Yvette's Inner Geek Blog

I’ve made some basic changes to the existing Geek Test, which basically amounts to adding a couple more questions and updating the outdated bits (like adding the third movies for Lord of the Rings and the new Star Wars Trilogy).

Ben seems to think that I shouldn’t post what I would call version 3.2 because it still needs a good overhaul. But that is a more daunting task every day, considering the backlog of incredible suggestions that I have received from people in the past few years. I figure the least I could do would be to put up the slightly enhanced version.

Not many people comment on this blog, especially since the Great Accidental Comment Deletion a couple months ago (I wish I could bring those comments back!). But if you have an opinion on this matter, please leave a comment for me regarding the Geek Test version 3.2 question. Should I post it or wait until I can release Geek Test version 4.0 with fanfare?  

Sorting through things the past couple days had left a small stack of books on my desk, including "Four Queens: The Provencal Sisters Who Ruled Europe" by Nancy Goldstone, published this year. I picked it up at a used bookstore in Brooklyn while I was there (staying with my aunt) on business in early October. This is the first time since then that I picked it up.

I like many things Medieval, feminist and historical, and so far this book seems to fit the bill.  There’s a little summary explaining that the troubadors were "roving poets who set their words to music and played to the elegant audiences of the aristocracy." I’ve heard about the troubadors, but I didn’t know about what I read next (p. 2-3):

"Women, too, felt the allure of poetry and rambled around the south of France composing songs; they were called trobairitz. Although known today primarily as songwriters, they were also by turns journalists, political columnists, war correspondents, gossipmongers, actors, writers, directors; they were satirists, pageant artists, spin-doctors, and spies."

 Neato, I say, and I think I might enjoy reading this book during my 4-day Christmas weekend. Especially if it continues to be, according to the dust jacket blurb, "a compulsively readable narrative" that "shatters the myth that women were pawns in a society that celebrated physical prowess and masculine intellect."

I do love a good myth-shattering. 

On a more personal note, I had a bunch of crap to finish at work today, so I was the last one in the office. Add on top of that the fact that it looks like there is no company bonus for me this year and I didn’t even receive well-wishes from the company.  So I popped open a dusty bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon when I came home and retreated to my office. It’s been a very long time since I’ve had wine, and after only one glass I’m starting to feel more relaxed and more pleasant. I’ll probably not feel the same way tomorrow, especially if I have another glass with dinner (boxed lasagna is in the oven now). But I’m enjoying it now.

I didn’t realize that Green Day’s "Jesus of Suburbia" (track number 2 on the American Idiot album) was just over 9 minutes long. There aren’t many bands who can record a good 9 minutes of anything, but I think that they do. I know they’ve suffered some flack from people who feel that they exchanged their punkier Dookie days for more mainstream tunes, but I love ‘em as much as I did in 1994. One of my favorite lyric snippets from "Jesus of Suburbia" is this, especially the second line:

Oh, therapy can you please fill a void
Am I retarted or am I just overjoyed 

Not sure exactly why I like it, but I know that the pretty music certainly helps.  

The article in the Roanoke Times seems innocuous enough: Tech trio seeks market for new game. But hey, open it up and read and you’ll find two things:

1. These guys from Virginia Tech have created a NEW text-based online game (remember Zork?) in the middle of a graphics-whoring gaming society.
2. Michael Ringenbach is a friend of mine from college who won the title "Geek of the Year" at the 2001 Geek Party.

Are these guys crazy? Perhaps. But I think it’s pretty gutsy (and geeky cool) to move forward (and yet somehow backwards) with a text game. Then again, maybe not… the popularity of texting among teens (God, I sound old) is soaring and most phones could handles this kind of gaming on a mobile level… and it would make sense that if people became addicted to the story, it wouldn’t matter if there were no mind-siezuring graphics like World of Warcraft.

I just got another email from Mike saying that the game is definitely not yet ready to be released, so you can’t play it for a while. The website isn’t quite ready, either. So hopefully he’ll let me know when those are ready so that I can pass them along to the readers of this blog (and maybe the website, if I ever update it….). Speaking of WoW and his in trueness to gaming and geekhood, Mike also wrote this:

On the more geeky side of things, I’m working on my third 70 for World of Warcraft, with 2 other retired 60+ on a different server. 

Best of luck to you and your geeky buds, Mike.

The wedding reception on Friday evening was very nice, and my friend/coworker was beautiful and happy and put together a great party. I would just like to confirm that there was no alcohol or coffee served, as I suspected. (There was coffee at Ben’s office party on Thursday, probably because of the number of "outsiders" who have recently moved to Utah for their jobs, like us.)

There were only a handful of people I knew at the reception, all through work. So when the dancing started, we weren’t keen on joining the hordes of siblings and cousins rocking out to Snoop Dog and other songs like Fergie’s "My Humps." Quite the difference from the classic crooning of Sinatra-type songs that had been playing as we came in and ate dinner. Whenever I hear "My Humps" (which is not that often), my mind drifts to one of my favorite music videos: Alanis Morissette on YouTube singing "My Humps" in her own style.

Love it!

Anyway, that was the second Mormon wedding reception that I’ve attended since moving here (Ben’s first). It was more of a typical, semi-formal wedding reception (appetizers and mingling, dinner buffet, speeches, photos, cutting the cake, dancing), than the “open house” reception style that is more common out here (bridal party stands in a receiving line almost the whole time, guests arrive to say hello and eat from a buffet and then leave whenever).

We went to bed pretty soon after we got home Friday night (because we’re lame). This weekend has mostly been spent cleaning, eating and shopping with a little holiday decorating and present-wrapping. There is still snow on the ground outside, but it’s struggling to blanket the yard completely because the sun is shining and the temperature is hovering right around freezing. It’s supposed to stay cold throughout the next week, with a 60% chance of snow showers on Christmas (according to the weather.com 10-day forecast, that is). Woohoo!

Last night, Ben and I drove to his company’s Christmas party. It started snowing late afternoon, so getting home from work and then driving back the same way (argh) through stupid traffic was… stupid. But we got there in time for a yummy dinner and an interesting jazz band concert immediately following, where talking was not really encouraged… so we felt trapped and wondered what was going to happen after the band stopped playing jazzy versions of Christmas songs. Well, the party ended and people went home, that’s what. Oh well.

But I was in a major panic yesterday because I had nothing to wear… and that even forced me to go to the mall last minute to try to find something. And a Christmas miracle occurred, because I found an amazing green dress (not a real green dress, that’s cruel) that fits well, covers my scar and dammit all if I don’t look kinda purdy in it, too.

Which is great, because I’m wearing it again tonight at a semi-formal reception of one of my coworkers (they were married earlier today in the SLC Temple and I’m not a "Temple-ready" Mormon so naturally I wasn’t invited). I have already ended my work day because it’s a long drive up to the University of Utah area of SLC through Friday rush hour traffic.

I started to recover from all that stress (see my last post) after I found the dress. I hugged the salesgirl I was so happy.

More later. I have to go be social for the second night in a row. Ack! Weird! I’m looking forward to my regular stress levels returning late tonight when we make it back safely from the party. Don’t worry, I doubt there will be alcohol there (or even coffee). I’ll keep you posted.

It’s not that late, but I’ve already gone to bed and tossed and turned enough to make me give up and just get back up. Phoebe is keeping me company by sleeping in her basket next to me.

I needed music. In order not to wake my sleeping hubby in the room across the hall, I pulled down my old headphones and plugged them in to my computer speakers. They’re nice noise-cancelling headphones that I borrowed from my parents’ house when I went to college and never gave back. The leatherette that covers the padding is flaking off, so I don’t feel like my parents would really want them back at this point.

It’s refreshing to blare a little Ben Folds Five directly into my brain without having external noise. I’ve been using the standard earbuds that came with my iPod at work (I don’t listen loud enough to really block out much office noise) and when I listen at home, I just use my regular speakers. These old, flaky headphones really make me feel the music up close, without other distraction (even white noise distraction of an early morning sleeping house).

It wasn’t so long ago that I would put a CD in my stereo, lie down on the floor and lose myself for an hour while listening to music through these headphones. In my bedroom at my parents’ house, in various dorm rooms and college apartments, in the living room of my first apartment with Ben. I think more often than not, I came closer to finding myself while losing myself to the music. 

So tonight, this rare headphone experience is just the kind of magical calming treatment I need to help me settle down and maybe get some sleep.  I’m tired, but I know that my eyes need to feel heavier before I try lying down in bed again. Maybe I’ll just sit back and listen to music until the crap that’s causing my late night anxiety goes away.

And maybe I’ll listen to music through these magical headphones more often. 

Lately, it’s been really dry here in Utah. My eyes have been stinging and my contacts have become impossible to wear. So now I keep thinking that my blue-eyed coworkers suddenly have a greenish tint in their eyes… until I realize that I’m looking at the world through an anti-glare coating on my glasses.

And yes, the joke about Utah being a dry state in reference to alcohol still applies. I’ve heard that there are only 6 bars in the entire county, and I don’t think I’ve ever even seen a sign for one. Not that I’m a big bar-hopper, but yeesh is that a scary statistic. At least there are now two Starbucks in the county. I’m praying (to any non-Mormon god with reception in Utah County) that another coffee house, Starbucks or not, will come to life closer to where I live.   

There are things I really like about living in Utah, but I’m having a harder time with the whole area right now for some reason. Maybe it’s the early darkness instead of the glorious sunshine that I grow accustomed to during every season but winter. Maybe it’s the Christmas season preparing me for the arrival of three spirits to make me appreciate everything I have. Maybe it’s just good old Seasonal Affective Disorder.  Blah.

Things that have been pissing me off:

• Unattentive, rude, careless and/or bad drivers. Lack of turn signals, excessively dangerous cutting off, not using headlights during a gray daytime snowstorm (25% of cars, by my estimation), going when it’s not their turn at intersections, slowing down to 40 mph on the freeway a mile before the exit, etc. IDIOTS!
• People who don’t acknowledge me, let alone say thank you, when I hold open a door for them.
• A high level of religion-related conversations in the workplace. It’s not that I feel harassed because I’m not Mormon (though I can think of one specific instance that made my blood boil). It just seems to me that many of the conversations I overhear (or am directly involved in) would not happen at work in other areas of the country. Then again, people’s personal lives here overlap with the church so much that it’s probably impossible to have that separation of church and state for which our forefathers fought so dearly.
• LDS/Mormon everything everywhere I go.
• And finally, so that I stop bitching about everything else: our house. It’s just not what we envisioned it would be after almost two years of living there. It’s better than it was a year ago, though, so at least I know that we’re making progress.

Okay, I have to go put in some more Visine tears so that I can keep my eyes open for a few more hours.

"…Won’t you blog about this song?"

Yes. Yes, I will, because it is awesome and riffs off my man Billy Joel. And so, courtesy of YouTube (irony… check!), I bring you “Here Comes Another Bubble.”