Yvette's Inner Geek Blog

This is my Québécois great-grandfather Napoleon Comartin in 1926. Everyone should have a relative named Napoleon. Builds character!

I think his portrait is interesting because the artist had some great dimensional shading on the face, but the shirt and tie look flat. I’m guessing the medium is oil pastels? Not entirely sure on that.

This image is a restored version that my dad commissioned a few years ago. The original drawing (which I currently have) was around the house when I was a kid, but its oddly-shaped frame is gone now and it looks like it’s been around the block a few times.

My dad didn’t know that I would develop the skills to do photo restoration, otherwise I’m sure he would have let me do it. One of these days I’m going to have to scan the original and see how my restoration compares to this one.

My biggest achievement today, if you can call it that, was to write this little piece of actionscript code. Okay, okay, I did it in a class. But I keep refreshing it to watch the circles appear in random places. And… Can’t… stop…

Okay, after much frustration, I can’t seem to embed the file here the way I want it. So here it is, very tiny. You can also see it full-screen with faster refresh action.

Ben and I made a necessary agreement recently regarding New Super Mario Bros for the Wii. I think it’s a positive step and would recommend it to all couples, siblings, family groups and friends who play this video game together and want to stay on civil terms.

We’ve given ourselves permission to smack talk during cooperative gaming sessions, so long as the smack talk and related emotions end when the Wii is turned off. Because some people have different strategies regarding the welfare of their teammates.

*clears throat and looks pointedly in the direction of some people*

It’s an incredibly awesome game and soooo cool to experience in multiplayer mode. Bouncing on each other’s heads, making Yoshi temporarily swallow your teammate, jumping into a safety bubble instead of dying, and so on. Ben and I played together from the start and immediately loved it from a nostalgic aspect (we both played and loved all three NES Mario games as kids). Then we started interacting on screen (bow chicka wow wow!) and suddenly we found ourselves exasperated by the other’s inability to do anything right. It was weird and enraging how our competitive “spirits” came out while we were trying to cooperate.

But now we’ve played more and become accustomed to each other’s (faulty, of course) style of gameplay. The smack talk is loud, foul, and would not sound good if taken out of context. But it’s fun. And safer than kicking wild hyenas! And as long as we both power down our smack talk when the game goes off, it works. Win win, even when you reach your fifth continue because you suck way more than you thought you did!

It was a dreary day that didn’t start off so well. No classes for me and Ben also had the day off. Would a little sun or snow or blue skies really have been too much to ask for?

We didn’t eat lunch so opted for an early dinner. We thought about driving to Salt Lake to try one of the restaurants on our list, but were kind of blah about driving very far, and ended up going to Outback Steakhouse. It’s been a long time since we’ve eaten there. Neither of us are big steak eaters, but that’s what we felt like tonight.

We arrived at 3:55 without realizing that they didn’t even open the doors until 4pm. I am accustomed to closing the place, not opening the place. That was odd. Though considering it was technically lunch for us, we were right on track.

I got the smallest “signature steak” or whatever but I sprang for the sautéed mushrooms. Mmmmm… they were really good. But they were lukewarm when they arrived and cooled quickly. Not enough to complain about, but the very eager-to-please waiter asked, so I mentioned it. He jumped to get me more, and I was like, no, really, there are plenty here and it’s not a big deal. He insisted, and brought me out another small bowl of them. Ben sneaked a couple, but I ate the majority of what I got because, like I said, they were goooood.

There were some left over that I packed with the remaining broccoli and chunk of steak. The waiter asked if I wanted more mushrooms to take home. That surprised me, and on another day I might have said yes. Instead, I declined and just wondered how broke he really was since he seemed to teeter on desperately working for a bigger tip.

Whether or not that’s the case, it was interesting to me how closely desperation and eager-to-please look from the outside.

There’s a geeky woman out there who loves her nerd/geek husband so much, she spent a TON of time making and knitting a Super Mario Bros. screenshot into a sweater vest for him. She even hand-dyed the brightest green yarn because she couldn’t find any in that shade. I am impressed. I may also have exclaimed, “Now THAT is geeky!”

Her site has just been updated with a free PDF of the pattern.

I could see myself making an epic knitting pattern like this, and possibly buying some of the yarn. Perhaps I would experiment with hand-dyeing yarn. I would probably stop at that point, though, because it would take me for-freaking-ever, and even if I eked out enough patience to see it through, I very highly doubt that my husband would ever wear something like this. Mostly because of its sweater vest nature.

A full sweater, though? Now that’s another story… and it gives me a headache to think about knitting that much detail right now!

The adorable baby-sized knit Link outfit, though? Maybe someday. It has an arrow quiver designed to hold a baby bottle. I just died from the cuteness.

How’s the weather where you live? The past week or so here in Utah has looked like this.

Nice inversion that’s trapping all the pollution inside the valley, huh? It’s pollution that makes me long for the fresh mountain air of summer, when the lake and mountains on the west side of the valley are visible.

Complain though I might, it’s nice to live a very short distance from views like these.

Ben heard about this from our friend Tom. I would not be surprised if I get to play with one in person sometime in the near future, considering that the directions to build the self-proclaimed Most Useless Machine Ever are pretty straightforward. (Not that I, personally, have much experience with RC servos…)

I admit to being way more mesmerized than I should have been by this little box. Yet I have to dispute its claim as the most useless machine. Sure, it’s pretty useless. But what about the JooZoo Diamond-encrusted MP3 player for dogs? That definitely gives this little box a run for its useless money.

What would you nominate as the most useless machine ever?

The drive up to the Sundance resort is more familiar now—I hug each curve against sheer mountainside with less adrenaline and know exactly when my time to turn approaches.  I know where to park and I walk confidently up the nearest steps, where the deserted ticketing area is illuminated by a the low hum of a fluorescent floodlight. It’s cold. I see my breath. No sounds except my own footsteps. I walk past an empty ski rack toward the edge of the light, confidently stepping onto a dimly lit paved path.  I know this place.

Last year when I reported to the Sundance Screening Room for film festival volunteer orientation night, I didn’t really know where I was going. When I could find signposts, they weren’t clear. I was nervous that I was in the wrong place; I didn’t even see any people walking around. I can’t remember if this huge evergreen tree was decorated with lights then, but it was tonight. It made me smile.

I knew exactly where I was going tonight and had no fear of getting lost on the winding paths that lead deeper into the resort. They’re not that long, really. I familiarized myself with them last January and then learned shortcuts and new paths when I volunteered for the Sundance Institute over the summer. Walking familiar paths in the dark on a solitary winter night spreads a sense of peace over me.

The orientation/check-in was pretty straightforward and similar to last year’s, except that I knew some of the people this time. I slipped into easy conversations with fresh faces. At times I felt like a goddamn high school senior, calling out names of people I remembered and waving and chatting about what we’ve been up to since last January.

The group of volunteers at the Sundance resort is tiny and tight-knit in comparison to the number of volunteers at the festival hub in Park City. It was easy to get lost in the crowd when I checked in there for the festival in 2008. Sometimes it’s good to lose yourself in a crowd, but for me, I love the small and informal nature of the festival team at the Sundance resort.

Volunteer check-in tonight meant picking up my “staff volunteer” credentials and information along with a free Sundance 2010 water bottle. There were no women’s jackets (apparently they’re stuck in customs, which I guess means they’re not made in the USA) so I won’t get mine until my first shift next week. They’re mostly off-white (this is not good for my clumsy nature) with red and black accents, sponsored again by Kenneth Cole. They look nice, but instead of having a removable vest as the inner lining, they have zipper-removable sleeves. I predict that will result in lots of lost sleeves around town.

While standing in that haphazard line waiting for my turn, my eyes drifted to the wall of foam-backed photos. Just like last year, the photos were from the summer Sundance Institute. I giggled a geeky giggle when I saw this one of Denis O’Hare:

Because I was there. Sitting right behind the professional photographer when that photo was taken.

Part of my summer volunteer duties, outside of the inglorious lifting and organizing, involved transcribing video notes for Denis O’Hare and Lisa Peterson as they workshopped a one-man version of the Iliad. It was an exciting, surreal experience that made me catch my breath at times. Even though I saw pieces of the play coming together in person and in video clips, I didn’t understand how powerful it would be when performed on stage. If I am able, I want to see the final version of An Iliad at Seattle Repertory Theater in April/May.

(As an added bonus, Denis and Lisa are both fabulously nice people.)

So, that was my night. Another exciting lead-in to mid-winter Sundance excitement. I’m really looking forward to the next two weeks!

When a disaster hits like yesterday’s 7.0 earthquake in Haiti, I feel weird blogging about it. It’s cliché. It’s bourgeois for me to sit here in a quiet living room with heat and electricity and cupboards full of food, typing away on a luxury computer about a devastating situation that has nothing to do with me directly and vice versa.

But I do feel the need to add one more voice to the internet-sphere in this regard: Pat Robertson is a giant douche. Way to immediately blame this level of devastation on “a pact to the devil” that was supposedly made 200 years ago. (I guess he would know.)

Whether or not I have the “right” to talk about it, the idea of 100,000 people dead in one earthquake terrifies me. A dormant fault line especially strikes a nerve because I live on a fault line here in Utah. Will I still be alive, will I still live here, will I be in town, will I be asleep, will I be naked when a quake does eventually strike my neighborhood? Will I die, or will I stand helplessly by as others die? Will I be a traumatized victim or survive without a scratch? Will I be cowardly or altruistic? This is the stuff of nightmares.

I empathize with the people affected by this earthquake and by previous disasters (both natural and man-made). I also feel guilty because I am relieved. For me, right now, right here, everything seems normal. I feel like turning off the ubiquitous media coverage and doing something else. I’m a little thirsty, so maybe I’ll go grab a cold glass of fresh water. I’m a little tired, so maybe I’ll go curl up in my comfortable bed. I’m a little existential right now, so maybe I’ll be thankful that, at least for now, my life has not been turned upside down.

Hey there! So, um. This is my twelfth straight day of blogging. It’s like reverse quitting smoking. (In a way, if you look at it with your eyes crossed.)

Except for this little detail: I am straining right now when it comes to a topic that will be A) interesting to you and B) something I feel like writing about today. I started a different blog post earlier, but I don’t feel like finishing it right now, and I’ve been tired all day and my eyes are dry again, blah blah blah.

Oh! Speaking of dry eyes. And breathing, but sort of not really. When I went out to my car this morning, that’s how I felt. I briefly wondered if maybe I was starting to get sick? There wasn’t any pain in my lungs. It’s just that the air was sort of… chunky? Heavy? A big lightbulb went off in my head when I turned the car on and the local NPR radio personality’s first word to me was “Provo, Utah, blah blah, worst air quality in the nation at a level of 140 followed by Salt Lake City at 122, with L.A. being at 51.”

I don’t know if those numbers are exactly right, but that was not surprising. I’m guessing that those numbers are just for a certain time period, like a day or week or something, because I can’t imagine Provo being more polluted than L.A. all the time. We have this thing the locals call an inversion, which means that because our valley is completely surrounded by mountains, when we have overcast skies and low-hanging clouds it’s basically like a domed arena and all the pollution is trapped inside. And there is a finite amount of beer.

Yeah, icky.

Well, I better publish this before my time is up. Hopefully there will be more quality in tomorrow’s post.