Category Archives: General

Gah! Last Minute Geek Christmas Shopping

For everyone else, there’s Mastercard; for you, Star Wars geek, there’s THINKGEEK. April-fools-joke-turned-licensed-product, the TAUN TAUN SLEEPING BAG is still available! Thinkgeek also has all kinds of other neat stuff. Like a working Doctor Who sonic screwdriver. That’s right.

RPG Geek: If your geek doesn’t have it yet, Paizo’s Pathfinder Core Rulebook is just amazing. If your geek is a rabid 4E fan, try the Dark Sun Core Rulebook if he or she doesn’t have it yet. And check out the Pathfinder miniatures line while you’re at it. ^_^ If your RPG Geek is in the Austin area, I’m sure gift certificates to Dragon’s Lair or Rogue’s Gallery wouldn’t be amiss. ^_^

Games geek? The Dominion card game and its many expansions is a favorite right now…

Movie? Comic? Music? Try SCOTT PILGRIM. Get the movie. The comics. The soundtrack. GET IT ALL.

Movie Geek… no, any kind of Geek…. no, in Austin? Visiting? Passing through? Looked at it on a map? ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE GIFT CARD. It’s… just… awesome.

So, other people? TV shows? Video Games? Movies? WHAT DO WE GET? I will update this post as I think of things and/or take your ideas! =P

First forum contribution: Star Wars Cookie Cutters!

Blog Hijack!

I know, I know.  I post a burst, talk about how I’m gonna do more, and disappear.  Then return to hijack.

I do actually have a post coming up on the strange trip I’ve been on for the past 3-4 months.  See, my laptop (an ASUS G50vt from Best Buy) went wacky on me.  Of a sudden, possibly tied to power issues, possibly not, my laptop started get hot.  Like, super hot.  When I bought it, it had a warning that said “This is a notebook, not a laptop.  Don’t put it on your lap.  It’ll light your junk on fire.”  Something like that, I forget the exact words.  Maybe it said don’t put it on a flat surface.  Whatever. 

So it’s always run hot.  It’s a gaming laptop.  I expected it to be hot – it’s cramming a fair chunk of power in a portable(ish) box.  But now it was going up to 200-220 degrees pretty much instantly on launching a game.  Mass Effect 2 was unplayable due to stuttering.  I could play maybe 10 minutes of TF2. 

This happened 12 months ago or so, when it was under warranty, and I sent it off to Asus.  They fixed it (they blew it out and reapplied the thermal paste from what I can tell).  Now it’s not under warranty.  So it’s been sitting idle (mostly) for months, which led me to the land of Xbox Live (a scary place), found me a spectacular new community (Sword and Shield Gaming, aka SSG) that Im proud to have become a part of, and gotten me a new gamertag (SSG Wookiee) – but that’s for later.

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I am anti-geek pride

I know, controversial title, right?

So, today is a very geeky day.  It’s Star Wars Day #2, because Star Wars was released 33 years ago today.  It got overshadowed by Empire day, but….  It’s also Towel Day, because DNA (Douglas Noel Adams, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and other books author) died two weeks ago, and today is the day to remember his death, and to carry your towel.  It’s also the Glorious 25th of May, which for Pratchett fans, means you can wear the lilca if you were there.

Because of this, it’s also also also Geek Pride day.  Apparently this is a newish holiday – it’s maybe 5 years old.  In principle, I’m all for this.  Celebrate Geekiness.  Hell, that’s kinda the point of this blog.  In practice, I hate it.

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Gaming

So, thanks to D&D Encounters (which I think it a brilliant idea – short 1.5 to 2 hour bursts of gaming that anyone can join), I gamed for the first time in a couple years (which surprised me to realize).

It was at a game store in Madison.  I was reminded that game store employees are assholes.  I waited in line for 7 minutes to buy a thing of dice for $9 while someone did a huge preorder, and the guy tried to find it all, etc.  When I called later to find out who had run the game, he just said “I can’t keep track of the people” and was done.

But.

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I’ve figured it out….

I love Joss Whedon.
I idolize Aaron Sorkin.
I just don’t get Kevin Smith.

Or, put differently:

I want to hang out with Joss Whedon.
I want to *be* Aaron Sorkin.
Kevin Smith is the guy that shows up at the game cause he’s friends with someone else, and I can’t tell him to leave.

I think you may be missing the point here….

There’s a story in the local paper. It’s a few paragraphs long, but it can be summarized as thus:

Wolf populations are on the rise in WI. Wolves are eating deer. Hunters shot less deer.

The logical conclusion?

Wolf hunts.

………………

I….

It’s….you see….deer….wolves….hunters are….

I can’t even really begin to address this. But it’s made my head hurt so very very very very very much today.

I actually found that story while looking in to this one: http://www.jsonline.com/business/90405254.html

Not in that paper, but that’s the online version that had the story I was looking for.  The comments in that story frighten me tremendously.  From comment 1, it’s intensely political, completely lacking in context, and vitrolic rhetoric.  It’s not until the “Hey, I work there, here’s the facts” that it settles down.

People just worry me, all over.

A quick little rant

If you don’t know how to use the words, don’t use them. People are not impressed when you use words with 3 syllables simply to use big words. This is doubly true when you use it *wrong.* Don’t use query when you mean question. It just calls out that you want to sound smart. And learn the difference between similar words – constrained <> constricted, for instance. And awkward sentence construction doesn’t sound educated – it sounds like you don’t know how to construct a sentence.

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