I'm not sure how long this has been making the rounds, but it is a level of awesome not commonly encountered, even in the vasty deep of the interwebs. Enjoy!

 

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Congratulations to our contest winner,  Michelle Norton!

You will be notified by email when the rolls of Gaming Paper have been sent. :) Enjoy!

Ms. Norton's entry was chosen by the 'pick a folded slip of paper out of a hat' method. (After all entries from various sites were munged into a single document, printed, separated and folded identically. We're so scientific and high tech!)

Thank you to all who participated! Keep an eye on this space for future giveaways of cool, geeky swag.

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I was out of my depth and I knew it, but I was determined to at least make a statement in the Purple Prose Parody Contest. Now this was sponsored by a romance novel website, an area represented by people for whom I'm something of an oddity. The twist was to base the parody on a classic novel. Well, I figured I wanted to go full throttle, so I chose George Orwell's Animal Farm. The characters weren't  human--that, I thought, should set me apart.

And imagine my surprise when I came in third! Not everybody thinks according to a rigid paradigm.

Here is my entry, titled "A Tumble in the Hay" below the cut.

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She's a little bit River Song, a little bit Lara Croft, but predates either.  She's worshiped on some planets as a minor goddess of inebriation.  She's interstellar archaeologist Bernice Summerfield, one of the Whoniverse's most successful spinoffs, and she's just hit YouTube in her first animated adventure, a prequel for season 11 (yes--eleven) of her audio adventures.

Several months back, I wrote a piece on femme Doctors.  It subsequently got linked to from a couple of places (including here, in French!); where, oddly enough, one throwaway detail got picked up on: that I, personally, don't particularly want a female Doctor.  People seemed to think that that implied I didn't see women seeing themselves in the lead roles; in fact, I'd stated that it was because I thought the Whoniverse has plenty of kickass female characters already.*

Front and center of these is Professor Bernice Summerfield, interstellar archaeologist and action heroine.  Why Benny Is Awesome is a long and complex topic, and better writers than me have had a go.  But let's say that any random Doctor Who companion discovered that the Doctor had lied to them, by omission or not, and/or tinkered with their destinies.

• Probable Rose reaction: None, too busy making googly eyes at Doctor.
•  Probable Martha reaction: Expression on face indicates that she's hurt and disappointed.
• Actual Benny reaction: "Git! Git! Git!"

For everyone who's complained that the Doctor's companions are wide-eyed teenyboppers with supermodel bodies, Benny is the tonic.  She's over 30, ex-military, smart and focused, with a career and a backstory and (you may wish to sit down for this) regular-sized boobs.  And that was just when she was introduced, in 1992.  Since then, she's acquired an ex-husband, a half-human son (long story), an implacable nemesis or two, a best-selling book or three, and has died at least twice.  Think Martha kicked ass in "Human Nature / The Family of Blood"?  She did--but the original companion for that story (in the Virgin New Adventures novel "Human Nature", whose author, Paul Cornell, adapted it for TV) was Benny.

Find out more about Benny at the TARDIS Wiki, or check out the Big Finish page.  You can start from the beginning with the audios; or, if you're into books, I suggest you start with The Dead Men Diaries, a collection of short stories that picks up Benny's life as she starts work at the Braxiatel Collection.

* In fact, of the many spinoffs, no fewer than seven have or have had female leads (The Sarah Jane Adventures, K9 & Company, the Sarah Jane Smith audios, Virgin New Adventures, Bernice Summerfield, Gallifrey) and one has two female co-leads (Gallifrey). This is a quick-and-dirty count; I'm probably undercounting. I defy anyone to compare this gender balance to the Star Wars and Star Trek universes and their associated spinoffs.

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Just a quick reminder that our Super Fantastic Gaming Paper Giveaway closes tonight at midnight EDT. Get your entries in before then. We will announce the winners on Friday.

Remember, your entry must include some way to contact you, so be sure to include your email address when you comment here. 

Contest is open only to residents of the Continental US, GC bloggers are not eligible (sorry, Chicas). Void where prohibited. 

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The next person who tries to use a Rotten Tomatoes rating to tell me that a movie sucks is going to be backhanded.  Why do people put so much stock into what this website says?

Of course, anyone who says "Rotten Tomatoes just likes hating everything" can automatically be pointed toward the fact that they fall all over any movie that "everybody" is going to love or see as genius.  Dark Knight.  Well, they can't rip on Dark Knight...people might stop putting credence into  their meaningless ratings!

This is a site that gives Hostel a 59%.  Hostel.  The movie that is pretty much a softcore snuff film.  In fact, they give a pass to plenty of movies because "they're exactly what they're supposed to be."  Some films are apparently allowed to be full of explosions and boobs as long as that's what they're "supposed to be"....but the "supposed to be" is a completely arbitrary designation.  Vampires Suck is pretty obviously supposed to be a silly mocking of Twilight, among other things, but that gets a 6% rating.   The Nightmare on Elm Street remake?  13%.  Someone explain to me how that movie was not what it was "supposed to be."  Please. 

Meanwhile, Piranha 3D enjoys a whopping 75% positive rating.

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    In this world of faster, bigger, better, even a geeka can get overwhelmed and need a break. (I hear the collective gasp of my sister geekas!)  Some find it in gaming, some find it in computer networking, and some brave souls find it in full contact sports.  While I enjoy all of these, with good books, music and movies thrown in for good measure, nothing compares to the Zen of doing dishes.  Let me explain.

     When I was a little geeka, I would often see my grandmother doing dishes, staring out into space with a look of utter contentment.  I never understood that.  Like most kids, I could think of no worse punishment that doing dishes or cleaning my room. I wanted to be going and playing and doing.  There she was, though, looking completely content with suds up to her elbows.  She always said that sometimes we had so much to do that nothing got done.

      Now, many years down the road, I have over-achieving mini geeks of my own.  One is in college now double majoring in Physics and Chemistry and has moved out on his own but I still have my female geeklet at home.  She just became a teenager and is involved in everything from dance to band to astronomy club to gifted classes to IT Support team to ... you get the picture.  I work full time at one job and seasonally at another while tinkering with painting murals and bookkeeping.  I have a husband who is a Director of Environmental Services for a local municipality and runs several small wastewater facilities on the side. Add to that caring for a disabled mother and you have chaos. 

     But then there is doing the dishes... We have a dishwasher that has seen better days and so dishes are better off cleaned by hand.  I noticed an amazing thing while washing dishes -- NO ONE runs into the kitchen offering to do them.  That's right; it's complete silence in the midst of the chaos.  I have time to contemplate the important things in the universe, to still my mind, and to listen to the little voice that reminds me who I am.  I'm lucky enough to live outside the city; my kitchen overlooks a field where horses play and where fancy chickens scratch the ground.  My back deck blooms in the spring and summer with my container garden and the fence is covered with vines. It's stunning in all seasons.  I had forgotten that...I had forgotten the beauty of what is around me.

    I have realized that true beauty is most easily found in the mundane.  We live our lives in such a tizzy -- always wanting more power, more action, more technology -- when what we really need is to step back and to do the mundane, allowing our minds to wander along forgotten paths and our souls to breathe and take flight.  We all need that silent place where the chaos cannot invade.  We all need the Zen of doing dishes.

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You may have seen the trailers, touting it as the "manliest movie ever made".  That's right, Sylvester Stallone has taken his years of experience making manly movies and applied it to make what is supposed to be the Manliest Movie of All.  I'm speaking, of course, of The Expendables. 

Yes, I went to see it.  I was one of 6 other women in the theatre.  I know this because my man-whore friend who was with me wanted to date every girl he saw walk in, and was therefore keeping track of how many there were.   Aside from him, I was with my brother and my little Japanese dancing buddy.  I think it was a healthy spectrum of male personages.

What was the consensus as we all walked out of the theatre?  That yes, Sylvester Stallone had, in fact, fulfilled on his promise and created one of the greatest actions films of all time.  

Don't get me wrong, the thing was utterly ridiculous.  I mean...completely.  From the opening

 scene when a bad guy is shot with a gun so powerful that his torso explodes, right through Ol' Sylvester sprinting down the dock and leaping into a taxiing airplane, till the grand finale of all fighting, all fire, explosive mayhem and destruction.   I would worry about giving you spoilers, but honestly, you know what this movie is from the moment it begins.  Pure, unadulterated, action.  Plot incidental.  

There is a sort of half-hearted effort at a story, and even character development.  I think there is something about a beautiful woman and a ruthless dictator?  But really, all that only exists to open up to us doors to further action.  Take, for instance, Jason Statham's character.  As one of the younger men in the cast he was the only one allowed to have even a hint of a relationship (albeit, a faltering one).  What is this? Am I sensing some Drama?  Of course not!  We just needed an excuse to set ol' Handsome Rob loose on a basketball court full of punks who thought they were bad-ass until they met a REAL man.  And an excuse for the fantastically corny line "Now you know what I do for a living." And the unstated, yet still perfectly clear "Now get on my bike wench, and try not to faint from my overwhelming manliness."

But who are we kidding?  You don't go to a movie touting a cast that includes Rambo, the Terminator, John McClain, Stone Cold Steve Austin, Jet Li (pick any of his characters), The Transporter, Alex Grady, and Ivan Vanko and expect it to be anything but guns and knives and lots and lots of death.  And to be frank, I'm glad Stalone didn't try to make it anything more.  It would have ruined it.  In the words of my brother "It was simply a vehicle to get you from one fight scene to the next, with nothing to distract you in between.  Perfect!"

I hesitated to bring it up there with the guys, but I did have one complaint.  In a movie this big and this ridiculous, I admit, I rather expected the special effects to be a tad better.  On the other hand, their vague ridiculousness simply added to the overall tone of the film.  And where, had they been more realistic, I might have had to to cringe away from some of the more...violent...fights, as it was I instead was laughing my head off.  

I think it was the sly humor that really made this movie.  Never once did it take itself too seriously.  And there were some hysterical winks to the audience that really just topped it off.  Like the show down between the UFC fighter and the WWE wrestler.  And the parting shot at Schwarzenegger.  And the constant harping on Jet Li's height ("When I get hit, the hole is bigger!  Cause I'm littler! ")  

So...final verdict is that if you want explosions and really big guns, you need to see this movie.  It delivers exactly what it promises, and it is a lot of fun.  Don't be expecting anything great, or deep, or thought-provoking.  But do expect to see some serious ass-kicking.  Yes, I'd definitely recommend it.

 Oh, and one last thing.   To my six fellow females in the audience...you rock ladies.  I was proud to be in your company.  

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Hooray!  The Powers That Be may have denied us our David Tennant fix by not taking "Rex Is Not Your Lawyer" to series, but we now have a clip!

Verdict: American accent is OK, but distracting.  Why couldn't they let him use his natural accent?  David Tennant using his Scottish accent is at least 1000 times sexier than David Tennant with any other accent.  This has been proven by science.

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That's right! GeekaChicas is giving away two rolls of Gaming Paper (as reviewed by KitchenJedi here):

One roll 1 inch squares, and

One roll with 1 inch hex.

Both are durable, reusable, and easily disposable!

To enter, leave a comment below answering the question, "What game would you use the paper to play?"

Additional ways to enter:

1. Friend GC on Facebook and leave a comment with your answer.

2. Post about the giveaway to your FB wall along with your answer.

3. Follow us on Twitter and tweet about the giveaway (once daily), or

4. Blog about the giveaway (and send us a link to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it )

5. Send a picture of yourself/your friends dressed as your favorite RPG character to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it   (pictures may be displayed on GeekaChicas when winners are announced).   

Come on, Sisters! Let's get our Geek On!

(Sorry, this giveaway is open only to those with a U.S. shipping address. GeekaChicas writers and their families may not participate. )

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The practice of burying the dead may date back 350000 years, as evidenced by a 45-foot-deep pit in Atapuerca, Spain, filled with the fossils of 27 hominids of the species Homo heidelbergensis, a possible ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans.

There are at least 200 euphemisms for death, including "to be in Abraham's bosom," "just add maggots," and "sleep with the Tribbles" (a Star Trek favorite).

No American has died of old age since 1951. That was the year the government eliminated that classification on death certificates.

The trigger of death, in all cases, is lack of oxygen. Its decline may prompt muscle spasms, or the "agonal phase," from the Greek word agon, or contest.

So much for recycling: Burials in America deposit 827,060 gallons of embalming fluid—formaldehyde, methanol, and ethanol—into the soil each year. Cremation pumps dioxins, hydrochloric acid, sulfur dioxide, and carbon dioxide into the air. Alternatively, a Swedish company will freeze-dry your body in liquid nitrogen, pulverize it with high-frequency vibrations, and seal the resulting powder in a cornstarch coffin. They claim this "ecological burial" will decompose in 6 to 12 months.

Zoroastrians in India leave out the bodies of the dead to be consumed by vultures. The vultures are now dying off after eating cattle carcasses dosed with diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory used to relieve fever in livestock.

In Madagascar, families dig up the bones of dead relatives and parade them around the village in a ceremony called famadihana. The remains are then wrapped in a new shroud and reburied. The old shroud is given to a newly married, childless couple to cover the connubial bed.

During a railway expansion in Egypt in the 19th century, construction companies unearthed so many mummies that they used them as fuel for locomotives.

Well, yeah, there's a slight chance this could have backfired: English philosopher Francis Bacon, a founder of the scientific method, died in 1626 of pneumonia after stuffing a chicken with snow to see if cold would preserve it.

For organs to form during embryonic development, some cells must commit suicide. Without such programmed cell death, we would all be born with webbed feet, like ducks.

In 1907 a Massachusetts doctor conducted an experiment with a specially designed deathbed and reported that the human body lost 21 grams upon dying. This has been widely held as fact ever since. It's not.

In 19th-century Europe there was so much anecdotal evidence that living people were mistakenly declared dead that cadavers were laid out in "hospitals for the dead" while attendants awaited signs of putrefaction.

More people commit suicide in New York City than are murdered.

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For those of you who fondly remember The Engineer's Guide to Cats, check this out:

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Perhaps I'm biased - after all, I have a drawer full of sonic screwdrivers and lipsticks, and can name a superhero or two for every letter of the alphabet. In my almost non-existent off-time, my husband and I have debates about the more obtuse points of the comic world (who would win in a fight? Hulk or She-Hulk?). And yet, despite my status as a proud geek chick, it can be hard to feel like a proud, hot geek chick.

But guys love us geeky women, and here's why:

1. When you talk about issues--politics, the environment, and the like--our eyes don’t glaze over.
2. We can tell you the chemical composition of caffeine, and teach you how to extract it with a beaker, a filter, and a hefty dose of chloroform.
3. We carry our own chloroform.
4. The taking-our-glasses-off-hair-down-librarian effect never gets old. 
5. You don’t have to fix our computers--sometimes, we might even fix yours.
6. We know the difference between a gnome, a dwarf, an elf, and an orc.
7. We’re well-read, and not afraid to show it.
8. We know that birds twitter, and people tweet.
9. We hate chick flicks - and chick lit - as much as you do.You don’t need to defend our honor - we’re more than capable of kicking ass all by ourselves.
10. You can share an Xbox Live family account with us.
11. We understand the jokes in XKCD.
12. We can combine our video game/book/RPG collections into a world-shaking uber-collection.

By the way, the Hulk would win in a Hulk/She-Hulk throw down. Greater intelligence is tops in most situations, but even that can't beat out an infinite anger, infinite power generator.

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     While looking for a replacement battle mat for our weekly D&D games, I stumbled across Gaming Paper.  I'm always intrigued in anything thrifty or frugal, but this seemed too good to be true!  A low cost alternative on which I can create custom terrain?  Wow!  The arts and crafts side of me struggled with the logical side of me and curiosity won out.

      I was quick to email the folks over at Gaming Paper and request a roll to evaluate.  (They kindly sent me 4 rolls- but we'll get to that at the very end.) 

Here are the facts about Gaming Paper, as put forth by the creators:

"Gaming Paper is the latest innovation in roleplaying and miniatures accessories and is a low-cost alternative to expensive battlemaps and tile sets. It’s an inexpensive, reusable and disposable product for gamers.

 

Gaming Paper is sold in convenient rolls that are 30 inches wide and 12’ long, for 30 square feet of playing surface. At only $4/roll, it is a fraction of the cost of other gaming mats on the market. Not only is it usable for miniatures games, but it is also ideal for roleplaying games. Anyone can use pens, markers, or other simple writing implements to create detailed terrain for campaigns or miniatures battles."

 

To give you a visual, here's a photo of the paper compared to the more expensive mat:

 

 

The bottom layer is my mat, the shiny layer the gaming paper.

 

    The company actually created their own YouTube channel to show many demos of what is possible with Gaming Paper.   Also, it's worth noting that the product is up for "Ennie Awards" in two categories: "Best Aid or Accessory" and "Best Miniatures Product".

 Now, about my experiences with the product:

I tested a roll of both 1-inch squares and a roll of 1-inch hex grid.  I subjected it to many tests- cutting, writing utensils, spills,  small children...  Here are the findings:

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I've been following Courtney Stoker for a while now, and not just because she had the good taste to link to me.  She's of one of my favorite schools of fandom: the one that believes that the text must and should be deconstructed not just for plot, themes, characterization, etc., but also as a reflection of the culture in which it was made.  It was partially reading her uncompromising stuff that gave me the courage to ask the Being Human panel at Comic-Con about the veiled sexism in season 2. (After the jump, for those interested.  Also, semi-spoilery for BH season 2--discussion of themes but no major plot points.)

Anyway.  She's been interviewed by a paper called the Washington City Paper, on the surprisingly fractious intersections between feminism and geek culture.  Read it here.

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This has mystified me since I reached an age where chivalry and bravado and coming to the rescue as a romantic gesture began to make a little sense. For some reason beyond my ken, I inspire feelings of protectiveness and downright knightly behavior on the part of the men who come into my life. The women, too, but I'm not getting into that right now.

Now come on. I've always been able to stand up for myself whatever the circumstances. I'm no shy, fearful, retiring little flower in need of masculine (or feminine) brawn to shelter me from the icy rain pellets of a big bad world. Shit happens, wise people have said. The art of life is not to avoid shit happening, but rather to navigate through said shit and come out the other side stronger and wiser for the experience. Let me add one more step--AND THEN MOVE ON!

Look, I grieve like most other human beings. I get hurt, and I need time to get over and past the hurt. But my driving philosophy is to move on, whatever the circumstances. At this point in my life (I'll be 39 this year) I've been through enough heartbreak, sickness, and bereavement to know for a fact that life continues on the other side. Through experience I've learned to let go of pain. I hold on to what was good in any situation, bear no grudges, and take the whole as a new building block for the pyramid that is life.

So I've had guys online coming to my defense, or something to that effect. And you know, I'm grateful to have instilled such love and loyalty in said people. But relax! Things are good for me. I'm not dwelling on what's finished and I don't regret anything I've done. Don't feel the need to rescue this damsel in distress. Why not climb up the tower so we can all celebrate what is basically an exciting and amazing life?

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This past week I joined the Twitter #writechat and #storycraft weighed in my two cents. It was great, I met some cool people got a lot of my comments retweeted. But, one comment I made to the #storycraft got someone’s attention, this tweet name will remain in the dark. Here was the tweet I made:

"Never look to others and ask how your story should end or start. Whose creation is it, yours or theirs?"

I believe this to the point, I think writers really need to bleed for their own work. It’s different if your in a group project, but if you’re writing your own story don’t look to others for the start, ending, or when you have writers block. Take ownership of it sink or swim.  That's how every writer should roll.

Then out of the blue I get this nice little response "Sometimes it helps to ask. Someone's idea could spark an idea that takes me a different way." Hmm, not bad, still don't agree.

I come back with "But, then it becomes no longer your creation, writers need to dig for their own creativity."

After a few more tweets I get the famous quote "All art is theft. ~ Pablo Picasso?" WTF!!!

So an easy question to ask, is "If all art is theft, then why not rip off what's out there now, why seek the helps of others?

This tweet comes back with "That's why I read." At this point my writing passion is on fire! I can't wrap my head around this, is this person really trying to justify and make up excuses for not trying to be creative? They claim that there is no more originality and the we subconsciously steal, so what's the big freaking deal if I take an idea here and there. Sorry, I call that a lazy writer who shouldn't be in the field of WRITING!

If someone say's there's no more  originality in this world, then it's our job as artist to redfine it. Writers are the foundation of all everything new and creative, an artist that doesn't think of a way to bring something new to this world, gets in to a lazy habit of thinking. It's our duty and sense of adventurism to create something different, don't fall on the " Well, it's been done, so let's steal someone else idea."  I'm calling bullshit on every writer that sinks to that level. Trust me, I'm not scared to blast whoever it is on it, be it one of my Geekachicas.

What do my Geekachicas and readers think, weigh in. Do you disagree, agree, or have a different view point. Let's hear it.

I leave you with these final words from one great mind "I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my own imagination- Albert Einstein "

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