Category Archives: nerd

goodness, nerd

Y’know what’s awesome? Star Trek: TNG.

pictured: my childhood heroes

I used to watch Star Trek: The Next Generation with my dad all the time growing up, especially if mom was out of town on business.  He would make chicken adobo (his ‘signature dish’), and we would sit down on the floor of the TV room and watch TNG until homework or bedtime.  It was the best.

Last month, I discovered a Twitter feed called TNG_S8 that tweets the plot summaries of the fictitiously “unaired” season 8 episodes of TNG.  HILARIOUS.

This show is so awesome.  They worked so hard to stay close to scientific fact, even when discussing stuff like black holes and warp speeds.  It’s pretty impressive.  I just love it.  I can’t believe a show about space exploration and scientific discovery lasted a whole seven seasons in prime time.  It warms the cockles of my heart.

I spent a good chunk of the winter break while I was sick lying on the couch watching the entire series on Netflix; time well spent.

Standard
goodness, nerd

This is a real thing

It’s a Zebroid.  Or a Zorse.  Either way, it’s a real thing, and has been for quite some time.  Apparently people have been breeding horses with zebras since the 1800’s.  WTF, GUYS.  It looks awesome, but… seriously.

shittiest photoshop job, or coolest hybrid animal?

lookit his little mowhawk!! bitchin

Standard
badness, nerd

Fewer mistakes, less embarrassment

i'm so disappointed

I’m a bit of a grammar snob, so when people make  mistakes like using “less” instead of “fewer,” I always notice, and it always bothers me.  It makes the person sound lazy or ignorant (or stupid), especially when (if I feel comfortable correcting them) they can’t tell why they’re wrong, even when I point it out.

I was shocked to discover my mom was, until recently, one of these people.  She majored in English, and I had to explain to her when it was appropriate to use “less” or “fewer.”  I figured, maybe this is a more wide-spread problem than I thought, perhaps because when you say you want more of something there’s just one way to say it: MORE, but when you want not-more, you have to think.  So let’s break it down:

Fewer is used when talking about individual items (cans of soda, grains of sand, etc.).  The easy way to remember this is to see if you can apply numbers to it: five cans of soda, six grains of sand.

Less is used when talking about amounts (water, sand, etc.).  Numbers cannot be applied to these.  Would it make sense to say, “I want six sands, please.”  No, no.

Observe:

Few = individual items
“I want a can of soda.”
“Just one?  How about six cans?”
“No, I want fewer than that.  Just one, in fact.”

Less = amounts
“How much soda do you want?”
“Just a bit.  Less than I had last time.”

Think of it this way: If a waiter asks, “How many waters do you guys want?” he’s really saying, “How many cups of water do you guys want.”  He’s just being a lazy idiot.  The answer is always “fewer,” because he’s talking about something you can count.

Something like a liquid can’t be divided and counted without changing it somehow (like pouring it into cups or freezing it into cubes); that’s a sure sign that you’re dealing with an amount, and you should use “less” when talking about diminishing it.  Individual items (like ice cubes, sugar cubes, grains of sand, etc.) should be diminished using “fewer.”

Quiz time!  Which is correct?

a) I would like less coffee.
b) I would like fewer coffees.
c) I would like less coffees.
d) I would like fewer coffee.

If you said A and B, you’re correct!  If you said anything else, reread this post until you get it, or message me and I’ll help you understand how this works.  It’s a simple way to get a handle on a part of the English language every native speaker should have mastered by adulthood.  Alas…

Standard
goodness, nerd

WoW food

Diminutive Roommate had the incredibly nerdy idea of having a dinner where all our friends who used to play World of Warcraft get together and eat dishes from recipes in the game.  It’s an idea I’ve heard tossed around, but when Diminutive Roommate sent me an email about it a couple months ago, it stuck.  We’ve send emails back and forth about this.  I made a list of possible recipes we could recreate without too much difficulty.

Here are the foods I chose, my imaginary experiences of them while I played WoW, and how they could be recreated IRL:

I hear shark fin soup it's delicious. dammit.

Spice Bread– something involving cinnamon
Brilliant Smallfish– any fish with white meat, smoked with salty seasoning.  I’m thinking halibut.
Crispy Bat Wing– I have no idea what we could do with this other than fried chicken wings.
Beer Basted Boar Ribs– pretty easy to make, I picture these piping hot and a little bitter.
Goretusk Liver Pie– any meat pie will do, obviously liver and onion would be best.
Blood Sausage– something really dark and spotted; should go to the Farmer’s Market on Fairfax and 3rd for this.
Redridge Goulash– a hearty meat/pasta/vegetable stew; hard to screw up.
Murloc Fin Soup– shark fin soup would be perfect!  If only it weren’t totally unethical and illegal.
Soothing Turtle Bisque– one of my favorites. Turtle soup does exist and sounds delicious, but it sounds horrifying to prepare.  Might just have to go with a fish bisque of some kind.
Dragonbreath Chili– I figured the spice of this wouldn’t hit you until you swallowed.  Boyfriend’s famous spicy chili might be perfect.
Spider Sausage– a narrow sausage with white meat and a tangy taste, in my mind’s eye.
Tender Wolf Steak– ribeye, bloody with very basic spices.

To drink:
Captain Rumsey’s Lager– lager is a warm color, so I think of the hazelnut blend sold by Rogue.
Thistle Tea– it’s basically grass tea, so I think of this as a green tea of some kind.

Game over.  This shit is happening.

Standard
goodness, nerd

Symphony of color

This amazing website shows you photos filled with colors of your choice, in the ratios of your choice.  Remarkable and fun.  Go, interwebz, go!

Standard
goodness, life, martial arts, nerd

From the mouths of babes

I’m starting to get the feeling that when people talk about putting their lives “in perspective,” we all mean something different.  I tend to try to figure out how my childhood self would feel about my current life.  I think she would be pretty pleased.

I loved that outfit

Stuff that would impress younger me:
-I teach martial arts for a living.
-I work in an office, and have my own desk.
-I dress like an adult (and occasionally quite stylishly).
-I’m college-educated.
-I have a handsome boyfriend who treats me like a princess.
-I have a variety of friendships.
-I live with cool roommates.
-I give good advice.
-I am loyal.
-I still dress up for Halloween.

I was struck recently while spending time with a friend at her job that my younger self would think I am just super cool for doing that.  Little Iron Friend works at a rock climbing gym, and part of her job is to set up climbing paths on the walls.  I went over to keep her company, pick out bolts that fit each piece, and climb the paths to make sure they made sense while listening to an N’Sync inspired Pandora station (every time the next song came on, one or both of us would go “Oh my god, this song!  Hahaha!”).  I left the gym around 1am, feeling like the kind of adult my childhood self would look up to with big, shining eyes and think, “Wow.  She’s so cool.  I wanna grow up to be like that.”

While we were hanging out at the gym, Little Iron Friend randomly asked me, “How does someone who tends to get into abusive relationships break that cycle?”  It’s something I’ve given a good amount of thought to, so I said something like, “People tend to seek out what’s familiar, even if it hurts them.  People find comfort in the predictable, even if what they can accurately predict is abuse.  Breaking that pattern takes determination, focus, confidence, and a lot of support from people you trust to have your best interests at heart, even when you don’t.”  I suggested a safeword between friends to let the other know that a significant other/boss, etc. has crossed the line into abusive territory.  Little Iron Friend said, “I’d be comfortable having a safeword with you.”  I said, “That sounds a little sexy, but I’m honored.  Likewise.”  She doesn’t seem particularly happy at either job, so she said that in a year, if she’s still complaining about her jobs, that I should use our safeword: Kung Fu Ninja.

Kate Beaton did a whole bunch of comics about encountering her younger self and the opinion said self would have of her as an adult.  I could take my younger self to the dojo, to rock climbing, to the beach, I could show her the cape I’m making myself, watch Home Movies and Star Trek: The Next Generation with her, eat Japanese food and coffee ice cream, hang out on the balcony of my apartment, play board games… Yeah.  I think she would be pretty pleased with the way she’s turned out so far.

Standard
goodness, nerd

Nerd gifts!

 

If you don’t know what to get your nerd girlfriend this year (ahem), remember that women do occasionally wear jewelry, and Legos never go out of style.  Hence, Lego ring from Giant Robot!

If you’re really hard-pressed for gift ideas for your favorite nerd, check out This Is Why I’m Broke.  It has everything your little geek heart could ever want, including:

looks a little... sharp

A Space Invaders couch!  Every nerd has played Space Invaders, but since it came out in 1978, no one my age would think of this game as their first love.  Still, it’s a classic.

swish and flick

A wand remote control!  For all your Harry Potter fanatics, this wand remote looks like it would get really tiring really fast.  But who doesn’t want one of these?  I mean… I think I want one.

"kill me."

A hoodie for your cat!  My last boyfriend (Nebraska McBaldy Fat) was exactly what he sounds like: a balding, overweight, pasty-white middle-America, computer-worshiping nerd in every sense of the word.  So of course he got two cats, both of which SUCK, and should be punished by stuffing them into hilarious little outfits.

light bike!

A fully functional Tron light bike!  This puppy has a Suzuki 996cc engine, and is street legal, so it’s not just a $55,000 souvenir.  It’s also the best way to distract your fellow drivers and cause an accident.

pretty horrifying

The creepiest body pillow ever!  As if snuggling a person-sized pillow wasn’t weird enough, some lonely nerd decided said pillow should snuggle you back.  Yikes.

 

 

Standard
anime, goodness, nerd

Spooky manga!

nothing like a creepy doll peeking through the window to keep you up at night

I showed Diminutive Roommate some manga the other night, specifically Mail of the horror genre, and let me tell you: she is freaked out.  It’s about a detective whose clients hire him to exorcise ghosts.  Spooky!  Diminutive Roommate is currently reading through the second issue in as many days.  She came into my room last night to sit on my bed with me while we both read our respective ghost stories because she didn’t want to read it alone.

One chapter involves a little girl who was stuck in an elevator.  As she climbed out, the elevator drops and chops off her legs.  At first, the ghost of just her legs is occasionally seen standing around in the elevator.  But the little girl dies a few years later, and a ghost of just her upper half can be seen dragging itself around the building in search of her legs.  Yikes.

Naturally, there was an article in the LA Times this morning about a woman who was in an elevator that got stuck between floors.  Apparently, she “climbed out of the elevator, but the car started moving again…The car dropped onto her, crushing her.”  She died.  I sent the article to Diminutive Roommate.  We may or may not be sleeping with the lights on tonight.

The Mail series is really excellent.  If you want to be spooked without too much gore, this is perfect.  There is, of course, death, and some murders, but the majority of the stories center around the mysterious circumstances surrounding the hauntings.  The author, Housui Yamazaki, is also the illustrator, so he gets to do exactly what he wants with each page.  The result is some of the scariest page-turns I’ve ever experienced.  Once, I was so spooked, I literally burst out laughing and had to put the book down for a minute while my heart hammered in my chest.  And it wasn’t gross or gory, it was just a well-done story arc that climaxed at a page turn and freaked me out.  Highly recommended.

heeeeere kitty kitty kitty

As long as we’re on the topic, I have to mention The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service.  Housui Yamazaki illustrates this one, too, and it’s pretty great.  It has more gore than Mail, but there’s a surprising amount of humor in it.  I found myself laughing aloud at the dialog in every issue.  The premise is that a group of college graduates are having trouble finding work, so they group together to use their weird abilities (dowsing for bodies, speaking to the dead, etc.) to help the dead reach a place where their souls can rest, often resulting in shenanigans and various tom-foolery.  It’s a good, spooky time.

If you’re not into manga, I understand, really.  But these two are worth a shot.

Standard
badness, family, goodness, life, nerd

Thanksgiving grade: B+

I had a blast with my cousins over Thanksgiving.  I’ve come to discover that my mom and her siblings enjoy each other’s company while my cousins and I enjoy each other just as much, but for different reasons.  We got drunk a bunch while the adults stayed (mostly) sober for obvious reasons including Alcoholics Anonymous.  We had fun sober, too, and Chinese Friend from Office Job got to stay for two nights and experience a big American Thanksgiving before she leaves to go back to Shanghai.  She seemed to really enjoy herself, and everyone loved her.  She got invited back by everyone.  I hope she can make it, she’s pretty great.

Friday night with the cousins was epic.  I had four shots of Patron and a beer (Negro Modelo!) before promptly forgetting my phone in the bathroom where it was stolen before I realized it was gone a half-hour later.  So my iPhone 4 is totally gone.  Tragic.

We tracked it down via GPS the next day via iCloud and set off the alarm remotely after locking it, but the asshole who stole it (let’s call him Dirty Thief) turned it off, so we had to give up our search.  So sad.  I was bummed.  Now I have to spend hundreds of dollars on a new phone.  Please help.  It’s the only reason this year wasn’t a solid A in my book.

WTF this couple should be neutered. seriously, of all the HP shit to get permanently affixed to your personhood... the killing curse? really? fail.

I’m optimistic this will turn out ok.  Maybe I’ll get the 4s!  Maybe something magical will happen.  Maybe Dumbledore will come flying out of my butt holding Dirty Thief so I can pummel him before we green-flashy Avada Kedavra his ass.

If only I could pour my molten nerd-dom into the shape of a dwarven hammer, and just pummel people with it.  But then, maybe that’s what it’s like to hear me talk at all.  Huh.

Standard