Pokéwalker Fitness Challenge, Week One!

Monday began the Pokéwalker Fitness Challenge hosted by Z of Hipster Please! Our first goal is 21000 steps by the end of Sunday.

"First and foremost, the point of the PFC is to trick ourselves into exercising. It's to get us up from behind our keyboards and walking around a bit, for our own benefit as well as the benefit of our Pokiemanz. Each week we will be faced with a challenge, a specific number of steps to be walked between 12:00 AM Monday and 11:59 PM the following Sunday local time.

The required number of steps will increase each week. Should you fail to meet your walking goal for the week, you are out. That's right, kids, single elimination. We will continue in this manner until only one of us remains. That participant will be the winner, with all the rights and privileges associated with such an esteemed title"

I think most of us will be able to knock the first goal out in under a week. Yesterday I fell a little short on my normal number of steps, but today I should be able to make up for it!

Not that I had any doubts about being able to hit any number of steps this week. It is Sakura-con weekend after all.

If you're interested at all in following our progress, we'll be tracking our steps and talking smack on Twitter under hashtag #PWC (though there is some spam from other randomness being tagged the same).

My Pokémon of choice thus far is my cute little Psyduck. I'm hoping our exercise together will keep us both happy and headache free. :)

Emerald City Comicon 2010

This was my second year attending the Emerald City Comicon, but instead of going as an attendee I decided to staff the show. As a result I didn't get quite the amount of pictures or autographs I would have liked, but I had so much fun that it wasn't an issue.

I wound up on the Panels Team and my fellow team members made the con for me. We had tons of laughs hanging out with each other and formed our own super secret super hero team of Black Lanterns. I will definitely be requesting to staff again next year and on the same crew.

My position was the middle aisle for sixth floor panels, which means I was so close to the stage that Wil Wheaton and Leonard Nimoy were practically breathing on me!



(fuzzy pictures from my phone, but only 2-3 rows back)

Wheaton was funny as ever and got a great response from the packed room. I love listening to him whether in person or over podcast, because while he is usually reading out of one of his books it always comes across as a conversation that he's having personally with everyone in the room. His story telling makes me feel like a little girl bouncing up and down waiting to find out what happens next in the fairy tale. It always leaves such a wonderfully content feeling, and I hope he know how much his fans appreciate who he is and how approachable he makes himself.

Nimoy surprised me. This was the first time I'd ever seen him in person. When he got to the stage, he did his signature Vulcan hand sign and then proceeded to sit down and read poetry. I admit to feeling a little disappointed - I wasn't entirely interested in hearing him read from an old book of his poems and didn't really understand what it was about. Shortly after, he opened up for questions from the audience and I was utterly blown away. He was hilarious, humble, and inspiring. He tried to answer every question with humor and  thoroughly and you could just see how much he loved and respected his fans. When asked about his photography his answer included a speech about how all women are beautiful no matter their shape or size that took my breath away. When he closed on another poem, I took care to listen to and absorb every word. The man was classy and I felt honored to be there.

I regret leaving the room and missing Stan Lee, especially since the staff ended up being short in the afternoon the first day. Next year I'll be more conscious of where the staffing levels are at, and definitely stash some snacks in the room with me.

I did, however, get to shake Stan the Man's hand later, and got his autograph at the top of my badge:

I felt a little silly getting my badge signed while surrounded by people with comics in hand, but I was assured by my line buddies that the epic experience of it all was more important than what was signed. They were right, I still feel amazing having met him; even if it was for a brief three second hand shake.

The rest of the autographs are from the Half Pixel crew, who came out to dinner afterward with the staff. If Kris Straub thought I was any small amount of cool before the show, I definitely shattered those thoughts afterward! I was just barely able to keep myself in check when he asked to take his picture with me when I  visited his table in the expo hall, but seeing all of them at the dinner exploded my inner fangirl. Most of the staff were whispering to each other about how "the Half Pixel crew is right there! Look! They're at that table!" so when my panels staff leader came and told me, I may have geeked out a little. He then gave me a silver marker and pushed me their way. I am now torn between being completely excited that they signed my badge and completely mortified that I might have made an ass of myself. Ah well. I'm a geek. It was worth it.

The DC booth was as excellent as last year handing out shiny pins of all their most popular heroes and loads of free comics. I don't have a list of what I got with me right now, but it was a pretty decent haul. Other than that I didn't grab too many comics. Next year I'll be more active in visiting tables and picking up signed copies from some of the great writers and artists in attendance.

Next year ECCC will be three days long instead of two, so if you've never been, I highly recommend grabbing your tickets when they go on sale for a much bigger show with even more amazing industry guests! 

 (A Seattle PI photographer caught a great picture that included me huddling in front of the room helping people with the mic! Image credit: Joshua Trujillo/seattlepi.com)

all your teevee are belong to me (girl gamers, i are one of those)

I was on Q13 Fox News! Well, my picture was anyway!

Here's a picture I took of my TV:

And here's a much better quality version the amazing Liger snagged for me (since she made it!):

The picture was originally taken because of Liger's awesome chain maille lanyards, but I loved it so much that it was used as my Omegathon picture, and of course it's been my blogger profile for a while. 

It was super fun seeing myself pop up! And especially for a story that talked about how gamer girls do, in fact, exist. This little bit of info was tagged on to the end of their story on "Game Crush" (though not on the linked web story).

I love the fact that female gamers are becoming more prominent and public, but I'm not sure I agree with the way Game Crush is showing it. I personally feel like we shouldn't be pushing that gamers sit at home lonely all day and are forced to pay for talking to a female gamer online. I've been part of an active gamer community via PAX for a few years now, and we play both on the web and off it, at no charge to each other.

Shouldn't we instead be creating places like LAN parties and meet-ups for gamers? Maybe starting more gaming clubs at schools and colleges? Let's take the stigma off of gaming and make it an acceptable entertainment pastime, not reinforce mostly incorrect stereotypes about gamers and their lack of social skills. Maybe "more girl gamers lie to friends and loved ones about playing" because they're afraid of people looking down at them for something they enjoy.

In the end though, I suppose it's just a sign of the times. While my boyfriend and I did see each other in person before any sparks flew between us, we did in fact meet online through a combination of me jacking a mutual friend's Facebook chat and the PAX IRC channel. During our relationship for the past seven months  we've made the effort to see each other on every weekend possible, but our long-distance relationship has largely focused on Xbox Live Netflix Parties, PC gaming together, and thousands of text messages. Still, I feel our relationship is just as strong and loving as any relationship without these and/or with different methods of communication.Then again, I never made him pay by the hour to talk to me.

Maybe we as gamers/nerds/geeks need to stop waiting for easy communication to fall into our laps and just put ourselves out there. I still think the way to meet people is to meet them in person. PAX is just one amazing venue for making friends with like minded folks, and XBL and Twitter and Facebook and what-have-you are all supplemental ways to keep in touch with them.(Note: I am not saying that PAX is a dating service. It's a meeting awesome people and not sleeping for three days in order to play tons of video games service. Though you can't deny dating sometimes happens, especially through the connections made at the con.)

If you're looking to play games with a gamer girl, you can add me to your list. My gamertag is eyeshuh and my friendship is free. I know plenty of other gals that don't charge for their game time either.

If you're having a hard time meeting people and really want to try out the whole internet dating thing, go to a real internet dating site. You'll get more for your money and a much better chance at a relationship from plenty of already established sites.

However, if you're looking to get a girl to talk sexy to you while you play flash games or Modern Warfare, well, let's not pretend this particular service is a dating site for lonely gamer boys to meet willing gamer girls. This is a cheap phone sex line with a video game kink.


Haha, I didn't mean for that to go off on a soapbox! I just wanted everyone to know my picture was on TV, gamer girls exist, gamer girls are awesome, gamer girls apparently play longer than guys (giggity), and there are plenty of gamer girls out there for you to meet and bust a cap in some zombies with free of charge. Keep the faith!