GeekGirlCon...and where Care Bears Fit in...

In August of last year, the idea for GeekGirlCon took shape.  In October, it really got going.  We have two special guests lined up (Thank you Bonnie Burton & Trina Robbins!) and a lot of fun and informational events lined up.  In Seattle later this year, we Geek Girls will take the city and the world by storm!!

This coming weekend will mark another All Hands On Deck open-to-everyone meeting.  It will be Saturday, January 15th from 10:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. at the Madison Park Starbucks at 4000 E Madison St., Seattle. There is a conference room there which we will be using.  This is an important meeting, not just being the first large meeting of the New Year but we will be introducing our Board Members...and the California crew will be making the trip north to join our Washington comrades!  I will be making the long 15 hour drive north beginning very early Friday morning.  To help promote GeekGirlCon along the way, I will be traveling with one of my daughter's Care Bears and photograph the Bear with a GeekGirlCon promo card at various stops along I-5.

For reference, these are the original 1980's Care Bear stuffed toys, not the remade 1990-2000's releases.  I got them all for Christmas when I was about eight or nine when Care Bears were all the rage.  I watched the TV show and the movies.  I had the little plastic toys and the Care-A-Lot play set.  They ranked up there with My Little Pony and my MLP & Care Bear toys regularly teamed up in adventures where they would try to save Strawberry Shortcake from the evil Decepticon Starscream...ahh the good ol' days...

Back to the plan for the road trip...

I hope that people will follow the Care Bear road trip on Twitter and also visit www.geekgirlcon.com to learn more about us and maybe even decide to make a donation.  If you like the GeekGirlCon mission of promoting awareness of and celebrating the contribution and involvement of women in all aspects of science fiction, comics, gaming and related Geek culture, then please make a donation and help us make this the biggest convention of 2011 and beyond! 

Care Bears, GeekGirlCon and a Road Trip!

As I announced on Twitter, I will be making the long 15 hour drive north this Friday the 14th from Northern California to Seattle for the All Hands On Deck meeting of GeekGirlCon.  However, I will not be travelling alone!

I will be taking one of my daughter's Care Bears with me to help promote GeekGirlCon along the route.  Originally, these were my Care Bears and I passed them down to her.  She has them all, including Grams, the baby bears Hugs & Tugs..and even one Care Bear Cousin, Cozy Heart Penguin!

I will be taking pictures of the bear with a GeekGirlCon promo card at various stops along the trip.  With the way the weather has been going, you may even see a picture of the Bear in the snow!!  I will be tweeting these pics so that you can follow along on the road trip too! 

Sooo...which Bear would you like to see on the trip?  Wish Bear?  Tenderheart Bear?  Good Luck Bear?  Cheer Bear or Funshine Bear?  Send in your votes by twitter or blog comments & then tune in Friday Jan 14th to see which Bear is going to be designated official GeekGirlCon Promo Bear!!

And if you feel so inclined, please visit www.geekgirlcon.com to learn who we are, how you can help or to make a donation!  Thank you and I look forward to reading your votes!

Editing of Huckleberry Finn is just politically correct censorship crap

I am an avid reader.  I'll read almost anything that can hold my attention past the first chapter.  However, I've always enjoyed the classics.  I've read Gone With The Wind so many times that I'm actually on my third copy.  To Kill A Mockingbird still makes me cry.  The Grapes of Wrath could have been written about my own family who drove to California from Oklahoma with every possession they owned piled on their trucks, hoping to escape the drought of the Dust Bowl and find hope in the Golden State.  I think that's why I am taking it so personally that they want to sanitize the language of Huckleberry Finn.

True, Huckleberry Finn does use the N-word a lot.  This, of course, has led to the book being banned in school districts by supposedly educated paranoid intellectuals.  Is it really so painful for children, usually teenagers, to read that word in print, especially if it is used as a point of discussion within the class?  Just because we have a black president, do we have to sanitize historical literature so we will not be able to find any derogatory speech that someone might find offensive?  What does this accomplish, other than to hide our country's past in a cloud of PC bullshit?  Yes, I said PC bullshit.  I've always found political correctness to be complete bullshit and this is taking it a step too far.

By destroying classic American literature to clean up the language, we are destroying an important part of our nation's history: the bad part.  The use of the N-Word in books like Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer, Gone With The Wind and To Kill A Mockingbird is representative of where we were in the past and how far we've come from that time.  Of course there is still racism in this country but attempting to scrub it from our history will not make it go away.  Banning books has never resulted in anything positive.  Sanitizing history will never make up for any atrocities or prevent them from happening again.  I wish these so called intellectuals would remember the most important lesson we learned in school.

Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Grrr...#NoJossNoBuffy

Buffy Reboot Sans Joss?  Can I get a Hell No?

I have been waiting for a BtVS or Angel movie since the shows ended/were canceled.  Last year, the Crazy Kuzui's were linked up to another Buffy remake movie that, besides having no Whedon input, was rumored to star Megan Fox as Buffy.  Since even remembering that thankfully false rumor makes me throw up a little in my mouth, let's move on.  

I thought at the time that the idiots studio execs, in charge of this fiasco would have realized that the true Whedon fan base would not only refuse to grace this movie with a single peso but would actually rise up and demand that the studio not even bother.  Apparently, they have not learned their lesson.

That's right kids..from the geniuses who canceled Angel comes ANOTHER attempted reboot without Joss.

Warner Bros has announced it is going to have a rebooted version of Buffy with a whole staff of writers, directors & producers that had nothing to do with the much loved series.  You know..the series that everyone still talks about?  The one that people quote, watch repeatedly on DVD & have sing along parties to?  Yeah..that series.  The script writer, Whit Anderson, said that she loves Buffy.  Great.  I love all these people who say "I love your idea!  I'm going to rewrite in the way that I think it should go!"  I love Buffy/Angel too.  Guess what I did?  I wrote a fanfic.  Did I take it to a studio to get a new movie going?  Of course not...I don't have those kind of contacts..

But I digress...

A reboot is not needed.  I loved the classic Joss snarky response to this announcement and I know that Buffy will not be Buffy without his mind, wit and humor.  Of course, the only true way that this can be fixed is for Whedonverse fans to boycott this movie and make it flop.  

So far, two Whedon actresses have spoken out.  Jenny Mollen (Nina the Werewolf in Angel) tweeted today "I will only say this once. Without Joss, there is no Buffy!" In response, Julie Benz (Darla) claimed "Never have truer words ever been tweeted."  Not exactly poetry or a scathing indictment but gets the point across in 140 characters or less.  

Let's see if this project is still in the works six months from now.  I am hoping that the core fan base, who are already loudly screaming their disapproval, are able to quash this stupid idea back into the nothing from whence it came.

Then I can return to the world where I last saw Angel standing in the rain, holding his sword & proclaiming "Personally, I kinda want to slay the dragon."

Let's go to work.

I'm a Geek Girl & I'm proud of it dammit!

The past couple of days on Twitter there has been a debate over what, or more specifically who, actually qualifies as a Geek Girl or Gamer Girl.  This was brought up when the ladies of Team Unicorn released the following video Geek And Gamer Girls.  Showing four amazingly hot women surrounded (and covered a la American Beauty) by comic books, light sabers and game controllers, they sang about their love of all things gamer & geek related.  One thing that was a little upsetting to some people was that it was a parody of the same Katy Perry song that was used in July by The Screen Team entitled Comic Con Girls.  For the record, several of the people who made or appeared in the Screen Team video have said that there is absolutely no plagiarism and that there is plenty of love to go around.

The real controversy happened when many Geek & Gamer Girls cried foul at the depiction of the women in these videos as hot, claiming they don't represent the average Geek Girl.  That leads to this question:

Who the hell is the average Geek Girl?

My Geek cred?  I grew up watching Star Wars and Star Trek.  I played hours of Atari and Nintendo until I had finally won Pitfall and defeated Bowser (in Mario 1, 2, & 3!).  I didn't play D&D only because my cousins wouldn't let me create a new character.  Planet of the Apes?  Awesome!!  I read Tolkien before the movies came out & thought Gollum was the creepiest creature ever.  However, in junior high and high school, it was very uncool to be a geek.  You didn't want to be known as a Trekkie.  You didn't admit to playing video games.  If you wanted to be accepted, you conformed...so my geeky tendencies were hidden in the back of the closet.  I was finally able to release some pent up geekiness my senior year when I dated a guy as much into Star Trek, Star Wars, comics and movies as I was.  I was finally in a crowd of AV geeks who wanted to be filmmakers.  And I was happy.  Skip ahead a few years and I was back where I was in high school.  Conforming to fit in.  And I hated it.

After my daughter was born, it was just the two of us.  I decided that there was no point trying to please people that I didn't really like in order to have friends.  If they didn't like who I really was, then why the hell was I trying to make them happy at my expense?  Releasing my inner geek came slowly as it had been in hibernation for years and wasn't really fully released until I discovered World of Warcraft...and my love of gaming took over.  Now, I don't care who knows that I love Doctor Who, Buffy and Angel, or that I would love to learn both Klingon and Elvish.  The only reason I haven't been to Comic Con, DragonCon or Pax is because of a serious lack of funds.  I'm not a Rocky Horror virgin and wish we had local midnight showings again.  I will recite the entire Holy Grail script and think that we should definitely get a flash mob together that acts out the whole damn movie.  I am also proud to say that I'm helping pull together the first ever GeekGirlCon which will debut in Seattle next year. 

Am I blond?  Yes, even more so when I can afford the bleach.  Am I skinny?  Not quite but I'm getting there.  Am I pretty?  My man thinks so and apparently there are others in agreement so I'll take their word for it.  Does that mean I'm not qualified to call myself a geek?  Hell no.

Women as a group always put other women down.  There is always an "Us vs Them" the "Ugly Girls" vs "Pretty Girls".  What we need to realize and get over is that by segregating ourselves into specific cliques and shunning those that "don't belong" to a particular group that we are making it damn easy for others to stereotype us.  Can you game if you're pretty? Yes.  Can you dress up as Wonder Woman if you're overweight?  By all means, go for it.  We need to pull together and realize that our differences make us special and we should embrace that.  Otherwise, we're no different than the snotty high school bitches who told us we weren't good enough to sit at their lunch table.  We swore then that we would never be like that and that we'd never tell someone that they weren't good enough.  Then, given the chance, we're the snotty high school bitch, telling other girls that they can't claim the Geek Girl title because they don't meet the criteria that was established.

I hope that by bringing these issues out, people will talk about it and stop the cycle from repeating.  Otherwise, we're doomed to live our lives in little segregated groups when we really all love the same thing.
 

Big Brother-Another house guest goes buh-bye!

It's Thursday and another Big Brother live show is on...yay...

Monet is just absolutely furious that Matt is being used as a pawn to make sure that Monet is getting out of the house.

Psst...Big Brother producers!  If you could be so kind as to "accidentally" hit the mute button when either Rachel, Britney or Monet speak, that would be great.  Thank you!

Britney is boo-hooing about Monet getting kicked out.  Now, to add to the waterworks, comes Monet.  Cue the world's smallest violin.  They are just whining about how they are the smartest, cutest, coolest people in the house and the rest of the people are just jealous.  Whatever.

Hayden & Kristen are trying to keep their "showmance" under wraps.  They don't want anyone to know that they are together.  Cue the porn music and Andrew is lying five feet away pretending to sleep..he knows what's going on and is almost giddy about it.

Rachel went to Kristen to see how her voting would go.  She made up a little white lie that Britney had told Rachel that Monet had Kristen's vote.  Of course, Kristen denied this and stormed outside to confront Britney.  Britney vehemently denied that she said anything to Rachel.  Kristen said that Matt didn't deserve to go home so Monet could stay.  To add to the drama, Rachel and Brendon head outside to explain why they put up Monet.  Monet walked back inside claiming that she was leaving the backyard to keep from punching Monet.

After all the lies and craziness going on, Rachel called a house meeting.  Rachel laid out the pawn plot between them and Matt.  Matt is scrambling to cover his ass with the rest of the house and denies that he volunteered to be a pawn.  Of course, the Brigade is covering themselves by saying that there are no other alliances in the house aside from Rachel and Brendon.  Monet warned the house about Matt flipping on everyone and left the meeting.

You know, for the Saboteur twist being over with, Julie is sure saying the word Saboteur a lot for no reason whatsoever!  Have no idea why this bugs the holy hell out of me but it does.

Time to vote.

Andrew-Monet
Lane-Monet
Kathy-Matt
Hayden-Monet
Kristen-Monet
Brendon-Monet
Ragan-Monet  
Enzo-Monet
Britney-Matt


So Monet is going home.  Again..don't let the door hit your ass on the way out you conceited wench.

Onwards and upwards...it's time for the HoH competition.  They are riding on surfboards while water is pouring down on them.  The competition goes on after the show and it has already been published on Twitter and various Big Brother spoiler sites that Matt is the winner.

So, with Matt as HoH, who will he put up?  Will it be Rachel and Brendon as the Brigade tries to break up their alliance once again?  Will they try to use one their own as a pawn to throw off the rest of the house to the true nature of their alliance?

This should be another interesting week.

Big Brother 12: Drama in the house, first eviction & the identity of the Saboteur is revealed!

We pick up just after the veto competition.  Annie has barely sat on the couch and the drama has started already.  Just after they get off the couch, Annie starts saying that Britney is going around telling everyone lies about her.  She begins packing her stuff.  Rachel realizes that she just has to lay low and let Annie hang herself.

Annie, by the way, is doing an excellent job of hanging herself.  She gets mad at Brendon for choosing Rachel over her.  She tells Brendon that she didn't mean to lash out and that she's now embarrassed because she knows that there is no way she can get six votes to stay.  She knows she's going home.

Back to the gratuitous PDA by Brendon and Rachel.  Brendon stops the make-out session to say that he's upset about how Annie's reacting.  Rachel is a bit pissed that he is even concerned about Annie.  Brendon says that he just needs Rachel to hold him and tell him it will be okay but she just sits back and rolls her eyes.

Back to the live segment with Julie.  Who is the Saboteur?  Quick! Skip ahead if you don't want to see....

It's ANNIE!!!

No wonder she's pissed that she's on the block!

Cut to Annie showing how she padlocked the pantry during the blackout and how she bumped into Brendon on the way back.  How does he not remember this?  If my alliance member was on the block, I'd be screaming about this little tidbit of info to anyone who would listen...especially since Annie placed herself on the couch when everyone was confirming their whereabouts during the blackout.

On to another saboteur message...who tells Hayden that he didn't pick the correct people to be evicted and that he/she escaped the block this week.  Immediately, everyone looks to Brendon as he did "escape" the block.  Annie hopes that this little diversion will save her.

Andrew and Hayden talk in the HoH room.  They think it would be better, if Brendon is the saboteur, to vote out Rachel.

Annie is sitting out back throwing Rachel under the bus.  She also tells everyone that Brendon isn't who he says he is and that he's not just a swim coach.  Everyone thinks that it would be better to vote Rachel out.  Annie says that she will make a bunch of sweet deals and kiss anybodies ass to stay.

Back to the live show.  Julie does a recap of the competitions and how hard it was for some houseguests to compete, highlighting Brendon losing his shorts during the Have/Have Not caramel popcorn competition.

Annie and Rachel give there final pleas.  Annie throws Brendon and Rachel under the bus by saying if they don't get rid of Rachel now, Brendon will take her through to the end just like Jeff did with Jordan last season.  Rachel basically just says that she loves everyone and knows that they will do the right thing.

Live voting!

Monet-Annie
Andrew-Annie
Lane-Annie
Kathy-Annie
Kristen-Annie
Brendon-Annie
Ragan-Annie  
Enzo-Annie
Matt-Annie
Britney-Annie

Vote of 10-0 and Annie is gone.  Annie gives everyone hugs with the exception of Brendon and Rachel.

So the Saboteur is gone!  Wow!  That twist was short.

Annie feels that she lost because she played too hard so she put a target on her own back.  She thought that Brendon would find a way to pull her off the block.  She thinks that the rest of the house is stupid for keeping Rachel and not her.  She doesn't realize that she was evicted because she was a big mouth, bad tempered drama queen.  Rachel told her in the good-bye message that she was glad that Annie was gone because Annie tried to get in between Rachel and Brendon.  Annie blows this off and explains how Brendon tried to get with her first but she brushed him off so Rachel got her "sloppy seconds".  Whatever Chica.

Hey Annie!  Do you live in your fantasy world full time or is it just your summer home?

Soooo...back to the HoH competition.  Hayden cannot compete, of course, as outgoing HoH.  The game is "Majority Rules" where the answer to the question needs to be what the majority thinks, not a personal opinion.

First round: Brendon, Kathy and Kristen knocked out.
Second round: Enzo, Matt, and Lane kicked out.  (The Brigade is now ineligible for the HoH!  Oh justice is sweet!)
Third round: Tie
Fourth round: Tie
Fifth round: Tie
Sixth round: Andrew knocked out
Seventh round: Ragan is knocked out.

Monet, Rachel and Britney go to the tie breaker round.  The winner is RACHEL!!!!!!!

So...to recap:

Annie was the saboteur....and was tossed out on her ass first by a 10-0 vote.

The Brigade alliance didn't even come close in the HoH competition.

Rachel is now in charge for the week...heads will roll this week my friends...heads will roll....

By my count, Julie Chen said Saboteur 12 times this episode.  What will she do now that it's no longer necessary?

I think that with Rachel as HoH, anything goes.  I'd be surprised to see Hayden not up on the block but she might try to backdoor him this week to ensure he goes.  Although, to make that work, the Brigade alliance will need to be brought to light...and since those guys really aren't all that bright collectively, that should be easy to do.  Sunday should be a very interesting show!