. Kudos to Rich for the link!

File under: Geekiness
Posted at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

May 06, 2008

Iron Man Rules! Also, review up.

My review, which I tried to keep my fangirlishness out of. I think I mostly succeeded.

I've been squeeing about it in increasing amounts since seeing it over the weekend - in true fangirl fashion, the more I think about the movie the more I like it, and the more I like it, the more enthusiastic I am about Tony Stark, who is a fantastically awesome character. Hot, flawed, funny, and smart as all hell. What's not to like?

It's nice to know that some things never change. I may be 30, married, and to all outward appearances a responsible adult, but I can still be turned to a squealing teenager by a fun movie.

NOTE: Somehow this got saved as "unpublished" instead of "published" and so didn't appear on my blog. Sigh. I am lame.

File under: Geekiness
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April 30, 2008

To Tweet, Or Not To Tweet, That Is The Question

Via Earthdog, I read this piece on GapingVoid.com about why the author has quit Twitter. It gave me some food for thought. The conclusions of said thought are:

The folks who are talking about how useless Twitter is seem to be missing the point. A lot of them are the kind of Twitterer I try not to be: one who compulsively updates any time they change from their previous status, and one who reads the updates of every single person who has friended them or whom they've friended. Folks in the comments talked like Twitter took up hours out of their days.

I believe those people are Doing It Wrong.

I only receive by text message the updates of the cream-of-the-crop: folks who are very close to me or whose posts I find very interesting (or those who post less than once a day on average). I only read via RSS the updates of folks I like or find interesting. High post frequency usually results in my dropping a person from those whose updates I get on my phone, and a low post interestingness usually results in my dropping a person from my Twitter feed altogether (I may keep them on my Following list so I can check in occasionally, but I won't read their updates regularly).

I try only to post when I am (a) doing something interesting or (b) have an interesting observation to make. I do not always succeed (as you can see by my recent Tweet, "Running errands," heh), but I do try to post fewer than three times a day.

Twitter takes up maybe, MAYBE, 15 minutes of my day, if you include the time it takes to feel my phone vibrate, retrieve my phone, open my phone, read the message, and delete the message. I like Twitter, because it's interesting to me what my interesting friends/family/acquaintances are doing. I like when Earthdog tweets a question and I have an answer. It's a fun, quick way to communicate.

I genuinely believe the folks who think Twitter is evil and a waste of time are doing it wrong. Like a lot of things on the web, it can be a really useful and fun tool ... or it can be turned into a time sink. The trick is not to turn it into a time sink.

File under: Geekiness
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April 16, 2008

Dethklok is touring again! BRUTAL!

Details here.

I will be at the San Francisco show. WOO HOO!

File under: Geekiness
Posted at 01:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

April 03, 2008

Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor Discusses her Stroke

This video is a must-see. It's nearly 20 minutes long, but worth every minute.

Neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor woke up one morning to discover she was having a stroke. She discusses what the experience was like from the inside, knowing what she did about how the brain works, and explains what she has learned from her experience. Absolutely fascinating. The video and a transcript are available here, and I am cut-and-pasting the transcript below the fold for posterity.

Continued...

File under: Geekiness
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March 31, 2008

Youhaas Global Brings the Rock

As Antwon has already noted, he and I did the Endless Setlist in Rock Band over the weekend. Again. He sang on Expert, I played lead guitar on Expert. It was epic win.

Like last time, my shoulder is sore, but unlike last time it does not appear to be utterly destroyed (I was very careful with my Overdrive/Star Power activation moves). I'm taking the evening off from Aikido to be on the safe side and am really babying it. Here's hoping it recovers a lot faster than last time.

File under: Geekiness
Posted at 04:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

March 13, 2008

Sigh.

Someday I will learn that this is not a fruitful use of my time. As annoying as it is to abandon the field to idiots, it may well be better for my sanity. After a year or so of being fairly restrained, I gave in to temptation today. Wasted my time and that of readers of the forum I was posting on.

So annoying.

My one consolation is that it wasted the guy's time too ... though I think he might've enjoyed it, being one of those not-quite-but-nearly trolls. Feh.

Just another Goddamn Learning Experience, as they say.

File under: Geekiness
Posted at 03:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

January 18, 2008

Blogroll

Man. My blogroll is getting outta control! Nevermind my actual RSS aggregator list. Feh.

So: NOTICE! I am cleaning out my blogroll, tidying it up so it'll be a bit more useful. For one thing, I'm taking out the list of Flickr feeds I subscribe to. You can see who I've got friended through Flickr by looking at my Flickr profile, so it's all there. No need to duplicate it here.

File under: Geekiness
Posted at 10:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

January 07, 2008

Journal vs. Blog

Fadethecat on why she has a journal, not a blog.

The journal vs. blog debate has been going on for ages, and I think she sums up the difference really well. Journals are like the journals folks used to (or in my case, still do) keep on paper -- accounts of what you've been up to, your thoughts, etc.

I have a blog because a blog is a bit narrower in scope -- it's your thoughts, usually on a particular topic. You don't have to catch up if you've been away, you just go back to posting. While I am happy to twitter on and off about what I'm up to in the moment, but the thought of having my journal online where anybody could read it gives me the willies. I do have an unusually open blog, but it's not as open as a journal would be.

As I often tell people when describing my blog, I have this blog because I used to send things out to my peeps in bursts via email, and the blog lets me avoid clogging their inboxes and possibly reach a wider audience.

File under: Geekiness
Posted at 03:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

December 13, 2007

Sad news

Terry Pratchett has Alzheimer's. He describes it as "an embuggerance" and says "Frankly, I would prefer it if people kept things cheerful, because I think there's time for at least a few more books yet :o)"

Still.

It's a horrible disease and he is way too young (59!!) to have to deal with this crap. I was hoping we'd have a new Discworld novel every couple of years until he was in his eighties. I'm hoping that this is an early diagnosis (sounds like it is), and that all the exciting new tech they're working on for Alz patients will be put to good use on Pterry and he'll have a lot longer to be himself and keep writing.

File under: Geekiness
Posted at 11:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

December 11, 2007

McWhatNow?

A new AIM bot has appeared in my chat program - McLovin12Four. Googling shows me nada, except that other people are Googling about it too.

Any of my readers know what this is?

File under: Geekiness
Posted at 09:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

December 07, 2007

Linguistic Geekitude

Peter and I wound up talking for something like half an hour the other day about whether or not "Christmas tree light repairman" is a word in English. (It is one in German, which is how the matter came up.)

His blog entry explains things pretty thoroughly, I think. I do, however, still maintain that I'm right - "Christmas tree light repairman" is four words, not one.

Unnervingly enough, everything I look up to support my assertion is pretty inconclusive (see his dictionary samples) . For example: Quoth The Deluxe Transitive Vampire, "A noun is a word that names a person, place, thing, or abstraction. ... Compound nouns are nouns made up of more than one word: razzle-dazzle, bedroom, cream puff, toothache, bubble bath, nuit blanche, she-wolf, shadowboxing, guardian angel, gun control, amour-propre, white-collar worker..." So, "Christmas tree light repairman" is a compound noun (it names a person or an abstraction, I think). But is it a word? Well, it's made up of words, so it should be something else, right? But, a noun is a word and it's a word, so...

*headdesk*

This is why being a grammar/language geek is at once awesome and frustrating. Ultimately, this is all meaningless semantics, but I like closure. And since I have a strong appeal to authority, I like it when authorities (like dictionaries) are conclusive. But in this case, they're not. Sigh.

File under: Geekiness
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December 04, 2007

Further proof that I am a geek

Some time before Rock Band came out, I mentioned to Twon that I should ping the guy who runs the music school I used to attend and ask for a drum lesson to help me out on drums.

Then we got Rock Band, and I kinda sucked on drums, so I emailed him to ask about getting a oneoff lesson.

He said yes!

Last night, I went to a music school and spent half an hour learning from a pro with forty years of teaching experience so that I can do better at a video game.

I am a geek, and I am proud of it!

File under: Geekiness
Posted at 03:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

November 20, 2007

How odd

Stickers!

The above photo has 1600 views on Flickr. My next most-viewed pic has almost 500 views (it's this crazy shot of Twon). What is it about those stickers that makes people want to view the photo? Is it that they want to enlarge it so they can read them? What's the deal?

Crazy.

Also crazy: my third-most-viewed shot is this one of me doing a makeup test for my Judy Nails costume. It's only five views behind the shot of Twon.

WTF, people. Srsly.

File under: Geekiness, Pure Ego!
Posted at 04:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

November 07, 2007

MC Frontalot in SF 11/25!!

MC Frontalot will be at Cafe du Nord in SF on 11/25!!!

I am of course going. Who all wants to come? I have one person who's in so far. I'm going to order tix all at once to save on the fees, so ping me by the 15th and I'll get you one too.

Check out MC Frontalot's music.

File under: Geekiness
Posted at 03:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

November 05, 2007

Dethklok Live!

Oh, mans. I had the best time this Friday.

OK, let me clarify.

I had a tremendously ass time. Then I had a time so metal and awesome that the overall experience was fantastic.

Continued...

File under: Geekiness
Posted at 02:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

October 31, 2007

DETHKLOK

Dethklok opening for And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead at UC Berkeley This Friday!!!!!

Show at 7, doors at 6. Free show, apparently.

I am planning to bail on work early and rush over there to see it. Anybody want to come with?

File under: Geekiness
Posted at 06:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

October 24, 2007

Ju-Ju-Judy Nails

So I'm working on my Halloween costume this year: Judy Nails from Guitar Hero.

DAMN has it been a lot of hassle! No wonder I only do a new costume every 4-5 years. Geez.

Here's a shot of her from the game:

Throw the horns

And here's how it's coming along...

Continued...

File under: Geekiness
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October 23, 2007

Wheee!

Still at She's Geeky. TOo busy running around from session to session and talking to cool people to blog properly. Heh.

File under: Geekiness
Posted at 04:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
She's Geeky Update

Do-ocrazy Is a really interesting idea. Heather is leading a discussion/class thing about it here at She's Geeky. It seems like it requires a lot of energy and focus, but that's a good thing, right? Gets stuff done!

The Mercury news ran an article about the conference which is pretty shoddy, imo. It's focusing on about five minutes of one of yesterday's sessions, where gals were swapping horror stories of discrimination in the workplace and brainstorming ideas for dealing. But the dealing got left out of the piece entirely. WTF. LAME. I'm trying to figure out what to say in a comment on the story.

ETA: A fellow attendee responds to the Merc article.

File under: Geekiness
Posted at 10:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
She's Geeky Day Two

I'm at the morning session here at She's Geeky. We're using the priciples of Open Space Technology here. They are:

  • Whoever comes are the right people.
  • Whatever happens is the only thing that could have.
  • Whenever it starts is the right time.
  • Whenever it is over, it is over.
In addition, we're using the Law of Two Feet (aka The Law Of Motion): If you are not learning or contributing, it is your responsibility to respectfully find somewhere you are. In other words, if you're not having fun, go somewhere else and have fun!

Because this is an Unconference, we're setting the day's schedule RIGHT NOW. It's pretty interesting. I'm hoping it will work pretty well. We'll see. I'll try to blog more today than I did yesterday.

I'm really hoping Violet Blue will be able to present today.

Another random note: I'm slightly bummed - I missed out on the nifty coffee mugs that were made for the con because there weren't enough to go around (a bunch mor epeople signed up after the mugs were ordered) and I didn't get coffee right when I arrived yesterday. Poo. Not that I need any more coffee mugs, but still.

Anyway: watch my Twitter and this space for updates during the day!

File under: Geekiness
Posted at 08:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

October 22, 2007

She's Geeky

I'm spending today and tomorrow at She's Geeky, an (un)conference about geeky gals. Unconferences are pretty interesting - the topics of discussion and whatnot are picked by the attendees. For example, the first event is a big lunch where everyone sits at "affinity tables" - tables with a topic. You pick a topic that looks interesting and sit at that table. If you're not interested in any of the topics written up on the table map so far, you make a new topic at an empty table. For example, when I arrived, none of the topics were particularly fitting for my interests, so I made my own - Blogging (Text!), to contrast with the Videoblogging table.

So far, nobody is taking me up on it. The beauty of the whole thing is, though, I can give up and go to another table, or change my table's topic pretty easily.

File under: Geekiness
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October 14, 2007

ROCK BAND

Check out what we did this weekend!!!!

We hit up the Rock Band tour, wooo! Twon's writeup is here. Rawk. Good times. Am now thoroughly psyched up for the actual release of the game next month.

File under: Geekiness, Pure Ego!
Posted at 05:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

October 05, 2007

Book -> Movie = angst

The Seeker:The Dark Is Rising is full of differences from the book it's based on.

As a long-time fan of Dracula, this does not surprise me. It does make me heave a sigh and thank my lucky stars I somehow missed reading Cooper's novels and thus can go into the movie without a lot of baggage.

I'm starting to think that the Harry Potter movies are spoiling young fantasy fans. They complain about so much with those, but hey, the author is heavily involved, the characters all have the right names, and the broad outlines of the plot as well as they basic characters' personalities are all there. It's the little details that are messed up. Ditto the Lord of the Rings movies, which are insanely close to the books about 90% of the time.

Let me introduce you to the travesty that is the average Dracula adaptation.

Continued...

File under: Geekiness
Posted at 11:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

October 03, 2007

Moonlight

Holy crap, "Moonlight" is a terrible show. This article is right, it's practically the platonic ideal of lousy television. Lousy acting, mediocre writing delivered in an overwrought style (and frequently in a back-and-forth patter that would be Sorkinesque if not for the fact that everyone seems to be working at it a little too hard. I knew from the beginning that it would probably be not-so-good, since I heard from a friend that on a recent convention panel, the creators of the show had never heard of Forever Knight, let alone seen it. WTF.

Sigh.

I love vampires, but not when they're in a show this terrible.

Maybe I'll get lucky and it will wind up full of campy goodness.

File under: Geekiness
Posted at 12:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

October 02, 2007

Live blogging the meetup

7:05pm Woo, Peter showed up! The meetup is officially begun!

Continued...

File under: Geekiness
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September 28, 2007

Woo!

I am finally caught up on my booklog.

File under: Geekiness
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September 26, 2007

Jo-Ann Fabrics, You Have Failed Me For the Last Time

Dammit. Wasted a lunch hour at Jo-Ann Fabric & Craft trying unsuccessfully to find fabric for my Halloween costume. Grrr. If anybody is feeling helpful, I'm looking for the plaid and stripey fabric in the pic below (and if you have a lead on stockings that look like that, I will totally be your BFFOMG!)

File under: Geekiness
Posted at 01:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
Creative Sync Manager and Tech Support Suck

I bought a Creative Zen Vision: M recently to replace my beloved Neuros (which still works fantastically as a car MP3 player, but after several years of hard use has a battery life of about five minutes, and is no longer being made, so no replacement battery is available).

I love my Zen. It's beautiful. It plays perfectly, and the screen is gorgeous.

But its sync manager is a piece of crap.

Continued...

File under: Geekiness
Posted at 10:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

September 13, 2007

Squee! I rock!

LOOKIE!!! I ROCK! OMG! YAY! My good buddy ETS totally nominated me! Squeee! She said very nice things about me, too:

Recently married and a Potter Purist, Ealasaid always makes me laugh, and she is terrific moral support in my ongoing efforts at weight loss. Sometimes I forget that we met while on the mailing list for the Vin Diesel Estrogren Brigade!
Squee!

Continued...

File under: Geekiness
Posted at 05:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Hm.

My blogroll (and feedreader) are getting entirely too gigantic. Seriously. I have over three hundred feeds in there.

Let me repeat that: over three hundred feeds.

WTF.

Methinks it's time for some housecleaning. I have already implemented Inbox Zero protocols on my email, I think it's time to do something similar for my RSS situation.

File under: Geekiness
Posted at 04:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

September 12, 2007

Hacking the CueCat Scanner

I guess this makes it official: I'm a bit of a hardware person. I just successfully hacked my CueCat.

Continued...

File under: Geekiness
Posted at 06:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

August 23, 2007

More medical crap

My health as been sufficiently lousy lately (I have had the same damn headache since mid-June, and that's just the start of it) that my health team is running oodles of tests on me, including an MRI. One of the tests finally came up with something: H. Pylori, a nasty little critter that actually thrives in the stomach. Since it can handle stomach acid, you might imagine that it's hard to kill off, and you'd be right. I'm taking a course of antibiotics (three different kinds!) which is actually making me feel really lousy. 'course, that might just be the cold I've picked up - it's that coughing crap that's going around here. I feel like a dog with kennel cough. And of course, doesn't it just figure that I'd catch a cold while on these antibiotics - colds, of course, aren't vulnerable to antibiotics.

What's awesome is that I'm also taking Pepto-Bismol - it has high doses of bismuth in it, which H. Pylori apparently hates. I also just read that the little bastards hate green tea, too. Fortunately, I love the stuff. I'm adding that to the regimen. The antibiotics I'm taking are 85% effective alone and 95% when taken with Pepto-Bismol, but I'm happy to up the odds. I am not at all fond of this crap. Plus, maybe if we get rid of the little bastards, my body will be happier and the headache will go away. See, all stresses on my body aggravate my fibro, and I'd imagine that ulcer-causing bacteria count as stress. Since fibro can cause headaches, it kind of makes sense that the infestation might be the cause of the headache.

At any rate, that's what's up with me.

Well, that and Guitar Hero. Our party has re-invigorated me to work on my various GH goals. Between the two, I think it's likely that I will be somewhat incommunicado for a while.

File under: Fibromyalgia, Geekiness
Posted at 02:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

August 21, 2007

WOOOOO!

This weekend's Guitar Hero shindig was a smashing success. Behold!

Photos!

Video!

We had a great turnout and everybody was heaps of fun.

Can't wait for the next one. :D

File under: Geekiness
Posted at 03:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

August 18, 2007

WOOOOOOOOO!

SCOREHERO/GUITAR HERO PARTY WOOO!

Our apartment is full of people WAY better at Guitar Hero than me. It is awesome. We have tripled the number of consoles in the house (gotta have hacked PS2s to play custom tracks, after all) and there's also an extra computer in the den. RAWK.

File under: Geekiness
Posted at 12:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

August 17, 2007

Woo! A Winnar Iz Me!


File under: Geekiness
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August 13, 2007

Dammit

Nerdapalooza is being postponed.

Time to cancel that RV registration.

File under: Geekiness
Posted at 03:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
LJ: We Know Drama

Man. SixApart has stuck their foot in it again. Since they bought LiveJournal they've just been messing things up over and over. The latest thing is that they're banning folks who've shelled out $150+ on the service, with no warning, for posting content which may or may not violate the very vague terms of service. That's bad enough, but now they're handling the reaction of their customers very, very badly. Oh, and they don't shut down pro-anorexia sites which tell gals how to starve themselves more effectively and hide the symptoms better because those are "support groups." (Link)

Sigh.

I have an LJ account (which I don't use except for commenting), and I read a lot of stuff on LJ. I also use a blogging tool created by SixApart. It depresses me that they're handling this so badly. Sigh.

Edited to add: useful tools for those thinking about leaving LJ

File under: Geekiness
Posted at 12:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

August 09, 2007

Nerdapalooza is Coming!

Man. So psyched. Just made the reservations for an RV spot at Redwood Acres, where Nerdapalooza is happening. THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING OMG! RAWK!

The details, since they're not posted in easy-to-find places for some reason:


WHAT: The biggest Nerd Music Festival on the west coast!
WHERE: Redwood Acres, Eureka, CA.
WHEN: September 22-23, 2007

File under: Geekiness
Posted at 10:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

July 30, 2007

ZOMG IT'S HERE!

The book!

YAY!

Mind you, I promised myself that I'd finish the book I have to read for my tutoring student before starting HP7, but still. I HAVE IT! I now have the whole series. Go me.

File under: Geekiness
Posted at 05:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

July 26, 2007

Further proof that I am a huge geek

I just paid a deposit on a custom-made belt and vambrace for my Halloween costume, which is a recreation of a character from Guitar Hero.

I am SUCH a dork.

File under: Geekiness
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July 25, 2007

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - pre-read musings

As many of my readers know, I am a die-hard purist when it comes to modern books originating in the UK. I buy Terry Pratchett and JK Rowling's books through Amazon.ca so I can get the UK editions.

As a result, I always have to wait for a while before reading the new book. It's annoying, but worth it.

Especially because I don't have a big problem with spoilers.

And I especially don't mind spoilers of HPatDH because I have long expected it to be a fairly crappy book. I'm pleased to note that from the spoilers I've read, it seems increasingly to be exactly that.

Obviously, there are spoilers below. Duh.

Continued...

File under: Geekiness
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July 02, 2007

NERDAPALOOZA

Z0MG. Nerdapalooza. A Nerdcore/chip-hop/etc festival. This year. In Humboldt. I'm already posting on the forums and have three people planning to ride up with me.

This means if anybody else wants to ride up with me, I gotta rent a van or borrow Mom's truck or something.

SO AWESOME. I just love the idea of a whole crapload of nerds getting together for a weekend to celebrate nerd music. RAWK!

I am seriously about to pee my pants from the excitement or something. SQUEEEEEEEEEEE!

If you are interested in riding up with me, lemme know and I'll start looking into bigger vehicles.

File under: Geekiness
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June 29, 2007

I'm such a dork.

I've signed up for several more networking-type sites. I blame CreativeSage. Anyway, I'm now on Mashable, Natuba, and Tumblr as well as all the other ones I was on before. Whee!

File under: Geekiness
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March 28, 2007

Blogging and Openness

I've mused about this idea before a little, but this post over at Molly's got me thinking about it again.

Continued...

File under: Geekiness, Musings
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March 22, 2007

Aah, the life of a geek

I have The Best Fiance Ever(tm). He got me a Palm Tungsten E2 for my birthday, to replace my oldass Palm IIIxe. It is a thing of beauty, it really is. Color screen, about a jilion pixels compared to the III, it's just... gorgeous. So cool. Eek! :) I've been having a blast finding software for it and playing with the features and everything. So cool.

In the annoyances-that-only-bug-a-geek category, I am finding myself very irked at FeedDemon - it's a totally kickass RSS aggregator program (which can handle friendslocked posts on LJ!) but it generates the most halfassed blogroll I have ever seen. I have over 200 feeds - having a blogroll which consists entirely of all the feeds in one alphabetized list is so stupid I lack words to describe it. I can put the feeds in folders in the application, why can't it generate a blogroll with the same damn folders? Bloglines generates a perfectly useable blogroll... but can't handle friendslocked posts. Goddammit. Guess for the time being I'll just use both. Sigh. Anybody know of an aggregator that will generate a good blogroll AND handle friendslocked posts?

File under: Geekiness
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February 20, 2007

I give up.

I am going to have to stop using BlogLines as my primary RSS aggregator because it cannot handle friendslocked posts. I just have too many folks whose blogs I read who friendslock their posts, and Bloglines doesn't have the capability to log in and check those for me. Neither does Thunderbird, apparently.

Readers! Help me out! I want an RSS aggregator than can handle friends-only posts on Livejournal and Blogger, as well as regular feeds. What's the best one to use? There seem to be a bajillion.

File under: Geekiness
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February 06, 2007

Liveblogging the Meetup

Woot, Blogger Meetup in da hizzy!

So far it's just Rich, j0nchan, and moi.

  • Rich says none of the people he knows are Wikifamous (ie, have an entry on Wikipedia.
  • Rich has never been to Disneyland. Geez. His family went when he was too little to go (13 months) and a family member who was 10 at the time broke a ride. Apparently she has a knack for that sort of thing.
  • Antwon: Batman's superpower is having an R&D department.
  • If Rich were in charge, anybody without actual powers wouldn't be a real superhero.
  • They are firing ideas about weird superheroes back and forth and Antwon came up with Jazz Hands! Rich: he can break anything as long as he does it like this! (jazz hands movement) Awesome!!!
  • I am having trouble liveblogging this because Rich is uploading photos and j0n is surfing MySpace. DAMMIT!
  • Antwon says he can get me a steno pad if it helps.
  • Rich is waiting for Court Reporter Hero II to come out.
  • I'm going to quit liveblogging this because trying to do it is making me insane!!!!

10:00 pm Under orders, I am updating. Rich says I have to include this:

Antwon: At birth, your physician has a greater gravitational pull on you than Jupiter. That's why I don't really trust astrology.
Rich: So you were born under the sign of Horowitz?

File under: Geekiness
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December 19, 2006

Well, I did it.

I have swallowed my pride and am conducting an experiment. I have put Google AdSense on the individual archive pages in this blog. I'm adding it to the individual archive pages in my other blogs too. If they start raking in the dough, they stay. If they're only getting me a dollar or so a month, they go. I don't mind being a little bit of a shill if it earns me mad money (and I know I get a lot of search traffic. You should see the comments I get on ancient posts from people searching for random stuff... seriously. Some of these people are nuts. I AM NOT AN ACTOR ! I JUST WRITE ABOUT THEM! GOD!)

Anyway.

So if you hit an individual archive page and see an ad and go "OMG Ealasaid said she'd never put ads on her blogs!" remember it's just an experiment.

And that I have mad bills to pay. Freakin' student loans.

File under: Geekiness
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December 05, 2006

Liveblogging!

Yay Liveblogging!

Continued...

File under: Geekiness, Liveblogging
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October 27, 2006

Podcasts

I was chatting with a pal about podcasts yesterday. I have the 'casts I listen to linked in my blogroll, but nowhere do I talk about what I like about each of 'em. I also appear not to ever have blogged about the podcatcher I use, Juice.

Continued...

File under: Geekiness, Linkage
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October 10, 2006

Argh

I clearly need a new hobby, right? Because I have too much spare time? Right.

The Show with zefrank is making me want to take up vlogging. I keep thinking about how the digital camera the fiance and I share has a video mode.

Dammit.

File under: Geekiness
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October 06, 2006

mcchris FTW

I met MC CHRIS!
mcchris RULES
More pix and a real writeup to follow.

File under: Geekiness
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October 02, 2006

White and Nerdy

Weird Al proves yet again that he is White and Nerdy - yay for a big artist shoutin' out the nerdcore love.

(via joiedelivre.)

Also, miniupdate: feeling much much much better, thanks for all the well wishes! I am about 95% back to "normal" (hee) now, so yay!

File under: Geekiness, Linkage
Posted at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

September 20, 2006

Liveblogging!

We're hanging out at Coffee Society for the blogger meetup. Where y'all at?

(Note to those new to my liveblogging entries... just click "reload" periodically if you're reading this in real time to get updates live from the meetup!)

Continued...

File under: Geekiness, Liveblogging
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September 08, 2006

Miscellanea

Damn you, Emusic! I was doing so well getting on with my music sorting project, but now I've gone and downloaded nearly a hundred more songs from you! ARGH!!!! *headdesk*

Albums downloaded today:


  • PJ Harvy, Dry
  • Burning Brides, Leave No Ashes
  • Brain Donor, Brain Donor
  • Clannad, Dulaman
  • Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, Fetish
  • John Lee Hooker, Boom Boom
  • Mediaeval Baebes, The Rose
  • The Coup, Party Music

So now I have more music, yay, but at the same time I am a lot furthe