Yvette's Inner Geek Blog

It’s Talk Like a Pirate Day.

Just click here if you’re a skeptic and need to know WHY you should talk like a pirate today. My friend Carole sent me this yesterday, in preparation for today’s festivities:

My favorite part?  The "avast" key!  Yargh, it be good fun, it be.

In non-pirate news, I have another softball game tonight. I don’t really have the option of not going, since co-ed teams are always short on girls (though luckily we haven’t had to forfeit any games this year because of not enough girls… though it’s been close)

Ben tried making a comeback last Wednesday and did a nice job pitching. He can’t throw overhand because of an old shoulder dislocation problem (what a baby, I know) so pitching is really the best spot for him. And he has really perfected his underhand throw to first base… so much so that when he threw someone out, a guy from the other team’s dugout said (loud enough for me to hear at second base) "Wow!  Did you SEE that guy’s underhand?!?"

And then, while at bat, Ben re-injured his quad muscle while running to first base. He didn’t fight too much when I made him give up the base to a base runner (who scored a run, which Ben could have done if his leg wasn’t bum). I had already told him that I wasn’t going to spend another evening at the emergency room… that if he injured himself again, I would only drive him to the hospital and mayve pick him up when he was done. Luckily for him, he didn’t need to go to the hospital again.

Meanwhile, I played with sheer mediocrity at second base. But I generally have fun, so at least there’s that!

We have a double-header tonight at 6, and then the last double-header of the season next week. Playoffs are in October, but we’re the last team in the league right now… so I doubt we’ll play in them.  The teams we play against are mostly there to have fun, which is different from the league we used to play in Cincinnati. Last week was the most fun we’ve had, because the team we played against was first in the league… so they didn’t have to play very hard and totally weren’t jerks about it. If I were on a winning team, that’s how I’d be, too.

I hear my inner voice telling me to go to work again. Damn voice. But at least today it’s saying "Get yer booty to work!  And smartly, me lass!"

Rrrrrrrr! 

As the amateur historian/archivist of my extended family, the Microtek ScanMaker 9800XL Scanner with Transparent Media Adapter would be AWESOME. But even without the Transparent Media Adapter, the thing still costs over $1,000. Damn. I might as well build that into the cost of the iMac purchase that is somewhere down the road… ooh, and I’d also like to add in an HD camcorder… and some nice audio recording equipment… I think I’m experiencing a gadget-geek moment right now. More domestically speaking, I’ve been pining over how to incorporate the Cansolidator into our kitchen cabinets. Maybe I should go to work and try to earn some spare cash or something.

At this point, I think it’s going to be a while before I bring back the forum. Several reasons have led me to this decision, like the time it will take to manage it and, a little more philosophically, why I would even want an innergeek.us forum in the first place.

I’m sorry if you’ve been checking the website every day, just waiting in anticipation for the return of the forum. Also if you’re waiting for the next Geek Test update.

I know that it’s been a few years, and already the test has entered the era of internet antiquity. There have been three versions, much like there have been three Indiana Jones movies. The fourth has been in the making for a while… and hopefully it will be as awesome as we are hoping.

Feel free to leave your comments here on this post, or send me a flame mail or just an "I’m so disappointed" email like the ones like this, to which I just don’t know how to respond: 

— 

Subject: forum!

Dude, what’s up with the forum? I emailed you about it over a month ago, and you said it should be up within a week…

—

Subject: Pedantic Criticism of the Geek Test

Specifically, this item:

"Linux is the only worthwhile OS"

This shortchanges BSD geeks, Lisp Machine geeks, aficionados of even more obscure operating systems, and Andrew Tenenbaum.  It also ignores the growing popularity of OS X among Unix geeks.  Could use an update and some elaboration.

— 

Of course, there are plenty that remind me why I continue to feel responsibility for the test, like these:

Subject: Geek Test Additions

Dear Geekmaster,

We find that the, otherwise mind-bogglingly superior, Geek Test lacks a few statements.

We have, mostly for self-enrichment and to amuse ourselves, composed some suggestions for a few additional things that should earn us a higher geek-ratio.

We would be extremely honoured to have our stuff added to the test, should you find it worthy. We consider the attached document open source, so feel free to use it at your leisure.

Sincerely,
Søren and Karen
Geeks of Denmark

—

Subject: Fan Mail!

Yvette –
 
I took your test (the geek test) several years ago.  It was so much fun (I think I was ~35-40% geek)!  I just stumbled across it on some forum or another and didn’t realize there was a blog attached to it.  Then, a couple of months ago, I bought the book "She’s Such a Geek," and after I finshed all the essays I wanted to read more, so I googled the book title looking for some geek girl forums, and came across yours via the post about your entry for the book.  So, I started reading your blog and realized you were the same person who had made the geek test all those years ago (or, it seems like a long time ago!).  So, I just wanted to tell you that you have indirectly picked up a fan due to your entry for "She’s Such a Geek."  And I love the blog – it definitely resonates with me!
 
Thanks for the geek reading material!
 
Jennifer

—

That last one really gave me the warm fuzzies. Almost enough to respond to the other people who have emailed me recently about using the test on their various sites or creating their own versions. If you’ve written me an email like that recently, I will be responding in the near future. Thanks for asking in the first place, though.  

I just got this email. I wonder how far I might get this year in NaNoWriMo, or if I’ll go to more than one local gathering of fellow NaNoWriMoers. November is National Novel Writing Month and it’s what, 6 weeks away? Shit. I want to write. I want the discipline it takes, but I’m scared of failure (again).

 —-

From: NaNoWriMo Municipal Liaison
Subject: [NaNoWriMo :: Utah :: Elsewhere] NaNoWriMo is on the horizon!

Hello everyone,

Yes November is getting closer and that means great nano fun!  Its time to start thinking of your story and putting down some notes.  Also people have started to post on the forums so your welcome to join in.

Let me know if there is anything I can do to help you with this years nano.

<Liaison’s name censored >

This email is being sent to you by your local NaNoWriMo Municipal Liaison using a blind mail forwarding system. Municipal Liaisons are never given direct access to your contact information. To stop receiving emails from NaNoWriMo, simply log into your account on the site, and de-select the option to receive emails. Happy noveling!

Read more…

I just returned, very late last night, from a 4-day jaunt to the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota.

And by "jaunt", I of course mean 4-day business trip to teach classes at the annual Archiver’s Scrapfest convention for crazed and curious scrapbookers all over the country. Archiver’s already took down the information from their website, so I guess you’ll have to wait anxiously until next summer to read more details about the event. Or maybe I’ll get around to posting them here.

I’m still waking up a little and need to go into work, where I damn well better get some comp time. I stayed until after 7pm finishing stuff at work on Wednesday that had to be done before I left. I woke up at 5:00am on Thusday to catch my flight out, and Ben picked me up from the airport last night (he also drive me on Thursday, what a champ) and I walked in the door at 1am. Now it’s Monday again. Bleh.

The highlight of my daily morning mall experience was Caribou Coffee. I was first introduced to the awesome Starbucks Alternative of the North when Liz, Becki W. and I drove to Toronto on Spring Break many years ago, when I wasn’t quite 21 and could drink at the bars in Ontario and at the Second City theater, and where we perfected our Ontarionian dialect (i.e. the difference between American dollars and Canadian "DOLE-ers").

Otherwise, the mall was just a super-sized mall. With locals speaking in the adorable Minnesotan-close-to-Ontario-dialect. With a little amusement park in the center and lots of nice places to eat, like the Twin City Grill, a Ruby Tuesday that was under construction and where the poor waitress took 20 minutes to figure out which of the three total items we ordered belonged on which credit card, P.B. Loco with lots of really weird and somewhat delicious Peanut Butter creations, the Magic Pan Crepe Stand with fabulous French Crepes made by authentic Hispanic employees, and tons of Fast Food options of which we tried on Thai place that served the blandest Thai food ever. And that was my culinary experience at MoA.

I also went shopping during some down time, and found a couple of cool things at Nordstrom Rack (to my surprise, because I really didn’t feel like shopping when my coworker and I first went in) and some other stores. For the most part, they were the same stores you find everywhere else at every other mall, and I think I satisfied my need to ever visit the Mall of America again. Ben was happy to hear that. I never really had an urge to go there in the first place, but whatever. Who knows, I might even end up going back to teach classes again next year.

One really great thing that came out of the trip was getting to know my coworker. She just started in the Sales department as a Sales Assistant about a month ago, and I work in Marketing, so we hadn’t really talked much before. We had to share a hotel room (luckily we each had our own bed) and we got along very well. Hopefully we’ll even hang out for non-work-related purposes in the future.

I went to RC WIlley yesterday evening, which is a furniture store chain (with appliances, electronics, etc.) here in Utah and other nearby states. The sales people swarm like mosquitoes to get their blood commissions. But I had an expiring gift card, so I had to go in.

After long discussions over time with Ben about which TV stand to buy for our rear-projection big screen that we purchased several months ago (and love watching, sometimes to the point of tears it’s so wonderful… I’m talking about you, NBC’s Heroes), we finally agreed to purchase the stand that was made for our TV. It’s the end of the TV stand season, apparently, because I read somewhere online that many stores have them on clearance.

So I walked in and up to a sales guy in electronics and told him what I wanted. But I had seen it online for $100 cheaper because they’re going out of style for next year’s model, so could he do anything about the price? He said he would check and walked over to his manager, presumably. Then he came back and said that they could take $50 off…. and I said I’d take it. Because with shipping, the onilne stand would have been just as much anyway.

But. And there’s always a but like this when something is going well, right? The only TV stand in that model that RC Willey has anywhere, including all of their warehouses, was the one on display. The one with a big scratch on the front. Forget it, and also, dammit. Ben and I finally agreed upon a piece of furniture (a huuuuuuge deal…. we’re also still trying to find a decent couch to replace the one that I received from my parents when I went to college… the one that’s almost as old as I am and yes, you’d think that we’d have replaced it by now). Oh well.

For now, the TV will stay on the coffee table that Ben received from his parents when he moved into his first apartment… the one that used to hold his Commodore 64. The DVD player, cable box, Wii and topless modded Xbox (Ben doesn’t want to replace the lid for some reason unbeknownst to me) will continue to sit on the carpet until we find that TV stand somewhere else or, probably, change our minds and pursue a different one.

The problem was that I still had a $30 gift card to use before it expired yesterday. That was from a billing problem we had, and the girl who issued it wrote 9-3-2006 on it by mistake, even though it was issued in March 2007. I was prepared to fight the cashier if necessary. I had another gift card for a forgotten amount, procured through some crap “cash rebate” promotion that earned us another gift card 6 months after buying the TV in the first place.

So I called Ben (who stayed home to clean the storage room because he didn’t need to go because we knew exactly what we were going to buy) and we decided to purchase a second DVD player. One that upconverts. So now we can move our old one up to the still-quite-nice-but-not-HD 27″ tube TV. That will be nice.

Ben did some quick review research of the models available and we decided on the Sony DVP-NS77H and are pleased after testing it with portions of Pixar’s Cars and Star Wars Episode 3. Though it still didn’t make the Padme/Anakin “So love has blinded you?” balcony scene tolerable.

I think this player will hold us over until the HD format war is finished and prices come down on the HD players and DVDs.

Enough about TV stuff. I need to get moving and get to work. I’m still sick… though it’s mostly in my chest now. I have a pretty bad cough. Bad enough for Ben to go out and buy me some Robitussin, which has been helping. Though I hate artificially cherry flavored anything, and that’s the only flavor Robitussin has. Well, I don’t like artificially fruit flavored anything, really, so I’d probably lose out no matter what the fruit. I don’t even like Jolly Ranchers. Anyway, Ben reported that all the cough syrup is available on the shelves, even though labels clearly state alcohol levels up to 10% on the bottle. WTF?

No wonder kids are experimenting with cough syrup these days. But they still can’t buy 0.5% alcohol O’Douls beer until they’re 21, and all Claritin-D purchases are recorded on the Big Brother file to monitor illegal drug manufacturing (which can probably look worse if you’ve also got severe allergies). Not that it’s ever affected me directly, but I’m glad there aren’t any holes in our government’s drug rules and policies.

Who am I to complain? I got my cough syrup and I’m expectorating as expected.