Tag Archives: nerds

Yeah, THOSE Wheatons. AKA The Best Night Ever.

Nerds

This is the final installment of our San Francisco wOOtstock story. You can read about our drive down here, and about my near-breakdown here. Have fun!

Date: Sunday, January 29, 2012.

Location: San Francisco

Setting: The living room of a spacious apartment, on an inflatable mattress.

It’s Sunday morning, and I am awake. I didn’t get to sleep until shortly after midnight, and didn’t sleep well afterwards. The inflatable mattress we had brought with us had sprung a leak sometime in the recent past, and was slowly deflating. My protesting back attested to this unpleasant fact.

Another unpleasant fact: My husband was snoring. Loudly.

I took this as my cue to get up and start getting ready for the day. I figured a good place to start would be to paint my nails, since I didn’t want to meet the Wheatons with un-manicured claws. That would never do! I settled in to my task and was half-way through when Jonathan woke up and got ready. Being the manly man he is, all he had to do was ruffle his hair and brush his teeth, and he was ready to go.

Now, you ladies know that once you start painting your nails, you are STUCK where you are until they’re dry. You can’t go to the bathroom, you can’t do your hair, you can’t do diddly squat! This can be a problem when you have an impatient husband who is hungry RIGHT THIS VERY SECOND AND WE HAVE TO LEAVE NOW!!!!

Then we went to [REDACTED CUZ IT'S BORING] Then made our way towards Chinatown.

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After locating a perilous parking spot on a ridiculous hill*, we put on our walking shoes and set off in search of cool things. If you’ve never been to Chinatown in San Francisco, I highly recommend it. There is some awesome architecture, and if you’re up to it, some excellent food. Unfortunately, having stuffed ourselves with French toast (again), we didn’t eat anything.

We wandered around Chinatown for several hours, and were lucky enough to stumble upon a Chinese New Year celebration in the streets. Tristan was drawn toward the sounds of firecrackers and drums, and we discovered two Chinese dragons marching up and down the streets, bowing and bestowing blessings on the local businesses. It was pretty cool; it’s not everyday we get to see cultural events like that.

We eventually found our way out of Chinatown, and hiked back up Sacramento St to where our car was parked. It was still early in the afternoon, so we decided to go check out the cathedral a few blocks away. I had never been in a cathedral like this before. This place was massive; soaring buttresses and stained glass everywhere. It was absolutely silent as we walked in, and only a few other tourists and some people sitting in the pews.

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Even if you’re totally anti-religious, you can admire the architectural wonder that is a cathedral. This building was only a couple hundred years old, and may not have been as intricately detailed as say, Notre Dame, but it was still awe-inspiring to walk around in it.

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Ok, ok. Let’s fast forward a couple hours, since all we did between approximately 4:00 pm and 6:00 pm was wander around.

Now it’s a little after 6, and Jonathan and I are seated at a large table at the Top of the Mark lounge. I have to give Anne props here, since she was the one who suggested it. This place was swank…fancy cocktails and “light dining”, which means when you want food, you get the fancy, itty-bitty portions that sometimes end up costing more than your car.**

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See that hotel in the background? Yeah, we were at the very top. It was so gorgeous!

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Confession time! I was beyond nervous. I was about to meet a lady who I had only spoken to on Twitter, who was married to the Nerd Emperor†, and who was friends with all of the performers we were going to watch later that evening.

I guess you could say I had ALL THE NERVES!!! I was jittery and shaky, and I kept touching my hair. Jonathan kept laughing at me, telling me to calm down. He thought I was cool, surely she would too. We were messaging back and forth on Twitter, her letting me know they were on their way, and me telling her we had a table and were just hanging out, enjoying the awesome view. THEN she tells me that Bonnie Burton is joining us as well, and I tell this to Jonathan. He is now very excited too, because Bonnie works for LucasFilm, and he is a huge Star Wars fan. I predict this evening will turn out to be awesome.

The ladies arrive, and I immediately spot Anne in her (totally cute and not Waldo-esque) red and white striped sweater. Guys…she’s gorgeous. She’s got perfect hair, a sparkly white smile, and she’s absolutely hilarious. She gives me a big hug and introduces me to Bonnie and her friend Debbie. Funny story – Debbie lives in the next town over from me, and, get this: her brother is my next door neighbour. SMALL FREAKING WORLD! I couldn’t believe it.

We get fancy drinks and finger foods, and chat about what Ryan has been up to at his new job (awesome stuff, FYI), Bonnie’s taxidermied animals, and the upcoming JoCo cruise. I present Anne with the bottle of home-made lemoncello my mom sent with me, and we all take simultaneous iPhone pics to post to Twitter. My phone battery is at 20%, so I remind myself to use it sparingly.

It’s nearly 7, so we have to rush out of the hotel and down the (crazy steep) hill to the Marines Memorial Theatre, where w00tstock is happening. We’re a loud, happy group; chatting and giggling and walking silly, because that’s what you do when it’s a steep hill and you can just about lay down backwards as you walk.

We make it to the theatre right before the show starts, and Anne instructs us to meet up with her at intermission. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was excited! As you can expect, w00tstock was amazing. Wil, Paul & Storm, Adam Savage, Chris Hardwick and Grant Imahara had us all laughing till our sides split and we wet ourselves. Well, Jonathan and I didn’t wet ourselves, but I can’t speak for the rest of the audience.

One of my favourite parts of the show was the new song performed by P&S about George RR Martin. I hadn’t read the books yet, but I had heard so many good things about them (I have since bought them and am currently in the middle of A Clash of Kings) so this was a funny little teaser that made me want to read them even more.

Here, enjoy!

At intermission, while the other nerds were using the bathroom and buying t-shirts, Jonathan and I caught up with Anne and Bonnie and Debbie, and were escorted backstage to the green room. There we see Wil, Adam, Paul and Storm, all laughing and joking with one another. Anne introduces Jonathan and I to Wil, and he shakes our hands with a smile. Bear with me here, because my brain is fuzzy due to awesomeness and I’m terrible at writing dialogue.

Wil likes our ThinkGeek 8 Bit Life shirts†; several of the other audience members told us they liked them too. I ask Wil if he liked the custom Palomino Blackwing pencils I sent him for Christmas, and he said he did, and that he uses them a lot. I sent them to him when I sent a jar of home-made apple butter to Anne, I figured he would enjoy them when he wrote stuff, since they’re supposed to be superb at writing things. This makes sense, right?! AAAHHH.

Sorry, I was overcome with how the crap do I write this without sounding like a dingbat-itis.

ANYWAYS. The show was amazeballs. I highly recommend you go see it, if you have the chance. It’s funny, and smart, and relevant to nerd interests. After the show we got to go backstage again, and we hung out for a while, until everyone decided to go to a little bar just a few doors down. We ordered pizza and chatted with people, and Jonathan lost spectacularly to Chris Hardwick at table shuffleboard. My phone was officially dead by this point, that’s why there are no more pictures!

We hang out at the bar with the cool geeks until just after 1 in the morning, then we head home. I wake up in the morning to no fewer than 14 text messages from Jeff, and this blog post. The rest is history.

Thank you for tolerating my crazy long post. Sorry it took so bloody long to get it up :)

-A

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*So many dang hills. So many dang STEEP freaking hills. My calves and butt ached for days afterwards.
**This may be a slight exaggeration.
†AKA King of Geeks, Ruler of All Things Awesome, Supreme Mugwump of Table Games, and Dominator of Dice.
††They light up depending on how close Jonathan and I are to one another, it’s really cool.

Our San Francisco Trip, Part 1. Or, That Time Alyssa Had a Panic Attack

This is not the actual street we were on, though it's pretty close. I discovered it is IMPOSSIBLE to find a photo of Lombard St that *isn't* the twisty section.

In late January, Jonathan and I went to San Francisco to hang out with his friend Tristan, and to go to wOOtstock*. (You can relive the drive down there with us here.)

Saturday morning I woke up around 8, despite not going to sleep until nearly 1. It’s hard for me to sleep in nowadays, unless I’m up reeaaallly late. Once the snoring beast I married woke up, we got ready and I consulted my magic box to figure out where to get some good breakfast. I had recently bought a brand of flavored coffee that smelled and tasted like french toast, so I was dead set on getting some of the real stuff. A couple clicks on my fancy-pants tablet, and I had found a little hole-in-the-wall place called The Doctor’s Lounge**; it’s a bar at night, and a brunch and cartoons place Saturday and Sunday morning. It was within walking distance, so we meandered the four blocks there, enjoying the wonderful warm weather and talking about what we wanted to do that day.

We walk in, and in the back of the restaurant I spotted an old style telephone room; a tiny room with a phone and a soundproof door, with the obligatory TELEPHONE sign over the doorjamb. The nerd that I am hoped they’d have SOMETHING Doctor Who related, which I mentioned to the owner as we sat down and he began making us two cups of  incredibly strong drip coffee.

“To be honest, we thought about painting it blue and putting a police box sign on it. Instead it’s our “original smell” room. When we got the place, it was wall to wall carpet – even the walls were carpet! When we remodeled, we got rid of all the carpet, except for in there. It’s got a pretty funky smell to it. Not bad, just different! Like cigar smoke and age. Pretty cool, really, like a time capsule. “

We ordered our breakfast and I got my french toast. It was really good french toast. I don’t know what kind of bread or spices the cook uses, but it was definitely the best freaking french toast I’ve had in a long time. I fancy myself a decent iPhone-photographer, so I took an artsy picture of my coffee.

Have some coffee with your cream, why don't you?

After stuffing ourselves with delicious food, we waddled back to Tristan’s apartment. He was ready to go, so we piled into the Volvo and navigated through the city to the Exploratorium. We got a little lost†, and ended up taking a bit of a scenic route down a very steep hill through a very expensive part of the city. The houses were gorgeous; gingerbread and pastel colors, and a view to die for.

Eventually we arrived at the Exploratorium, and spent most of the afternoon playing with science-y things, goofing around, and generally acting like 12-year-olds. It was awesome. I had an especially fun time playing with the high-speed water drip camera, trying to catch the droplet in midair. Jonathan tried to make it look like a…uh…well, it’s not important. We also encountered some lonely assassins, but thankfully there were enough people there looking at them that they stayed quantum-locked††. What they do at night, I have no idea.

Around 2 o’clock, we started getting hungry, so we set off walking in search of sustenance. We first tried a place several blocks from the Palace of Fine arts, but it was horribly snobby and pretentious and I wanted nothing to do with it. They also wanted to charge $24 for a burger so we said “yeah right” and scooted right out of there. On our walk back to the car, I encountered a mini-TARDIS. Of course I took a picture. And of course I tweeted about it.

One would *hope* it's bigger on the inside

We got back in the car and set off in search of a reasonably-priced joint to find food. We were optimistic, happy, having fun chatting and checking out the streets around us.

At least, we were for the first hour.

If you’re used to living in a suburban or rural area like we are, where you can drive 5 miles in about the same amount of minutes, it’s quite unpleasant to drive 5 miles and have it take over an hour.

It’s also quite unpleasant when you realize too late that you’re about to drive up Russian Hill via Lombard St (between Polk and Larkin) and the road is WET because of some construction on the sidewalk. It’s EXTREMELY UNPLEASANT when you are driving up said hill in stop and go traffic and your tires are not getting any traction because of said water and you’re freaking out because you’re most certainly about to slide down the ridiculously steep hill and hit the guy in the Subaru behind you.

This is not the actual street we were on, though it's pretty close. I discovered it is IMPOSSIBLE to find a photo of Lombard St that *isn't* the twisty section.

deep breath

I’m pretty sure the “oh crap” handle in the rear passenger seat has permanent indentations from me gripping it so tightly. I think that was my first panic attack ever. I was seriously freaking out, so as soon as we got to the top of the hill we made a right and kept looking for somewhere to eat.

We drove for another 20-30 minutes, spent another 20 minutes looking for a parking spot, then decided to just hoof it and find some stinking food. First place we tried was a bar that didn’t serve food of any kind. Next place was a shady Chinese place that I was certain made drugs in the back room. Third place didn’t open for another 15 minutes, and was overpriced. So we kept walking.

We lost Tristan at this point. He really had to go to the bathroom, so he took off in some unknown direction and told us to call him when we found some grub. Three blocks and several creepy bums later, Jonathan and I landed in a sandwich place. I was grumpy and achy and unpleasant, and he was no better. We called Tristan to discover he had found a bathroom and settled in at an Irish pub a couple blocks away, and told us to head over after we had eaten. I ordered some form of meat and cheese on bread, and scarfed away; food is food at this point, even when it decides to shred the inside of your mouth‡.

Also, cucumber water is weird. Who thinks of this stuff?!

We finish eating and drag ourselves back outside. Tristan tells us where the pub is, and we set off. It’s not too far away, and in the same direction as our car, which by this time probably has a parking ticket since it took so stinking long to find food. After we collect T, we head back to the car and drive home. It’s pretty quiet, because for all the fun of the morning, the afternoon was a total downer.

After we get back to the apartment, the guys start playing Scrabble and I settle down with a book for a while. I overhear their conversation while they’re playing and decide to join the next game. Playing “Words with Friends” with Anne, Jeff, and my Mom hasn’t really improved my Scrabble skills, but I still end up beating them both with ease.

This improves my mood significantly.

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I’m going to stop here and save the second half for another post, since this one is getting exceptionally long.

* If you’re a regular follower you may remember this rather hilarious post about me. It may or may not be entirely true.
** It makes me furiously happy that the title of the website is done in TARDIS blue.
† My fault, I admit. I’m terrible at navigation.
†† NERD ALERT!!!
‡ Note to self: Dutch Crunch is evil.

Nerds’ Night Out

So the other day, as Jonathan and I were driving to the movie theatre to partake in the headache-inducing 3D awesomeness* that is Star Wars Episode I, he starts belting out one of the tunes from the movie. Granted, there are no words** that I can understand, but he managed to replicate it fairly well. What I mean by “replicate fairly well” is this:

Ah, a voice like a nightingale. Or something like that.

I had mentioned to Jeff earlier that day that we were going to see it, and he tried to convince me otherwise. In his recent quest to “nerd” his wife, he was ecstatic to hear she would finally watch*** Star Wars Episode IV with him…but he told me he was adamant that she would NOT watch Episodes I-III, because they were horrible.

For the most part, I agree. Episode I has that annoying little kid, and JAR JAR FREAKING-DIE-ALREADY BINKS.**** However, you only get to watch Star Wars on the big screen once or twice, and I’ve never seen anything in 3D.  Oh, and it has that pretty sweet pod race and Natalie Portman wears some gorgeous costumes. So basically it half sucks and half doesn’t…or maybe it’s closer to a 70/30 split. Your call. In any case, it was my Valentine’s treat for Jonathan, since he was really excited about it being re-released.

This was my first experience with a 3D movie. It wasn’t bad – just weird. If I took the glasses off, some parts of the screen were blurry and some parts looked normal. With the glasses on, it definitely had a more natural looking depth-of-field…but I could tell my poor oculi were having a rough time of it. I don’t think the addition of the third dimension really added anything to the movie; in fact, I would have much preferred they digitally edited Jar Jar out and put a tennis ball on a stick in his place.

It couldn’t have been any worse, right?

Note: We will probably end up going to see the other films as they are released, even though I am loathe to give George Lucas MORE money after he crapped all over the original trilogy with the unnecessarily added digital junk.*****

*Awesomeness is subjective, of course.
**In English, at least.
***How she managed to never see it before now is beyond my comprehension. It’s like never eating a potato chip or stubbing your toe – how?!
****Can you tell I’m not fond of that character?
*****Sigh…Nerd world problems!