Geek Girls Rule! #128 – At the Speed of Geek

I’m not actually referring to how fast geeks get stuff done, that varies geek to geek, although a lot of us are pretty damn focused when we really get going on a project.  I speak from the experience of building a 20″ x 20″ stained glass window in  36 hours.  I, um, have a tendency to not eat, sleep or anything else when I really get going.  Usually, usually, the Geek Husband What Rules can rein me in and get me to eat, although I get twitchy and keep looking longingly toward whatever it is I’m currently fixated on.  And he can usually get me to sleep, even if I’m on a writing streak, granted with a lot of whining on my part about how I just need a few more minutes to get these last five pages out of my head.

Granted, there are those times when I just wait for him to fall asleep and sneak out of bed and go back to writing, and then wind up downing three triple espressos in rapid succession the next morning, not that I’m speaking from experience or anything… 

But I’ve noticed that a large number of geeks, particularly girl geeks, have a tendency to have a LOT of projects going simultaneously.  I say this because this morning, while sitting down making a list of the projects I need to finish, I had an inspiration for yet another project.  It went something like this:
“Ok, so I need to wrap up the research on the Roaring 20s game, and do the ashcan, and, hey, I wonder if I could make a kid friendly version.*  Yeah, I bet I could, and that would be an awesome teaching tool, because kids could research the era and what life was like for kids then, so they could role-play better, and there’d be extra credit for costumes and stuff, and I bet I could do a whole SERIES of these games.  And they’d come with lesson plans and…”

Yeah.  So instead of getting actually writing down my list of what needs doing:
1. Ashcan for Roaring 20s
2.  Casanova re-write
3.  Romance novel first draft – need to finish
4.  Paranomal romance novel first draft  – need to finish

I spent this morning before work madly scribbling out a char-gen system in my journal, and trying to figure out if I can add race to this without coming across as a jerk.  And if I can, how realistic should the limitations on characters of certain races be, and will that scare teachers? 

On the other hand, I’m reasonably sure I have the rudiments of a working mechanics system in mind, and that shouldn’t be that hard.  It’ll probably be a simplified version of the adult Roaring 20s mechanics. 

Writer’s block is rarely my problem. 

New project ADD, that’s my problem. 

So, how about you guys?  Do you have the same fickle brain syndrome?  Or do you pick a project and stay with it to the bitter end?  Is your brain always whirring away, or do you have to kickstart it?  Does this change with stress levels, that time of the month, the seasons?  Do the guys do it, too?  Or is it a symptom of the multi-tasking women are acculturated to in this society?

What do you think?

*If anyone under the age of consent is going to play this it NEEDS a kid-friendly version.  One of the big settings is Weimar Berlin and the sex/nightclub district.  Hell, I’ll have to omit most of the references for that setting if kids play.  I can still come up with stuff, but… yeah…

Geek Girls Rule! – Geekdom Breeds True

The Geek Dad What Rules had to have surgery yesterday.  He’s fine.  But he lost more blood than the doctors were comfortable with, so they’re transfusing him.  I just got off the phone with him:

“Hey, old man.  What’s up?”
“I’m halfway through my first blood blast. I can feel my canines growing.”
“Any sparkling?”
“Nope, but it’s cloudy. So I probably wouldn’t notice.”

Also, just wanted to let you all know that the Geek Husband What Rules and I will be in Vancouver, WA/Portland, OR for Gamestorm this weekend.  We’ll be rolling into town Saturday morning with Lesley of Girl Game fame for gaming, socializing, and hopefully hitting Sock Dreams.  No Powell’s for us this trip, just can’t fit it in the budget. 

Geek Girls Rule! #119.5 – Update on Packrattery

Well, the Husband What Rules has created a box of gaming books to get rid of, mostly first ed WOD and duplicates of GURPS 3rd ed, even if I can’t actually get him to haul them down to Gary’s.  He’s also created two boxes of CDs, and we’ve culled another four boxes of books. 

On the clothing front… I’m trying, I really am.  I just love my ratty grey v-necked sweater so much.  However, in light of getting some new yoga pants I have promised to get rid of some jammy pants. 

We have gone through some more boxes, several of which got water damaged when the garage at the old place flooded.  I have actually thrown out mildewed books, and may have to throw out my fencing gear bag.  THAT I’m going to try bleaching one more time, because bags big enough for fencing gear are freaking expensive.  I found my hockey jersey collection, all of which came clean with laundering.  The unabridged dictionary was thankfully on the top of a box and escaped unscathed. 

The exception to the throwing out of mildewed books are a couple of books for my graduate work, which took forever to track down and cost way too much to even think of tossing.  They’re drying out right now, and I’m open to any suggestions for killing the mildew. 

There will be at least one more clothing and book cull in the near future.

Geek Girls Rule! #109 – Are all Geeks packrats?

Holy crap are we packrats. 

Yesterday evening, The Husband What Rules and I went through three boxes of gaming stuff.  Not gaming books, gaming STUFF.  These boxes held folder upon folder of old campaign notes, old character sheets, maps, etc…  Allow  me stress that:  THREE BOXES of this crap.  Two legal archive boxes and one bigger one. 

Let me say this again:  THREE BOXES.

Most of it is getting recycled.  I held onto a couple of old character sheets, Lance from the Wall game and Nightingale from the first Marvel game we played with Deke.  But most of it got recycled. 

In the course of this move we’ve junked a lot of stuff.  A lot of my old Happy Meal toy collection, since I played with them and didn’t worry about keeping them nice, a lot of souvenir pens people get for me everywhere they go.  I’m giving away notebooks and journals like a crazy woman.   I will never, ever need to buy pens,  pencils, colored pencils, pastels or crayons again.  I have given away most of my Legos, the Playmobile stay.  

We’ve culled two large boxes of CDs and one of gaming books (mostly first edition WoD).  We took TEN bags of clothes to Goodwill.  Kitchen garbage bags, not grocery bags.  I still have a bag of shoes to go through. 

I’ve tossed several pieces of artwork, including the complete set of signed and numbered Overstreet Limited edition prints from the first Vampire book, some of them had gotten banged up, one had been peed on by a cat.  I’ve hung everything framed, and am working on slowly framing or giving away everything else.  (The Goat-headed Boy currently occupies a place of prominence, and my signed Elric print is hanging over the mantel.)

The truth of the matter is, we keep way too much crap.  If nothing else, this move has brought that home to us in a big way.  However, thinking on it I realize that an awful lot of our friends are also packrats.  We tend to hold on to things that, really, are we ever going to play that Paladin we got up to 18th level again?  I mean, that was two or three editions ago.   

And the obsolete console systems… We still have a Turbografix, a SEGA Genesis and a Dreamcast, in addition to the Wii and Xbox. 

Seriously, is packrat just the nature of the geek beast? 

We’re desperately trying to dig out and break the programming that makes us hold on to stupid amounts of stuff. 

What say you, geeks?  Is packrat just the nature of Geek?  If so, how do you break the programming?

Right now the culling is pretty easy because we hate everything we own, but what I’m most interested is how do we not let it creep up on us again?  NOW I say I’m not buying anymore journals or pens or pencils (fountain pen refills are of course exempt), but how do I stick with it?  How do I resist that perfect sweater or pair of shoes or game book or dice or, or, or…?  We’re trying to institute a one for one law:  If we have one and we want to buy a new one, the old one has to go first.  The first casualty of the new one for one law is my favorite old grey v-necked sweater.   Let’s see if I stick to it.