Yvette's Inner Geek Blog

I am fortunate to have friends who understand (or at least accept) my passion for a) Geeky Things, and especially b) Geeky Things in Cross Stitch Form. It’s been less than two years since I first picked up Julie Jackson’s Subversive Cross Stitch book, but I fell hard and fast in love. The repetitive motion and pattern-following of the craft itself are right up my alley, but what really snagged me (CRAFT PUN) was the realization that this new hobby could speak to me in ways that others cannot.

Exhibit A, from Steotch (rhymes with Beyotch):

I’m not a church-y person, but neither was my grandfather who introduced me to this wise proverb. So double the traditional wisdom with nostalgia, then add the awesome juxtaposition* of Jabba the Hut and slave Leia.

POW!

This framed cross stitch is available through Steotch’s Etsy store. It’s easy to balk at the $299.00 price tag, but I know how much work goes into a piece like this. If cross-stitchers could charge what auto mechanics charge for hourly labor, this piece would easily be over $1,000. And apparently the artist has been using cross stitch as a distraction from her battle with cancer. So, if you can afford it, I think this would make a lovely addition to your home.

I don’t see that the pattern itself is for sale, which would be a more affordable option for the poor yet ambitious, so maybe I’ll contact the artist about that.

This is my second favorite from Steotch’s selection:

(Thanks to my old high school friend, Mike Fisher, for tipping me off to the Slave to Serenity cross stitch piece.)

*A degree in English provides a person with the lifelong ability to use words like “juxtaposition” in a non-academic setting. Also, a nice piece of paper to display on the window of the old van in which the graduate likely lives.

Where were you on March 28, 1999? I was in my apartment, eagerly awaiting and then watching the premiere episode of Futurama. I had a feeling I would like it… but I didn’t realize how much.

Ben and I have the whole series and the straight-to-DVD movies in an honored spot in our home video collection (filed under “F”) and, well, let’s just say that we would already need to buy new copies if they were VHS tapes instead of DVDs.

After Fox cancelled Futurama (mutter mutter Fox smells of elderberries), there was uproarious fan-demand for the show to be revived—especially after Family Guy came back. There was a hint that it was possible from David X. Cohen & Matt Groening at the Futurama panel I was fortunate enough to attend at Comic Con 2008, and then totally awesome news from last year’s Comic Con that it was coming back (SQUEE) and would be aired on Comedy Central.

Then there was a little hullabaloo about the original voice cast not returning, which of course would completely ruin the revival. Not to worry; the salary negotiations were resolved and the first new episode is airing in June 2010.

Which brings me to…

My Futurama To-Do List

1. Dig out my 2003-ish era Moore Action Collectibles (still mint in box, of course) to display
2. Re-watch all episodes with the alien language decoder in hand
3. Create a companion guidebook that notes every single piece of alien text and its translation
4. Attempt to publish that book and likely discover that 8 million other Futurama geeks already posted the same thing online
5. Acquire a couple more of the Kidrobot mini figures (my aunt Jeanette gave me two blind boxes that ended up being Nibbler (yaaaay!) and Sal, the mystery chase figure. Well, she gave one to me and one to my sister, then my sister gave me her Nibbler because she saw the nerd-lusty pain in my eyes and she’s not really a Futurama fan, a fact which by the way makes me suspicious of our actual blood relation.)
6. Make more money so that I can immediately spend it on the entire (and currently ongoing) Toynami action figures
7. Be the first person to think of combing two of my favorite fictional worlds into Back to the Futurama (d’oh! This one’s not possible now)
8. Cross-stitch, frame, and hang a “Home Sweet GOTO 10” in my house
9. Acquire and frame a nice print of the Futurama poster (the image in this blog post) that parodies the 1927 German expressionist film, Metropolis
10. Watch the June television rebirth of Futurama, an episode rumored to be named “Rebirth”

I think a few of those items (2, 8, 10) are more likely to happen than the others.

Right now, there’s one helluva geek party going on in Canada: the first-ever Geekfest Montréal. One of the organizers, Debbie Rouleau, contacted me about using the Geek Test in one of their activities to determine the “Geek du Geek”—the Geek of all French Canadian Geeks. Of course I said oui.

(Luckily we were communicating in English. I know enough French to understand the Geekfest website, but speaking or writing it c’est trés difficile.)

I’m looking forward to hearing about how it all went and who the Geek du Geek ends up being. I’ve promised to profile him or her on this very blog, so hopefully I’ll get that up this week. And hopefully they’ll have another Geekfest next year so that I can at least dream of going! It’s about time I finally visited my dad’s ancestral homeland, anyway. Where I will make a point of trying poutine.

What home is complete without this day bed home workstation slash web surfer’s dream chair created by Manual Saez Ltd? I could use one in every room, thank you very much. Including a converted model for the bathroom. There, I said it. I know you were thinking it, too!

Airlines should also take note now that they’re offering wi-fi in the sky. I’m guessing Virgin Atlantic would be the first to adopt this new style of chair. Maybe for their first moon rocket? I should sign up for an email alert for that flight. Even if I can’t afford it, I could still blog about it.

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!

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.

My first day of school is tomorrow. Again. If I’ve calculated correctly, this will be my 25th first day of school since I started kindergarten. I’m counting each semester of college in there as having one first day so the numbers may look a little inflated. It’s not like I’ve been going to school for 25 straight years. I mean, I’m not in a PhD program…

I’m registered for 19 credit hours again in all Digtial Media classes at Utah Valley University, but I’m pretty certain that’s going to drop to a more reasonable 16. I just need to attend a couple classes first to decide which one goes. I won’t be learning new languages or intense programs like last semester (Adobe Flash and ActionScript, I’m looking at you) so I think overall my semester will be more conducive to blogging, freelancing, and you know, general sanity.

I haven’t addressed what happened to make me stop blogging a few months ago. Basically it started with a seriously intense Flash class, and two weeks into the semester I’d compounded my initial struggle to learn the program with two failing quiz scores. That’s very unlike me, and I was dramatically distraught (I’m a girl, I’d also like to call hormones on this one). I almost dropped the class, but I really wanted to learn Flash… and dropping it would screw up my graduation plan. The professor was great and encouraged me to stick with it. I came to terms with the possibility of a potential poor (but passing) grade and gave it a go. I’ve never worked harder in a class before, and there’s no doubt that I learned a ton. I managed an A- so I guess it paid off.

My Flash professor has turned into my favorite professor at UVU. I had another fall semester class with him (Advanced Photoshop) that required a ton of work as well, but for me it was mostly dedicating the time to do it. I actually have decent study habits now. Quite the change from College 1.0. Anyway, I had 4 other 3-credit-hour classes and a weekly lecture series that required nine 2-page papers. It was a challenge to keep pace and my blogging and social life suffered.

Oddly, I picked up cross-stitching at the end of the summer and keeping up with that helped me stay sane. I craved the rhythmic needle movement and loved seeing little details reveal themselves as I went along. All of my classes required computer programs, so when I wasn’t doing homework, I didn’t want to be staring at my monitor.

It’s important to note that I’m doing subversive cross-stitching. Fun stuff, not the vomit-inducing crap that might typically come to mind at the mention of cross stitch. I was influenced by my friend Marie, maker of the hot zombie chick embroidery, and also by the awesome Subversive Cross Stitch book by Julie Jackson. Marie prefers freeform embroidery, but so far I’ve been very happy following a set cross-stitch pattern and having predictable results. Like these! It’s good left brain activity that doesn’t make my right brain jealous.

Okay, so I still need to iron and frame them. Baby steps, people. I haven’t scanned my first project from the Subversive book yet, and I have a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy pattern in the works right now. Hopefully I’ll find a way to keep up with school, cross-stitch, AND blogging this semester.

I better post this. Midnight is fast approaching and I have lots more to do before I can go to bed. Holy crap, I’m over 1% through my blog-every-day challenge! Inconceivable! Yay.

This was one of the last projects for my summer drawing class. It’s charcoal on 18×24 drawing paper.

In retrospect, I would have chosen a less rigid form for the “abstract” and more free-form assignment… those angles were tough. I had to print out a protractor because the one I used last in high school was nowhere to be found. And I wasn’t about to go buy a protractor, because who uses a protractor in real life?!?

Oh, well, drafters and artists and wannabe artists who need to draw angles, I guess.

Ben has amassed a fair collection of model trains since he was a kid, and he’s been (finally) talking more seriously about building a layout for them. We have the space set aside in our house, so now it’s idea time.

We jointly decided this morning, accompanied by our good friend COFFEE, that one section of the layout should be zombie-fied. Little bloody/guts-showing miniature figures set up on one part of town where a derailed train has been burned (or is on fire) and a few non-zombie miniature figures huddled in small groups with cricket bats and beer. The zombies will be headed toward the part of town that remains (for the time) unscathed.

And in that unscathed part of town, there will (at the very least) be a MirthMobile parked outside Stan Mikita’s donut shop.

I would also like to see a secondary layout that reflects the late 1800s, with steam engines and top hats. And a TARDIS.

Gods bless Sundays with strong coffee and Doctor Who on DVD. So say we all.

To continue the new (and probably short) string of geeky artwork by moi… here is my graphite rendering of Darth Vader: The Cookie Jar.

I got this 10-inch tall plastic cookie jar a few years ago by collecting UPCs from cereal boxes and sending them in. His helmet comes off to reveal room for about 2 cookies inside… so he’s used as a bust on the mantle instead of a cookie jar.

I have 4 more sketches to complete by Wednesday, plus 1 self-portrait and 1 abstract drawing collage-type thingy that I’ve already started. I’ll take a quick final for that art class on Wednesday morning, then I’ll leave that afternoon for Denver, where I will watch my little sister defend her PhD thesis on Thursday! Holy crap! On many levels!