This is a graphite drawing of my bobblehead Marvin from the movie Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I hadn’t quite learned about proper shading, so I stopped before adding too much shading.
I really think that I need to get one of these t-shirts. But first, I want to know why the dinosaur is wearing braces. That’s just ridiculous.
Thesaurus t-shirt from snorgtees
The fledgling barn swallows have learned to fly. Only two were in the nest this morning after my class, and one more came fluttering in while I was standing there.
They are still smaller than their mother and their feathers are muted suggestions of more brilliant colors to come. Their beaks were tiny little pinpoints; so different than the baby bills they had just last week. Well, that was my impression until mama bird swooped in with some extra nutrition—they can still open their mouths to a proportionally frightening size. If they’re still that flexible in the chompers next week, I’m guessing they’ll just eat the mama bird to satisfy their hunger… for… BRAINZ!
Hrm. Sorry about that. I just read the first issue of North 40 (comic book published by Wildstorm) so there are some zombie and Cthulhu-like ideas floating around in my head right now. I can be very impressionable when I’m paying attention.
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The weather was perfect this evening. After a short date at the crowded library (not quite the geek-romantic scene you might be picturing), Ben and I drove into the foothills near our house and discovered a little lookout at the end of a road. I’d cleverly placed that camera in my purse for moments like these, so you can share our view:
Not too shabby for a Tuesday night. The sunset, the twinking lights, the lake, the mountains… the opportunity to procrastinate instead of doing homework.
I upgraded to a new version of WordPress today (for which I’m still working out the kinks) and embarrassingly lost my most recent blog entry for a while. It was terrifying, because it was a long overdue post filled with phrasing I doubt I could recreate if it had been lost due to my own stupidity. (I exported all of my entries to an xml file first thing this morning, then decided to blog before upgrading. And then I forgot to export again. And then I overwrote my database. A really, really dumb mistake.)
After trying to access various caches, I handed my database over to Ben to see if he could perform any forensics tricks. After a short while, he gave me the bad news that it was gone. I subsequently had a minor emotional breakdown, twittered desperately seeking someone else’s cache, and starting calling people. It’s possible that I sounded like I was drunk dialing, but I assure you I was not.
Meanwhile, Ben kept calmly poking around my database searching for I-don’t-know-what but that’s what he does with computers: he gives you the bad news but doesn’t give up. Bless his intensely dedicated computer geek soul. And then Isis projectile vomited in the other room, and I was about ready to just delete my whole blog, because really, what’s the point? And then—wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles—Ben found the lost entry.
If you ever lose your most recent entry after upgrading wordpress and you have access to your database, check to see if MySQL created an automatic backup of the last version before you overwrote it. Not the automatic once-a-day backup, but another secret hidden one that was created just before you realized the dumb thing you did. Because I’m probably not the first person to have done that.
I’d ask Ben for specifics on where he found that entry in my database, but he’s currently engrossed in Grand Theft Auto III and he deserves not to be disturbed. Especially because he cleaned up the cat vomit in addition to solving my idiot problem. Benjamin, YOU ARE THE MAN.
I’m just doing a quick PSA here to remind you to visit your local comic book store this Saturday to pick up some free comics.
Free Comic Book Day is an annual nationwide event sponsored by industry representatives in publishing and distributing comics. If you haven’t been in a comic book specialty shop in a while (or *gasp* NEVER!), this is the day to go.
If you’re thinking to yourself that comics are just for kids and for those socially inept guys who live in their moms’ basements, well, you’re partially right. Comics are for them. But there’s a good chance that you’ll like some of them, too. Aside from the forever-ongoing Marvel and DC comics like Spiderman, X-Men, Batman, and Superman, there are a lot of literary and entertaining gems in the comic world.
The FCBD site has some basic information for those new to comics, but if you’re a “mature reader,” i.e you don’t mind the F-bomb or mature themes like sex and violence, I would recommend that you start out with the following Vertigo-imprint series that are now available in (multi-volume) book form: Fables
Want to start with something a little more tame but still really good? Try the complete collection of Bone
If you have the opportunity to start some kids out on comics, or even just reading in general, there are lots of kid-friendly options including Pixar movie spin-offs and The Simpsons. I recently nabbed the first issue of The Muppet Show at Dragon’s Keep in Provo. It’s nothing spectacularly literary, but it’s fun and I’m a sucker for anything Muppet-related (even if I end up panning it).
So get thee to a local (participating) comic book store on Saturday and get thine free comics!
I watched the first Star Trek movie last night, in full, for the first time ever. Wow. It was… trippy. And long. Ben and I laughed to the point of crying during a couple parts… and I may have cried a Spock tear when it was all over. During the last part, (SPOILER) when Decker goes all sparkly, I couldn’t help but think of what the sparkly vampires supposedly look like in the movie Twilight. (It’s doubtful that I’ll read the books or see that movie, let’s be honest.)
Ben and I are going to attempt to watch all the Star Trek movies, in order, before seeing the new Star Trek movie that’s coming out on May 8. Sylar as Spock intrigues me. I hear that the new movie involves some time travel as Leonard Nimoy visits from the future as “Old Spock” to help his younger counterpart.
So, in line with Star Trek movie hype and the theme of time travel, I want to share a magazine flashback with you.
A few weeks ago, I was cleaning up in the basement and came across a vault of Ben’s magazines from his childhood. During the 1980s—while I was playing black and white Macintosh games, devouring hundreds of library books, and reading Cricket magazines—Ben was taking apart electronics, learning how to program on a Commodore, and reading 3-2-1 Contact magazines. (Is is really surprising that GeekDad’s 10 Annoying Habits of a Geeky Spouse basically listed things that we love about each other?)
I found this gem from December 1986 with the enticing cover question, “Is Time Travel Possible?” The cover article includes kid-level coverage of several TV shows and movies basically by filling four pages with exciting photos of Dr. Who, Superman, Marty McFly, Time Bandits, and The Time Machine.
The secondary spread covers the then-new Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Click on the photo to get a PDF of the scan… it’s precious. I especially love the photo caption that says “Star Trek movies include special effects such as smoke and fire.” I mean, WOW!
While browsing through 50 vintage-style photos of current stars here on Listal, the one I felt had the most geek cred was of Carlo Gugino (who plays the original Silk Spectre in the Watchmen movie) playing chess—and oh, yes, she is touching your piece before the game has even started.
The rest aren’t really geeky, but some are very cool. From what I can tell, the person who compiled the list just nabbed photos from all over the web with the loose theme of current celebrities in a pin-up style. Some were more slutty than sexy, and many were vintage-ish but the photography didn’t match the style or they were anachronistic.
These ones were the closest to what I think of as True Vintage Pin-Up: Read more…
After 20 years on the air, The Simpsons will finally get their own United States postage stamps! Our beloved prime time cartoon family will be available to adorn snail mail and/or stamp collections on May 7. There are five different stamps, each featuring the face of a core Simpsons family member.
The USPS definitely understands the minds of collectors. There are several options to purchase The Simpsons stamps online, not all of which are actual stamps.
So, if you have an extra $250, you can get all of that for your stamp and/or Simpsons collection. I know, I know, it cuts into your Qee budget. But if you’re a real fan, you know that “budget” is synonymous with “oppression” and not even something called “therapy” could help quell your desire to acquire everything SIMPSONS. (And that’s probably why Matt Groening has issued you a restraining order.)
Since I’m not that “real” of a fan, the only stamp collectibles I’ll probably get are the 4-pack of stamp booklets so that I get each cover. The First Day Covers would be neat, but not top priority. However, if I could convince Ben that we should spend $25 on it instead of a gallon paint to touch up the front of the house, I would really love to have a giclée art print of Lisa.
I wouldn’t call myself a stamp collector, per se, but I do have a small stash of stamps sheets featuring images I love. Maybe someday I’ll tell my uninterested children about why I find them so interesting. I hope that they’ll appreciate commemorative stamp issues like Jim Henson and the Muppets, Marvel superheroes, Hubble telescope, etc. I’m not going to hold my breath. (Since my uninterested children are still imaginary, you’d think that I would imagine them as being interested. But since they’ll likely get half their genes from Ben, I’m a little more realistic. He has a pretty practiced BLANK STARE OF INCREDULITY whenever I get excited about my cool little stamp stash. Or my coin collection, for that matter.)
And on days when I’m feeling optimistic and happy, I can get a good dose of bitterness just by looking at my stash as a record of the rapid price increases of stamps from year to year.
By the way, USPS prices are going up again on May 7 to counter your Simpsons excitement. The standard stamp will increase from 42 cents to 44 cents. So if you still send letters via snail mail, you might want to consider buying some more non-denominated Liberty Bell “forever” stamps.
Don’t hang on to them too long, though, because I estimate that the Forever Stamp Bubble will burst around 2011, when nobody will have any use for any sort of snail mail whatsoever. Because that’s when 3D fax machines (aka Transporters, natch) will make it possible for you to receive that adorable bargain-priced kitten calendar from Aunt Helen over the internet.
Yet another day that I am impressed by Utah drivers.
Anything with the keyword geek in it captures my attention because I am always interested in its usage. Not just whether it’s being used as a noun or verb, but whether it’s used in an insulting or admiring manner and how the stereotype is changing over time.
When I assembled the first version of the Geek Test in 1999, the dictionary definition of geek was “1. An odd or ridiculous person. 2. A carnival performer whose show consists of bizarre acts, such as biting the head off a live chicken.”
In 2002, when I started creating innergeek.us and researching the nature of modern geeks, I was amazed to discover that the entry for geek on (then shiny/new) Wikipedia still reflected the “traditional” definition of geek. Though I’m no Wikipedian, I registered so that I was able to add more current information—and it’s been tweaked and updated over the years by others to create a very full meaning of the word geek.
So as an avid student of geekology, I naturally watched the first season of “Beauty and the Geek” when it aired on the CW network in 2006, plus a few episodes here and there in later seasons. I have mixed feelings about the show as it relates to the stereotype of geek.
Granted, it’s a reality show produced by Ashton Kutcher. But it’s only the third TV series to contain the word geek in the title—the first was the undervalued and prematurely canceled comedy-drama Freaks and Geeks in 1999-2000. Then there was the Comedy Central game show Beat the Geeks in 2001-2002.
Now, I like the idea of expanding people’s world views through forced cooperation between individuals with (apparently) little in common. Many of Beauty and the Geek’s participants also seem to come away from the show with a better sense of self. Or at least episodes are edited that way. What I don’t like, though, is the polarization of the two sides that perpetuate the stereotypes in the eyes of the viewer.
Back in December, I came across this casting call for geeks: Read more…
