We're All Gonna Die!

Let's talk about the end of the world.

I've been playing too much Fallout 3 and watching too many things with zombies. I'm starting to get paranoid.

I absolutely adore Fallout, and I'm jonesing for a copy of New Vegas, though I'm not even half way through Fallout 3.

You ask why it has taken me six months to get to Three Dog? Because of shit like this.

I'm paranoid with an overactive imagination. I have had to give myself an indefinite hiatus from the game because of this. A few nights ago I went to bed in abject fear of the end of the world. I was fairly certain that I was going to awake in the middle of some sort of apocalypse, be it zombies, nuclear holocaust, or a world war on our home turf. I also realized that we have no way to really survive. We live in the middle of a highly populated urban area, we have no range weapons and no ammo, and we don't have a large supply of food. I'm pretty sure we're doomed. I fell asleep straining my ears for sounds of impending doom. Excessive sirens, screams, car crashes, or possibly no sound at all. When I woke up in the morning I was actually surprised that nothing had happened.

A few weeks ago I watched the first episode of Walking Dead, and Oh My God, it was awesome. Probably the only Zombie anything that I REALLY liked. However, I still spent several days terrified of a zombie breakout.

I am also counting down the days to December 21, 2012. We have 1 year and 363 days. I have no idea what, if anything, is going to happen that day. However, I'm predicting one the highest suicide rates of decades, possibly longer. Also mass hysteria and panic. I have a feeling as we get closer to the date we will be seeing and hearing more and more people talking about it and their predictions and in the week leading up to it the media will be inciting said panic and  hysteria, and the world will be holding it's collective breath.

There has go to be something wrong with me, I swear. Sometimes I think I'm going to turn into a Doom Sayer, complete with cardboard sign. "THE END IS NIGH!" I mean, they're the only ones that actually believe this stuff?

I have been told if I'm so paranoid I should prepare. Build up an arsenal, 3-4 years of non perishable food product, buy a house and fortify it adding in a bomb shelter, store 5 years worth of filtered fresh water in airtight containers, store several seasons worth of seeds. You get where I'm going with this. My only issue with this approach is that in preparing for the worst I become MORE paranoid.

So, do you fear the end of the world? The Zombie Apocalypse? Nuclear Holocaust? How do you prepare for it? What are your plans for survival?

The things we don't talk about.

I find it frustrating, unhelpful, and unfair that there are so many things that we don't like to talk about. Or if we do it's in hushed tones and as though we are ashamed to be having the conversation. Certainly there are some who talk about them loudly and openly and productively, but not many, and they are often hard to find.

Depression is one of those things. Even though a high percentage of Americans are diagnosed, and even more are suffering undiagnosed, with it we don't talk about it. Give them a pill and let's be on our way is often the attitude, along side the brush offs of "Everyone gets sad." or "If you just tried you'd get over it." and any number of other things.

I don't often talk about myself and the personal stuff going on in my life here for two reasons. One, I am depressed and I don't want to sound as though I'm whining. It's a fine line between reason and excuse, and I often feel as though all I'm giving are excuses for my behavior. I have a LiveJournal that I have recently returned to updating regularly with this sort of thing. Feel free to look me up if you can find me.

Reason two! I don't know who, exactly, reads this. I don't know what friends and family I have that might be following me surreptitiously on here, and while I'm an open book to just about everyone, I'm not so much to my family. So even though my LJ is public, I'm not quite ready to go all in over here and blast my personal business on the interwebs.

However, this is something I want to talk about, because no one does. (Remember, this blog isn't ONLY about geeky things. It's also about me.)

I've been diagnosed with depression since I was fairly young, also ADHD. Halfway through college I stopped taking meds and convinced myself I was fine for many years. Only recently have I realized that no, I'm really not fine, and that I do need medication and therapy. It's been long and painful getting to this realization and acceptance of myself and my wonky brain chemistry, but here I am, and here I shall stay.

Depression is a hard thing to deal with. It's hard on the person who has been diagnosed, and it's hard on the people around them. I often find it difficult to do some of the most basic things for myself. Showering, cooking, cleaning, not to mention I have a child and a husband that need me. The guilt of not being able to do take care of myself and them is killer, and it feeds into the depression and general feeling of worthlessness. It's a self repeating cycle and it is SO hard to break out of. At some point it becomes familiar and comforting, it's easy to keep feeling the same things over and over.

It also affects work performance in ways that you might not expect. I'm a designer, at least it's what I went to school for, what I so desperately want to do with my life, what I'm trying to do with my life, but I haven't been able to. Recently I've received several projects that I'm incredibly excited about, but I find it difficult to work on them and complete them in a fast and efficient manner. How can I work when I can barely pull myself out of bed? I also fill in temporary office and call center positions and watched as the people around me get hired full time, but I don't. Why? Because I often exude a demeanor that screams "I don't care about this job! I don't want to work here!" Do I ever, really, like the jobs? No. Do the people around me? Likely not. However, the difference is that they are able to push through and do the things they need to do to get a full time job. I, on the otherhand, can't seem to focus enough to be as effective as I know I could be. So my attempts at getting a full time job to fill in until I get my graphic design career going fail.

I don't think I fully realized how much the depression was affecting me until recently. Oh, sure, within the last couple years I acknowledged that I could certainly use some good therapy sessions, but I didn't accept that I might actually need medication. I was afraid of it. My experience with it growing up was less than pleasant and I resented everything about it. Sometimes I still do. I trained myself to forget to take it, which is why when I got to college it became completely ineffective and I suffered withdrawal symptoms constantly.

I don't know what changed, but over the last month or two I've realized and accepted that I cannot function. I often can't do basic things, and that I'm not just lazy. That it's not just a matter of changing my habits, but it's also an actual problem. I think the trigger for my realization came in the form of mild panic attacks and anxiety. I suspect I may have a mild anxiety disorder as well as ADD, but I'm not sure. All I can say is standing in the middle of the kitchen with nothing but an overwhelming sense of impending doom and being convinced that the world is going to fall apart if everything doesn't get done RIGHT NOW is a sobering experience.

Depression is not something that can be defined by a specific set of behavior. It's not something people can really understand or relate to unless they've dealt with it themselves. It's not a broken arm or a seizure. It's not an addiction, though addiction and depression often go hand in hand. It's not the sort of thing that people really talk about. Instead they brush it off claiming laziness and bad habits and if the person would just put a little more effort into things they'd be fine. However, it NEEDS to be talked about. There needs to be open discussion about it, not just on the blogosphere, not just on forums and websites, but in our homes and communities. Everyone knows the word, everyone knows theoretically what it is, but there is little community support for those who have to deal with it.

Super Powers

I was just thinking about what super power I'd want to have. There's so many to choose from, that I don't know which I'd want most! Basically anything you can think of could be a super power, and even various combinations.

If you look at Super Man, he had at least a half dozen  different powers that made him the icon that he is. He could fly, he was invulnerable except to Kryptonite, he had super hearing, super speed, super vision, and super strength.

Then there's Spiderman who could climb walls (although their explanation for this made no sense while he was wearing gloves. How did the little feelers get through the fabric?) He also has "Spidey-sense" which is basically super hearing, super reflexes, and super sight. And then, of course, the shooting webs from newly formed glands in his wrists.

However, your average hero has only one ability that can be put to use in various and clever ways to their advantage.

So what one ability would I want?

There are some questions you need to ask yourself before you make that decision. Am I the only Super? What power would be most useful? Do I want an obvious power? Or do I want something more subtle that can be passed off as something else?

After contemplating those questions I have two choices.

My first choice, assuming there are lots of other Supers I'd be running into, would be an Empath. Think Peter from the first season of Heroes. All I have to do is hang around someone with an ability and I suddenly have that ability. I could fly, turn invisible, teleport, super strength, super speed, eidetic memory, muscle memory, telepathy, telekinesis, everything! I would be way cooler than Superman.

Of course, the likelihood of running into a lot of other people with super powers is likely pretty slim, so my second choice would be automatic muscle memory. All I'd have to do is watch someone do something and suddenly I can do it perfectly. Heck yeah! I'd be a master at just about every martial art I chose to watch. I could parkour like a champ, and have killer dance moves. Also, lockpicking, contortion, acrobatics, gymnastics, and sleight of hand.

If I could combine it with an eidetic memory, fuck yeah. Not only could I DO everything I watch, I could also REMEMBER EVERYTHING I hear and read. Bad. Ass.

Who needs super strength when you can move faster and more efficiently? Who needs school when all you have to do is read a book or article or anything and you suddenly retain all the information there in? Of course that's really only useful for things other than basic fact if you're smart enough to understand and comprehend the information.

So what is your preferred super power(s)?

Keeping Perspective

I have clearly been slacking in the posting over here. Though, to be quite honest, I haven't been in the headspace to put out posts. I've been over at the LJ brain dumping.

Lucky for you, I have something to talk about.

The new forum game. Hooray! I know you're all just as excited as I am.

After my experience with the last one I couldn't pass up another opportunity to do it again. This time will be very different, though I hope just as fun and intense.

It will be a new character, a new game, a new story. Same players.

One thing I have to be careful of, as I'm finding myself falling into this already, is to separate the last game from this game. I need to keep EITS and my emotional ties to it out of the Blackwater game. The characters are not going to be the same, and my character is not going to be the same. Whatever kind of character I make there is not going to be a Coen and a Rudyard. Oh sure, she MIGHT have a love story that unfolds dramatically and tragically, or maybe she has one that ends up with a happy ending, but I CANNOT go into this game expecting the same sort of experience I had in the first one.

These are not the same. What I must hope for is the joy of playing. The love I felt for my character and the love I felt for those closest to her. They will not be the same this time, and the players behind the ones she befriends are not necessarily going to be the same as the ones before.

It's very easy to transpose one experience onto another. It's similar to transposing your emotions for a fictional character onto the player behind the character. It's important to keep a perspective in all things. To separate not just reality from the game, but also one game from the next, and from one character to the next.

Whatever character I play in this new game will not be Detective Leoma Stetson, childe of Rudyard Hawkins, childe of Adana de Sforza, lover of Coen White, Silverfang garou. They will not be the same. The concepts won't be the same. And their stories most definitely won't be the same.

I truly love my Leoma, and Coen, and Rudyard. I think I always will. However, it is time to put them to rest. To let them live on in my memory, and make way for a new experience with new characters and stories and adventures.

From what I've read of the new game so far, it looks like it will be a good one. We just need to keep it in perspective.

Arsenic Based Life

Apparently scientists have found some.

Up to this point we believed all living matter was carbon based. Clearly, we were wrong. How cool are these little buggers? No longer will the cockroaches be the only ones surviving the nuclear holocaust. I betcha the little microbes will be chugging right along with them, perhaps one day becoming the primary life forms of the planet.

I wonder if these are the basis for the creatures that will eventually replace us.

Okay, I'm getting away from myself.

However, this discovery leads to so many more questions, just as all good science does. A good answer makes you ask more questions. Anyway. I digress.

Getting down to the nitty gritty of the report I googled it. I immediately found this article.

Basically the guy explains that the organisms aren't entirely based on arsenic. They are still totally carbon based, require oxygen, nitrogen, and some other basic stuff. However, they can be coaxed into substituting arsenic for phosphorous. Still really cool, but not quite as ZOMG THIS IS SO AWESOME as people have been getting hyped about.

There's definitely some really neat science going on here that should be explored further, but let's not get all excited about the new life form.

The Human Jukebox

How would you like to walk around blasting music from inside your gut? More specifically, how would you like for people to send in requests about what songs to have playing from your gut?

Well. That's what this guy did.



On November 27  Fredrik Hjelmquist, CEO of Pause Home Entertainment, swallowed the worlds smallest wireless sound system.

I first heard about him from Wade who read about him on Gizmodo. The whole article, complete with video, can be found here.

Apparently this guy loves sound, and to him it's not about size. In this instance, apparently it doesn't matter. What matters, says Hjelmquist, is the quality. Of course, he says this with a GIANT speaker system behind him. Right.

The sound system he swallowed is a capsule shape roughly the size of a large horse pill, and now people from all over the world can go to his website and make song requests via facebook.

Pretty cool, right? Guy's got balls, that's for sure. He even stocked up on laxatives and ipecac to make sure he could get the thing out.

Of course the guy's got a cause. No one does this for no reason, it's too good a gimic for that. He's doing it for publicity.

Rock on, Frederik. Rock on.

The Characters We Play

A few weeks ago we finished up a Vampire: The Masquerade forum game. The game ran from the beginning of February to the end of October. Two weeks later we had a wrap party and for the first time I got to meet the players behind the characters.

I know it's been officially one month since the actual end of game and two weeks (feels so much longer!) since the party. This is something I had wanted to talk about during the game, but one thing led to another and I never got around to it. Now that the emotions left over from the game have settled and I am looking back over the last nine months I thought it would be a good time.

This was the first forum game I've ever played in and it ended up being my BEST rp ever. It was also extremely emotionally intense. Even though I was able to keep the characters and actions in the game separate from reality, I still became exceedingly attached not only to my character, but also to some of the other characters in the game. So attached that I can say with absolute honesty that I truly love them. There were other characters I couldn't stand in the same way.

While I do feel these strong emotions for the characters the feelings are not translated to their players. The I don't love them or hate them the way I do the figments of their imagination. I know they are not their characters, even if I do still occasionally refer to them as their characters. (That's an old habit born from continuously referring to people by their handle or username or character name when you meet them online.)

When the game started I didn't know what to expect. I had a vague idea of the character I was playing and where I wanted her to go. Her backstory evolved organically during the first month or so of the game as I began to find reasons for why she was the way she was. I hadn't intended her to be that way, but she took on a life of her own. The path she followed through the game was almost entirely developmental. She did not contribute to very much major plot, but she wasn't in a position to do anything. Her story was one of self exploration and, ultimately, tragedy.

As the last two weeks of the game came to a close people were rushing to complete their stories and scenes. Knowing that I would be away the last few days of the game I rushed to complete the last few scenes I was in.

Her story hit a climax as the two characters she and I loved so very deeply killed each other. I tried frantically to see if there was anything I could do to save them, but there was nothing. I spent days sobbing hysterically, curled up in my bed unable to move. It was an effort to force the last few posts out for the scene. At one point I thought "if I don't post, they can't continue, and they won't die." Of course, this didn't work. When I didn't immediately respond they continued on with out me.

The death of the characters felt as though I had lost two people I loved, because in a way I did. Did I over react? Possibly. A lot of people would say I had, but I don't think it's a bad thing. Whenever I read a book or write a story or play a character, especially if it's well done, I become invested in those characters. They become real to me. I live and breathe with them, I often dream extensively about them, and they become alive. Their world becomes mine for the brief period I spend with them. I know they are not real, and I don't pretend that they are, but they feel real. The love, fear, sorrow, and anger I feel for them is real.

I love the people I got to play with. They were fun and gave me one of the best role playing experiences of my life. They are also excellent players and they are the ones that made their characters come alive for me. To them I salute. They gave me such a wonderful thing, as tragic as it was. I still miss the characters. I still love them, and I still think about them quite a bit.

Occasionally I go back and read the scenes we were in, to see if it still resonates with me the way it did the first time. Yes, I still get misty eyed. I still feel the same frustration and anger and love. Are there things I would have changed? Some. Going back I now have a different perspective and I wonder how things might have turned out if I had done certain things differently, or didn't do others at all. Perhaps it may have had a happier ending. Perhaps it would have been the same. Perhaps some day we'll go back and retell the story differently. Maybe the characters will be given a new life in a different game or story.

Whatever the case, the characters we play and interact with often change us, leaving something of themselves behind even when they or the game are long dead and gone. Whether we become as emotionally attached as I do, or not it doesn't matter. A good character and a good game will leave it's mark. They touch us in ways we'd never expect, and I think for that moment. For that feeling. For the joy of telling a story with others. For the chance that we will somehow connect with these characters and players in a deep and meaningful way is what brings us together.

Oh, God. Make the Hurting Stop

I was going to talk about the guy who swallowed a mini sound system to become a human jukebox, but then my brain melted and my eyes almost bled out of my head. I promise, I'll talk about him another time. There's no way I can't.

Not working for several weeks, an unfortunate round of depression, a long holiday weekend, and the various projects I've started have left my sleeping and eating schedule erratic, which made the first day of my new temp job painful.

It's boring in an eye bleeding and brain melting sort of way, but overall not entirely unpleasant. A little bird told me the well-to-do of the department are looking for someone permanent, and I am clearly a lot better than the last girl. She lasted a week, and I've spent the day correcting her mistakes or doing the work she said she did, but clearly didn't. I've already got the job aced, but I have to wonder how I managed to get a job where I have to do mat.

I failed math. Repeatedly. I failed most classes that required a lot of linear, reason based logic. In other words, most science and math. I did wonderfully in English, Art, and Philosophy. Even History wasn't too shabby. But Algebra I failed twice in college. I failed geometry in High school. I failed Statistics in High school. I barely made it through Chemistry and Physics. I wasn't too bad in Biology... but maybe that was because I was excited about dissecting dead things, incredibly fascinated by their inner workings.

I digress.

Math and I don't get along. I've forgotten how to do long division and anything not in an even increment of five or ten I need a calculator for. So, how I landed a job making sure all the numbers on the dimensions and conversions are correct beats the hell out of me. So far I've got it aced, but it's only been one day running on four hours of sleep. I still have the rest of the week to go through, and there's plenty of time to sink.

Right now I'm going to go veg out doing something that doesn't require brain power. Maybe curl up in bed with a movie until I fall asleep. Hopefully I can run on full tomorrow and I'll have something more interesting and enthusiastic to talk about.

ColorPic - Short Review

As a designer it's useful, if not downright mandatory, to know all the information you can about the colors you're using, not least being the hexadecimal number. Web deisgners, programmers, and anyone creating anything for the web need this information.

I recently started creating web designs and I needed the hex number for some of the colors I was using. I haven't found anything in Adobe that tells me this (there might be something built in, please tell me if there is!), and so a quick search yielded immediate results.

I found ColorPic by Iconico. It's a simple, easy to use, free program that tells you everything you could ever need to know about a color anywhere on your screen. You can get it's hex and decimal number, the RGB values, the CMYK values, and it converts the color to websafe with just a click of the button. How cool is that?

Another great thing about the program is that it magnifies the section of the screen so you can quickly and easily select the individual pixel you're trying to get. Handy for those intricate images you're trying to get the color pallet for.


EDIT: I just found where I can find the hex number in Adobe. I knew it had to be in there somewhere! Even so, this program is still really neat!

Black Friday Rule - Christmas WTF - Part Two

Black Friday is here. It comes this day every year, and it is a really sad and terrifying spectacle to behold. With the angry, crazed mobs lining up for blocks outside stores hours before they open, what has this turned into? What does this say about us? 

What happened to spending a few days around Thanksgiving with friends and family? What happened to just enjoying some time before the next holiday quietly (or not so quietly) eating left overs, watching football, and slowly breaking out the Christmas/Chanukah/Kwanaza/Yule/whatever decorations?

Is it really necessary to perpetuate the idea of extreme consumerism with a major shopping event EVERY year? And why do the stores and corporations need to incite such a frenzy? How many times have people died, trampled to death, or crushed against doors that won't open? 

I'd be terrified to be a shopper or an employee in any retail setting on this day. Just look at the guys up there. (Is it weird that my main concern is what do they do when they have to pee? Like getting through THAT is an option.)

This is an utterly ridiculous tradition and it is exactly the opposite of what this season, cumulative of Thanksgiving and Christmas (or whatever winter holiday you celebrate), is supposed to represent. What happened to actually being Thankful? It's like we're doing nothing more than paying lip service to Thanksgiving and then jumping right into the shopping frenzy of Christmas, which is supposed to be about family and community. It's so not supposed to be about presents. Only the smallest of us seem to truly get that (ask any 2 year old about Christmas and they'll tell you about snow, cookies, candy canes, and going to see grandma. They won't say a thing about presents unless you tell them, though they might make mention of Santa and his reindeer.).

I boycott Black Friday on principle. Buying gifts, for others or for yourself, should not be done in a frenzy where people are fighting over the last Tickle Me Elmo, or the last Thingamabob, or whatever it is they're wanting. If I do ANY shopping on this day it's from the comfort of my home and the internet. I likely won't darken any store doorway for another week or two at least.

Christmas WTF - Part 1

(This is a part one because I'm pretty sure I'll find some more WTF moments as the holidays get into full swing.)



I was at CVS today browsing their holiday section trying to get ideas for stocking stuffers for people and I was admiring some of their ornaments when I came across ones advertised as Mom's Favorite.

Really? We are encouraging parents (mother's specifically!) to choose favorite children and bestow upon them an ornament that proclaims this for everyone to know? Why is this okay?

As children we are simultaneously hit with the ideas that "All parents have a favorite" and that "There aren't supposed to be favorites." As we get older we are told that you shouldn't pick favorites among our children, and yet we are again bombarded with the idea that we should have a favorite.

What is wrong with this? Why can't we be unbiased toward our children? Why are we being encouraged to choose favorites and to then put this favoritism on display?

A new image?

It's time for some self exploration, as well as an expanded definition of what I want this blog to be.

I started this blog with the intention of posting rants and raves about various geeky things, the occasional game review, and as a home for my blogcomic. However, I am a fickle creature and while I occasionally have a lot to say about those things, and I have this great idea for a blogcomic (Really, I do! It's got Cthulhu in it! Who doesn't love Cthulhu?), I don't seem to have the energy? More like focus. To post with any sort of regularity on any of those topics, or any topic at all.

I used to be a blogger. Back in the day I was addicted to LiveJournal. I had a HUGE number of people following my blog, and I, too, followed a huge number of people. At some point I just stopped caring. About the blog. About the people, or at least about their blogs. A few of them I still talk to, but our interactions are entirely outside of the blog world. I didn't have time to follow all the blogs I was supposed to, and I lost interest in posting constantly. My blog, originally a place for me to rant and rave about the things in my head, whatever they might be, had become a place of self absorption and angst. (I was told my LJ was angstier than a White Wolf book! WTF?)

Now, years later, I want to blog again with some semblance of regularity. I want to express myself, but with less angst. Less self absorption. Less whining.

I want the things I say to be meaningful, not only to me, but hopefully to others out there in the blog world. I want to talk about really geeky things, but I also want to talk about life, the things I'm going through, and how I'm dealing with them.

I am not the most eloquent person, nor am I the most wise or intelligent. My story and life is no better or worse than anyone else's. It's just who I am, though maybe not who I want to be.

This blog is going to be the place where I put down my thoughts. Where I sort through my own head, and hopefully it will become that place where I do post that blog comic I SWEAR I'm going to do. (Just not sure when.) It will not just be geekery, it will be life.

Challenge Yourself

There are many many people who come and go into and out of everyone's life. Rare is the person whose presence makes you feel smarter, happier, and generally more content with lie and the world around you.

I have had the absolute pleasure of meeting one such person. She has been spending the summer with us and she has opened my eyes to a lot of things I otherwise wouldn't have discovered. As a free speech activist she has brought my attention to how often our rights are challenged, and how people either don't realize it, don't care, or don't know they can do anything about it.

She has also taught me bits and pieces about Neuro Linquistic Programming, which I have begun to take a great interest in. It's kind of scary how easily the human brain can be programmed, deprogrammed, and reprogrammed. How we have been programmed from a young age to follow basic commands when they are given by people who are perceived to be in authority. (Bavarian Fire Drill anyone?) How most of the people going to NLP conferences are not individuals trying to better themselves, but top sales men.

She challenges me on a daily basis to think on a deeper and larger scale. That the universe is not always as it seems, that Nikola Tesla was probably right, that everything we know, or think we know, about science is wrong. That the tricerotops probably isn't even a dinosaur.

Some of this may seem extreme lines of thinking, but after doing some of my own reading and research, of talking extensively with her and my fiance, as well as others, that she is right, or at least mostly right.

So, I challenge all of you to rethink your views and beliefs. Re examine everything you know. Deprogram yourself and learn to recognize programming when you see it. Fight for your rights to free speech, but also exercise your right to silence.

I will talk more about all of this in detail later. Right now, the work monster is calling me.

Everyone Knows Girl's Don't Play Video Games

I am not generally one for FPS'. They just aren't my style, though every once in a while I will find one that catches my eye and turns into a good deal of fun for me. TF2 is one of those games. It's not as complicated or serious as some games. It's actually kind of goofy and cartoony. Maybe that's why I like it. It's easy to just run around, shoot things, and have a good time.

Well, a couple weeks ago I was in one of my favorite maps with several other people that I didn't know. At one point I'm asked if my avatar is really me and I reply that yes, it is me.

The response is a "Wait. What? But your avatar is of a girl."

Now, before I continue, let's pause and consider this. Yes, I am a girl. Yes, I am a gamer. And YES, I do occasionally jump into TF2 and other FPS games. I find it awfully biased and sexist to automatically assume that I am a boy, let alone a 14 year old boy. Do people ever consider that just because my voice is a little higher that maybe, just maybe, I'm actually a GIRL? *Gasp and Shock*

The assumption that I am a boy, and the disbelief that the girl in the avatar is, in fact, me is irritating. Come on people! Honestly! Girl's are gamers. Really. We like them just as much as the next person. This is not a new concept. I have been a gamer my entire life.

So, my response was, "That is because I am a girl, and that is me." The cumulative response was, "Oh. I thought you were a boy. Nevermind." *facepalm*

That last word. The "nevermind" was probably the smartest thing he'd said the whole time.

So, to all the guys out there, GIRLS are gamers too. Please do not jump to conclusions. kthxbai

Yet another blog entry

I work in a call center as a temp, but I'm angling for scoring a full time gig. Problem is, I have yet to meet anyone that is anything like me. Sure a few of them do or used to play wow, but I mean... that's like... EVERYONE plays wow. Besides, I quit wow. After 4 years of playing on and off, the charm wore off.

I mention nerdcore and they're like "What?" I mention D&D and they give me a weird look. Forum gaming, I get an invisible pat on the head.

It's kind of hard to find people that are located physically near me that are into the same things I am. Or that even get the references I refer to (Nrrrd Girl, anyone).

My fiance is a total geek, but a different brand of geek. We have equal odds whether we click or clash on anything geeky. (It's rare we can play a video game together, totally different play styles.)

I just can't sit there and talk about how awesome MC Chris and MC Frontalot are, or the shenanigans my character got into last week at the D&D game, nor even the latest video game I'm playing (unless it's something like wow or bioshock.. which I still haven't played).

It's kind of sad that 90% of the people I know I communicate with primarily through digital means, or I met them through digital means, or we used to live near each other but now we don't so rely on IM's and the occasional phone call. But I suppose that's the price we pay for being geeks. A little harder to hit it off with someone at a club or a coffee shop.