So far this weekend has been just what the Geeky Vixen ordered. I finished up work Friday afternoon about 4 (actually a couple hours later than I intended), and Brad and I went out for sushi and shopping. Sushi was amazing, as it always is at Edo's (I had a tempura veg roll, a spicy tuna roll, and a dynamite roll...yum!). We decided to hit Target and browse for a while. I lingered in electronics looking at this cool Skullcandy XBox headset. I'm still not sure about it. While Brad was checking out the action figs, I headed to the furniture to visit the Sami Hayek office furniture I've been eyeing. When checking out the clearance endcap, I saw it. This table:
It has a glass top, side bins and a shelf, as you can see. The table retails for $60 bucks regular price. The price tag on this? $15. Oh, but you better believe I babysat that thing until Brad finally made it around with the shopping cart. I also picked up a picture frame/photo album combo and a photo frame with a storage drawer on the bottom (also from the Sami Hayek collection). These were $5 and $3.75, respectively. So for less than $30, I got a revamp for the living room and somewhere to store the baby pics my mom gave me. I am in love with the table, as the side bins provide great storage for the various XBox and Wii controllers that normally clutter up the couch and coffee table. Plus, by moving the end table we did have where the new table is, I was able to properly display my Tara McPherson Hellboy and have a place to store my gorgeous laptop.
So the living room looks great. The kitchen, however, is a mess. :)
I got up this morning and was generally lazy until Brad got home from his adventures with helping Brett move a new TV cabinet and then dealing with a tow truck when Josh's van's steering got messed up. I finally dragged myself into the shower and got ready. After a quick stop at Hero's Headquarters, we had lunch/dinner (linner? dunch?) at Cootie Brown's for some steak and shrimp for me, and steak and chicken for Brad. It was quite possibly the best meal I've had in a loooooong time. And I was geniunely hungry for it, which is good, considering my stomach hasn't really growled in a few months (my appetite got really messed up when my mom was in the hospital). Then we made a couple more stops and went to Kroger to pick up some random groceries. We got home about 7:30ish, and crashed on the couch, watched some TV and played a few games of Halo with the boys. I cleaned up my yarn and sent some half-assed projects to the frog pond, and tried to find a project to start.
All in all, it was a pretty perfect Saturday. Tomorrow we're going to see Tropic Thunder with the fellas. Oh, wait, it is tomorrow. So later today.
That being said, I should hit the hay. G'night, gentle readers!
Livin' In a Material World, and a Brief Commentary on the State of Geekitude
0 comments Posted by Stacey at 11:09 AMI totally don't consider myself to be a material person. I don't define my happiness or status by the things I have. But I have to admit, stuff does make me happy. Take, for example, my Uglydoll collection. I get giddy like a little kid each time I get one, and when I was sick and my hubby brought me Cinko, I literally kept the thing by my side nonstop for a couple of weeks. They make me smile, because they're cute little monsters.
Last Saturday my mom and I looked through old pictures, and it was so much fun. We laughed about the snowball ambush my dad and I heft upon her and my uncle, and cooed over baby pictures when we were all a lot younger, and family members we've since lost were still with us. I started a stack of photos I wanted to take home, and when I looked at them the next day, I noticed something. I am truly a child of the 80s. Christmas photos I brought home showed me unwrapping Cabbage Patch Kids, She-Ra's Crystal Castle, and Rainbow Brite, among other things. I wore t-shirts of ET, Smurfette, and various Sesame Street characters. (Some things don't change--as I write this I'm wearing an Oscar the Grouch t-shirt that says, "S is for Scram.") In a bunch of pictures, I'm sleeping/playing in a bedroom covered in Strawberry Shortcake.
So yes, back then, even, stuff made me happy. It wasn't the basis for my happiness (most of the time), but it does explain why I'm so immersed in pop culture now. (Not the pop culture of now, though, because a lot of it is more poop culture than pop culture...wocka wocka wocka.) I think as a whole we 80s kids are the ones who win at Pop Culture Trivial Pursuit, because we are more aware of the minutiae. We remember weird details that no human should retain, even about other generations (I have to say I was really excited when I beat my parents at 60s Trivial Pursuit).
It's no surprise to me, then, that every year geeks become more of a force in pop culture. Look at the summer blockbusters this year--mostly comic book movies. Even Indiana Jones has ties to comics--several times since the 80s there have been Indy comics (as opposed to indie comics), starting with Marvel and most recently landing at Dark Horse. San Diego Comic Con is *the* place for Hollywood to bring out their big guns and see what the geeks have to say. For the first time in our lives, we are the ones running the show. It's cool to be a geek nowadays. Now most of the time that would mean that the geeks wouldn't want to be geeks anymore, much like the cool kids dropped myspace when it went mainstream. This is so not the case for us.
So what does it mean to be a geek? I'm sure it means a lot of different things to different people. I use the term "geek" in a very broad sense. To me , it's not about liking comic books, or sci-fi, or math, or video games, etc. Being a geek is so much more. It means you have a passion for something. Anything. You could be a music geek, meaning that you possess a passion/love for music so great that you spend most of your time pursuing music, whether making music, or discovering underground bands, or just listening to music 24/7. Maybe you're a movie geek, and you write reviews on your blog, read movie magazines, post on Ain't It Cool or Rotten Tomatoes, and read every book you can on the movie industry. The bottom line is, it doesn't matter what you're a geek for, just that you're a geek. People use this term as a derogatory term, but I think we've taken it back, and with a vengeance.
As for me, I'm flyin' the geek flag high (as the title of my Plurk tells the world). I'm a geek of all trades: a comic book, video game, computer, movie, music, toy, English, craft, sometimes science geek. And yes, buying comic books and urban vinyl toys does make me happy. I'm not defined by my stuff because of its worth, but I am defined by my stuff because it's part of what makes me a geek. In that way, I guess I've always been a geek. If my mom hadn't bought me those Archie comics, or if my uncle hadn't taken me to the Great Escape (the greatest used record/movie/comic book shop in the universe) and sat me down in front of the comic boxes, I might never have discovered the beauty of comics today. If I hadn't played GI Joes with my friend Joe Brandon in the 2nd grade, or if I hadn't ever had She-Ra's Crystal Castle, I might not collect action figures and vinyl toys today.
So there you have it, my Geek Manifesto for the day. I love being a geek. Why else would I spread the name Geeky Vixen all over the internet? It's who I am. A geeky girl who also has a smolder-y side, a vixen quality, a girly streak. Being a girl geek can be a minefield. I can hang with the boys because I like the same kinds of movies, and I love playing Halo, and I love comics. But that doesn't mean that I want to always be one of the boys. Sometimes I want to turn the boys' heads (OK, one boy in particular, my cutie husband). And that's where the vixen part comes in. You don't have to be one or the other. They're two sides of the same coin. Think of it as reading comics in a push-up bra.
I leave you with that thought, gentle readers. Happy Saturday! (Incidentally, "gentle readers" is a part of my being a lit geek. Dorothy Parker used the phrase in a lot of her essays, and I'm such a fan, I picked it up.)
So I'm looking for my iPod and headphones this morning, and I reach in my bag and pull out (in 2 separate tries) the following: a 2 pack of blank CDs and a 6" embroidery hoop.
*SIGH*
I need to clean out my purse. But am I? No. I'm blogging about it. Mostly because I thought you guys might get a kick out of it.
Umm, so yeah. I hadn't signed up for Facebook. I figured, I have a myspace page. What do I need Facebook for?
Oh. But. Seriously. When I got my laptop (the best, prettiest laptop in the world...I'll post pics soon), I decided I'd see what it's all about. I need help. There's so much to do!
I played Northwest Trail (read: Oregon Trail). Right away one of my party died. (Sorry, Roger!) Then my husband got lost and came back on the verge of death. Then someone got bitten by a snake. (It's kinda like being at work.) Then Jerimie wasted our last bullet on a bird and we all starved to death. So we had to start over.
Then I decided to check out Plurk after hearing about it on Lime and Violet. It's like Twitter but somehow cooler.
So the Geeky Vixen gets around the interwebs.
My nerd heart swells with pride--I joined the GamerchiX on Xbox.com. I'm really excited about participating in the Ladies' night gaming (although I'm bummed I missed last night's Halo night). It's tough to be a girl gamer sometimes, especially if you're not of Frag Doll caliber (get it? Caliber? *Snort snort*). But this seems to be a community of chicks like me who are in it for fun. If you're a girl on xbox live and you want a girls' night in, check it out. (Also, send me a friend request - gamertag is Geeky Vixen.) I can usually be found a couple of nights a week and especially on weekends playing Halo with my boys.
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