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HBO has betrayed me

by on May 7, 2012 in Game of Thrones, geekFTW, gender

I’ve been reading George R R Martin’s books since 2003, so believe me, Game of Thrones on HBO is one of my favorite.things.ever. Overall I think the show is amazing.

However.

A girl wonders where her bathhouse scene is.

HBO, we need to talk. Game of Thrones’ use of “sexposition” (ie: dude character randomly exposits backstory via monologue to nameless naked whore/wench) is pretty infamous. There is a lot of sex in the books too, and it isn’t always nice sex. It’s not that I mind the naked exposition. I don’t, not horribly much. Deadwood used this plot device a lot, wherein Al would go on these awesome monologues to his favorite saloon girl Trixie while they were alone in his room. I get that it lets a character talk freely to the audience who otherwise would not.

But. (You knew there was a “but” coming.) I am asking for a little equality here. Yo, Game of Thrones, you have a lot of female viewers! The sexposition in the show is seriously, SERIOUSLY, imbalanced. Male viewers have gotten full frontal tons of times. Boobs, boobs, and more boobs. They even invented a character who’s not in the books (Ros) solely for the purpose of male characters expositing at her naked breasts. What eye candy has there been for us? Let’s review:

  • Full frontal Alfie Allen as Theon (acceptable)
  • Full frontal Hodor (!!!!!)
  • Shirtless Gendry last week was OK
  • That one scene in the pilot where all the Stark boys are hanging around shirtless
  • Oh, and my fave male full frontal: the dude who is being dragged to his death behind a Dothraki horse. Yeah, that was totally sexy.

So, as you can see from this list, not exactly a scintillating list of male sexy parts. But last night was the proverbial Straw That Made Me Go On A Massive Twitter Rant. And I wouldn’t have even known about it. They MIGHT HAVE SLIPPED THE WOOL OVER MY EYES… had I not gone back into A Clash of Kings to check how some scenes played out in the book.

Y’ALL. Seriously. When Arya tells Jaqen H’ghar her second death wish in the book, he is sitting naked in a bathhouse. Oh yes he is. (For comparison, we got full frontal Osha sexing up Theon on the show last night instead. I will give you one guess as to whether that happens in the book.) But on the show, they changed it so Arya was all in a hurry and she runs up to him like, “You need to kill this guy this second before he reveals who I am!” and he’s all, “A man rolls his eyes.” And then, like a badass, murders the guy 10 seconds later. So, to recap, no assassin in bathhouse action.

Why does this matter, you ask? It matters because the guy who plays Jaqen H’ghar is hot.

Just for reference, this is the actor we did not get sitting naked in a bathhouse:

YEAH. I know.

Granted, he is dirtier and with weirder hair in the show. But still. HBO, you are on notice. Step up your game. A girl is mad.

My grammatically incorrect title

by on April 25, 2012 in geekFTW, Unsecure Connection, writing

Yes, I meant to type that. Why you hate like that, little red line? Whyyyy?

My novella is titled Unsecure Connection. And I am a grammar nerd. What do these two things have to do with each other? Let me show you. (See left.)

You are my problem, little red line. Or maybe I’m my problem. I should have known better than to title my novel something that’s only kind-of sort-of a word. But I couldn’t help it. It was a pun, see. A geeky network pun. My two main characters are hackers– an unsecure connection is like a field day for them. And in kind of a cool way, the title also describes their uneasy relationship.

But the problem is, spell check always thinks I mean insecure, because unsecure is not a word. 14 and a half million people on Google think it is, though. But if you’re talking about a wireless connection, I think the proper way to say it would be unsecured, as in “That network is unsecured.” See, no red line. (Well, you can’t see it. But I can. And trust me, there’s not.) The Network Connections dialogue in Windows in fact says unsecured. But colloquially, it seems like most people say unsecure, not unsecured. So I went with it.

Oh woe, my book title is only sort of a real word

I sort of regret it, though, whenever I start typing something up and I get that constant reminder that there is something grammatically shady about the title of my novella. It’s just the kind of person I am when it comes to grammar. I hate that I did something grammatically questionable. And yet I still think it’s kind of a cool title. (How funny is it, BTW, that the third search result down says “Unsecure connection: Many wi-fi spots vulnerable to hackers”?)

Space criminals, SWTOR, and other fun things

by on January 8, 2012 in gaming, geekFTW, star wars

I blame Han Solo.

Why do I write so much SF/SFR in which my characters are criminals? They’re not bad people. But they definitely tend to err on the not-so-legal side of the law. I’m not a criminal. Well, I don’t do… many… things that are illegal anyway. (I shall not elaborate.) My main character in my cyberpunk novella is a hacker who sells passwords for large amounts of cash. I’ve got WIPs about a ship thief, an orc bodyguard, and a smuggler.

But you know, I don’t technically blame Han Solo. Maybe I blame the Mos Eisley Cantina. Because that scene, above all others, is about the potential of Star Wars. Who can watch that and not think, Who are all these people? Where do they come from? What are their stories? Why are they in this shady bar? My lifelong desire to basically live in Star Wars and discover the answers to those questions is a huge factor in my writing.

I was always sort of disappointed in most of the Star Wars novels, which you would think would explore the feeling of potential, of space, implied in the Star Wars movies even though they focus on a very small cast of characters. But it turns out I’m weird, and what everyone else wanted were stories about… the same small cast of characters. I’ve read a lot of the expanded universe novels and material, and what bums me out the most about them is yes, they explore the background characters and give them a name. But they always met Luke in a bar once, or they know Han Solo, or they had super secret important backstories that just weren’t realistic. So most of the Star Wars extra material, instead of expanding on the potential of the world, seems to make it smaller. We’re talking about a galaxy in which it seems like everyone knows the same 5 people. Really?

I’m not usually an MMO player, but I’ve been following the game Star Wars: The Old Republic basically since I heard about it, what, three or four years ago? I played two days in the beta over Thanksgiving. In the game one of the character classes is Smuggler. Oh, I am so all over that. I love making characters. While gaming does take away from writing time, for me it really does fire up my imagination. I imagine personalities for my characters. I spin off stories for them.

And I mean, someone is giving me a chance to do illegal smuggler-ish things… in Star Wars? Yes, please.

Scrivener for Windows

by on November 22, 2011 in geekFTW, writing

I’m a longtime Scrivener user on Mac. It’s the only way I’ve found to keep various scenes and chapters of my writing organized where I can both see them and work on them. I don’t even know how I ever messed around with multiple Word documents being open at the same time. It’s nonsense and it’s not how I work. In particular, the word counts and targets in Scrivener that work across all scenes of the manuscript are sanity-saving, especially during NaNoWriMo, when I need to track every word I’ve written. But really, I like to do this all the time. Any time I sit down, I want to write at least 1500 words, and Scrivener lets you easily set and view session and project goals. The full screen view? Also awesome. The corkboard view? The sidebar where I can pull up character notes and pictures (I like to browse DeviantArt for art that has the feel of what I’m writing)? Love.

I have no doubt there are features of Scrivener I haven’t even figured out how to use yet. But it’s worth paying for, even if I could be getting more out of it (color coding and tracking drafts and revisions– there is a system for this, but I have yet to use it because in the past I’ve exported to Office to format/edit… I may be a rebel and not do that on my next project). In fact, I’ve bought it twice, once a couple of years ago, and once for Lion because (argh) the older version’s fullscreen feature was broken.

I like to do writing on my lunch break at RealJob, and I’ve gone through a bunch of systems for this. Google documents, individual Word docs for a session that I then C/P into Scrivener from my Dropbox when I get home… Well, right now I’m using the Scrivener for Windows beta/trial and let me tell you, it’s making a strong argument for me buying this piece of software a third time. I mean, I probably won’t, because hello… buying the same piece of software three times? Not in the budget. But I will say if I was going to do more writing on Windows, then wow… what a system this would be. I believe they recommend not syncing through Dropbox because it can result in corrupted files, but I haven’t had any problems. I am always extra careful to make sure I complete close out of Scrivener files on my Macbook when I’ve finished a writing session, so nothing gets unfortunately synced or screwed up.

Anyway, Scrivener = yes.

Building a PC: Not That Hard

by on October 31, 2011 in gaming, geekFTW

This Saturday I built my first computer. We’d bought our previous PC in 2006, and it had slowed down to the point of frustration. My husband and I both have Macbooks as our everyday computers, but we are gamers, and so the PC was basically just for that.

The cost breakdown of PC gaming vs. console (ie: XBox 360 or Playstation 3) gaming is interesting. We are talking $300 for a console, so why spend $1100 to build a gaming PC? Here are some of our reasons:

  1. I’ve never played on a console. Didn’t have one as a kid, didn’t have one as an adult. Whenever I try, the buttons just confuse me. I am aware that this is the way most people in the world play video games, but it’s just not something I’ve ever gotten used to.
  2. Graphics. Your midrange gaming PC can beat whatever the XBox is giving you graphics-wise.
  3. Types of games. We’re more into RPGs (roleplaying games) than straight up shooters or sports games. We occasionally play MMOs and you definitely need a PC for them.
  4. Mods. Oh, this is basically THE reason right here. I am hugely addicted to mods. Want better graphics? There’s a mod for that. Want cooler outfits? There’s a mod for that. Want more content? Mod! I just love that there are whole communities out there who are making stuff (free!) for gamers to download to improve their experience. And there’s so much that just picking and choosing can take hours. I’ve even made some mods myself. (I have been known to give female characters pants when their outfits are ridiculously sexualized…)
  5. A PC can also be used for other stuff.
  6. We bought a pre-built PC for $1000 in 2006 that was nowhere close to getting the type of performance we are going to get from the PC I built myself on Saturday. You really do get more for your $$$ if you are willing to learn a little.

So here I was with a wicked-looking (but empty) shell of a case and eight very expensive computer parts strewn about the living room floor. Intimidating? Yes. Wow. And yet 4 hours later, when I pressed the power button and amazingly (AMAZING! LIKE MAGIC!) the whole thing started up, it was one of the coolest moments I’ve had in a while. And when I look back, it wasn’t that hard. Anyone who can read directions and plug things into other things that look like they go together can do this. I promise.

Some thoughts:

  • Go slowly. I’m pretty sure this was the only reason the thing started up on the first try. I didn’t rush it. I made sure every single thing was connected.
  • Read the directions. First the ones for the case, to see how your hard drive and DVD drive fit in. Then the ones for the motherboard, to get all your other pieces plugged into the right spots. When installing other parts, I made sure to also look at those instructions.
  • Definitely install your CPU and its cooler/fan, RAM, and maybe graphics card onto the motherboard before you screw it into the case. Then you don’t have to reach inside and contort yourself to work.
  • I recruited my husband’s help for one part of the process, which was putting together the CPU cooler. The directions that came with it were fairly awful. We’re talking itty bitty pictures like half an inch tall. How long does it take two smart people to assemble a heat sink? A depressingly long time, it turns out. Haha.
  • If you don’t have any experience, use other people’s! I used this fantastic website as a guideline. I figure, this guy has already done the research, why should I spend more time than I have to? (Our PC is a modified version of his Tier 6 build.)
  • Hooking up the power cables looks terrifying but is so easy. There are basically only a couple different types of cable ends and (shocker!) they connect to the ones on the motherboard/drives that match them.
  • Basic rule: The computer needs to be able to “see” all the parts, and the parts need power to work. Therefore –> Everything connects to the motherboard and to the power supply.
  • I think the idea that building a computer is a “male” thing to do is absurd… mostly because holy small parts! If my fingers had been any bigger, I don’t know how I would have done it! So I really don’t know how guys do it.
  • It should be noted that while I built the PC, my husband did the dishes and laundry. And cooked dinner. So there.

I’m not a professional. I’m an English major. So take my word for it: if you can read, you can build a computer.