This is my Christmas day story. It will haunt me forever…

I sit in a dress on the floor, enduring all the calls of my name to look their way. Lights flash as the large people take pictures. I’m bored, and look around at the tree and brightly colored paper on the floor. Eventually they tire of taking pictures, and I’m on the floor. They put several of the colored boxes around me, and are encouraging me to rip the paper. I like playing with paper, and have fun. The large people take the rest of the paper off the boxes, and put them in front of me. The items bombarding me with sounds and lights, my tiny eyes and ears can’t take so much. I turn away, and the large person called “mama” comforts me, giving me plastic blocks. I bang them together and put them in my mouth. It’s much better than the baby I had just escaped. She was trapped in a plastic box, and I helped to get her out. Her voice…it haunts me. Something about it bothered me to hear it, I couldn’t help but squint up my face when she talked. Her mouth didn’t move when she talked, and it all made sense. Especially when I saw the next gift.

The fuzzy red thing isn’t as tall as I am. Its large white eyes stare straight ahead, unblinking as it stood motionless just over an arm’s length away. I curiously reached towards it but my fingers jerked back as it began to move and make noise. Terror began to swell as it lurched towards me, laughing. I began to cry as it was swept away, and I was picked up and brought to safety. The larger people who feed and care for me kept calling it “Elmo”, but I know better. I now know what the robots will look like when the Robot Apocalypse comes, like my daddy has warned me. They will come as Elmo and plastic dolls, in homes all over the world, under the tree at Christmas.

Technorati tags: baby grrl, roboapocalypse

This is just too funny not to share.

Seems that a congressional aide tried to hire the guys at Attrition to hack into his alma martar at Texas Christian University to boost his GPA. They exchanged emails with him, and strung him along but good.

Some great exchanges take place, like asking for pictures of pidgeons, squirrels, and mentioning rot-26. Read the entire back-and-forth emails here.

Technorati tags: haha, idiot, geek humor

I’ve been listening to my Xmas present already. Hubby got me Wil Wheaton’s Just A Geek: Teh Audiobook. It’s one I’ve been meaning to get for a while, but just never got around to it. I wish I hadn’t waited so long, it is awesomely good. I love hearing it read by the man Wil, himself. You can hear the emotion in his voice as he tells the stories, and I feel like he’s in the car with me, talking as I drive.

He has made several emotions and thoughts come to the surface. An easy one is that I feel the need to dust off my novel I finished during NaNoWriMo last year. Next week at work, I’m hoping it will be slow and I can polish off some good chunks, and send them off as short stories to some places. It’s a Lovecraft inspired tale, so it’s rather specific in its genre. Of course once I get a piece I’m proud of, I will make a sample available for people to read.

The other thing that I’ve been thinking on is my geekiness. Like a lot of geeks, I’m self-conscious. Probably doesn’t help that I’m also a female, who seem to be self-conscious anyway, but that’s not it for me here. I’ve often thought of myself as a geek, I was into a lot of the typical “geek stuff” many years ago and still am, but really…a lot of times I felt like a geek wanna-be. Especially now, as the stuff I’m into really is more mainstream, thanks to geek chic. 15 years ago, a girl that had a computer (Mac no less!), knew some HTML, played video games, read comics, listened to punk, etc. wasn’t very common. Now it seems that it’s the cool kids who do all that stuff. Hell, just by updating a blog these kids know basic HTML. Besides, I don’t even get to do much anymore now that I’ve got a kiddo of my own. I’d love to play more video games, get into a weekly RPG like Call of Cthulhu or All Flesh Must Be Eaten. But as any parent who works full time will tell you, time isn’t that plentiful, especially this time of year. I can’t even tell you the last time I was able to catch up on simple things, like the latest Strong Bad emails. Or how about even getting all the links to cool places like Strong Bad in the column at the right of this site’s homepage!

By the end of this post, I’ve now gotten in the mindset that I love geek culture. It’s not how many plusses are next to the letters in your geek code, or how well you can argue who was the better captain Kirk or Picard, or critique the errors in Lord of the Rings. I don’t need to be depressed like Morrissey and slay my puppy every week. (A Nerf Herder reference…and I know what a Nerf Herder is…see how geeky I am!!!) I’m just going to like what I do, and not worry what others think. Anyone up for some Illuminati?
Technorati tags: geek, self doubt, geek cred, white and nerdy

A big shout out to my good friend David over at The Last Exit to Babylon for photoshopping my baby grrl…geek style:

Technorati tags: baby grrl, geek, star wars

In 2001, another porn site was started on the internet. Normally this isn’t any big surprise or big deal. But the site owners claim this isn’t any typical porn site. It empowers the women, giving them input into their photo shoots and a journal where they can speak their minds. Oh, and the girl also fit into the punk/goth/emo sub-culture. If you haven’t guessed by now, I’m talking about the site Suicide Girls, or SG.

I was late to the game, and only about a year ago did I discover the site. Not for it’s photo content though, but for its articles and interviews. I discovered that Wil Wheaton submits stories to the news wire there, and I loves to read me some Wil. He now does a “Geek in Review” colum once per week at SG. Seanbaby also contributes from time to time, and he is hilarious. They also have Daniel Robert Epstein contributing great interviews, including greats like Alan Moore, David Cronenburg, David Lynch, and many others. I never paid for the membership, since I could read all of these without charge.

Curiosity got me, and I began looking into the site deeper. I wondered why it was so popular it was able to get Wil, Seanbaby, and many others to contribute stories. Was it just like any other boobie site, or was it like the founder Missy Suicide claimed; that it was “redefining beauty”. I watched the short documentary presented by G4’s show Icons, and it did look like it was a more woman-friendly and empowering place than the typical porn site.

Except for the girls. I noticed that, despite their tattoos, wildly colored hair, and piercings, the girls were thin and pretty. There is a category for Plus Size, but from what I could see from the free content, there were very few women with pictures posted there. They were a bit curvier than most, but still not ‘plump’. Women of color weren’t anywhere to be seen. Granted the punk/goth scene had more white kids when I was but a young punk-grrl, but you’d still see other ethnicities around. Apparently I’m not the only one who noticed this. Bitch Magazine ran a commentary about this issue a year after SG debuted.

The author said: But one major way in which Suicide Girls are not that different from their Playboy counterparts is that despite their tattoos, hair coloring, and creative piercings, they fall neatly within the confines of mainstream beauty standards. Imagine giving the varsity cheerleading squad makeovers at Hot Topic, and you wouldn’t be too far off. Most of the models here (and on other indie-porn sites, too) are thin, white, and traditionally beautiful. Fat girls - hell, even average plump girls - aren’t Suicide Girls, and with only a couple of exceptions, neither are girls of color. It’s not that punk and indie scenes are devoid of these women, so their apparent exclusion from the site suggests that Suicide Girls and others aren’t seeing the alternatives in “alternative”.

That’s why the site is so popular. Not because the girls (oh, and there are all mostly girls…very few Suicide Boys) are different or alternative as the site proposes, but because they are the definitive Western beauties. She just might have blue hair and tattoos instead of brown hair and a boob job, but she would still be pretty by our society’s standards. Hardly redefining beauty in my book.

As a side note, I found where several girls claim that SG is not any better than the typical porn site when it comes to misogynism. Both Wired and The Phoenix give stories from last year where close to 40 models walked away from SG, claiming that the real person who runs the show is the co-founder “Spooky”, real name Sean Suhl. These stories and anti-SG blogs can give much more background than I can, so if you’re interested hit the stories and related links.

Technorati tags: pr0n, rant, feminism, punk girls

Seen on World Net Daily today, James Rutz finally solves the whole “why are gay people gay?” issue. Why you ask? It’s simple, they just eat too much soy!

This “devil food” as he calls it, …is feminizing, and commonly leads to a decrease in the size of the penis, sexual confusion and homosexuality. That’s why most of the medical (not socio-spiritual) blame for today’s rise in homosexuality must fall upon the rise in soy formula and other soy products. (Most babies are bottle-fed during some part of their infancy, and one-fourth of them are getting soy milk!)

I’d love to see the studies backing these claims. I couldn’t find anything even suggesting soy caused decreased penis size. And after being used as a staple in Asian countries for over 5000 years, you’d think they would notice something by now. Like a larger homosexual population in that part of the world.

There are good health benefits. Eat soy based foods to help lower cholesterol, reduce the number of hot flashes, and reduce diarrehea in young children and infants.

Speaking of soy eating infants, does he not know the reason some babies get soy milk? They are allergic to regular milk and *do* need to eat. He’d rather they starve than become gay! How’s that for outlandish assumptions, James?

Technorati tags: wingnut, fucking moron, homophobia

Remember the rant I did about girl’s toys back in October? Well, it seems the Discovery Channel’s web store is helping to perpetuate the stereotype about girls not liking or wanting science related toys.

Thanks to a post from Mike the Mad Biologist, he shows that, indeed, boys get the cool science toys while girls get…well, girly things.

Take the top 5 list for boys:

1. Discovery Whodunit? Forensics Lab
2. Discovery Fingerprint Lab
3. Discovery Speed Detector
4. Radio Control Equalizer Stunt Car
5. Discovery Remote Control Chromashift Roboreptile

Now look at the top 8 for girls. Yes, even including 8 doesn’t make the gifts better:

1. Discovery Ultimate Pottery Wheel
2. Discovery Knit Kit
3. Discovery Deluxe Nail Salon
4. It’s My Life Scrapbook Kit
5. Discovery Friendship Bracelets
6. Discovery Jellloopdeloops Jewelry Kit
7. Klutz Paper Fashions Kit
8. It’s All About Me Quiz Book

What the hell is Discovery Channel selling nail salon, friendship bracelets, and fashion kits anyway? How is that science related? Oh wait, it’s not. Good job with trying to get girls interested in science and math. Sheesh.

Technorati tags: sterotypes, rant, science, toys

Been enjoying the holidays and time off from work. Got a few things I’ll get to blogging about next week. We had a winter storm, and being home has made me lazy with the blogging. Can’t help but play with baby grrl, get into the Xbox 360, and spend time with hubby.

So in lieu of real content, here is a picture! Go to her site to see more, including her Xmas picture!!!

Technorati tags: baby grrl, spawn site