Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Seamonkeys: Watch them Grow

I found the Joco Cruise to be such a huge confidence booster. How many times did we hear, during the cruise and afterwords, that we were interesting, intelligent, and incomparable people from each other and the cruise hosts? It does good things to the ego to hear, "You know what, you can do that. Do it!"

It's been a couple of months now, and I have to admit, the good mojo is wearing off. Could be the Portland spring dumps. Could be the ridiculous work load I've got. Could be that time moves us on to other obsessions.

So I thought I'd make a quick post in praise of the people who really started doing something after the cruise. I love following these projects, and I wanted to share them. Because we're the kinds of people who cheer for the people who have the guts to do something.

I mean, just listen to us cheer the Presidents song.



Video from zenofben lives here.

***

I'm pretty sure no one reading this blog isn't already a fan of Tracy's Geektastic Pentameter, but I have become a firm believer that it's never wrong to say nice things about remarkable people. Her topics range from pragmatically clever and nerdy to soul-crushingly lovely. Here's a bit of one of my favorites:

Now, at “airplane,” I’m
a splinter falling from the phalanx,
a fletching dwindling, drifting
from the arrow, buoyed
for an instant by a hot
and angry breeze, a
wild susurrus whispering,
“I ought to be above this.”


These poems will go in a book one day, and people will carry them around in their back pockets, and get them dog-eared, and memorize them and quote them to each other, and smudge them with food and coffee rings. In other words, this is the real thing.

***

I've been enchanted by the idea seamonkey SunnyTana came up with to play a game of literary popcorn with an open ended story created by submissions each week:

http://collaborwriter.blogspot.com/

It's a lot of fun to see how the story evolves with each new submission, and I'd be delighted to see a few more people get excited about it. So far we've got a recipe for any number of adventures: Three young women, a road trip, and a mysterious stranger (eyebrow waggle here).

***

Immediately after the cruise the last thing I felt like doing was going back to the daily grind. So I particularly appreciated following the progress of ElBueno (Ray) on Twitter. He went to part time work at the day job so he can create his own video game. You can read about the the game, Fortress, here:

http://www.hindrances.com/

But it's Ray's wife Mel who has stolen my heart with her cupcake blog, launched right after the cruise. This has now become my secret obsession:

http://www.cupcakefridayproject.com/

Cupcaku!
The idea: Each week a new cupcake. During the week: reviews, recipes, and recaps. Every Friday I can't believe how good the cupcakes sound. I convinced Taylor to make the Sprite'cakes, but my mouth still isn't convinced you can pack so much flavor into a single food. Fantastic.

The other day Mel tweeted this:
"Cookies are my first baking love. I'm going to be integrating them into some Cupcake Fridays."

I just have to say, it's lucky I was sitting down when I read that. Otherwise, I might have fainted dead away.

The picture is of the "Vanilla bean cupcakes with chocolate mousse and Irish cream buttercream".

***

Those are just the people I follow, but I know there are others I've missed. Now's your time to shine seamonkeys. Who's been working on that pet project? And what can we do to cheer you on?

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

What'd I miss: P8 Yar har fiddle-dee-dee

Note: This series of events I regretfully missed while on the cruise was too long for a single post, so I'm publishing them in pathetically infrequent bursts until I run out, which I think I just did.

Given my love of Fluxx and gaming, how is it possible I missed the Pirate Fluxx tournament that went on during the Joco Cruise? That was one of the things I most looked forward to. A new, unreleased deck of Fluxx? Talk about nerd cred.

You can see Kristen Looney recruiting folks for the tournament in the rubik's cube video Tracy pointed out. Kristen Looney also speaks highly of the cruise in her blog here.

Does anyone know who won the tourney? Did any celebs play?

As a sidenote, the idea of "Pirate Fluxx" reminded me of this video. Taylor still occasionally mimics the epileptic shimmy the captain goes into at about 1:25.



Look in his eyes as he vibrates wildly, and you'll see bald desperation.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

What'd I miss: P7 The best in terms of dance

Note: This series of events I regretfully missed while on the cruise was too long for a single post, so I'm publishing them in staccato bursts (semi-)daily until I run out.

I am afraid of dancing.

How can anyone not be? There are elbows and feet flying all over the place. Your partner has 100 pounds and 7 inches on you. You're balanced precariously in heels.

I heard about the dance in the Northern Lights disco after the fact, but I only have these pictures that skirt the line between raving fun and madness to tell me what danger I escaped.

(These are all from cajunjoel's photostream. I organized them into a dance-party gallery here.)



David Rees apparently started the dance dance revolution. This photo lives here.



Mike Phirman aims both barrels at Sara Chicazul. This is what we think of Canadians. Photo here.



These are the lucky survivors. I can only assume the rest are in the infirmary with bloody noses and mashed toes. Original photo here.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

What'd I miss: P6 Ham it up, fuzz ball

Note: This series of events I regretfully missed while on the cruise was too long for a single post, so I'm publishing them in staccato bursts (semi-)daily until I run out.

What happens when you combine nerds, cameras, and time? Photo dramas.

On Half-moon Cay, Molly Lewis and Wil Wheaton destroyed some innocent child's sand castle.

You can see all these photos, plus some sweet behind-the-scenes shots from ckwright (aka, Darnit Chris, aka, Molly's fella) here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ckwright/sets/72157626100247762/

What's the best possible thing that can come from a misplaced camera? A found camera loaded with sneak peaks of the performers goofing around back stage. Here's the photo set containing all the images snapped where no mere mortal could go:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/voruzzz/sets/72157625783277396/


Take a look at all the photos. The captions are really funny too.

Finally, here's a series of photos of a friendly gathering gone wrong:

http://www.jessicaverma.com/jocopics/jocofight/

I particularly love the look on the face of the man just in frame on the left. "I just wanted some food, guys."