Meet Me at the Table: Hanabi Review

Hanabi is a game that my husband and I picked up during one of our local game store stops. Whenever we go down to Milwaukee to visit family, we find time to stop into the Board Game Barrister. This was a store we found out about just as we were leaving the area and were pretty sad to realize we had a gaming place with 15 minutes of our house for the last 3 years.

So on our shopping day, we wanted to get one larger game and one smaller game. We saw Hanabi, which my husband knew about, and I snatched it up. It has made for several sessions of hilarious gaming.

Due to the time of year and the simple and cooperative nature of the Hanabi, I felt it would be a good first game to promote.

Title: Hanabi
Race the Clock. . .Build the Fireworks. . . Launch Your Rockets!

Geeky Specs
        Designer: Antoine Bauza                             Published by: Asmodee
         Year Published: 2010                                  Type: Family, Card Game, Co-operative Play
         Players: 2-5                                                  Rough Game Time: 25+ mins
         Suggested Ages: 8+

What's the Story, Morning Glory?
Hanabi (Japanese for "fireworks) is a game about celebrating  our love of fireworks displays.  The point of the game is to create the most AMAZING fireworks display possible, but you can only do this by having the proper balance of colored fireworks. The additional twist is that you cannot look at your hand. You can look at the cards of all the other players, but you cannot see your own cards. You have to work together with your team of fireworks experts to construct the best fireworks display of the millennium!


What's in the Box?

• 1 set of directions
• 60 Fireworks cards (6 colored suits - Red, Green, Blue, Yellow, White, Rainbow)
• Each color has three 1's, two 2's, 3's, and 4's, and one 5.
• 8 Clock (Clue) Tokens
• 4 Fuse Tokens

How To Play or Not to Play

• Each person is dealt five cards (2-3 players) or 4 cards (4-5 players).
• The players should not look at their own cards.
• Put the draw pile to the side and hold up your cards for other players to see.
• Players are can only see the cards of the other players, not their own.
• Players then are allowed to, at the expense of a clue token, give a hint to another player for what cards to play. They can only tell a player that "these cards are {this color}" or "these cards are {this number}" and the rainbow cards are always included in whatever color you point out. You touch the cards so that the "blind" player can know which cards.
• Cards need to be laid out in numerical order within their color suit.
• Players can either discard a card to earn a clock token, play a card, a clock token to give a clue on their turn.
• If a card the player plays doesn't match a suit numerically, a fuse is burned.

The End
There are three ways that Hanabi can end:

1. If the third fuse token is burned, an explosion is caused and the game ends in defeat.
2. If the players make the 5 fireworks before the cards run out, to make a legendary display, the game ends immediately with a perfect score of 25.
3. When the cards run out, each player takes one more turn after the last card is drawn and the game ends. The cards are then tallied up.

Score for how man you have in each color. For example:

This gives you 15.

The goal is to set an overall impression with your fireworks. Here's the layout (from the booklet):

Points	Overall Impression
<-- 5	Horrible, booed by the crowd.
6-10	Mediocre, just a hint of scattered applause.
11-15	Honorable attempt, but quickly forgotten.
16-20	Excellent, crowd pleasing
21-24	Amazing, they will be talking about it for weeks!
25	Legendary, everyone left speechless, stars in their eyes!

Rules Weren’t Meant to Be Broken (Or Were They?)
You're probably asking yourself about the level at which you can communicate with others in this game. Are you allowed to wink or exaggerate your speech? Can you put emphasis on certain words?

The rules say that you can essentially do whatever your group agrees on. If you all feel that using emphasis is alright, have at it! The game is open to enhance your own gaming experience. We probably had the most fun playing with all the weird clues we gave with our emphasis or facial expressions. So don't feel that you have to be a monotoned android. Have at it!

Do NOT under any circumstances look at your cards! This is the hardest rule not to break, because you want to look. You might even accidentally flash your cards at yourself, but don't worry, forget them. 

Best Played Under These Conditions
I found that playing with 3-4 is probably the best mix. 3, because you have less time to forget your own clues between turns (fewer people). 4 people can be absolutely hilarious, but make sure you can sit to see everyone's cards well.

This game is also best played with gamers who are interested in having a good laugh and enjoy co-operative games. The point of the game is to have fun and to not be scared to have a laughable moment.

Filler games on larger gaming nights are popular to play between the more mentally taxing games. Hanabi is a great filler game, especially after a stressful game of Elder Sign or any Cthulu mythos game.

Spice Up Your Game
Are you celebrating a holiday where fireworks are a main part of the celebration? For example, in the United States, we celebrate Independence Day on July 4th and fireworks are one of the main spectacles. Or maybe you're living in Edinburgh where there are never not fireworks being fired off for one event or another (Or every weekend in August).  And let's not all forget New Year's Eve!

For the basics, a great candy to make the game more interesting and evokes the fireworks theme are Pop Rocks! So if you want to spice up your game, make Pop Rocks available to the players to amplify the laughs you'll have.

For other foody ways to make your game night special, there are countless items on Pinterest for suggestions for fireworks treats. My two favorites are the Fourth of July Cakelettes and the Firecracker Popcorn.

The Fourth of July Firecracker Cakelettes are shaped like little firecrackers using different colored cakes and Pop Rocks. I found it through She Knows and it is a really great treat to serve as a way to amp up to cool on the game. She could use all one color cake if you're not doing a 4th of July celebration or you can color the cake whatever you want. I personally would prefer making one thing cake of strawberry or chocolate and then just cutting the middle out of one. You wouldn't even need the extra frosting layers.

Firecracker Popcorn uses Pop Rocks, Star Sprinkles, White Chocolate, and Popcorn to make some festival looking popcorn. Another great grab snack for gaming.

Expand your gaming evening by theming out the whole meal, snacks, and drinks with some of these options:

• Trader Joe's sells Firecracker Shrimp or you can check Pinterest for bang bang or firecracker shrimp recipes to make on your own.
• You could even get Bombpops or Firecrackers (they seem to have changed the name since my childhood).
• Firecracker Wine
• FireworksPopcorn (I use this popcorn always and it's delicious).

End your evening with some fireworks, if they're legal in your area or you can even light a feel sparklers to celebrate your awesome celebration. This game can easily be played on a patio, at a fireworks display event, or anywhere.

Finale
Overall, this game is a great time for family and friends. It is a light, fun game that can inspire copious amounts of laughter and has so many snazzy connections that you can make to spice up a fun game night with friends and/or family. Great for a holiday game and you will definitely end this game with a few memorable moments. It is a very good game, that you will like to play and probably not turn down an opportunity to play it. That is why I gave it a solid 8 out of 10.

Rating: 8

GoldieBlox, Rube Goldberg, & Beastie Boys "Princess Machine"

I bought GoldieBlox for my daughter back in July for her third birthday. She LOVED it! We played with it together at the beach. Soon, she was making her own little experiments with the materials. Now she still creates her own things, but all the pieces have been blended with her Thomas tracks and Mega-Block cities that she builds. She's well on her way to be a little geek completely enamored with the way the world works and all its integral parts.

When I arrived home I saw this awesome video and article posted by George Takei. Sure, there are all the jokes out there that a GUYS built the Rube Goldberg machine, but honestly. . . I used Rube Goldberg in my classroom last year when I taught Science and girls are totally capable of this. So just to have that wonderful moment of GIRL POWER, watch and enjoy and think about how you can help your girls break the gender-mold and be their own, original, investigative-selves removed from the cattiness that comes with the immersion in the overly pink princess lifestyle.

Also, you can vote for this to be one of the Super Bowl Half-Time Ads! DO IT! EMPOWER THE NEW GENERATION!

An MSTies' REJOICE!

I saw this article not long ago and was beyond joyful at the announcement that Turkey Day will be with us, once again, this year. As a celebration of their 25th Anniversary, Turkey Day will air via SHOUT! Factory, hosted by Joel himself. A popular tradition was for MST3K to host a whole day of MST3K watching on Thanksgiving.

Long after MST3K went off the air, my husband and I hosted Turkey Day specials. We'd choose about 4 MST3Ks show share with family and friends. Most of our friends and family at the time weren't the sports watching type.

When I became a teacher, my first year I chose to impart the magic of Turkey Day to my students. I chose to share a MST3K with my students, which prompted me to explain what Mystery Science Theatre was and explain the connection it has to Wisconsin and the Midwest in general. It was an amazing experience, which led to me teaching my students about riffing as a form of text comprehension.  I'll be sharing some MST3K with my kids this year, but I won't be able to do a movie this time. Instead I'll have to find some great shorts to share. Either way it'll be awesome!

So you want to be part of this tradition on this very special occasion? Well, all you need is the internet or a Smart TV with access to the internet (especially a web browser). At noon (ET), 11AM (CT) or 9AM (PT), turn in to http://www.mst3kturkeyday.com/ and follow along on twitter! It is going to be awesome! And I am so excited! I'm hoping me, the hubby, and the wee-one get to a WiFi location in time to watch. It will be an amazing Turkey Day!

Olympic Torch Space Walk

I'm going to be honest. . . I was rather naive about the International Space Station until about a year ago. It wasn't until Canadian Astonaut Chris Hadfield took youtube geeking of his Space Station exploits to a new level that I became interested in what kinds of things were going on with the ISS. Hadfield is probably most geekingly famous for his farewell video from the Space Station. There are a good handful of pretty interesting space videos from teeth-brushing in space (and the difficulties of such an elementary task) to making Space Burritos. There are a good number of liquid oriented ones and they are seriously interesting. The one I remember the second most after Space oddity is the video on shaving in space, because my husband was awed (facial shaving = super hard in normal gravity).

Commander Hadfield totally hit my geek-strings with this video and, after entering back into the tweetisphere, I started following NASA on twitter and I was getting all sorts of awesome information to share with my students. It was around this time that Howard Wolowitz on The Big Bang Theory started his story line about the ISS and I was hooked in even farther. I thought it was pretty funny and I actually wanted to find out more about what was going on with space programs around the world. Were they really taking off from Kazakhstan or was that a Borat joke? Are the Russians dominating space travel at the moment?

So I started watching Hadfield's incredibly interesting videos about how things work in space. It gave me renewed hope in the international space program and what it could mean for our future or our children's future or our children's children's future. Sci-Fi seems that much more closer to reality, but it also makes you wonder why more isn't being done with setting up orbiting colonies or that steps aren't being taken to actually move forward (hello moon. . .it's still out there waiting for us). Even in the bleak state that the United States has put NASA into, the worldview on space travel is not directed solely on the United States. What a horrible self-centered world view.

As I was keeping tabs on major events, I missed such cool things as the launch of the Olympic Torch into space, but I wasn't about to miss the live footage of the Olympic Torch being handed off right outside the ISS! So I logged on this morning and watched live as Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazanskiy took the torch outside of the ISS and passed it back and forth, relishing the special historical moment. Here is the footage that I watched (after waiting like 36 minutes for it to start).


This was incredibly cool and I even got my daughter to sit and watch it for a little bit with me. It was incredibly watching them outside of the Space Station and listening to them list off every single thing they have to do. They then had to set-up the camera and move this and shift that and it was CRAZY! I said "you have got to be the most patient person in the world to be an astronaut!" This was just too cool and I had to geek a smidge today about the awesomeness of the ISS and how they really are trying to reach the rest of the world and remind them about how incredibly amazing the global space program is. . . inspiring a whole new generation.

YouTube's Geek Week (A Reflection)

The commercials are making their rounds and YouTube's front page is plastered with geekism. I know Geek Week on YouTube started on Sunday, but let me just rehash the constant excuse of "I'm on VACATION!" Not that I'm concerned that my few fans are waiting with bated breath for me to comment. I mean, who is this for? Me and maybe others who are going through this? Or maybe someone looking for a laugh. I like laughs.

I've found, though, that I've become incredibly reflective about the different definitions of geek and nerd out there. I think my number one issue has been this requirement that Math and Science are immediately part of these stereotypes.

Posted by George Takai, now available as a T-Shirt.

From the bottom of my heart, I can say with all certainty that Math and Me are not on the best of terms. I can comprehend through per-Calculus, but I struggled the whole way. I put in a lot of effort and really worked hard. Due to it being the bane of my academic existence, I try to stay as far away from Math when I can, unless it's part of a funny joke that is linked to something I like or something I can link to reading or writing. For example, Pi (Apple-Pi, etc.).

On the other hand, I was kind of into Science. I wasn't very good at Chemistry, but at Biology I was a wiz. I was the kid who actually dissected the fetal pig in my group and went for the extra credit of a perfect brain extraction. I was granted with the ultimate prize of having the best brain extraction in all the sections and I was honored by having it added to the teacher's jar of perfect brains! But once again, thanks to Math, I couldn't pursue my passion for Marine Biology. I had an overly difficult Calculus teacher and all the Math involved in college level Chemistry did me in. I would, though, just like to add that I took the Marine Ecology class offered by my college and I aced it with flying colors. Even yesterday, at the beach, I had to handle all the hook extractions from the things that were caught from the sea. Like a baby eel and this froggish mudfish. I did, though, fall out a great deal with Science due to the teachers involved and I fell smack-dab in the middle of Philosophy.

So I don't really consider myself a Math/Science geek or nerd. I have found I might still have a high interest in Science, but it's not my passion. That always throws me off with these definitions. So when I saw the commercial, I couldn't not take a moment to reflect on my own status. The journey I have been on this summer has been incredible and I'm working on a reflective entry as I write this RIGHT NOW!!! Yes. . . double-wielding keyboards! On to the commercial:

The voiceover in the video says: "What does it mean to be a geek? We're the biggest fans, that's true. And we're curious about the world. We like to make things, invent things, share things. We question what's possible. And when we find people who care as much as we do, well, that's when things get interesting."

"What does it mean to be a geek?" The first line in and of itself is a loaded question. And the strange thing is, it assumes that they have answered it succinctly. What does it mean? For my review of this, see my very first entry explaining my journey.

Then the commercial goes on to say that geeks are the "biggest fans." I can't argue that, except what about the geeks who never feel like they're the biggest fans? I mean, I don't know if I can label myself as the biggest fan of any one specific thing. Does it mean generically? Like. . .I am a big fan of books? Or I am a big fan of tabletop games? And what about my husband? I mean, he is probably the biggest fan of Mystery Science Theatre 3000 I've ever met, but is he considered the biggest fan? He doesn't build his own robots. He doesn't go to the conventions. So where does he land? Granted, he does have a blog and has been working on a project with it for over 10 years, but he's not a FanBoy, he's just an incredibly huge and well-immersed fan of MST3K. Take it a step further and ask yourself, "Are sports fans geeks?" Because, in all honesty, I have seen sports fans that can top the biggest geeks as Comic-Con (granted I am from Wisconsin, home of the Packers. . .). Weren't the jocks always the enemies of the nerds in the movies? Already, sweeping generalizations to make everyone feel included are occurring in this rally to embrace Geek Week on YouTube.

I'll accept that geeks are curious about the world. I think right here is where I fit in the strongest.  I am looking for the connections that will make my web of interconnectedness ever stronger. I love to travel to learn about how the world works and the only reason I ever turn on a reality TV show is to try to understand the human condition as viewed through the lens of a corrupt social view. I go geocaching because I want to see the world around me and embrace all of it. Ah, but there is the rub again. I thought geeks didn't like being outdoors unless they were reveling in a Renaissance Faire? I mean, my husband and Friend Jim would rather never leave the comfort of their computer chairs. Either way, this line about being curious is perfectly valid and I'm just talking in circles.

"We like to make things, invent things, share things." This is where I think it gets pretty dicey. There is no conjunction. Does it mean we have to do all three of these things? Do we just do at least one, but potentially all three? Sure, I like to make things. I like to make blogs and write and develop lessons. I like to cook and develop RPG characters that I never get to play with. I like to create my little personalized characters on Sims and WoW. Do I invent things? Well. . . hmmm. . . no. . . do all nerds invent things? Well. . . what do you mean by invent? Does it have to be like Wolowitz on The Big Bang Theory? Little robots or space toilets? Or can it be as simple as a recipe? Here is where it falls too heavily back on the origins of the term geek and nerd. What I cannot debate, though, is that geeks and nerds do love the share things. But, hey, don't non-geek/nerds, too? Not something specific to geek-nerddom, but its at least true.

"We question what's possible." Can't debate this, either. It's true. No matter what type of geek you are, it is true. But is this something specific only to geeks? If so, then all 55 of my students are geeks, because they question the hell outta me! I think this falls into the category of just another sweeping generalization.

When we do get together, though, crazy things do happen. When I'm just gaming with my kids at school, it's awesome and neat. But when I get together with Friend Jim and Ray. . . it is AWESOME! It takes things to a whole new level. When I'm into my film or television focus or any of that, it is crazy awesome when Ray is on board and we just spend hours discussing the finer points of yadda yadda yadda. So yeah. . . the point of Geek Week on YouTube does invite that idea that we're just a bunch of geeks getting together online and sharing all these things to have the most ultimate of geekgasms!

Yet, the entire commercial is so sweeping in its generalizations, it's meant to be inviting to everyone. That's why it was aired on television instead of simply moving through the geek cultural outlets. The point of the whole thing was to get everyone over to YouTube to watch these things, whether they are someone who subscribes to geekdom or not. Like I've said above, how do you define geek? Are we not all geeks in some way or another? My husband argues absolutely not, but is maybe that what geek culture is doing? Spreading through all the channels of all the different cultural lifestyles, but the origins of geekdom are still holding fast and almost rebelling against this modern need to embrace all who do these things? Or are these things that are only truly understood by those who are really geeks?

I have to reflect and reflect I did. The commercial, while a rally cry of sorts, is really just another attempt to commercialize geekdom. Sure the images reinforce certain things, but they also attempt to negate things that maybe don't need to be negated. I'll leave you with a final thought. . . is a Ninja Warrior really just a jock geek? The Starbursts of the geek world!

The Pixar Timeline Theory

I don't know what brought this up or how it made its way to me only now, but Ray decided it was time to enlighten me on the interconnectedness and the timeline that is PIXAR (written by Jon Negroni). Maybe after my little gushfest about Kubrick and our frequent discussions about the interconnectedness of Belly's cartoons, he finally remembered long enough to get me at the computer to read the article.

One of the problems I run into frequently with all this is ensuring I am in a state of mind where I can appreciate everything I am doing. I'm still suffering from the backlash of tons of personal issues in my life. So even though I am loving this blog and recording my adventures, sometimes I can't get myself to do the necessary entry, even though I am still geeking out.

Well that was a bit of a digression. Let's move forward.

I've been a huge PIXAR fan from the beginning. A good time back I remember the threats of PIXAR closing and I was beyond devastated. I think Cars was supposed to be the last Disney-PIXAR movie, but I for some reason have a completely different view of the situation looking back and being kind of in-the-mix of the film industry at the time. According to my resources, in 2006, Disney picked them up and "saved" PIXAR, but still allowed them to be liberated and an individual studio, which is why they are not just "Disney" or just "Pixar" films, but "Disney-PIXAR" films. I do have to say that my favorite movies are Toy Story 2, Up, and The Incredibles. The funny thing is, I LOVE pretty much all the PIXAR films. I am not partial, though, to Finding Nemo and A Bug's Life. I can watch any of the others on repeat, all day, until I pass out. How do I know this? Because I have a three-year-old who has invested herself in the wonder of Disney-PIXAR animation (including the shorts).

The article that my husband passed along to me describes in only so much detail, the interconnectedness of all the films, arranging them into an almost bleak view of the world. This timeline (click to see his timeline on his site) creates a vision of a world without humans, but lots of talking animals, monsters, bugs, and robots/machines.  This view of PIXAR relates heavily to the PIXAR mascot, of the bouncing light. If machines are coming alive to eventually rule the planet, then the opening credits are a prime example of machines "procreating" and be animate. How do these opening titles relate to the timeline? I would love to know!

I can honestly say I was mentally geeking about this. Have I mentioned I love INTERCONNECTEDNESS!!! My webs are spinning and I'm seeing this whole thing unfold in my mind!  And then. . . it hit me. . . where are all the shorts? How do the shorts fit into the timeline? The article seems to be edited with comments and other things people have contacted the guy about. It makes me want to figure out how all of these tiny things fit into this greater timeline. All of a sudden I can't help myself from wanting to scour the internet for all the information I can get, watch all of the films and examine an extensive visual graphic of the universe. It gives credence to Brave and Monster's University, and might also explain the transportation A.I. advancement of Planes (which are not on the 23 Years timelines).

An incredibly interesting read. An amazing piece of work, but now I want more.

This is the full timeline, it's just a bit too big to have as the right size, but click and enlarge.

Star Trek: The Original Series - Episode 8: Miri

Episode 8 - Miri

• The planet is referred to as a Replica of Earth.
• Approximately 1960
• Janice on the landing party? 
• Red shirt wandered off. 
• ZOMBIES!!! (then again, we said zombies when the doors opened and sure enough, zombies. Oh how common zombies are. . .)
• Oh wait. . . not zombies? Intelligent zombies? Ok. We'll have to find out. Assuming they're not zombies.
• Man, all the red shirts wandered off. Huh. They all came running, though. That's cool.
• Grown Ups don't help? Bummer. (Grups.)
• Kirk, she's only a child! Save your flava for Yeoman Janice.
• More Vulcan talk about green blood being better than red blood. Blah, blah, blah.
• Glandular. . . post-pubescent? Like puberty wasn't hard enough. Thanks disease.
• What a motley crew of kids!
• I swear it was set to phaser!
• Death by "nananaanaanaaa."
  
• It's like a scene out of Peter Pan. Miri is tinker bell and goes and convinces the Lost Boys that Wendy is a bird and should be killed. Tink likes Peter (Kirk) and she thinks Wendy (Janice) and Peter love each other. Now the Lost Boys are going to kill the Wendy-bird. 
• We can't do anything without computers! I only trust them.
• Teachers only say "study, study, study." 
• Another shirt torn up!
• "I never get involved with older women."

A conversation about Yeoman Janice's hair and how long we thought it took for Janice Lee Whitney to have her hair done.  I immediately said it was a wig. It looked too perfect not to be. Sure enough, we learned it was a Max Factor wig. I also learned about the trouble she suffered on the show with the accusations of sexual assault she filed against some higher ups on the show. This was horrific to learn. Sadly, despite what executives say, they clearly saw Whitney as an issue or liability and found a "legitimate" way to take her out of the show. First, they wanted Kirk to have more romances with more women. He's not a one-woman kinda captain. Next, they already had two blondes and then Nichelle, so they opted to get rid of one of the blondes. Whitney was not the blonde engaged to the boss, so she had to be the one to go. Thanks to good ole McCoy (DeForest Kelley), Whitney found her way back into the loving arms of Star Trek and it's fans. At least things turned around for her and her hair.


And while I looked for that information, I stumbled upon an article called "10 Things You Probably Don't Know About Star Trek." And sure enough, I probably didn't know them. The #1 thing was that Martin Luther King, Jr. was a fan of the progressive views of the show. According to this article, he told Nichelle Nichols, “Don’t you understand? When you are there they see you as you should be seen, as an equal.” That is AMAZING! It further reminds me of something my boss said to me during my first-year-review and that was that she LOVES that I expose my kids to things like MST3K, Star Trek, and Bradbury, because tapping into a part of our generation. . . a part of our youth. . . that is potentially lost on these kids. They aren't being exposed to these things. Imagine teaching equality using Star Trek and being able to reference this kind of history! What an intriguing idea for my future unit on Human Rights. Human Rights taught through Star Trek! I'm spinning gold here! Wow! The progressive status of Star Trek has been established in the cultural history of America. (For more information, here is an interesting article that can lead you to even more information and so forth and so on.)

Who cares if it's Photoshopped. . . it was meant to be!

A Toast: Live Long and Prosper (Star Trek Wines)

I couldn't help but get caught up in the gimmick of the Star Trek wines being released by Vinasa Winery (California). I'm only a mediocre wine drinker. I have an occasional glass here and there. I am more a sweet wine drinker and usually a white wine rather than a red. Yet, something about my new adventure made me want to order these bottles and enjoy at least one while watching Star Trek. I have already embraced that fact that in either weeks from now I will still be watching Star Trek in some form or another. Maybe, just maybe, I'll cook a meal that will match the wine and enjoy them both while watching one of the Star Trek feature films! We'll see. Either way, check it out. It's kinda cool.

While I think it's awesome that these wines are from Star Trek: The Original Series, I find it interesting that they weren't more geared towards The Next Generation. I found this article online about Picard and his love of wine. He even had his own private reserve, "Chateau Picard, 2267." Besides, Picard was a bit more classy than Kirk. It might have been a bit more interesting. Just a thought and all that. Anyways. . .this article focuses on Star Trek: Nemesis and the amount of wine/champagne that is being drunk by the actors. I just thought it was neat.

In Patrick Stewart News. . .

Two articles jumped out at me this week that involved Patrick Stewart. I'd just like to start this by saying that I LOVE Patrick Stewart. I am a Patrick Stewart fangirl without even having watched all of Star Trek: TNG. I think he is just. . . oh myyy.

The first article I saw, which garnered a strange amount of international attention, was Stewart's first pizza slice. I mean, hell, who doesn't eat whole pizzas with silverwear? Granted, I actually do, with large slices of pizza, sometimes prefer to cut it up into smaller bites. Yet, sometimes. . . just sometimes. . . you gotta fold it! Kudos Stewart!

The second article was in response to a question he was asked while at Comicpalooza. It seems that right now is when the convention circuit is happening (lots of tweets and things about conventions). Anyways! Stewart was asked, “Besides acting, what are you most proud of that you have done in you life — that you are willing to share with us?" Stewart went on to explain about his history of abuse in his home and how it led him to become involved in Refuge and Combat Stress. When it was over, he saw the woman who asked the question was in tears and hugged her to comfort her. The woman had already heard Stewart speak about his experience in 2009 at an Amnesty International sponsored conference and it helped her change her life. (Be warned, it will make you cry... or choke back tears... I couldn't help it... it was... so special...)

This story just further enforces the label of Stewart as "The Most Amazing Man to Ever Live!" Read more about it and watch the videos in the articles. I just don't have the skillz to post it properly here without borderline plagiarizing it. And as my students have been informed, if you plagiarize, a Volturi-type group of cloaked school district people will surround you and you will cry.

At the end of the article is an incredibly interesting commentary about the Sci-Fi genre and how it functions as a form of escapism for people in unpleasant situations. While my situation is not comparable to Stewart or the woman, it is its own unpleasant situation and while I don't find myself so much escaping as it is finally rising out of the ashes of my world, I can see why, now, I am embarking on this voyage into geekology.

Book Addict?

When I went to check my Facebook this morning, I saw a link from a librarian friend of mine explaining 25 Signs You're Addicted to Books. I started reading it and immediately linked it to my husband. As we both sat at our laptops scrolling through the article, you'd hear a little laugh or a "that is so me!" issue from our lips. It was hilarious!

Read the Article to find out if you're addicted to books....

Am I a fan of books? You have no idea. If you read this article, you will realize how big a book addict I am. I have a Kindle, but if you put a Kindle in front of me and a paper copy of a book, I would take the paper copy every time. I, sadly, also realize that space in my home is very limited. This breaks my heart. So paper books have been somewhat regulated to books that require a hard purchase, because they were that good.

Currently I get my book kicks from my classroom. I need to have books physically there, so that means lots of bookstore browsing. Especially the secondhand shops where books just have that feel....... and smell........ and sense........ about them. Oh it's amazing! ................ Ok, that's just a bit too much book-ecstasy......

X-Women?

So I've been bumming around Geek & Sundry for quite some time. I watch pretty much everything they have. Sometimes for a release or a laugh, but often for a Geek-rush. They've added a few new Vlogs and their newest is Amy Dallen. She is all about the Comics in "Talkin' Comics." Here is this week's Vlog-cast, which actually went very well with an interview I just read that was posted by Fox6News Milwaukee about the new X-Men comic and how it has an all chick team! Interview posted below. ENJOY and subscribe and like Amy Dallen on YouTube.com.



Brian Wood and Jeannine Schaefer are interviewed about their new X-Women team! Here's the funny thing. I had a friend ask me if I was going to do anything with comics. Here's my thing with comics. . . I am not opposed to them. I actually find benefits to comics and graphic novels in my line of work (uh... Literacy teacher?). I mean, I just taught ONOMATOPOEIA as part of figurative language and used classic comic book examples. I just, sometimes feel like I missed the comic boat. That I needed to hop on board when it started before I was ever born. To catch-up now, I would really be struggling. I mean, look how behind I am as a geek PERIOD! Comic books feel incredibly intimidating to me. I'm not really sure how to start. So I've put it on the back-burner until I can figure out an angle where I don't feel suffocated by the immensity of the field.




Side-Step
I started telling my husband about this. He's actually a pretty knowledgeable comic book guy. And I was like... what are some awesome ONOMATOPOEIA I can use for pictures.... OH!!! BAMF! What's that other one that is like very specific to comics? He reminded me about SNIKT! I was like "woah! Yeah! That's awesome!" He decided to pop-quiz me. "Name those ONOMATOPOEIAs." NAILED IT! Nightcrawler and Wolverine. That was awesome. Then again, I remember how awesome it was in the X-Men 2 (2003) movie when they made the perfect BAMF sound.  That... was a proud geek moment for me.