general geekishness

n00b

7 Comments

We’re thinking about getting a PlayStation 4.  Like, soon.  And that means I need to pick out video games.  The problem is that I have no idea where to start.  I don’t play video games.  We had a Nintendo (the original version), but we only had maybe four games.  I remember Duck Hunt, Super Mario Bros., Zelda (although I don’t remember playing that one), and Joust.  I think we borrowed Mike Tyson’s Punch Out sometimes.  Then at some point we added Tetris and Dr. Mario.  But you get the picture – that’s the era of video games I’m familiar with.  In college, Greg, Erik, and John played Goldeneye for hours and hours, but I never tried it long enough to get the hang of the controller.  John had a PS2 for a while, but I wasn’t really interested in the games he played, so I never really tried to get into it.

Now I want to get into it, but I don’t know where to start.  I’m as new as newbies get – I don’t even know what type of game I want to play.  The only thing I know is that I don’t want one with a steep learning curve.  I don’t want to get frustrated immediately.  I’m reading reviews, seeing what I can find out.  I may just have to guess.

Help?

 

Please bother me with trivialities

Leave a Comment

My brain is stuffed with trivia.  It’s not just me – Corey and Mel have movie and music trivia down (I’m not bad those, but not great), Christine knows the Greek alphabet and can rattle off all prepositions (we don’t know WHY, but she can), I can name all the states in alphabetical order (A through L – I get stuck at the Ms.  There are so many!), and Mom and Dad can come up with all KINDS of crap.

There’s plenty of demand for trivia this weekend, what with the crossword puzzles, Songburst, and THREE versions of Trivial Pursuit in the house.  We’re the right people for the job.  Even if we all blank on the occasional question.  It’s cheating to use Google, but sometimes we can’t help ourselves. Google knows all, and we need confirmation.  What did people do before Google?

Columbus Day rocks, but not because of Columbus

1 Comment

Molly and Jess and I had the best Columbus Day.  It was beautiful out (see exhibit A), so we spent a few hours sitting at a sidewalk table, drinking wine and playing a game called Dreaming Spires, where we built Oxford University.  It was great.

Exhibit A

Exhibit A

Seriously nice day.  Despite the ONE mosquito who’s still hanging out in OCTOBER of all months, just waiting for me to show up.  She found me.  Her patience was rewarded.

John had a pretty good Columbus Day, too.  He had to work for a while, but then he had a flying lesson, and (as you can see from that picture), it was  a GREAT day to fly.  AND his instructor finally said something helpful to him the other day (new instructor next week, thank goodness), so his landings today were much better and he feels much more comfortable with it.  Soloing is just around the corner.  Yay John!

Jarring imagery

Leave a Comment

We went to the Maryland Renaissance Fair on Saturday – we had a good time, as usual, but one thing stuck out from this visit.  Throughout the day, we saw this one guy dressed up in all black, kind of a leather armor sort of thing, with a black leather featureless mask that covered his entire head.  We’re not sure what he was meant to be (maybe one of the Nazgul or Sauron or something unrelated to Lord of the Rings), but he looked pretty creepy.  Kind of like this, but with fewer spikes:

Sauron cosplay

We bought in to the sinister vibe of this guy, and it lasted all day, right up until we headed for the exit.  Featureless face mask guys get hungry like the rest of us, I guess, but he lost ALL scary points when he bought a pretzel.  Not cool, dude.  You’re not scary when you’re eating.

I like TV

4 Comments

It’s fall, and that means we get our TV shows back!  Yay TV!  I might be over-selling this a little bit.  I’m not that excited.  But I’m a little excited.  In the last two days, we’ve watched the first episode of the current season of Gotham, The Flash, and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.  We’ve found that we remember what was going on at the end of the last season of Gotham and The Flash, but SHIELD we somehow managed to completely forget.  The season premiere started, and we were both like, wait – what?  What’s going on?  Where’s [some character]?  We’re not really any clearer having watched the episode.  We might need to go back.  But with SHIELD we don’t really mind.

Until this week, we haven’t been watching much TV, but we’re likely to fall back into old habits.  Are we fighting it?  Not so much.  Winter is coming.  Why not watch TV?  And in support of that goal, we started a new show tonight called Blindspot.  Jaime Alexander stars in it, and we’re pleasantly surprised to see that she can act.  The only other things I’ve seen her in are the Thor and Avenger movies (maybe just Thor?) and one episode of SHIELD.  She’s doing a hell of a lot more acting in this show than she ever did as Lady Sif.

Noises

2 Comments

We moved into an apartment in an old townhouse, so a certain amount of noise is to be expected.  We have creaky floors, thin walls, and an unexpectedly noisy central air system.  It makes some super-weird sounds every time it comes on.  After much thought and hours of study, I have narrowed down the source of the noises to one of two things:

  1. Fiends from hell are straining against their chains, struggling with everything they have to come through the vents and drag us, body and soul, down to the fiery depths.
  2. Pterodactyls have gotten stuck in the air ducts.  They’re growing hoarse, but we can still hear their creaky roaring.  They’re coming.  If they can fit through the vents.

I’m relying on you to avenge us.

Use your words

Leave a Comment

Is it possible to live in a world without acronyms? I’m a government contractor; my whole workday is filled with alphabet soup. The business world in general uses them all the time, and it’s everywhere in software, so even if I weren’t in the government contracting business, I don’t think I could escape acronyms. Maybe I can avoid them when I’m not talking about work.  Would I sound like the biggest weirdo if I pronounced whole words instead of acronyms?*

[Big pause: I fell down the Google rabbit hole and learned some things.]

Things I didn’t know before this morning’s googling:

  • Acronyms are only acronyms if you can pronounce them as a word (like NATO). If you’re just saying the letters in order (like FBI), it’s an initialism.
  • Initialism is a word (and its plural is initialisms). Who knew?  Microsoft’s spellcheck does not agree that it’s a word, but the internet says otherwise, and I know that the internet is always right.
  • When you say the whole word (or phrase or proper name or whatever), all spelled out (like I’m considering doing), you’re saying the expansion of the acronym. I didn’t know that was a thing! I mean, obviously it’s a thing. I just didn’t know it had a word (expansion).

And all of this started because I was wondering if I would have to say television instead of TV, so I googled to see if TV was an acronym. Answer: No, it’s an abbreviation.  (I suppose it could be an initialism, but it’s short for one word, not two….it’s debatable, I guess, but now I am equipped for the debate.)

Back to my original point: I am tired of acronyms (and initialisms), and I’m going to try to avoid them in all non-work situations.  I have no idea if this is going to be difficult.  How many do I run into on a daily basis?  What’s much more likely (than success) is that I’ll have forgotten about this plan by morning.

*Will I sound like a weirdo?  It depends (and probably, yes).  If I spell out – I mean, if I use the expansion of sonar or laser, then I will be very much the weirdo.  Zip code is a sneaky one.  And PIN.  This probably won’t last.

Cosplay

2 Comments

John and I spent most of the drive to and from Awesome Con discussing who we would dress up as if we were ever to join the cosplay world.  I’m not saying we’re close to that or anything – if I had a favorite character in the whole wide world, I could see it happening, but I don’t feel that strongly about any of them.  (It’s the same kind of feeling I have about tattoos, only less permanent.)

But it is fun to think about it.  If I were going to stick with current Marvel characters, Peggy Carter would be a contender.  Not too hard – ’40s hair, blue suit, red hat.

Peggy_Carter_suit

IMG_20150602_184307[1]

Black Widow cosplay pretty much means a black spandex jumpsuit, and I just don’t see that happening.

blackwidow

IMG_20150602_184127[1]

Dr. Horrible, Amy Pond, Zoe from Firefly – I could do it, but I don’t feel like I have the devotion a lot of cosplayers have.  I’d be buying stuff, not making it…. For the time being, I’ll just keep appreciating everyone else.  Oh, like this little girl and her dad from Awesome Con.

Doctor and Dalek, like nature intended

Doctor and Dalek, like nature intended

Comics

Leave a Comment

I’ve mentioned before that I’ve never really gotten into reading comics, but that doesn’t mean I’m incapable of getting into it.  Or that I don’t want to try.  So I’ve been trying.  I just haven’t gone for the superhero stuff.  Instead, I’ve read (and liked) Chew (which has a pretty disgusting premise, but I really enjoyed it), Saga (which is fascinating), and The Wicked + The Divine (which I really liked).  Oh, and Ms. Marvel – okay, I lied.  One superhero comic, and it was really good.  Next up, aside from the second volumes of each of those (I’ve been reading them in graphic novel form, not weekly comic books), is Federal Bureau of Physics.

More reasons to visit our local comic book store!  Also, they recommend stuff.  Can’t complain.

Shout it from the rooftops

3 Comments

John and I decided a while ago that we need to embrace our geeky interests, so we’ve made an effort lately to find time for things like comic books and tabletop games.  (We were already doing just fine on keeping up with the TV shows and movies and stuff.)

I don’t read comics, really – I never got into it, and when I tried, I found that I didn’t take the stories in like I do when I’m reading books.  Not enough words and maybe I skim the pictures?  I’m not sure.  John does read comics, although not religiously.  He usually keeps track of some of the Superman and Batman titles, and he says the Civil War series (I don’t know if it’s the Avengers or just Captain America) is really good.  (That’s the series the next Captain America movie is supposed to be based on.)

Anyway, our local comic book shop closed in early December, so John was pretty happy to see a sign for a new one opening in our town.  We dropped by on Memorial Day to check it out.  Turns out the people who own it used to work at the one that closed, and the guy who was working that day recognized John, and we had a nice chat.  He mentioned that the store was going to have a booth at Awesome Con in DC the next weekend, and it’s possible that John and I both heard a record scratch.

A convention in DC?  The very next weekend?  We’ve been talking about going to a convention (comics, gaming, fantasy, SF – whatever) for a while.  With the house and the dogs and everything, there were always reasons not to, but hanging out with like-minded people celebrating the things we enjoy sounds like a really good time to us.  Now, with no house and no dogs, there was really no reason we couldn’t check out a convention we wouldn’t have to travel to.

As soon as we got home, we checked out the website, and guys.  Alex Kingston and ARTHUR DARVILL were going to be there.  Decision made.  We were going to see Rory!

John called dibs on wearing the angels have the phone box t-shirt.  We’re not about to be that couple who wears the same t-shirt, and I really wanted to wear mine, so we began negotiations.  John graciously gave in to me.

We only went for the day on Saturday (and we met Jess there to share in the geeky fun), so we didn’t get to do or see everything there was to do and see, but we saw enough to be happy.  The only thing we didn’t do that we were interested in was check out the tabletop gaming room.  Try out games, meet some people – we could have gone back on Sunday, but by the end of Saturday, we were pretty worn out.

We went to both Q&A panels (for Alex Kingston and Arthur Darvill), and they were great.  Charming, funny, entertaining – you’d think they were in show business or something!  Really, though, what is it about British actors?  Are they born funny?  Arthur Darvill’s panel was really really good.  I think I have a new celebrity crush.  We made friends in the line waiting to get in – Alicia and Matt have been to Awesome Con three years running.  Alicia was wearing a TARDIS dress.  (I totally want one.)  And there was this little boy (two years old, maybe – not older than three) dressed as the 11th doctor.  SO cute.

We spent the rest of the day wandering the exhibit hall, checking out all the booths (stores, stuff, artists), bought some stuff (comics, posters), and gawked at the celebrities signing autographs and talking to people.  There was too much to see in the two hours we had left, but with some rushing at the end (the place was closing and they were kicking us out), we managed to get up and down all of the aisles.

We want to do it again!

Curbing my desire to squee

2 Comments

I mentioned the other day (last week?) that I loved Amy Bai’s Sword SO much that I emailed her to tell her about it.  (Seriously, I really REALLY liked it, and I’m really REALLY glad she’s working on the sequel.)  Then I started following her on Twitter (I follow a handful of authors I like on Twitter – they’re fun).  Then she emailed me back and was super nice.  (Or maybe she emailed me back and then I started following her on Twitter – can’t remember, doesn’t matter.)  AND THEN, she started following ME on Twitter.  I am not cool enough for this.  But I’m trying to act like I am.  🙂  No public squeals of delight. I’m pretty sure the neighbors didn’t hear me.

Luckily, Jess has upped her game on Twitter, and I’ve taken that as a dare to do the same.  Why be on Twitter if I’m not going to use it?  All I do is follow a bunch of people hoping to be amused.  Boring for anyone following me, including myself (not that there are many of those (which is okay)).  So let’s be less boring (at least to me and Jess).

Small dilemma: I was going to start tweeting about the books I’ve been reading that I’ve really liked, but having Amy Bai follow me on Twitter (have I mentioned that Amy Bai is following me on Twitter now?) makes me hesitate (because hers is one of the books I would tweet about).  Does it look self-serving?  Like, “Look at me!  I liked your book!  I’m telling the world, and it’s only coincidence that I didn’t tell the world until after you started following me and would see it (wink, wink)!”  Except that I told you guys before she was following me (but she doesn’t know that), and I told HER before she was following me (she’s following me!), and since I’ve already told you, why even tweet about it?  I don’t want to look like I’m sucking up or starved for attention.  Or a stalker.

Overthinking this?  Probably.

Definitely.  Authors are people who like other people for the same reasons everyone else does, and being nice to people is appreciated (usually) and my insecurities are having a field day.  Just relax already.

No more “You’re welcome”?

Leave a Comment

I did something for someone at work the other day, and I got an email back: “Danke!”  I wanted to reply in kind, so I googled to find out how to say “you’re welcome” in German.  (It’s “bitte”.  Apparently a multi-use word.  Actually, I googled it for French first (I’d already forgotten I could go with “de rien”) – I figured if she was going to go from English to German without warning, I could switch languages, too.)

Anyway, while googling I ran across this article: Why You Shouldn’t Say “You’re Welcome”.  The article talks about someone’s suggestion that you reply with “I know you’d do the same for me” when someone says thank you (for a favor or whatever), and I had an almost physical reaction to it.  A bad one.  That sounds so sinister.  So much like “you owe me one” or “I’m holding this over your head” or something else negative.  I don’t like it.  But I kept reading, and nicely for me, the person writing the article felt the same way about it and continued to look for an alternative.

But even the alternative from the article isn’t something I’m totally comfortable with.  “Thank you!”  “I know you’d do the same for someone else.”  On the one hand, you’re stating an assumption that the person you did the favor for is as helpful as you were and would certainly go out of their way to help someone else.  How nice!  On the other hand, you’re placing an obligation on that person to do go something nice for someone else.  Maybe it’s not a bad thing, but who are you to place an obligation on someone else?  I did this for you, so go do something for someone else.  Eh – I’m of two minds.

I’m not convinced an alternative is needed.  What’s wrong with saying “you’re welcome”?  Often, most of the time even, I actually mean it.

It was a tabletop kind of weekend

Leave a Comment

Our trip to the mall yesterday was prompted by our need to get to a Barnes & Noble because, as I mentioned a week or so ago, John’s family knows us so well that we ended up with two copies of Geek Out.  One of them came from Barnes & Noble, so we headed there, receipt in hand, to exchange it.  Our plan was to get Lords of Waterdeep, but they didn’t have it, so we got D&D: Wrath of Ashardalon instead.  We played it last night, just the two of us, and it was actually really fun (it comes with a big dragon!).  We classed it up a bit with dinner (wine, baguette, cheese, apple, honey).  Right now I can’t remember if we won (too much wine?)…I think we did.  Today, we finally tried Elder Sign.  Also fun, but much more complicated to get going, and we lost – the Ancient One devoured us.

To end our nerdy weekend, we are probably going to watch the first couple of episodes of Agent Carter (or possibly watch Star Wars, which I have borrowed from a coworker and will have to give back soon).  For now, John is trying to solve an email server problem, and I am going to read my book, I think.  I just started A Discovery of Witches, and I think I want to be this character.  She went to Oxford for grad school, and the book starts with her in the Bodleian Library, doing research.  I’ve been there!  Took the tour!  And she runs AND she does yoga.  She’s also a witch who I think is going to end up in love with a vampire, so maybe I don’t want to be her exactly, but the framework for what I want is there.

I like games

1 Comment

Because John’s family knows us so well, we got two copies of the game Geek Out for Christmas.  It seems silly to own it twice, so after playing Lords of Waterdeep with Jess and Chuck on New Year’s Eve (good game, lots of fun), we decided to exchange a redundant Geek Out for that one.

lordsofwaterdeep

Well, we haven’t done it yet, but if we make it to the mall soon, we will.  At least a decision was made.  Margaret, when you decide to start your LARPing career, you should aim for the scary dark-elf-type person on the right for your first costume.  I don’t know who she is, but she looks like she could kick some ass.

We haven’t played Geek Out yet, but it’s a trivia game (that can also be played by two people), so maybe we’ll give it a try this weekend.

geekout

It’s the most bakingful time of the year

3 Comments

It’s that time again, kiddies.  Time to bake ALL the cookies.  138 of them, to be exact (although it’s 137  now – we ate one).  Not as many as last year, somehow.  Did I bake bigger cookies?  Or did John eat more batter?  Anyway, the cookies are cooling, and two more sweet potato pies are in the oven.  The toffee bark and peppermint bark get made tomorrow (they’re way easier – melt, mix, freeze, break into pieces).

We’ve determined that we are NOT going to the mall tomorrow.  It would have been just for fun, anyway, since we’re done with the shopping, but why make the trip if we really don’t have to?  No open house tomorrow (we’re taking the next couple of weeks off, although we’re available for showings, of course), so we don’t have to scramble to clean up or disappear.  It’ll be great.  We can sleep in, wrap some presents, leave the house if we feel like it…  That works for me.

We watched Knights of Badassdom last night.  Mom, you’ll hate it.  Don’t bother.  Same goes for you, Margaret.  Everyone else who hangs out around here would probably enjoy it (if you haven’t already seen it – I’m looking at you, Randy.  You’ve seen it, haven’t you?), silly as it is.  Full disclosure – it’s about LARPing.  And there go Mom and Margaret.  Bye, guys!  We still love you!

It was fun, and we liked it.  Great review, right?  That’s what they pay me for.  Except for the paying part.  And the “they” part.  There’s no “they”.

More better words please

Leave a Comment

A friend and I were talking about orphan rows today (as they relate to databases) and rows with dangling pointers, which are kind of the opposite, like parents who have lost their children, and we realized that there’s no word for parents who have lost their children.  What’s the orphan equivalent?  A wife whose husband has died is a widow, and a husband whose wife has died is a widower….and that’s when we realized that widower doesn’t make sense.  The husband didn’t widow anyone.  He is not one who widows.  So in addition to needing a word that means parent-who-has-children-who-have-died, we need a better word for a husband whose wife has died.  Someone should get on that.  Also, this is sad, so go watch the new Star Wars trailer.  And look for the Lucas enhanced version, too.  It’s funny.  You’ll feel better.

We don’t sound desperate, right?

1 Comment

The perfect couple came and looked at our house yesterday.  Please buy our house!  As soon as they walked in the door, the husband complimented my sweatshirt (I really like to dress up for showings).

dysentery

Then he noticed the games on our shelves and they both geeked out a little over Betrayal at House on the Hill (and thank you very much to Jess for introducing us to that one).  His wife hates being the traitor.

betrayal

If you don’t buy our house, please move in nearby.  We could be friends!

If you didn’t come to party, don’t bother knockin’ on my door

Leave a Comment

I saw a girl wearing a TARDIS dress at the movies last night.

Immediate reaction: “That’s cool.”

Follow-up: “I wonder why she’s wearing it.  There’s nothing Doctor Who-related going on at the theater tonight.”

Realization hits: “Oooooohhhhh.  It’s Halloween.  Right.”

I told her I liked her dress.

I think I want one.

I hope I still have friends

1 Comment

I have a list called “Don’t be a jerk”, and all of the items on it are people I need to email.  People I WANT to email.  People I like, people I like to talk to.  People I am NOT currently talking to because, obviously, I’m a jerk.  And I need reminding so that I will not act like one.  I am slowly working my way through this list.  And yes, YOU are on it.  Because I like you and I don’t want to be a jerk to you.  Any more.  (And I’m sorry.)  And perhaps I should stop writing here and start writing that email to you.  Hm, yes.  Good idea.

P.S. I’m using Google Keep for my lists.  I like it.