10 posts tagged “geek”

This has been a long week - and look, it's not even the end of Tuesday yet!

I've been having on and off tooth pain since my front crowns were done last week.  Today at lunch I finally saw stars when I tried to eat my noodles and chicken from Bentos, so I made an emergency appointment to get seen.  Turns out that my entire jaw was resting on that one sore tooth, so some bite adjustments, $12 of pain medication for five pills, and two hours and I should be as good as new in 72 hours or so.  Ouch.  It's hard to explain how much it hurts, it just does.

I also had a formal review/goal session/bitchfest today in my building.  What a waste of time.  The dude who had the position before me was a Certified Teacher, everything in my review was essentially that I was acting like a technologist (btw, this is the job they hired me for, and the skill set) and not a teacher and so they're not happy.  It's been a headache all year long, I have a building of old Macs, teachers who have no desire to include technology in their curriculum, a principal whose agenda is so far off the main drag that there's no hope of salvaging it, and a District Tech Team which has floundered in their support since day one.  They said they wanted a technologist, they hired one, but what they didn't know is what they really wanted or needed, and now, they can't be happy with everything I do for them since it's not teacher material.  Suffice to say, I'm definitely job hunting again.  Yes, I have a position to return to next school year if I'm feeling suicidal, but it's hardly something I want to be doing.

On the other hand, I did get an email that I've got a phone interview Friday afternoon for a temporary position that I'm trying to get this summer.  I want to get back into grant writing - and this job might just be my foot in the door if I can land it.  Here's to crossing all my fingers and praying it works out.  I think in the long run, it's time for me to get out of technology - I love my geek, hell, I love being a geek, but being a paid female geek is one of the hardest things to do these days, and I'm losing sight of my happiness trying to fit into the molds set out for me.  At least I know that whatever I do that way, Scott's supportive - I needed to know that more than anything else tonight.

We're still in unpacking/fixin' it up mode at the house.  Scott's doing great - he's picking up things really quickly, and when I don't screw up majorly (yeah, the breaker is supposed to be *off* before playing with the dryer or whoops, double check to make sure the drill is on forward when trying to drill through tile).  On the positive side, while tonight was kind of slow we are making progress.  The bathroom is done, the kitchen is almost there, and there's progress outside and in the other rooms.  For him being in the house less than a week, I'm really happy with how things are progressing.  The trick now is to keep at it and not completely crash from all the work that's going into it.

I got a call from Pastor Kasting at Church tonight - a please come to the New Members meeting next Tuesday.  Crappy timing, I was hoping to attend Garage night that evening, but I did apply for membership with this Church, it'd be good to follow through.  This one is important to me, I'm still not completely sure why.

Dude, it cost me $44 to fill up my Tracker today.  Ouch!  It was only five days since I last filled up.  Gas is breaking the bank.

I totally picked up two tickets to see the Mythbusters when they come to Portland in October and surprised Scotty with them last night.  He had let me know a couple weeks back that there were some interesting things coming to town and it'd be fun to hit at least one of them up.  I just wanted to do something for "us", even if it's a ways out.  It's something to look forward to - and c'mon, it's Mythbusters, what's not to like?

I've been stumbling for the past half-an-hour and this link was just too funny not to share. 

First post from my new laptop, her name btw is Phoenix!  I absolutely, positively love it.  Of course I should, I built my dream machine to spec and ordered it just for me.  It was a bit of an interesting time getting Fedora 8 installed the right way, but I finally have it almost completely finished.  I just need to work out my compiling issue (Honey, this is where I need your help.  I tried!  Honest!)  and need to get codecs installed.  But otherwise, wireless works on the fly, my video is clean, touch pad is setup, profile is setup, applications are arranged, and so on.  It's great.  And one of the neatest things is that my battery lasts a solid five hours provided I'm not doing something CPU heavy.  That's very sweet.

Chuck!  Chuck is totally on tonight!  I found out by accident when Juan had said that he had been able to download it already.  I was like O.o!  Two episodes!  Squee!  It's totally the best show on TV and I'm amazed, surprised, and jubilant that it's on tonight even with the writers strike still in session.  It has totally made my night. :D

Hmmm.  I love the Twitters, but if they're getting in the way for any one please let me know?  I don't want to be an annoying Vox friend.  Speaking of friends though, I've been toying with putting out a Craiglist advertisement:  Portland Area Friends Wanted.  Great, geeky, 20-something moved to the area just under two years ago and would love to make some new friends.  Loves computers, gaming, photography, science fiction, cats, sports, water related activities, and general hanging out.  Tends to break the stereotypes.  Email if you're wanting to try out a new friend!  ... what can I say?  I love Scotty.  Honestly.  And his friend group is wonderful.  But they're... his... friends.  I have no one I can call and say, hey, lets go bowling tonight, or go see a movie, or go see the new concert downtown or whatever unless it's Scotty.  And sometimes I miss that.  I miss that alot.  *sigh*  Maybe one day I'll go through with it.

So on Sunday I was reading an "Internet for Dummies" book dating back to 1993 or so.  What can I say?  I was looking for something to do other than interrupt other individuals.  Anyways, I came upon a Windows 3.1 question that I couldn't for the life of me remember the answer to.  Did the windows in 3.1 have a close button?  And by that I refer to the little "x" in the upper right hand corner of nearly every screen I can remember since.  I didn't think it did but I had no way of double checking.  The question persisted all weekend, and then today I remembered to Google it and see what the answer was.  So the answer to the question is this:

The now-ubiquitous close button in the upper-right hand corner of windows was only added to the operating system in Windows 95. Previously, as you can see in this picture of Word 6.0 running on Windows 3.1, the only caption controls on the right side of the title bar were minimize and maximize/restore. The way you closed a window was by double-clicking the little horizontal line icon in the upper-left corner of the window.  (from this blog)

Now I know.  Random old-school computer trivia ftw! 

You know, I could see this happening...

Command Line

Totally a great geek gift.  My sister got me one for Christmas.  Have yet to actually do anything with it, instead it has joined the lightsaber spoons hidden away in a desk drawer.  Still was a great gift idea. :D

Spork

This is why I don't do regular backups of my JAWS drive.  300Gigs transferring over a USB 1.0 connection takes FOREVER.  In fact, four hours later, we're still working on it.

Screenie

After waiting in line at 4:45 on Sunday morning for Freddy's to open in honor of the Nintendo Wii, I decided I had some time to ponder the new console and it's impact on gaming, both for the hardcore gamer and the newbie drawn in by the casual experience.  Yes, we did score a Wii for both friends who wanted one.  I think they enjoyed the experience as much as anyone can enjoy camping out in somewhat chilly weather waiting for a new release.  Met some interesting people, gamers and the like, froze for a bit, but overall had a good time camping.  I still find it funny that I'm the only one who ever camped for a "geek" item before, but that's another entry for another time.

So Wii thoughts.  I had a chance to spend way too many hours today playing and watching friends play with the Wii.  (Damn, is it just me or does this new console have way too much sexual innuendo attached to it?)  Personally, I'm a die-hard, hardcore PC gamer, but the Wii had me intrigued from the first time I heard about it.  Not enough to actually purchase one for myself, mind you, but enough that I wanted a chance to try it out.  The premise is that the entire gaming experience is motion controlled, that is if you want to go left with your toon, you literally move the controller to the left, etc etc.  Of course, putting that into actual use was much more difficult than I would have though it would be.  Some games were fairly easy, the Wii came with a sample "sports" disc containing Boxing, Tennis, Bowling, Baseball, and Golf.  Of the five samples, I most enjoyed Baseball, but each demo provided a chance to get used to a different function of either the main Wii remote or the nunchuck attachment.  A steep learning curve involed in getting used to the ins and outs of moving one's entire body instead of just fingers or thumbs.

Once we (as a collective that is, not necessarily talking about one individual or another) are able to conquer the Wii remote and nunchuck, the possibilities may truly be endless.  Particularly, I had a chance to play a FPS mini-game embedded into the game Scott picked up for his system, and it definitely tweaked my interest.  Literally, you could pick up a weapon, load it, and then have minute control over the crosshair, high sensativity, and nice response times while playing what was, more or less, a multiplayer style battle which reminded me of the Quake or ET senarios.  That game was awesome!  Talk about bringing the real idea behind shooters to the console industry, Halo, eat your heart out.  I tell you what, I definitely wasn't sold on the console prior to that, but if I can play a FPS with all the perks that I also have with my PC gaming, it may definitely be worth my while to pick up a Wii of my own as more titles launch.

Overall, my recommendation is this:  The Wii is not a console to replace or otherwise conquer the previous consoles someone may own.  It's not a standalone solution for a hardcore gamer looking for a real challenging experience.  What it is, is of course, a multifaceted attempt to push the gaming industry in a new direction.  If one can settle for middle of the line graphics with a cartoonlike quality, one which Nintendo is definted by, then the Wii is defitinitely an affordable addition to any gamers crib.  Two enthusiastic thumbs up... I will have to experiment with the casual gamers on the system and see if the reactions I'm reading online are on par with the actual thing.  But for the price?  Can't beat the system.  Very, very sweet.

[EDIT]  Apparently folks are already breaking TV's with the Wii Remotes.  Gay wrist strap was created for a reason, use it.  Wii Remote 1.  Tv 0.

Anyone catch NBC's Heroes tonight?  Third episode tonight, which finally is getting into some plot in the series.  The first eppy introduced the characters, introduced the ideas, and pretty much laid out the setup for the series.  The second eppy was more or less a recap of the first one but from a different perspective.  This episode finally focused on the villan, gave us an insight into the main characters, and of course gave us plenty of Hiro to tide us over for another week.  (Every great show needs a geek!  Hiro is just a well defined character - I love his quotes!)  Although, I do agree with what someone commented over in LJ: Hiro needs a new sidekick. This one is defective.  So, if you're not watching the show yet, check it out, if you are - anyone have any thoughts thus far? :D  

For The Record:

A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.
A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.
You scored better than half in Geek, earning you the title of: Pure Geek.

It's not that you're a school junkie, like the nerd, and you don't really stand out in a crowd, like the dork, you just have some interests that aren't quite mainstream. Perhaps it's anime, perhaps it's computers, perhaps it's bottlecaps, perhaps it's all of those and more. Your interests take you to events and gatherings that are filled with people you find unusual and beyond-the-pale, but you don't quite consider yourself "of that crowd." Instead, you consider yourself to be fairly normal.

The test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

	You scored higher than 99% on nerdiness
	You scored higher than 99% on geekosity
	You scored higher than 99% on dork points