Bristol: JoCo

Bristol, you are so good to me.

The first time I ever went to Bristol, I met a bunch of awesome beatboxers, and I somehow manage to go back to Cardiff (yay!) instead of Plymouth (boo) where I actually lived.
The second time, more epic beatboxing, and a hug from Hobbit (who BY THE WAY is @hobbitbeats on twitter),
The third time, I met Mr. Jonti Picking aka Weebl, and nerded all over the place for a full weekend, not to mention taking some awesome photos that I'll show you as soon as my friend uploads them (meaningful looks at Dave),

And last Thursday I finally got to see Jonathan Coulton and Paul and Storm performing.

Ici, la photobomb.

I'll say it again, Bristol, you are SO good to me.

Eye-twitch-inducing meme

At first,

"Star Trek quote of the day"

and next

"Stargate quote of the day"

so then

"Babylon Galactica quote of the day"

but now

And I thought I was nerd-baiting by claiming Jar Jar was my favourite character... This is the major leagues, guys. For more and other such silliness, anger your inner geek by checking out the Daily What.

Sex pirates

Sorry I haven't posted much lately; my life has divided into boring things, and things I can't tell you. So to summarise: My housemates are mental, my friends are geeky and awesome, my ukulele playing is coming along well (I've written a song!) and my self-esteem is fluctuating wildly. I'd also like it noted for posterity that I coined the term 'sex pirate.'

Here's a video for you, if geeky ladies are your type! The link is, as always, going up on the left.


Geek and Gamer Girls Song - Watch more Funny Videos

OH! Also,an awesome thing has happened. If you watch Felicia Day's web series "The Guild," you might be interested to know that I emailed Cheesybeard's restaurant and got a response! The conversation is included below.

to   cheesybeards@cheesybeards.info date   15 September 2010 00:55 subject   Hello!

Hi! I'm expecting auto-reply, but if there's a real person dealing with these: nice work. I do love an effective social media presence (and ARGs, for that matter). All the best!

Anna

from   CheesyBeards Restaurant to date   15 September 2010 16:51 subject   Re: Hello!

Auto-reply? YOU MEAN I COULD HAVE SET IT SO THAT I DON'T HAVE TO DEAL WITH THESE COMPLAINTS MANUALLY??? I wish I knew this before.

Thanks,
CheesyBeards Management
--
CheesyBeards
http://cheesybeards.info
http://twitter.com/cheesybeards
http://facebook.com/cheesybeards

Frantic catch-uppery!

Hello all! Right, first off, I've been listening to a lot of Owl City (Spotify link). It's beautiful stuff; Fireflies has been #1 in the UK. I have no idea how long for, and in fact it's a miracle that that much information made it into my head.

I'm afraid that my extreme slackness means I'll have to do a bullet-pointy catchy-uppy thing.

Friday 29th Jan: We had a uni field trip to Cardiff Bay, got rained on, and went to the pub; and I had one glass of rosé and wouldn't stop talking. Here's a  few photos from the field trip:

Saturday 30th: I'd had a very early night, and consequently woke up at 4am. My housemates were awake, though more of the "still up" variety than my "already up." I watched Iron Man, started making my boyfriend's Not-Valentine's Day presents (bath bombs! It's ok, I've already given them to him), and saw the final episode of Dollhouse. No spoilers here, don't worry, but I was a WRECK by the end! A shell of a woman.

The rest of the day consisted of a girls' day at my church. I hadn't been to one of these things before, but my wariness of all things girly has subsided somewhat as I've grown up, so I thought I'd give it a go. After a worship session of rather gutless and floaty (but very pretty) songs, we had a great sermony thing, and set off on a Grand Adventure.

We started with a pub lunch at the Captain's Wife (a name that gave me the giggles for some reason); after which we traipsed around the beaches of Penarth, enjoying the sunshine and taking photos of people, places, and (in my case) interesting bits of driftwood.

Back at the church, we watched a movie called My Sister's Keeper. It was billed as a chick flick - I was expecting something with Sandra Bullock in, you know, a guilty pleasure, but instead I got a child dying of cancer. Lolz were not had. Don't get me wrong, it's a good movie, but crying at a screen twice in one day is just demeaning.

My week at university was fairly standard, and then I had another action-packed weekend...

Friday 5th Feb: I went round to my boyfriend's house and watched Buffy. He got the box sets recently so we're plowing happily through them! We're into the 3rd season now, and honestly, I wholeheartedly forgive Joss Whedon for always killing the one I love. When I'm King of the World, I'll ban FOX from cancelling anything he ever makes, ever.

That night we went to TGI Friday's. I'd never been in one before; the food was great (if pricey) and the service was excellent, but I couldn't help staring at the waitress's 'flair.' I've gone off pin badges lately - I used to think they were awesome, but I never seem to have a good place to put them. Yes, I have braces, but now that I've seen Office Space, they've become emblematic of workplace dictators and the futility of ambition. So YAY for that I guess.

Saturday 6th: Pub, house party, home at 7am. I met lots of lovely new people, and totally messed up my 8-day streak of 'early to bed, early to rise' success.

Sunday 7th: I woke up late for my new role-playing thingy! Also, I appear to be having noun troubles today. ANYWAY. The pub's just around the corner from my house, so I ran in with my dressing gown flapping dramatically behind me (untrue, but improves the visualisations). We started playing a Victoriana game, and it's AWESOME. Also, I'd never met the GM before - his name's Nimrod and he runs a convention called OddCon  UK. I very much like the sound of it. I've been searching for geeks like this my entire life... I'm so happy... and determined to get myself a pretty set of these:

Also, a huge thanks to the legendary Andrew Canham for the blog's new look. As someone remarked, mine is the Incredible Changing Blog, but I think this is a dramatic improvement over the old look! What do you think?

FAO Wil Wheaton

Wil's just written a blog post that I am somehow unable to comment on, so I'm writing my response here. I'll try to draw it to his attention - maybe wrap it around a bouncy ball and throw it down his chimney - but the likelihood is he won't read it. Never mind eh!

See, all this kerfuffle is about this video saying it's ok to be a geek. That you don't have to play D+D to be passionate about tech things. Wil feels that this casts 'traditional' geeks, like himself, in a derogatroy light.

Wil, I think I speak for all of me when I say: WAT.

I can't tell you anything about Slackware and Debian, am I not a geek? Or have I accrued enough Geek Points in other areas to be grudgingly permitted to associate with those like you?

"It's like a slap in the face to be associated with these people who claim to be like me." I know it's not what you intended, but that looks like dickery from here. It looks like an elitist jab at people who are trying to redefine what was once an insult. You've embraced the stereotype, they're challenging it. Does that make them wrong? Just how separatist do you have to get about a label that can't even be defined?

I agree with Wyldfire42. However much it might irk you to be lumped in with celebrities, geek isn't binary - it's a spectrum.