Steampunk Beginnings

My friends and I are getting excited for this summer's CONvergence already. It's not until the beginning of July but we are getting things together and starting to plan already. I was introduced to the wonder and fun that is CONvergence back in 2007 and I haven't missed one since. It's 4 days of all the nerdly fun your geek mind can handle. There are panels, exhibitions, themed party rooms, dancing, costume parades, art shows, cinema, guest speakers, and of course every kind of gaming you can imagine, from old-fashioned pen and paper to MMORPG. Not to mention all the fun people you'll meet.

2010's theme was Villians, but 2011's theme is "A Celebration of Yesterday's Visions of Tomorrow". That means steampunk! The whole group is fired up about this year's costume ideas. Some of us have been planning since we went to bed the first night after 2010's CON ended. I had what I can only describe as a vision when I went to sleep that night.

Unfortunately, my vision came almost exactly a year too late. In some strange fugue state between sleep and active wakefulness, I came up with the almost complete and perfect plan to make myself into a gargoyle. Specifically, Demona from Disney's animated Gargoyles series.
 

Miraculously when I woke up the next morning, all of the plans and ideas were still burbling around in my head. For once I didn't wait and immediately put it all down on paper so I wouldn't forget.

But last year's theme was villians, not this year. So back to the drawing board? No way! A geek girl must be open-minded and creative at all times, so this calls for some adaptation. And really, I can use this to my advantage. I don't have to be Demona necessarily, and that opens up a lot of possibilities. I will need to adapt my steampunk costume idea (vague at this point, which is a helpful coincidence) so I can embrace both of that which is victorian and gargoyle-ness.

Meanwhile, my industrious (and self-admitedly bored) roommate went shopping today for supplies for our upcoming steampunk craft party. He is a person who can always think outside the box, and his creativity is inspiring. He went to Michael's, Home Depot, and Ax-Man (a surplus store common in the Twin Cities) and picked up all kinds of nifty stuff. I saw the possibilities and couldn't help but eagerly catalog his stuff. Luckily my roommate is a sweet and laid-back kind of person.

Note the two long cylindrical tubes that come apart and double as a flask! and the smaller

capsules that unscrew to hold small items of value.

And this stuff is just the beginning! That very night after tacos (I know that geekers need our sustenance so I keep them fed at my house) my roommate got to work building a steampunk compass. He dismantled a regular plastic compass and painted the outside a metallic bronze. Then he laid some tiny brass strips down on the bottom inside to form an N.

He also put a new pin through the bottom that would hold a tiny gear he bought in addition to the compass needle. He heated up the metal pin with a candle and melted it through the back of the plastic case.

After the plastic had cooled and hardened securely around the pin, he had to put the compass needle on it.

The he carefully placed the gear on the shaft.

Ta-da! A genuine home-made MacGuyver'd steampunk compass.

He still has to figure out a way to cover it so the gear will stay in place, but I'm confident he'll solve that riddle. This was just with a few hours' work, imagine what the bigger finished products will look like? I can't wait.

He hasn't just been busy buying likely-shaped things at home improvement stores however. He also bought a pair of stylish air-captain boots with weather guards and was kind enough to model for me.

I had boot-envy over his stylish footwear. Frustratingly, not all of the purchases turned out to be sound. The copper-colored liquid latex body paint was bad, both jars of it. It was chunky and you could see the rubber pieces in it.

Yuck!
But I think that one other buy has serious potential.

This mask is some serious equipment. When wearing it, I can barely hear him speak unless he uses the microphone. The battery pack he has at his side powers the circulation system and runs the microphone. It sucks a bit of juice, but my buddy is looking into battery replacement in hopes of fixing that problem. This lovely packs some serious filters as well--but don't worry, my friend got it for a steal. Hopefully at the end he'll be able to say that it looks so steampunk it shouldn't actually work, but surprisingly still does. He's a thrifty kind of guy that way and if anyone can do both, he can.

Seeing all this potential has got my mind feverishly spinning (ha ha) and I have a lot of half-formed ideas swirling around in there. I need to get to some stores and search for supplies in unlikely places and hit up a fabric store. The party is two weeks away and I will have a great opportunity to get some neat stuff built. I'm blessed that so many of my geek friends are hands-on and creative thinkers with experience in making things work. One of the friends attending loves film and has made some incredible sets and props for his movies. His expertise should be taken advantage of while it's here!

As things progress I will attempt to continue the chronicle. Look forward to future posts about our progress towards our very own steampunk CONvergence experience.

The Elimination of Prejudice

I've long had the hopeful thought that someday, racism, prejudice and bigotry of all kinds could be eliminated entirely from the human race.

After all, we're all human-we all bleed the same color, no matter what we look like or how we act on the outside.

But over and over, mankind has proven that while some of us are capable of seeing past the differences in each other to the sameness on the inside, others refuse or cannot seem to admit that we're all part of the same species.

The root of the problem, in my eyes, seems to stem from the fact that we partly identify human as "like me". And while we are all homo sapiens, this crazy world of ours allows for a lot of interesting and wonderful diversity. But that makes it harder to see each other as "like me". Sometimes, all we can see are the differences between us. Instead of seeing those differences as something beautiful to be learned from, we focus on the strange things that are unfathomable to us from our backgrounds. And unfortunately, we seem to be hardwired to respond to the unknown with fear much of the time. What we don't know or understand is something scary, uncontrollable. So our response is to lash out and keep that fear at bay by using hatred, stereotypes, and other knee-jerk reactions.

But I do have one great abiding hope for us in the future. Aliens. Or mutants. Or the discovery that the myths and legends of fiction are real. Take your pick.

Because if we were to discover that we aren't alone in this universe, or that there are things hiding amongst us pretending to be homo sapiens, we would then have common ground to unite on.

We could point to these aliens or monsters and say, "They aren't like me. They are different, unknown, not human." It could be the thing that unifies all humankind together, this ability to point and say, "I'm human, and I know what human is, and this is not human."

It would throw many for a loop, but I think ultimately it would allow humans all over this earth to band together like the social herd animals we are. We would withdraw, consolidate, and collectively understand, in a fundamental way, that we really are alike in many ways. With the incontrovertible proof that a sentient race exists outside our own, we would then have a different framework in which to think about ourselves. That framework would be broadened by necessity to include all the variations of mankind in all its glory. Because we would finally see and recognize as a race that while we can be very different from each other, we are still more similar to each other when compared with an entirely different species.

Sadly, I don't think an alien visitation or the announcement that werewolves, vampires and faeries really do exist would eliminate the true root cause of our hatred and blind prejudice. My cynical side believes we would just transfer the blind hatred onto this new threat.

This unthinking fear of the unknown and the anger and hatred it engenders appears to be part of the human condition, something we have to actively strive to overcome. But maybe that's what makes us truly capable of great things. This struggle in some ways defines us, shapes us, makes us better. Without darkness, there can be no light. So perhaps this is our burden, our cross to bear, the struggle that we must constantly be on guard for, to be vigilant against, but without which, we would be less. Less volatile for certain, but maybe less passionate, less capable of truly great things as well.

If this alien visitation or whatever happens in my lifetime, I might be glad, depending on the circumstances. Obviously my hope would be friendly aliens, not ones bent on invasion or probing.

But if they were friendly, I would then transfer my hope to the idea that we could eliminate our fear of the unknown, or at least our tendency to translate that fear into hatred and violence against the object of our fear.

And I would stand proudly, holding my hands up in the widely recognized symbol of cooperation and goodwill, and say the famous words. I would try to actively work against my fear & anxiety, and remember the wise fictional aliens who have moved beyond illogical emotions and embraced reason as the only true way to look at the universe, and embrace their creed in turn as my own:

IDIC: Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations.

Live long and prosper, my friends.

I'm a Geek, but I'm Also a Girlie Girl

Sort of girlie anyways.

How do you know you're a girlie geek?

You get over-the-knee leather boots and a D&D combat pad for Christmas and you're equally ecstatic about both presents.

This combat pad is such a neat idea. Ever since we met some new people who used one during combat for D&D, I've been coveting one. I even MacGuyver'd one for myself when I DM out of an empty 8.5 x 11 frame using wet erase markers. Extremely useful when you're juggling a lot of PC's and Bad Guys and NPC's.

I can't even remember what we used to do to keep track of initiative in battle before this little puppy was around. But obviously, it was nowhere near this cool and efficient.

This sucker is gonna make my life as a DM so much sweeter. It's madness, but I'm currently DM'ing a group of 7 PC's, with 2 major NPC cohorts. The kicker? The group's at 19th level, and we were given god-like stats to begin with. And along the way from first level, we got access to every skill trick, feat, magic item, and razzle-dazzle available in the collective D&D 3.5 edition books. Oh, and some artifact weapons.

Running a group this large with this much power is like herding cats, except the cats are saber toothed lions juiced up on steroids and hopped up on speed. But this combat pad will be like catnip-filled crinkley toys, my secret weapon.

Another really neat thing is that one of our D&D buddies knows the guy who invented this. How amazing is that? It's really a small world. Six degrees of separation and all that.

Sadly, I have not had a chance to utilize either of my wonderful new gifts. I haven't DM'd my big 7-man group since before Christmas, and the boots were the wrong size. Damn my muscular calves. I can put the suckers on, even zip them up, but then my legs look disconcertingly like sausage casings.

I blame driving a stick. All that pedal work is a workout for the calf muscles in stop-n-go traffic. Oh and walking, lots of walking. And possibly my tendancy to tippy-toe. I've heard that can work out your calves as well.

But Saturday! Oh Saturday. There will be a trip to Macy's, and I WILL find over-the-knee leather boots that will accomodate my well-turned calves.

Going Super Saiyan

I've been taking in a lot of Dragonball Z by accident lately.

I made the (mistake?) of buying the Big B the first season on DVD for Christmas this year. He got so caught up in this darn cartoon series that he immediately had to buy the next season, and the next, and today, when he was threatened with the looming end of season three, he came home with season four.

He seriously loves this series. He's a passionate guy and when he really really likes something, he doesn't do so in a half-assed way--at all. He is more refined in his tastes and doesn't like a whole lot of things, but what he does choose, he loves wholeheartedly. I'm pretty much the opposite--I like a lot of things but not with as much depth. A few things, like reading, are complete obsessions, but I have plenty of somewhats lying around.

Mix proximity and the collision of B's love for a subject and speech, and you tend to pick up a few things about said subject, whether you want to or not. Sort of like a sleeping tape. You're being talked at in the background, and you think you're tuning it out, but then one day you know some esoteric football thing and you've got B floored.

But the more Dragonball Z that's going on in the background, the more strangely drawn in I am. I don't know if it's B's passion transferring itself or that the show is that good. I'm not a huge fan of anime so far. I'll be the first to admit, I really haven't seen enough to have an opinion. Watching Sailor Moon, Akira, and Pokemon does not an expert make. By any means, mine included.

But in watching this crazy anime cartoon and with B as my unwitting tutor, I learned a few things. It struck me that life is like Dragonball Z.

The obstacles in life are tenacious and can be incongruously named and disguised. (A nut-scented enemy named Piccolo? Frieza--high-pitched voice, delicate features and plum lipstick with matching fingernails is actually a dude? I had him pegged as villianess for sure. I was so disappointed.)

At times it can feel like you're in constant battle, getting pummeled at every turn. (Battles lasting several episodes, which doesn't include the time before Goku went super saiyan?)

Sometimes your worst enemies can end up being allies against a greater foe. (First Piccolo and then Vegeta become Goku's friend? What can you say? That tailess saiyan has serious charisma.)

 

You have to give your all to what is important. (Sometimes you need to go super saiyan to get the job done.)



It can seem like you're waiting endlessly at times. (Several episodes centered entirely on guys powering up? Oh yeah.)

You may have to deal with some perverts once in awhile. (Master Roshi anyone?)

Some things you will never understand, but you can choose to make them entertaining. (I became addicted to the end credits song. Don't ask me why. Maybe it's the funny babbling at the very beginning or the fact that while most of the lyrics are sung in some presumably oriental language, a smattering of words here and there sound like they're in English. Even I can't account for my tastes.)

Here it comes a-fighting, an apple-colored monster

Here it comes a-flying, nut-scented alien

They meet and the heart beats faster.

Sparkle, sparkle, the galaxy's a popcorn shower.

Yesterday goes bye, bye, bye (Gohan),

Mystery, (far as the eye can see),

Gather up your energy (substitutes are okay),

Come over here, lai, lai, lai.

Ooh, miracle ZENKAI power!

A hungry, naughty Kinto Un,

A mountain full of horizons.

They meet each other, they come apart.They meet each other, they come apart.

Oh, no!

Aah, enough! Even Kami-sama has it rough.

So sorry.

Ooh, full-bellied ZENKAI power!

Come on out, full-on ZENKAI power!

When you love something a lot, the small things can vex the most. (B has no problem with the apparent silliness and youthful of some aspects of the dialogue and plot, but when one dragonball wish plot-hole isn't plugged, it's holy terror.)

And hopefully after the years have gone by you can take a step back from your life and see the big picture, composed of the things you've done, and like what you see. (I think it's neat that once he completes the collection, the DVD box art will create a picture on their spines. Wish some of my favorite book series would do something like this.)

This Is Why the Newlywed Show Should Have Accepted Our Application, Part 2

I had really high hopes when I found out there was a new version of the Newlywed Game currently on TV. We had just gotten married and I thought for sure that we would be a great couple to have on the show.

We'd be spectacularily argumentative and alternately sweet. It would be a triumph of bi-polar couple disorder to rival anything on daytime TV. But it was not to be. I enthusiastically filled out an application, supplied them with pictures, and never heard back. Drat.

Guess it's on to my backup plans--either Mantracker or the Amazing Race. I think I could do either of those shows fairly well. And our constant bickering and sniping at each other would definitely fit the bill that most reality shows look for (constant drama is entertaining). Plus I think we "Dolls" are made for TV! We're diamonds in the rough, truly. Or maybe just rough diamonds.

The following story really illustrates just how much we really do love arguing (and probably says something about our characters as people).

A few years ago I went to the Big B's parents' house to chat and hang out for a bit like he typically does after work each day (the Big B is a HUGE momma's boy, but that's for another time). We were chatting and talking loudly with the TV show COPS on in the background. The Big B had a particularily stressful day and was hoping to unwind.

Once again, I can't say for certain exactly what set this argument off, but it was definitely something to do with COPS. Probably something involving guns or law enforcement. Either topic is hot-button for my father-in-law. All four of us began to heatedly argue for the next hour or so. Sometimes one or more of us would gang up against another, but any alliances were shortlived as we shifted about in our reasoning, going off on tangents and side arguments as warranted by whatever someone else was saying. The volume got louder and louder and more empassioned with every passing minute.

Ever hear of that technique to get people to calm down and lower their voice by talking softer yourself? Completely ineffectual in the Doll household. Instead, we shoot for decibel levels just shy of rock concerts, jet airplanes, and volcanic eruptions.

Finally, it was over, almost magically, as if we all decided to call a truce at the same time. In the silence, I look over at the Big B to see him grinning widely and looking happy and relaxed. He gives a big sigh and says, "That was nice. I feel so much better now."

Most sane people would be even more stressed out by a hour-long four-way argument that rattled the windowpanes. Even argumentative people would have heightened blood-pressure after a scene like that (I know I did!). But not the Big B.

Oh no.

For him and his crazy-logic world, that was the most relaxing thing he could have done to detox himself from the stresses of his workday. And he indulges in this stress-relieving therapy daily.

He's just lucky that I am a girl who can hold her own in arguments and came from a loud family of her own.

This is Why the Newlywed Show Should Have Accepted Our Application, Part One

I'm sure you know  a couple or two who just love to fight. Call 'em the Bickering McBickersons.
The Big B and I are definitely one of those couples.


Most of the time these discussions, while heated, have no lingering bad-feelings accompanying them. We may look like we are about to tear each others' faces off while in the heat of the moment, but ten minutes later we can be kissing each other sweetly as if nothing happened.


There are exceptions. Neither of us are morning people, we get up for work at the same time, and we have to share one extremely small bathroom with each other and our two cats. As you may already be imagining, this is a recipe for disaster. Through some trial and error we have found a script that works for us. Everything is fine as long as we don't deviate from it too far.


"Good morning."


"Can you move just a bit to the left? Thanks."


"Have a good day sweetie. Be careful it's really hot/cold/wet out there today. I love you."


Anything other than variations on this is leading to dangerous territory and a guaranteed way to start the day off crankily. And for gawd's sake, DO NOT go into what you want the other to do that day, or what they did the previous day that didn't 100% please you. That leads to bloodshed and the kitties get upset when mommy and daddy bleed so early in the morning.


We fight at the slightest provocation. Anything, literally anything, can set us off at a moment's notice.


For most of our arguments, I can't really recall after the fact what got us started in the first place. Most often it's a statement one of us makes that garners an immediate denial from the other. I think it's almost instinctual at this point. If he were to say "The sky is blue today," I would in all likelihood respond with an immediate "No, it's more of a turquoise-green".


From there, the discussion follow a similar pattern. In the beginning I'm earnestly trying to get him to see my point, attacking his refusals from different angles to try to put a chink in his logic. He bats aside all of my attacks with firm head-bob denials. Then things may start to get ugly. There is something about the way he argues that crawls under your skin to irritate the crap out of you. Maybe it's his tone of voice, or the way his head bobbles so emphatically after he refuses to listen to your completely reasonable and logical arguments. Maybe it's that he refuses to budge on anything and his logic is something that not even Spock could agree with. Surely it has nothing to do with me.


The end usually results in hands thrown up (mine), a display of disgusted storming away and a shouted refusal to "talk about this any more!" (once again, usually me).


We've argued about so many silly things. Time-travel, evolution, where photos on the cover of school books come from, the new Twins stadium, the potential Vikings stadium, whether cleaning out the fridge of leftovers is a dishes-related or cooking-related chore, and how genes are passed on from parents to offspring (to name a few that stick out in my memory).


Unfortunately, usually these arguments are not the type that either of us can win to our satisfaction.

Random Things I Can Do

Still getting my feet wet with this, so bear with me.

Here are some weird/silly/random/scary things I can do:

1. I can...Roll my stomach. Kind of like a belly dancer, but without the hip movements. Facinates young children and adult males.

2. I can...Make a high-pitched yipping noise like a dog that's getting beat. Don't mock it--it's scared off several would-be suitors who weren't getting the hint in the past.

3. I can...Fit lots of things into one compact space. I have a gift for spatial relations, which I use to my benefit everytime I go camping. Speaking of...

4. I can...Go to the bathroom in the woods. I pride myself on being a "real" woman who isn't afraid to squat when needed. But toilet paper is a must. Leaves have been used in extremity, but I don't forgo the knowledge of the 20th century just because I'm camping without a bathroom or electricity.

5. I can...Drive a stick-shift (manual) car. Another thing I pride myself on knowing how to do. Now I'll never have to worry if I'm the only one capable of driving and the only thing around to drive in an emergency is not an automatic.

6. I can...Lift one eyebrow like Spock, make the monkey-lips face, and curl my tongue. Supposedly I know how to wiggle my ears & shift my entire scalp, but somehow that skill is lost in my genetic makeup somewhere. The monkey-lips face is another useful tool for driving people nuts.

7. I can...Stand up on my big toe like Kate Winslet does in "Titanic". And I don't fall over and swoon like she does in the movie. Call it a relic of being a very enthusiastic tippy-toer when growing up.

What random things can YOU do that would astonish, amaze, scare, or make people go "meh"?

Getting Started

There's a first time for everything.

First time I've worked without taking cigarette breaks.
First time I've ever blogged.
First time my New Year's resolutions didn't include losing weight.
First time for truly testing that thing they call "will power".

Sometimes things stick the first time you try them. Sometimes they don't. I'm hoping that the non-smoking will stick this first time around. It's both harder and easier than I thought.

Things that stuck:

Reading--definitely a great big sticky one there. Sometimes I've paid for having a larger-than-usual vocabulary, but more often it's enriched my life (and kept me from having to think as much).

Fantasy/Sci Fi. Not sure if this would have happened to me regardless (my inner geek says "Yes") but I convienently blame my dad. Well, he DID give me my first chapter book that I can remember reading, and it was a Sci-Fi book by Andre Norton. I about blew his mind later on when I informed him that Andre was a girl.

Rainbows. I've loved them a long, long time. So far it's not going away. But I can probably point a finger to my early childhood as the source of this unreasoning delight at the color spectrum's display. When you grow up in a room with windows on three sides facing the east, with sky-blue carpet and rainbows on the walls, and you regularily play My Little Ponies, some love of the rainbow is bound to get stuck onto your likes early on. At least that's my excuse.

Things that didn't stick:

Dolls. Just couldn't get into the Barbie-doll thing or other kinds of dolls. Maybe it was because no one in my family was blonde. It's not for lack of maternal instinct (I have it on good authority that I'd make a pretty great mom). Or maybe it was this overriding obsession with horses that got in the way.

First time I tried Magic the Gathering it didn't stick. I was a bit of a geek-snob in high school. A friend of mine tried to show me how to play, thinking (rightly) that it was just the kind of thing I would like. I brushed him off and told him "This is too hard; this is too boring; this is too..." and whatever other excuses I had for not trying something new long enough to get a fair pictureof whether I actually liked it or not.

Thank goodness I learned in the fullness of time that you need to give some things another chance.

What would I have missed out on had I given up after the first failure to stick?

Salad dressing, mayonnaise, ribs. Hated them growing up but now I quite enjoy all three. "They" always said your palatte changes as you grow bigger. I viewed "them" with suspicion.

Skiing. I was completely hopeless that first field trip. It was a struggle just to get up the bunny hill. Couldn't turn for the life of me, but could snowplow like I was being paid to do it. While I can't call myself the best skier in the world, I can get down most of the hills in my native Minnesota without falling down too often.

So here's to being a sticky stubborn silly person to ensure that I never pass by a potential fun thing.

And I really hope that quitting smoking sticks with me. But just in case the first try fails, I will not give up so easily and will learn from my mistakes.