Yvette's Inner Geek Blog

It’s already December. Are you planning your July trip to San Diego for the 2009 Comic Con yet?

If you are, you should check out the new Schmap!! guide to San Diego, where you might come across one of my photos from last year’s con! Go to the Services – Business area, mouse over “San Diego Convention Center” and wait for the magical moment when my name appears below a photo in the loop.

At least is was a little magical for me, okay?

The truth is, I didn’t think it was a really great photo… but I guess it does capture the sheer mass of people who were flooding into the convention center with me from the trolley.

This iPhone mock-up was presented to me by Schmap!! to help me visualize what my photo within their guide would look like to someone who has a much cooler phone than I do. They have guides for a couple hundred cities around the world, clearly designed with the internet-enabled mobile phone user in mind. Old-fashioned PC users like myself can download their little program and view the desktop version of their guide.

Schmap!! found my photo on my Flickr stream and contacted me through Flickr to request permission to use the photo in their guide.

I didn’t see a reason not to comply – I’m not using the photo for anything else, and now I get the return benefit of being Totally Famous. At least in the eyes of my mother, who will always think that I’m the greatest thing since sliced, gluten-free and flax seed fortified bread. (Thanks, Mom.)

This… brings tears to my eyes. Is beautiful.

“Eat this glowing mushroom and they’ll all fade away.”

Thanks for the link, redrabbit! (Psst… visit her cool blog, Where Aren’t They Now.)

Ben just pointed me in the direction of a politically relevant and super gametastically fantastic little flash game called “Super Obama World.”

If you haven’t played it yet, try it out! I haven’t gotten very far, so I’m not sure how it plays out… but the fact that the worlds are on a map that looks a lot like Alaska leads me to believe that Sarah Palin may be a boss along the way! Ooooo, fun! Let me know if you make it that far.

On a side note, it’s weird to realize that Nintendo’s amazing technology of the 80s can be recreated in a simple flash game played over the internet.

In 2005, the National Retail Federation decided to call the Monday after Thanksgiving “Cyber Monday.” It’s supposed to symbolize a busy day for online retailers and be their promotional equivalent to the brick-and-mortar stores’ Black Friday.

However. The name? Would not have been my first choice.

Didn’t anyone tell the NRF that “cyber” as a verb means “to have cybersex?”

Or did they hire the same marketing consultants who originally gave Procter & Gamble’s “Dreft” detergent the name “Dreck” without realizing that it was a Yiddish word for garbage?

To be fair, “cyber-” has been used as a prefix for computer-related terms (cyberspace, cyberpunk, cybernetics, etc.) in the same way that the far more popular “e-” and “i-” have been used. It’s not exactly a new word, and hasn’t always been associated with cybersex.

There was also an enemy race of cyborgs on Doctor Who in 1966 called Cybermen. In 1968, DC Comics introduced Doctor Cyber, a female supervillain who fought Wonder Woman. In 1991, Marvel introduced a supervillain of the male variety by the name of Cyber.

But whether it’s used as a verb, adjective, supervillain, or flavor additive, I can’t be the only one who remembers the dirty “wanna cyber?” question of the 90s. I’m sure the power of One More Annual Marketing Tactic for retailers will supercede my association of the word with something dirty.

Next year, though, I hope you’ll join me in snickering at every Cyber Monday sale you see on our Grate Interwebz. And maybe, as the tryptophan coma sets in on Thursday, you’ll turn to your loved ones and ask, “Wanna Cyber Monday?”

When your resume and email address are searchable by employers, another type of spam pops up. Here’s a real email that I got today from “Duffy Jacob,” whose sender email address is different than the email address listed in the email.

Company is currently looking for a Sales Assistant! Selected individual will demonstrate ability to think on his/her feet.

Duties may include but are not limited to the following: managing sales processes and reporting, Responsible for providing feedback to the marketing group concerning communication needs, product development and pricing.

We offer excellent salary, commissions, benefits and 401K with a first year potential of $60,000-$70,000.

If you are interested in knowing more about these positions please send your resume to$ If you are interested in joining us, please contact us position.to.increase.income@gmail.com

Okay, it really should just be filed under targeted, Are You For Real spam. This type of scam spam may not be Snopes-able, but there are so many things wrong with it that I can’t believe anyone would actually fall for it. And yet, we know that someone out there probably will.

Sigh.

How many times a week does your inbox flood with mail, and yet you’re disappointed and feel like none of it is worthwhile?

I’ve noticed this happening more and more with the dozens of emails I receive every day. I eagerly scan the incoming subject lines and who they’re from, and more often than not, I sigh and lean back in my chair because it’s all junk. Maybe junk I opted in for, or junk that I am sort of interested in but just not in the mood for at the time. In any case, I find that they mostly fall into one of these 5 categories:

1. Spam, spam, spam. It’s not even creative anymore. And those phishing attempts? Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. But the fact that people are still bothering means that there are a few suckers out there keeping the needle in a haystack method attractive for unscrupulous folk.
2. Newsletters. Most of the time there’s a sale announcement or a coupon from stores/companies/organizations for which I am a patron, which is fine. But after a few newsletters, I usually realize that the content is the same and the email’s only worth opening if I have a specific need to purchase something. I probably subscribe to too many newsletters, but I have just enough interest in their content or products to put up with frequent emails.
3. Boring. Bills, statements, order information, automated notifications or confirmations. All that business-y types of stuff that is relevant, but not usually exciting.
4. Semi-interesting. These are usually emails that seem interesting upon first glance, but turn out to be forwards, rickrolls, or misleading subject lines. Or from an email group that sometimes has useful or interesting content.
5. Good stuff. Personal email from acquaintances, friends, fans, and family. These are always the first ones I open (even if I’m a horrible slacker and don’t respond as quickly as I intend to).

I think my inbox apathy really mirrors the allure of personal snail mail; The best kind of mail to receive has a familiar return address and your name hand-written on the front.

When’s the last time you sent a handwritten letter to someone? I sealed up a letter to my teenage cousin a couple hours ago and will send it out tomorrow. It definitely takes more time, thought, and effort to write a letter the old-fashioned way… but as a recipient, that’s what I value the most.

Ahoy, ye scallywags! It be the International Day of Talkin’ Like a Pirate.

In addition to the Pirate Keyboard I passed along ta ye last year, I want ta make it known that ye can start yer readin’ all manner of Pirate books fer free! It be a highly legal opportunity from me good friend, Google Books.

I say ye start wit’ Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island if ye haven’t read that one yet. Y’arrrr likely to find there be a pirate, or hundreds o’ pirates, in all he writes.

Aye, there be also a pirate, goes by the name o’ Hook, in the tale o’ Peter and Wendy by a landlubber named James Matthew Barrie. That’s a picture from the book ta yer left.

And there be Sir Walter Scott’s The Pirate: A Romance, tho’ that’s on me own list of books to read while at sea with a good, strong brew in my hand. Surely there be booty involved in that one.

And don’t ye be fergettin’ ’bout the tale of Blackbeard, the fearsome Pirate of Roanoke! A real life figure he was, not just a tale. Now thar was a pirate to behold. Why, he woulda takin’ the free Google Books and found a way to pirate them, of that ye can be sure!

There be another colored-bearded fellow by the name of Blue Beard, whose pirate tale (oft labeled a “fairy tale” fer some reason, tho’ I’m hard-pressed to be finded any fairies in such a tale of delightful pirate horror) was written by a Frenchman, Charles Perrault, but told fer many a year before that. Ye can read the English version of Blue Beard as recorded on paper by Andrew Lang on page 290 of ‘is Blue Fairy Book.  Pirates and fairies… arrrrr, what a strange combination that be!

May yer Talk Like a Pirate Day be well-researched and may yer life be full o’ many Pirate adventures. And treasure.

Don’t ye be fergettin’ the treasure!

Yesterday’s Mystery Bird that was stuck in my chimney is no longer a mystery! It was a female red-shafted Northern Flicker (photo from Cornell’s ornithology website, taken by Keven T. Karlson).

I was impressed with Cornell University’s ornithology website (which is what you’ll visit if you click on that first link) both for the multiple photos and the ability to listen to a clip of the bird’s song/noises. I’ve definitely heard that bird outside our house before, and it’s really cool to know what I’m hearing now.

I’d been sitting on that blog post for a few days, all the time wondering what kind of bird that was and trying to figure it out from online searches and my two birding books (National Geographic Field Guide and Birds of Utah). I finally decided to email Sharon Stiteler over at Birdchick.com to humbly request assistance, and was surprised by her lightning-quick response with a positive ID of the bird! She said that she was checking email at the time and thought my question was a fun challenge. And then she linked to this blog and challenged her readers to ID the bird…. cool!

Incidentally, Sharon’s profile claims her blog’s purpose “To show the world that you can be a birder without being a geek.” Well, I’m a geek, so I hope it’s okay that I want to be a birder!

I started reading Sharon’s blog at some point a while back when Neil Gaiman linked to her. They’re friends who pursued (and subsequently blogged about) a joint beekeeping adventure. And since I’m a wannabe birder, I stuck around and love looking at all the pretty birdy pictures and hearing about her adventures.

I’m a wannabe birder thanks to my good friend Susan from college. She was a fellow zoology major (until I switched gears and majored in English) and ended up in the field of ornithology after graduation, where she’s been ever since. Susan introduced me to pishing, which I’d like to try more often. I am jealous of all the exposure she’s had to owls. Because I think owls are neat, even when they’re being fed frozen mice.

While hunting for an ID for my mystery bird, I also came across the Utah County Birders, who apparently go on field trips (field trips! wheee!) and have monthly educational meetings. I don’t think that I will ever be a hardcore digiscoping birder, but I am definitely interested in learning more about birds. And since I neglected my natural interest in college by only attending one or two Naturalist Club meetings (before the field trips! boo!), I might just check them out.

The cool thing about learning is that even if you become a primo expert in a certain field, there’s somehow always more to learn. I don’t expect that I’ll become an expert in birds. I just want to know more about them!

And maybe find out which birding book should be the next addition to my library?

While I’m busy catching up on things at home and furiously recalling in the written word every single little thing I did during my last two days at Comic Con, I thought I’d share a little video with you that I wish I’d seen before Comic Con. Because I would have visited Booth #1435 with a RedBull if I had.

What a gloriously clever and well-done promo! This past weekend, Liz told me that I needed to start reading the Looking for Group webcomic immediately. You should, too! (Their site is a little slow today, but I’m guessing that’s because of post-Comic Con traffic.)

More of my Comic Con adventures coming soon.

During the writer’s strike, Joss Whedon was busy creating a 40-minute direct-to-interwebz-and-then-to-DVD musical called “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog,” starring Neil Patrick Harris as a “low-rent supervillain” and Nathan Fillion as the hero.

It will air in three parts on drhorrible.com that are FREE TO WATCH between July 15th and July 20th at midnight (what time zone, Joss?). Here’s the trailer:

AND, and, and. You know how I’m all excited about going to Comic Con? Well Joss added to my excitement by writing this in his Dr. Horrible Master Plan:

We intend to make it available for download soon after it’s published. This would be for a nominal fee, which we’re hoping people will embrace instead of getting all piratey. We have big dreams, people, and one of them is paying our crew.

And somewhat later, we will put the complete short epic out on DVD – with the finest and bravest extras in all the land. We’ll go into greater detail about that at Comiccon, but we’re changing the face of Show Friendliness a second time with that crazy DVD.

Did you see that I placed the most important part of that statement in bold? I have no idea if I’ll be able to score entrance to that panel, but this is just a reminder to everyone that AWESOME THINGS WILL HAPPEN AT COMIC CON and I AM EXTREMELY EXCITED OMG YOU DON’T EVEN REALIZE.

I am foaming at the mouth with geek slobber. Note to self: have an absorbent cloth available at all times while in the convention hall.

Thanks to Sam in Australia for sending me the Dr. Horrible details.