I keep hearing these nasty little rumors about things that go on at ComiCons. Girls are getting touched. Girls are getting harassed. Girls aren't feeling safe because some of the guys that go to these things are inappropriately touching or ogling them. All of that needs to be addressed by the proper authorities - as in the convention people and/or the police. (Seriously. Someone touches you without your permission, call the cops and charge them with assault. It might not stick, but it'll make them think twice, now won't it?)
Recently, I read a post about something geek girls can actually do something about. You see, the new thing is girls getting their 'geek credentials' checked in case they're, you know, not geek enough. (Naming the superheroes from a particular publisher, getting grilled about their favorite flavor of geekdom, etc.)
I really don't know why the geek girls care if some numbnuts calls her out and says she's not enough of a geek to attend a damn comic book convention. He wonders why he can't get a date that doesn't need a tire pump and you're worried about what he thinks about you? Screw him. Screw anyone who doesn't think you're good enough to be anywhere you damn well want to be. (Unless it's like you want to trespass on private property - then yeah, you can't be there unless someone says it's okay.)
Apparently, according to the rules, I'm not geek enough. S'okay. I was reading comic books before most of these assholes were a gleam in their daddies' eyes. I was playing Dungeons & Dragons before that. I spent all four years of high school in marching/symphonic band - two of those as first chair flute, tyvm. I learned BASIC in high school for petesakes and helped my boyfriend write a... :cough: data collection :cough: program in college, and still remember how to fix a computer using DOS (mostly - it's been a while, but I do have the System floppies if I ever need them). I hung out on the pre-internet when it was still Bitnet and the WWW was just some nerd's wet dream. (And no, that nerd was not Al Gore.) But if some freak who lives in his mother's basement doesn't think I'm geek enough, well, whatever.
If I ever choose to go to a Con, let them try to call me out. Go ahead. No skin off my ass. I've probably forgotten more general nerdiness than they ever possessed. So there. =op
So, please, ladies who go to Cons. If some asshole walks up and wants you to answer a bunch of questions to prove you are enough of a geek to be in the same conference center as him, tell him to go pound sand up his ass, and then go back to what you were doing - enjoying your geekness. If enough women stand up and say 'enough is enough', this crap will dwindle down to the clueless few who really have no lives of their own to admire, so they have to break down others.
Now, please return to your random geekiness. I have to go watch MasterChef UK: Professionals*. (Although I'd probably get cred checked as a foodie, too, because I've never eaten sea urchin or some other such nonsense.)
:endrant:
Oh, and if you haven't seen this yet - go here, read the article "Some Geek Boys Called These Geek Girls 'Fake.' They Certainly Won't Be Making That Mistake Again" and watch the video. (I wrote this post before I saw that - but yeah.)
*This post was pre-written and scheduled - obviously I'm not watching MCUK:P at 1:30am. I'm sleeping - because that's what old married-lady geeks do at 1:30 in the freakin' morning. =op
Showing posts with label geek. Show all posts
Showing posts with label geek. Show all posts
Saturday, August 3, 2013
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
The Specific Gravity of Manuscripts
Yeah, I'm probably not using the term 'specific gravity' anywhere close to right, but I'm a writer, not a scientist, Jim*.
This morning as I was surfing through the blogosphere a friend mentioned that she dropped her 30K WIP to start something new and sparkly. She also wondered whether it was the right thing to do and whether this happens to any of the rest of us. In my comment to her, I said something about how you have to go with what's pulling at you the hardest, which of course led me to think about how, in our world, each manuscript seems to have its own gravitational pull. And since you can't defy gravity, you have to go with whichever story is pulling at you the hardest.
Think about it. Here we all are, swirling around in our own little universes - drifting this way and that until some story pulls at us hard enough to make us want to sit down and write it out. If it's an awesome idea, it eclipses every other idea. We have no choice but to stick with that manuscript until we either finish it, in which case it loses it's gravity. Or for some reason the story's pull weakens enough to let something else's gravity pull us away.
Now I could go totally geeky and come up with some kind of formula to show how this manuscript has more gravity than that manuscript. (X cubed time Y squared minus I is greater than Z). But I always sucked at math.
You can fight the pull, of course. It takes a lot of work. It takes more than a fair bit of belief that no matter how much another story is pulling, the one you're currently in orbit around is worth finishing. And then also tenacity and sheer stubbornness help. Basically, in this business, your engines have to be strong enough to hold you in place when you need them to, or to let you break free when the situation calls for it.
Still, sometimes you're stuck screaming "I'm givin' her all she's got, Cap'n!**" and still get sucked into the black hole that is a new, but scary and unknown, idea.
And that's okay, too. Who knows what wonders you might find in there. ;o)
One thing I have learned, though. The longer I do this, the easier it is for me to note the new and sparkly ideas on my star chart and promise myself to explore them later so I can finish what I'm already working on. Even then, though, the stars call to me and sometimes they whisk me away.
How about you?
*Gratuitous Star Trek reference since I'm going all scientific on your asses.
** Yeah, there's another one. If you didn't know I was a geek before, you do now. Geeks of the World UNITE!
This morning as I was surfing through the blogosphere a friend mentioned that she dropped her 30K WIP to start something new and sparkly. She also wondered whether it was the right thing to do and whether this happens to any of the rest of us. In my comment to her, I said something about how you have to go with what's pulling at you the hardest, which of course led me to think about how, in our world, each manuscript seems to have its own gravitational pull. And since you can't defy gravity, you have to go with whichever story is pulling at you the hardest.
Think about it. Here we all are, swirling around in our own little universes - drifting this way and that until some story pulls at us hard enough to make us want to sit down and write it out. If it's an awesome idea, it eclipses every other idea. We have no choice but to stick with that manuscript until we either finish it, in which case it loses it's gravity. Or for some reason the story's pull weakens enough to let something else's gravity pull us away.
Now I could go totally geeky and come up with some kind of formula to show how this manuscript has more gravity than that manuscript. (X cubed time Y squared minus I is greater than Z). But I always sucked at math.
You can fight the pull, of course. It takes a lot of work. It takes more than a fair bit of belief that no matter how much another story is pulling, the one you're currently in orbit around is worth finishing. And then also tenacity and sheer stubbornness help. Basically, in this business, your engines have to be strong enough to hold you in place when you need them to, or to let you break free when the situation calls for it.
Still, sometimes you're stuck screaming "I'm givin' her all she's got, Cap'n!**" and still get sucked into the black hole that is a new, but scary and unknown, idea.
And that's okay, too. Who knows what wonders you might find in there. ;o)
One thing I have learned, though. The longer I do this, the easier it is for me to note the new and sparkly ideas on my star chart and promise myself to explore them later so I can finish what I'm already working on. Even then, though, the stars call to me and sometimes they whisk me away.
How about you?
*Gratuitous Star Trek reference since I'm going all scientific on your asses.
** Yeah, there's another one. If you didn't know I was a geek before, you do now. Geeks of the World UNITE!
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Living in the Projects
No. I'm not talking about government assisted housing. Even though I don't work (at least not for cashola), we're not even close to the financial straights it would take for us to move into one of those places.
I'm talking about the myriad of little things I'm smack in the middle of. I do one for a while, move to the next for a while, jump into the next... So, yeah, I'm living in the projects I've created.
It's April, so it's Ancestry season. I'm tracing my tree. I'm tracing the Hubs' tree. I even traced my daughter's tree from her sperm donor up (which wasn't easy since there's no one I can ask).
Last month, or maybe the month before, I offered to do some tweaking of my nephew's senior pictures for my mother. He didn't opt for the retouching. Hmpfh, boys. And since I took and retouched Daughter's senior pics, I was the obvious choice for the project. I got the pics Thursday. There are only three, and it's not hard, it's just time consuming.
Reseeding the lawn. It's a yearly thing. Living out here in the high desert makes keeping even the semblance of a lawn alive a pain - unless you have underground sprinklers, which we don't. So every year, I pick up a bag of seed and hope for the best. This year I'm trying a new product from Scott's. It's the one with the dirt and fertilizer included along with the seeds, so it should be easier. So far, no baby grasses, but I have hope.
I've also been making short excursions into the countryside. I've got two goals for this. Right now the birds are migrating, so I've been trying to see what new birds I can add to my birding lifelist. And I'm trying to get some quality photographs while I'm out. Ever since the guy at Cornell argued with me about my sighting of a Western Screech Owl in the area, I'm determined to get photos of the unusual birds that pass through here. Plus, if any of them turn out really good, I'll print them and frame them.
Oh yeah, and there's this other thing I'm supposed to be doing. It's called WRITING. Remember that stuff? Yeah. It keeps trying to make it's way to the top but it just gets shuffled back down again.
We're not even going to talk about the blanket I was supposed to be crocheting for my sister. The strips are all crocheted. It just needs to be sewn together and shipped to Michigan. But it's sitting over there in my crocheting bag.
Of course, there are all the typical day to day things I should be doing as well, but since this is about 'projects', we're just going to forget about those for now. (Why not, I've been forgetting about them so far. LOL)
And for all that, I still don't feel particularly busy or productive. Maybe that's because I'm not making writing a priority in all that mess. :shrug:
What projects are keeping you busy these days? Anything fun?
I'm talking about the myriad of little things I'm smack in the middle of. I do one for a while, move to the next for a while, jump into the next... So, yeah, I'm living in the projects I've created.
It's April, so it's Ancestry season. I'm tracing my tree. I'm tracing the Hubs' tree. I even traced my daughter's tree from her sperm donor up (which wasn't easy since there's no one I can ask).
Last month, or maybe the month before, I offered to do some tweaking of my nephew's senior pictures for my mother. He didn't opt for the retouching. Hmpfh, boys. And since I took and retouched Daughter's senior pics, I was the obvious choice for the project. I got the pics Thursday. There are only three, and it's not hard, it's just time consuming.
Reseeding the lawn. It's a yearly thing. Living out here in the high desert makes keeping even the semblance of a lawn alive a pain - unless you have underground sprinklers, which we don't. So every year, I pick up a bag of seed and hope for the best. This year I'm trying a new product from Scott's. It's the one with the dirt and fertilizer included along with the seeds, so it should be easier. So far, no baby grasses, but I have hope.
I've also been making short excursions into the countryside. I've got two goals for this. Right now the birds are migrating, so I've been trying to see what new birds I can add to my birding lifelist. And I'm trying to get some quality photographs while I'm out. Ever since the guy at Cornell argued with me about my sighting of a Western Screech Owl in the area, I'm determined to get photos of the unusual birds that pass through here. Plus, if any of them turn out really good, I'll print them and frame them.
Oh yeah, and there's this other thing I'm supposed to be doing. It's called WRITING. Remember that stuff? Yeah. It keeps trying to make it's way to the top but it just gets shuffled back down again.
We're not even going to talk about the blanket I was supposed to be crocheting for my sister. The strips are all crocheted. It just needs to be sewn together and shipped to Michigan. But it's sitting over there in my crocheting bag.
Of course, there are all the typical day to day things I should be doing as well, but since this is about 'projects', we're just going to forget about those for now. (Why not, I've been forgetting about them so far. LOL)
And for all that, I still don't feel particularly busy or productive. Maybe that's because I'm not making writing a priority in all that mess. :shrug:
What projects are keeping you busy these days? Anything fun?
Monday, March 7, 2011
Stylish Blogger Award - Part Two
The rules are to post seven things about me and then pass it along to seven other people. As always, I'm happy to post the seven things, and I'll let you all decide whether you feel like a Stylish Blogger enough to gift this to yourself.
And now for the seven things:
1. I'm a Taurus. And for the most part, the traits of that sign really do mirror my own traits. (As an aside, I love the Ford Taurus and have owned two over the years.)
2. I'm also a Dog in the Chinese zodiac. Also mirrors many of my traits, but less so.
3. I don't actually believe in astrology, but I get a kick out of reading about my signs and seeing if my horoscope actually gets it right.
4. Every test I've ever done - up to and including the Myers-Briggs - says I'm an introvert, but I don't feel like one. Sure, I enjoy being alone, but I like to think I'm equal parts introvert and extrovert. I can schmooze with the best of them. I just choose not to. ;o)
5. I have this weird quirk where every time someone tells me how much they like something I own, I have to tell them how little I paid for it. "Great shoes" turns into "Payless - $3.99 after the BOGO discount." It's a sickness and I'm working on it. I do love a great deal, though, and I want to pass it along.
6. I collect rocks.
7. In high school, I was captain of the High School Challenge team (formerly know as Quiz Bowl). It was students competing in rounds of PBS televised trivia for fun and prizes. (Okay, so we never saw a prize, but it was fun.) My senior year we made it as far as quarter finals. Yep, I competed in the Nerd Olympics. It was a blast.
I hope you enjoyed reading my answers. If you decide to play along, let me know so I can visit your blog, too. (And you really should, because you are a Stylish Blogger.)
=o)
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Love/Hate Relationship
Back in my old OLD life, I built Access databases. Long story, but the company I worked for did computer consulting and even though I was the office manager, I was the only one who knew Access, so they rented me out. I love Access and all the wonderful things it can do to make a really nifty, customized database. Of course, that was 1996.
Last night, I really hated that damn thing. Long about the top of the 9th, I backdoored the database and now everything seems to work. It's amazing what you can do once you convince any Microsoft program you don't need them to wipe your nose for you. Of course, in order to do that, you have to fool the program - which in my case meant transferring all my data into Excel, deleting the one column that was fudging up the process and then importing the Excel file into Access.
It's really very pretty... See?
...and all my old ACT! data on dozens of agents is at my fingertips. Sure, some of the data is old, but the actual data part of a database is easy once you create the structure. It's creating the structure that makes me want to throw my computer out the window. Now that I have the structure, I can play with it. I can reset the User fields to useful things and plug all sorts of data in. Ooo, and I can create other databases based on this one and link them all together.
heh, i'm such a geek
Even while I was hating Access last night, I was loving it. It totally got my geek on. It's been too long since I was a super-geek with mad computer skills. Now the only thing I can say that the geeks of today can't is...
I still know DOS. =op
Okay, I'm off to surf around the interwebs and then play with my pretty new toy so I can keep track of all my submission info. Of course, now that I have this nifty database to keep track of my submissions, I'll probably snag an agent and make the whole thing moot.
I can live with that.
*All images deleted to avoid any chance of copyright infringement*
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