Highlights from Pennsic 41 aka That Was Awesome!

So just got back from my first Pennsic War (week long SCA camping event in western PA).  It was fucking awesome.  I have never seen so many tents in my life!

Here are some highlights, in chronological order:

1. Becoming the cadet of an awesome short blonde fencing lady who kicks huge amounts of ass on the field outside of the fort that we had just stormed.  I now have a pretty blue scarf with dragonflies!

2. Walking up to the battle field late at night (or early in morning depending on how you look at it) and looking down over the torchlight of Pennsic and stargazing.

3. Sitting in camp, all lined up in chairs along the edge of the common tent, watching a beautiful lightning storm.  This devolved into a sing along that was truly the day the music died (and scared away the rain).

4. Killing a big guy with case by shanking him in the throat with my dagger in the cadet tournament.  That always makes me happy.

5. Dancing around a fire in the wee hours of the morning to 'White Rabbit' played by a Middle Eastern band.

This is a vague top five, and were really really hard to pick.  More might come later.  There was so much awesome fencing, hanging out, meeting of people, dancing, wandering and general fantastic times.

Thanks to everyone who made my first Pennsic an amazing experience.

HackNSlash

Current Playlist

I feel like posting something.  Here is my current playlist.  It's actually labeled "Cleaning" as it's what I tend to listen to while doing housework, when I get around to doing that.  I also tend to listen to it walking and in the car (when I occasionally have one).  Most songs are chosen because 1. I like them and 2. (With a couple exceptions) I can at least pretend to sing to them. 

Such Great Heights - Streetlight Manifesto
Gasoline - The Airborne Toxic Event
Good One - Fred the Band (Irish band, look them up, they're awesome)
Somewhere In Between - Streetlight Manifesto
I Love Rock'n'Roll - Joan Jet
Drunken Lullabies - Flogging Molly
Villains - Fred the Band
Icky Thump - The White Stripes
Bang Bang - Dispatch
The Distance - Cake
The Blonde Lead the Blind - Streetlight Manifesto
Tell Me Baby - Red Hot Chilli Peppers
Don't Look Back in Anger - Oasis
Enter Sandman - Metallica
Say You Will - Fleetwood Mac
Spaceman - The Killers
You Don't Know What Love Is (You Just Do As You're Told) - The White Stripes
The Love Cats - The Cure
Cut Here - The Cure
Wishing Well - The Airborne Toxic Event
Good Riddance - Greenday
I Will Survive - Cake
Running - Fred the Band
Mary Jane's Last Dance - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
Only the Good Die Young - Billy Joel
Daria - Cake
Love and Memories - O.A.R.
Ain't No Rest for the Wicked - Cage the Elephant
L.I.F.E.G.O.E.S.O.N - Noah and the Whale
Back Against the Wall - Cage the Elephant
The Kids Aren't Alright - The Offspring
The Gang's All Here - Dropkick Murphies
No Rain - Blind Melon
Skyscrapers - Fred the Band
You Shook Me All Night Long - AC/DC
Great Expectations - The Gaslight Anthem
Back in Black - AC/DC
Missy - The Airborne Toxic Event
Fears and Remedies - Fred the Band
Sweet Child of Mine - Guns N' Roses
5 Years Time - Noah and the Whale
Bad Moon Rising - Creedence Clearwater Revival
Falling for the First Time - Barenaked Ladies
One Week - Barenaked Ladies
Jejune Stars - Bright Eyes
Shell Games - Bright Eyes
Gold Guns Girls - Metric
I Melt With You - Modern English

Too Fucking Hot

Today it is too fucking hot.  High nineties.  I learned an important lesson.  It doesn't matter if shorts are short and don't cover much of your legs.  They're still hot.  Even longer skirts are cooler.  In fact, I think I'm going to skip straight to skirts and wrap pants for the rest of the summer. 

I was supposed to go in and work a couple hours this evening.  It was really slow so they didn't wind up needing me.  I was told I could stay anyways since I'd been scheduled and I'd come in.  Is it sad that I didn't stay for the money, I stayed for the air conditioning?

That's right, no air conditioning in my apartment.  That's going to change ASAP.  Earlier my mother offered to give me one of the old air conditioners from their house.  I said no, I wanted to find a low power consumption little one instead.  I called her back today and said I don't care what it is, please please please can I have it?

What I really want is to go swimming.  I want to go swimming in a nice, cool, body of water and float along for a bit.  Swimming makes life better.  Especially when it's hot. 

This post has been brought to you  by HackNSlash's heat addled brain.

Thunder Storms are Awesome!

I love thunderstorms.  Today I left to go do some errands and started to come up out of the subway system just as a big one hit over head.  It was barely drizzling when I went down.  As I'm standing under the awning waiting for the rain to stop the big thunder, lightning and downpour hit.  There was water flooding down the steps and huge loud directly overhead claps of thunder and flashes and it was amazing.  When I finally felt like it had calmed down a bit I popped my umbrella and took off my shoes and waded through the mini lake to keep going.  I was kind of sad I was on my way to errands instead of from them, otherwise i might have just run out anyways.  I was just sort of standing there while it was coming down amid the bemused subway riders grinning like a little kid, an image probably helped by the pigtail braids but oh well.

I kind of want to go dancing in the rain now.

Sure Sounds Like Fallout In Here...

No, seriously.  The radio station in my laundromat could have been DJ'd by Three Dog.  Okay, maybe it's bad that I automatically associate fiftiesesque music with tromping through a post apocalyptic wasteland dodging supermutants and radscorpions.

I have, however, had this song stuck in my head ever since and am developing a fondness for it:

Personality Tests, Their Validity, and Contradictory Personalities

Warning: This post/ramble probably falls under the "too much introspection" label.  It does, however, involve a concept that I find really interesting.

So just took the Keirsey test as a just for fun thing for a class that I am taking.  Came up with "Idealist."  Not surprising really.  I fit the bill pretty well.  I really want to believe the best of people, that if we just sit tight and put in the time, effort and understanding we can work things out and all get on.  I am an incurable romantic. I highly value the relationships in my life.  Forming close and caring relationships with people is probably one of my major motivations in life.  I am a crappy liar, especially when it comes to something I have emotional investment in, and I always beat myself up about it and have a hard time living with myself if I feel like I'm not being honest.  It generally shows all over, and the fact that I don't believe/am not happy with what I'm saying can generally be read from my face, voice, and body language if you know me at all and are paying any sort of attention.  This is not necessarily a good thing, because if I start talking I sometimes wind up being too honest for my own, or anyone else's, good. 

I always find these tests interesting though.  In a lot of ways they are quite limiting.  This particular test had two options for each question.  I had some trouble filling it out, both because I feel different ways at different times, and more importantly, in different situations.  Questions about how I react in social situations, for example, are difficult to answer as it depends entirely on the social situation.  I also found that frequently I would fall somewhere between the two options, or somewhere completely different that the test didn't address.  I feel like reducing things to a binary is kind of problematic when we're talking about people.  We rarely fit into either/or categories, our feelings are rarely simply on or off. 

In the context of this personality test, this is very interesting for me.  While I am an idealist and I feel like that's how I probably started out, I'm also pretty cynical.  This was probably picked up through experience.  It's kind of like having two competing views of the world going on in your brain at once, on one hand, believing the best in people, and that everything can work out okay, on the other, believing that people/the world will screw you over, whether on purpose or by accident/through negligence and nothing will ever be okay. 

This whole, two competing world views/contradictory personality type thing showed up again when I went and, out of curiosity, took a more detailed version of the test.  Well, a couple to be exact.  One put me up as INFP, which the Keirsey test defines as "Healer."  Yup, fit that one pretty well.  Another defined me as ENFP, though just on the edge, which the Keirsey test defines as "Champion."

Fun story?  They both fit.  Sometimes I'm one, sometimes I'm the other, sometimes I feel like I'm both at the same time.  Though it's more like the extroverted, enthusiastic "Champion" persona is sort of submerged under the introverted, reserved, shy "Healer" persona and pops out sometimes, when I start feeling comfortable.  It also sorta varies depending on who I'm with.  I've found that certain people tend to bring out the more enthusiastic, extroverted me, generally people who are bouncy and enthusiastic themselves.  Yay contagious enthusiasm.  This isn't to say that I think the "Healer" persona is bad.  I think it's pretty good and definitely is very defining in my personality.  They both have their benefits and get me into different kinds of trouble.  "Champion" me tends to be a bit happier on the whole though...

Is there a point to this rambling?  Maybe, maybe not.  I do tend to find the idea of contradictory/competing/complementing personality aspects to be fascinating though, especially since I see them so much in myself.  I sometimes wonder if everyone has that whole contradictory personalty thing, or if a lot of people have it to the same degree that I seem to, or if I'm just weird (well I know I'm weird but you know, unusual in that respect).  A friend actually talked me into doing an in depth astrology thing once, and it was about six pages of statements about what different parts of what was in the sky when I was born said about me.  Many of these things contradicted each other.  Sometimes something it said would be the complete opposite of the statement that came right before it.  Go figure.  Whatever you feel about astrology, what it has to say can definitely be interesting to think about and compare to your own experiences/perceptions.  Sometimes it even leads your thoughts off in new directions (/tangent)

So here ends my introspective rambling.  Hope it was at least vaguely interesting. 

Hack-N-Slash

Nerdy Amazing Heartwarming Nostalgia

Okay, so these pictures are adorable.  They also incorporate two things that were much beloved in my childhood: Winnie the Pooh and Star Wars.

I'm not sure I have words to describe the warm fuzzies I am getting from this.

I've never heard of the artist, James Hance, before, but give the rest of these a look: http://www.jameshance.com/wookiee-the-chew.html

Also, I played Pooh sticks for the first time since I was a very small child the other day.  This makes me happy.  

Why is this Dating Fail? (+ Bonus Rant on Perceptions of Girl Gamers)

Okay, so this image came from here on failblog.  Will someone please take a moment to explain to me why this constitutes as relationship fail?  Now, if it happens all the time yeah, probably not good, but I'm a pretty big believer in the fact that for any healthy, working relationship you need your own separate lives and hobbies.  If there's a lot of overlap? Great, more things you can do together, but you still need your own stuff/time.  If I were dating a guy and he said "so I'm going to go play [insert name of game here] or do [insert hobby here] for a few hours.  Talk to you later," with the explicit understanding that he didn't want to be disturbed (barring emergency/brief disturbance for important questions such as "hey, I'm ordering pizza want some?") then that would be cool.  Now if this happened all the time, or if we had had plans, then I'd be a bit miffed, but, seriously?  Everyone needs "do not disturb" time.  I'd expect a guy to do the same for me.  Or a housemate for that matter.  Or whatever.  Basically: respecting your significant other's need for time alone/elsewhere to pursue their hobbies is a very important part of showing that you care.  Now go do something you like to do.

The second part of this rant involves the comments on the page.  There seem to be a lot of posters (I could be generous and assume that they are mostly trolls, but I'm not sure I have that much faith in humanity) who believe that girls who game are a. desperate, and b. only doing it for male attention.

Fuck that noise.

I am a gamer, I am also girl.  Get over it.  I play games because I enjoy them, not to impress or get attention from guys.  I know plenty of other girls who do the same.  Some gems from the comment page:

The question is: why would men try to find women who like to play video games? Can’t they just invite some male friends to play with them? I think it is pretty clear that a man who likes gamer girls is an unaware ho­m­os­ex­ual who seek wo­men with masculine behavior to satisfy his urge to be with a man and at the same time fool himself into believing he likes ch­ic­k­s.

Wow...really?  Assume we're talking about men looking for women to date who play video games.  Maybe they'd like to date someone who actually shares their interests and hobbies?  I know I'd be way more likely to date a guy who played games.  Seriously? I can't stand guys with huge ideas of what it means to be "masculine."  Excessive machoism is such a turn off.   (I sincerely hope that this person is a troll).  The next poster appears to be sane:

or maybe the male gamer wants a gamer woman so they will have something in common and the girlfriend will not urge him to stop gaming and be with her

Yeah, a guy who tried to get me to stop gaming would be out the door pretty quickly.  Of course, so would a guy who did nothing but consistently ignore me for games.   Moderation, priorities, time management, balancing acts, all that jazz.  

From here the comments thread descends into insults, the mildest of which is probably "talking cunt" (juvenille much?) followed by my favorite comment of the thread (one for which I will even forgive the poorly worded posting):

Yup. I certainly hope you actually act the way you sound, because it will guarantee withat you will never see you procreate.

 

Anyways, here ends my rant.  Respect the needs of your gamer or other hobby pursuing girl, or boy, and respect the fact that yes, some girls actually like to game.  

Have a nice day.

HackNSlash

The Escapist - Rant on Sexism in Geek/Gamer Culture

The Escapist : The Big Picture : Not Okay

So this guy has just gotten major points in my book.

But seriously? Sexual harassment is an essential part of fighting game culture?  What the hell?

As a girl in gamer society, especially while I was in college, I definitely had to deal with some crap.   Nothing on the level of what that poor girl in the Street Fighter x Tekken tournament had to put up with (by the way here's a link to an article with some quotes), but enough that it was a challenge sometimes.  For a while early on I decided it was actually easiest to do everything I could to not be effeminate and just be one of the guys.  On one hand, yeah, being thought of as a "gamer" as opposed to a "gamer girl" is a good thing.  On the other hand, I shouldn't have to give up ways I like acting that are considered effeminate to do so.  And honestly?  I really haven't had it that bad all things considered.

I'm also a big fan of the point he makes towards the end, about how what makes him angrier then the fact that geek/gamer culture frequently displays a lot of sexism and other casual bigotry is the fact that as a hole, people would rather IGNORE it then actually admit that it exists and address it.  Most geeks I know are not incredibly sexist, racist, or otherwise bigoted.  Yeah, they tend to tell a lot of off color jokes, but mostly among friends who KNOW that they're screwing around.  But mostly, they're good folk.  There is that minority though, and yeah, it seems to be something that a lot of people don't like to talk about.  Fun thing though, the problems you get really touchy about when people bring them up, or vehemently deny, are generally the ones that really need to be dealt with.  And when people who get up in arms against geeks and geek culture can point to these assholes and say "look, here's what we're talking about!" and see the rest of us not openly objecting?  Well then we obviously agree with them right?  Idiots and assholes will be idiots and assholes, you can't really sweep them under the rug because they just pop right back up saying stuff like this coach.  And even if they could be swept under the rug, they shouldn't be because not calling people out on this shit and making a big deal out of it sends the message, both to them and to people watching, that this is okay.

Well as Moviebob so eloquently puts it, "IT'S NOT OKAY!"

Overcoming of Fear by Means of Tasty Foods!

So you know that thing you've been dreading for years?  That you've  been avoiding because it just freaks you out?  Then one day you decide "fuck it, I'm gonna do this!"  and it turns out to be not that bad at all? 

I just cooked my first meal using raw meat.  This might not seem like much of an accomplishment, but for as long as I can remember this has scared the crap out of me.  Until recently I didn't even want to look at the stuff.  It was a combination of ick factor with pretty intense germophobia.  Now, however, I am enjoying the last of my tasty stirfry of chicken, carrots, snow peas and pineapple in pineapple ginger sauce.  I cooked and ate the first of it last night and I've yet to get food poisoning!  (Of course, if I wind up doing so I will have to amend this entry pretty quick). 

I still can't touch the stuff, had to get it precut and dump it right from the bag into the wok, but this has opened up all sorts of new cooking possibilities for me!  That and the satisfaction of having one less thing that being worried or paranoid keeps me from doing. 

Yay for a taking a little bit more control of my life!  And yay for yummy stirfry!

Long time no see and PURE AWESOME (Mass Effect Style)

So, yeah, long time no post.  Lot of crazy shit's happened in my life in the last six months but we'll skip over that to something completely awesome: MASS EFFECT 3 IS OUT!!!!

So I didn't wind up playing until long after it was out, but for a while I was a major Mass Effect fangirl.  The summer after my third year of college was spent playing through both 1 and 2.  The theme was also my ringtone.  I hadn't gotten that into a game in a while.  Now, 3 is out and I'm pretty excited.

I love that they did FemShep trailers for this one.  This trailer is a. amazingly atmospheric and cinematic, and b. features an ass kicking  female Shepard.  I've probably watched it at least half a dozen times so far.

Despite it's release, I have not yet played even the Demo for ME3.  Why? Because I've decided that before I can touch it, I am going to replay 1 and 2 so I can have a continuity when I go into 3, as opposed to just loading a save file from two years ago and picking up in the middle of the story.  Mass Effect is an amazing game.  It has a lot of things going for it, the gameplay is fun (both 1 and 2 though I know people who will argue one over the other pretty vehemently), the storyline is awesome, and it is wonderfully immersive.

I'm the type who's pretty consistantly hooked up to chat and all sorts of other internet distractions whenever I'm near a computer, but when I'm playing ME I tend to shut everything else off.  Most games I play, League of Legends, Old Republic, etc, I'll still be carrying on chats on the side or checking up on things etc.  Sometimes while I'm running around doing Uncharted World side quests, I'll have other things open, but as soon as I get to a plot world that's it.

My advice if you're going to play something like Mass Effect, or Dragon Age for that matter (still need to finish that...), is to play when you have a couple of hours to yourself when you can be pretty sure that you won't be interrupted.  It's the kind of game you'll get the most out of if you really let yourself get into it.  

Working on-call and thus not incredibly consistently, at least three days last week I spent multi-hour chunks of time on my Mass Effect 1 play through (I'm being a completionist).  I was talking to a friend of mine and I told him "ME is taking over my life again."  He responded with, oh, Masters of Education (this is actually my degree program).  I laughed and replied no, no I meant Mass Effect.   This probably makes me an irresponsible person.  Oh well.  I'm off to Noveria, see ya!

HackNSlashCat