I gleefully bought Pride and Prejudice and Zombies almost as soon as I heard about it. I devoured it as a zombie devours brains: with relish (figurative, I might add, not literal). Zombies aside, it was quite faithful to the original novel.
I can only hope the forthcoming Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters will be as delightful. I shall find out when I purchase it in September.
Showing posts with label geeky. Show all posts
Showing posts with label geeky. Show all posts
Monday, July 20, 2009
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Mad domestic skills
One tradition that has evolved over several of my aunt's visits is a trip to a ceramic shop to paint some pottery. One year a coffee mug, another a decorative plate, and once a soup bowl.
My most recent project is the one I'm proudest of, though. Is this not the world's most kick-ass soapdish?
I think it earns me at least 100 nerd points.
----------------
Now playing: Muse - Blackout
via FoxyTunes
My most recent project is the one I'm proudest of, though. Is this not the world's most kick-ass soapdish?
I think it earns me at least 100 nerd points.----------------
Now playing: Muse - Blackout
via FoxyTunes
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Grammar silliness
My response to an article on punctuation on Salon was somewhere between rolling my eyes at the silliness of the discussion and reveling in the innate geekiness of the subject matter. In the end, the dry humor wins out over the absurdity of the initial question: "Is the semicolon girlie?"
This had me smiling:
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Now playing: This Providence - Card House Dreamer
via FoxyTunes
This had me smiling:
Stick with the article for the last line; it had me cackling. And note my use of punctuation in the preceding sentence.Catherine Price: I'd never really thought of punctuation as gendered, though I suppose the wink of the semicolon could be considered more girlish and coy than the straightforward, masculine em dash.
Tracy Clark-Flory: Clearly, men find the em dash a reassuring phallic symbol, while the semicolon reawakens their Freudian castration anxiety. What better way to cope with penis envy than to make frequent use of the semicolon?
----------------
Now playing: This Providence - Card House Dreamer
via FoxyTunes
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
So this is progress.
As a self-proclaimed nerd, I should have been happy with an article on Newsweek on the increasing social acceptibility of nerd girls. And yet.
First description: girls in tank tops and shorts, with special attention given to a cute blonde. Next, the article demonstrates how well adjusted and comfortable with their nerd status these cuties are:
On behalf of the nerd girls who do not require pink bows to legitimize their social standing*, I offer a loud, frustrated, "ARGH!" Yes, it's cool that geek is chic right now. Lovely. And I appreciate that it's acceptable to be a, you know, smart girl with interests beyond make-up and babies. Thanks for the approval, pop culture. I was waiting for that in breathless anticipation. But why, oh why, must (presumably heterosexual) sex appeal factor in here? Why is their social well-being contingent on how comfortable they are making themselves pretty?
It's frustrating that it's still not enough to get by on simply being smart--at least, not if you have two X chromosomes.
* - I admit, in the interest of honesty, that I am no social butterfly. I do not feel this makes me any less well-adjusted. I have a few close friends who are nerdly in their own ways. I like it like that. I could, I suppose, put more effort into both being more outoing and fussing with my appearance, which may increase my social standing. However, the former is tiring and uncomfortable for this introvert, and the latter smacks of superficiality. My friends are not my friends because of my clothing or make-up, and vice versa. If there's anyone I'm trying to impress at the end of the day, it's those who are close to me and those whom I respect, not the dictates of pop culture.
First description: girls in tank tops and shorts, with special attention given to a cute blonde. Next, the article demonstrates how well adjusted and comfortable with their nerd status these cuties are:
The Nerd Girls may not look like your stereotypical pocket-protector-loving misfits—their adviser, Karen Panetta, has a thing for pink heels—but they're part of a growing breed of young women who are claiming the nerd label for themselves. In doing so, they're challenging the notion of what a geek should look like, either by intentionally sexing up their tech personas, or by simply finding no disconnect between their geeky pursuits and more traditionally girly interests such as fashion, makeup and high heels.
...
These girl geeks aren't social misfits; their identities don't hinge on outsider status. They may love all things sci-tech, but first and foremost they are girls—and they've made that part of their appeal.
On behalf of the nerd girls who do not require pink bows to legitimize their social standing*, I offer a loud, frustrated, "ARGH!" Yes, it's cool that geek is chic right now. Lovely. And I appreciate that it's acceptable to be a, you know, smart girl with interests beyond make-up and babies. Thanks for the approval, pop culture. I was waiting for that in breathless anticipation. But why, oh why, must (presumably heterosexual) sex appeal factor in here? Why is their social well-being contingent on how comfortable they are making themselves pretty?
It's frustrating that it's still not enough to get by on simply being smart--at least, not if you have two X chromosomes.
* - I admit, in the interest of honesty, that I am no social butterfly. I do not feel this makes me any less well-adjusted. I have a few close friends who are nerdly in their own ways. I like it like that. I could, I suppose, put more effort into both being more outoing and fussing with my appearance, which may increase my social standing. However, the former is tiring and uncomfortable for this introvert, and the latter smacks of superficiality. My friends are not my friends because of my clothing or make-up, and vice versa. If there's anyone I'm trying to impress at the end of the day, it's those who are close to me and those whom I respect, not the dictates of pop culture.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Serendipity
It's a word I'm quite fond of, serendipity. This is my 50th post, but I'm sure I've used the word serendipity a few times. It just trips off the tongue. And it may have something to do with my bookish childhood.
Simply defined, serendipity is making cool discoveries by accident. Observe.
One of my Sitemeter referrals prompted me to follow this search string:
From there, I stumbled across Redneck Mother's blog. From there, I followed a link she posted to Free Rice. Oh my god, that link is making it to the vices list. It's a vocab quiz of sorts, but with each word you get right, they donate ten grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program. As you play, it adjusts to your skill level; the top level is 50--I keep stagnating at about 40 (not bad for someone who supposedly writes like a high schooler), but I'm trying to go further. It's nerdy fun, but for a good cause.
And I do feel I should qualify that as nerdy/geeky/whatever. My sister once laughed at me for spending a chunk of a Friday evening playing a game where you place the respective 50 states correctly on a map. Or a simple RPG called Maganic Wars. Hey, I keep myself amused pretty easily.
Simply defined, serendipity is making cool discoveries by accident. Observe.
One of my Sitemeter referrals prompted me to follow this search string:
From there, I stumbled across Redneck Mother's blog. From there, I followed a link she posted to Free Rice. Oh my god, that link is making it to the vices list. It's a vocab quiz of sorts, but with each word you get right, they donate ten grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program. As you play, it adjusts to your skill level; the top level is 50--I keep stagnating at about 40 (not bad for someone who supposedly writes like a high schooler), but I'm trying to go further. It's nerdy fun, but for a good cause.And I do feel I should qualify that as nerdy/geeky/whatever. My sister once laughed at me for spending a chunk of a Friday evening playing a game where you place the respective 50 states correctly on a map. Or a simple RPG called Maganic Wars. Hey, I keep myself amused pretty easily.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
It sounds like science fiction
When I first saw the headline to this article, I immediately thought of H.G. Wells's The Time Machine: "Human race will 'split into two different species.'" The morlocks and the eloi, the scruffy, dirty workers' descendants and the childlike, helpless but beautiful heirs to the upper class. Evolutionary theorist Oliver Curry says it's quite possible.
He says humans will reach their peak around 3000, then regress. The two species will arise from sexual selection, and advances in body modification will homogenize our appearances (I would assume some sort of genetic plastic surgery?). According to the article, it's a rather lovely appearance--men, you see, will have symmetrical faces, deep voices, and, ahem, will be well-endowed. But women, my goodness--or perhaps I should say "my goddess!"--will be stunning--large eyes, smooth hairless skin, "pert breasts," and shiny tresses. Need I even point out which one Curry has spent more time pondering over? I understand the power of sexual attraction, I do, but it seems as though--and perhaps there's more to Curry's argument than the Daily Mail is depicting--intelligence isn't a factor? Will humanity become so shallow that physical appearance will be the sole determinant of who's worthy to mate with? Well, Live Science's write-up adds briefly intelligence and creativity into the mix. My bad. So, basically, prime mating material would be aesthetically pleasing, intelligent, sexually desirable people. How in the hell will there be enough of these people to form a new species? And if the other half are ugly, short, and stupid--
It's shallow at best. At least H.G. Wells had a class basis for his depiction.
Then again, it seems a little more than coincidence that this article falls into my hands (or at least, crosses my screen): "American kids, dumber than dirt." Read those articles in context of one another, factor out the shallow emphasis on appearance, and you may be onto something. Evolution is a process. Luckily for humanity, it's been pretty positive thus far--instead of grunting, living in caves, and surviving on hunting and gathering, we cuss each other out on the freeway, live in suburbs, and survive on processed fast food. Instead of killing each other with rocks and arrows, we've got guns and bombs. Progress. It's great.
Seriously, though, Curry does raise the point of technology and medicine "softening" us after a few thousand years. How many drug-resistant bacteria are there? How many prescriptions does the average person take? I could see that taking a toll in the long-run. Diseases have decimated populations before--look at the bubonic plague or smallpox or even influenza. And the technology, much as I love it, could also have long-term effects--Morford points out we have a generation of folks who don't know what to do with the overload of media. Imagine a future of even smaller soundbites, brighter screens, less meaningful human interaction on a daily basis--and take those folks out of their cushy suburbs (or maybe pods by that point that are carefully controlled atmospheres to regulate temperatures, filter pollution, and block the UV rays that will be glaring through the gaps in the ozone...). They'll be lost. But they'll find others who are just as lost, and they reproduce, and so on and so forth... Future doesn't look so bright now, does it? I couldn't vouch for their physical appearances, but the world as a whole would certainly be ugly.
This is, of course, all speculation, but speculation is fun. There's a reason I enjoy science fiction from time to time.
He says humans will reach their peak around 3000, then regress. The two species will arise from sexual selection, and advances in body modification will homogenize our appearances (I would assume some sort of genetic plastic surgery?). According to the article, it's a rather lovely appearance--men, you see, will have symmetrical faces, deep voices, and, ahem, will be well-endowed. But women, my goodness--or perhaps I should say "my goddess!"--will be stunning--large eyes, smooth hairless skin, "pert breasts," and shiny tresses. Need I even point out which one Curry has spent more time pondering over? I understand the power of sexual attraction, I do, but it seems as though--and perhaps there's more to Curry's argument than the Daily Mail is depicting--intelligence isn't a factor? Will humanity become so shallow that physical appearance will be the sole determinant of who's worthy to mate with? Well, Live Science's write-up adds briefly intelligence and creativity into the mix. My bad. So, basically, prime mating material would be aesthetically pleasing, intelligent, sexually desirable people. How in the hell will there be enough of these people to form a new species? And if the other half are ugly, short, and stupid--
It's shallow at best. At least H.G. Wells had a class basis for his depiction.
Then again, it seems a little more than coincidence that this article falls into my hands (or at least, crosses my screen): "American kids, dumber than dirt." Read those articles in context of one another, factor out the shallow emphasis on appearance, and you may be onto something. Evolution is a process. Luckily for humanity, it's been pretty positive thus far--instead of grunting, living in caves, and surviving on hunting and gathering, we cuss each other out on the freeway, live in suburbs, and survive on processed fast food. Instead of killing each other with rocks and arrows, we've got guns and bombs. Progress. It's great.
Seriously, though, Curry does raise the point of technology and medicine "softening" us after a few thousand years. How many drug-resistant bacteria are there? How many prescriptions does the average person take? I could see that taking a toll in the long-run. Diseases have decimated populations before--look at the bubonic plague or smallpox or even influenza. And the technology, much as I love it, could also have long-term effects--Morford points out we have a generation of folks who don't know what to do with the overload of media. Imagine a future of even smaller soundbites, brighter screens, less meaningful human interaction on a daily basis--and take those folks out of their cushy suburbs (or maybe pods by that point that are carefully controlled atmospheres to regulate temperatures, filter pollution, and block the UV rays that will be glaring through the gaps in the ozone...). They'll be lost. But they'll find others who are just as lost, and they reproduce, and so on and so forth... Future doesn't look so bright now, does it? I couldn't vouch for their physical appearances, but the world as a whole would certainly be ugly.
This is, of course, all speculation, but speculation is fun. There's a reason I enjoy science fiction from time to time.
Sunday, October 21, 2007
Outings
I have a terrible, deep, dark secret. I could send it in to Postsecret, but I may as well spill it here. I'm feeling confessional tonight.
Oh, this is difficult to type. I feel a sense of... shame. About five years ago, I heard of a controversial book series. Kids were gobbling it up, sales were incredible, and some vocal parents hated it. I'm a sucker for forbidden fruit, so I picked up the books--J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. Not so bad, you're thinking, eh? Oh, it gets worse. Keep reading.
They were pretty good books. Fun stuff, that magic. The idea of a magical world existing right alongside our own was interesting. I was curious to see what the fuss was, though, what others more sympathetic to the series had to say in its defense. Like a teen "just curious" to see what a cigarette is like, that was my first mistake. I got on the Internet (unsupervised! there was a computer in my bedroom and a door I could close) and searched. What I found was an addiction. There were whole fansites on the series, fan art, bulletin board discussions of finer plot points, and the heroin of HP fandom, fan fiction.
I... I got suckered in, I did. In my defense, I was young and naive. I was lonely. Back in those days, there was a strong sense of community. There were, of course, occasional flame wars and somewhat heated discussion, but overall, I interacted regularly, sometimes for hours a day, with a fun group of people who were anywhere between 13-year-old fangirls who thought Dan Radcliffe was hot to 20-something geeks to grown women with children of their own. We had something in common. Thanks to fandom, I started blogging--Deadjournal, then Livejournal. I posted a lot about HP then, what I thought of characters, the fandom itself, and even Rowling's shortcomings. Between the bulletin boards and blogs, I ended up discussing many a fine plot point, many a discussion of Rowling's depiction of Slytherins as flat characters, and even the craft of writing.
And in the meantime, I read fanfiction. There was plenty about the main trio, and then I branched out. Fandom speculation fleshed out a lot of info about lesser characters, and I read stories that depicted Voldemort's past in a more sympathetic light. I read stories about Harry's parents' generation (Sirius was and is one of my favorite characters in the series, followed by Remus). I was a Severus Snape fangirl, knew, just knew he was OK under his exterior; there were plenty of stories sharing my point of view. I also inhabited a sector of the fandom fascinated by the Malfoys (parents, anyway; Draco never fascinated me) and, yes, before they were popular, the Lestranges. I even... tried... OK, I did--I wrote fanfiction myself.
There. I said it. I wrote fanfiction. It was what would be classified as more genfic, that is, not very concerned with speculating on the couplings in the series. The pairings didn't really intrigue me; my tolerance for romance in fiction is low, but that placed me in what seemed to be a vast minority. Some of the fandom's most heated debates were on who was meant for whom and what the characters got up to behind the scenes (Harry/Hermione! no, Hermione/Ron! no, you're both wrong--Harry/Ron is my OTP!!!1!), whether said couplings were heterosexual or slashy pairings. Or... well, Rowling did make a passing reference to Aberforth Dumbledore getting in trouble for practicing "illegal charms on a goat"; I leave you to speculate what certain fans made of that. Anything suggestive of illicit behavior can probably be found in fanfiction, and with a predominantly heterosexual female fan base, this translated into a dearth of slash, or homoerotic fanfiction. Yep, Harry and Draco's apparent antagonism is truly rooted in sexual tension--whaddaya mean you missed that subtext? (I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that many a fangirl adored both Harry and Draco as depicted by Dan Radcliffe and Tom Felton, and well, the only thing hotter than two hot guys is two hot guys shagging each other.)
And maybe I just never looked for it, or maybe it wasn't the subject of great speculation, but apparently Dumbledore too was gay. I fell out of the fandom about the time the fifth book came out and have only read spoilers for the last few books, so I don't know what the trends in fanfiction have been. I'm guessing Dumbledore's sexuality didn't receive much speculation because, well, because he's old and therefore asexual because... he's old and the mental images--ugh. No. He's old. Just stop that.
I want to read the rest of the books now, see if there were signs. It seems a bit sloppy, quite frankly. Maybe there were more blatant signs in the later books (something about wands, perhaps, or Dumbledore inviting Harry to his chamber to practice his 'magic'...?), but the earlier books, from my four-year-old recollection, didn't contain those hints. Not, mind, that Dumbledore's sexuality is pivotal to the series. A character's sexuality shouldn't be, but I can imagine the firestorm that's erupting in the conservative religious camps right now. Not only is Harry Potter dabbling in magic, his mentor was, well, one of those, you know. What values will that teach children?
---
Er, yes, this blog shall return to its regularly scheduled format after this post. It just sorta sidetracked me. And I do try and break up the teaching posts a bit. Guess I'll just have to start posting more frequently to bump this one down into the archives. Good thing Nablopomo is coming up...
Oh, this is difficult to type. I feel a sense of... shame. About five years ago, I heard of a controversial book series. Kids were gobbling it up, sales were incredible, and some vocal parents hated it. I'm a sucker for forbidden fruit, so I picked up the books--J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. Not so bad, you're thinking, eh? Oh, it gets worse. Keep reading.
They were pretty good books. Fun stuff, that magic. The idea of a magical world existing right alongside our own was interesting. I was curious to see what the fuss was, though, what others more sympathetic to the series had to say in its defense. Like a teen "just curious" to see what a cigarette is like, that was my first mistake. I got on the Internet (unsupervised! there was a computer in my bedroom and a door I could close) and searched. What I found was an addiction. There were whole fansites on the series, fan art, bulletin board discussions of finer plot points, and the heroin of HP fandom, fan fiction.
I... I got suckered in, I did. In my defense, I was young and naive. I was lonely. Back in those days, there was a strong sense of community. There were, of course, occasional flame wars and somewhat heated discussion, but overall, I interacted regularly, sometimes for hours a day, with a fun group of people who were anywhere between 13-year-old fangirls who thought Dan Radcliffe was hot to 20-something geeks to grown women with children of their own. We had something in common. Thanks to fandom, I started blogging--Deadjournal, then Livejournal. I posted a lot about HP then, what I thought of characters, the fandom itself, and even Rowling's shortcomings. Between the bulletin boards and blogs, I ended up discussing many a fine plot point, many a discussion of Rowling's depiction of Slytherins as flat characters, and even the craft of writing.
And in the meantime, I read fanfiction. There was plenty about the main trio, and then I branched out. Fandom speculation fleshed out a lot of info about lesser characters, and I read stories that depicted Voldemort's past in a more sympathetic light. I read stories about Harry's parents' generation (Sirius was and is one of my favorite characters in the series, followed by Remus). I was a Severus Snape fangirl, knew, just knew he was OK under his exterior; there were plenty of stories sharing my point of view. I also inhabited a sector of the fandom fascinated by the Malfoys (parents, anyway; Draco never fascinated me) and, yes, before they were popular, the Lestranges. I even... tried... OK, I did--I wrote fanfiction myself.
There. I said it. I wrote fanfiction. It was what would be classified as more genfic, that is, not very concerned with speculating on the couplings in the series. The pairings didn't really intrigue me; my tolerance for romance in fiction is low, but that placed me in what seemed to be a vast minority. Some of the fandom's most heated debates were on who was meant for whom and what the characters got up to behind the scenes (Harry/Hermione! no, Hermione/Ron! no, you're both wrong--Harry/Ron is my OTP!!!1!), whether said couplings were heterosexual or slashy pairings. Or... well, Rowling did make a passing reference to Aberforth Dumbledore getting in trouble for practicing "illegal charms on a goat"; I leave you to speculate what certain fans made of that. Anything suggestive of illicit behavior can probably be found in fanfiction, and with a predominantly heterosexual female fan base, this translated into a dearth of slash, or homoerotic fanfiction. Yep, Harry and Draco's apparent antagonism is truly rooted in sexual tension--whaddaya mean you missed that subtext? (I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact that many a fangirl adored both Harry and Draco as depicted by Dan Radcliffe and Tom Felton, and well, the only thing hotter than two hot guys is two hot guys shagging each other.)
And maybe I just never looked for it, or maybe it wasn't the subject of great speculation, but apparently Dumbledore too was gay. I fell out of the fandom about the time the fifth book came out and have only read spoilers for the last few books, so I don't know what the trends in fanfiction have been. I'm guessing Dumbledore's sexuality didn't receive much speculation because, well, because he's old and therefore asexual because... he's old and the mental images--ugh. No. He's old. Just stop that.
I want to read the rest of the books now, see if there were signs. It seems a bit sloppy, quite frankly. Maybe there were more blatant signs in the later books (something about wands, perhaps, or Dumbledore inviting Harry to his chamber to practice his 'magic'...?), but the earlier books, from my four-year-old recollection, didn't contain those hints. Not, mind, that Dumbledore's sexuality is pivotal to the series. A character's sexuality shouldn't be, but I can imagine the firestorm that's erupting in the conservative religious camps right now. Not only is Harry Potter dabbling in magic, his mentor was, well, one of those, you know. What values will that teach children?
---
Er, yes, this blog shall return to its regularly scheduled format after this post. It just sorta sidetracked me. And I do try and break up the teaching posts a bit. Guess I'll just have to start posting more frequently to bump this one down into the archives. Good thing Nablopomo is coming up...
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