New Word: Geekelicious
June 2nd, 2009
Because I use the word in my profile, I feel I should define it for clarity, just in case it's not abundantly obvious what I mean. Others have probably formed this compound word independently as the shortest distance towards expressing an idea whose time has come. 'Geekelicious' (also spelled 'geekylicious') is like 'bootylicious' (which is in turn an almost-exact synonym for 'callipygian', but I've never met anyone who uses both words), except, irrespective of the possible deliciousness of the subject's posterior region, centers (without excluding other positive traits) upon their quirky, interesting, and sizable intellect. Examples of the geekelicious female in broadcast media include: Penelope Garcia (Kirsten Vangsness' sassy hacker character on 'Criminal Minds'), the token hot Goth chick Abbey on 'NCIS', Deanna Troi (Marina Sirtis' serene psychotherapist from way back in 'Star Trek:the Next Generation') and Willow Rosenberg from 'Buffy' (or any Allyson Hannigan role, really)
Disclaimers: yes, they're all fictional. I know real women who fit, but they aren't famous enough to be public examples. The famous real people might be, but I don't know them well enough. It's possible, although unlikely, that Ms. Hannigan plays multiple characters with certain mannerisms and geeky leanings, but is nothing like that in person. Also, I didn't fact-check this entry. I'd make it perfect if it needed it. Ship's Counselor might be more like a psychoanalyst than a psychotherapist, "Abbey" might be spelled wrong, Amber Benson might not be the one who played Tara, and Summer Glau might not be as tall in metric as xkcd says. ...hrm. y'know, maybe four examples is plenty.

1. My Twitter was blank for, like, five days, and today it took me hours to catch up, partly because of the sheer volume of tweets and links to articles on sites that had other stuff, and pics, and so on; but partly because twitter is radiating lag for as long as it's up in any window.

2. Saw in a newsletter from DriveThruRPG that illustrator and indy game designer Jeff Freels and his wife _both_ need kidney transplants, and if they can't afford at least one, they'll be in no shape to do anything beyond struggle to survive at all, so please buy their stuff (company name Fabled Worlds) (and donate) so they can afford needed medical services etc. This hits me where I live. More accurately, it hits me where I used to live, i.e. with my Dad, now passed away due to kidney trouble due to reasons similar to Mrs. Freels. Once my PayPal is stocked again, I'll buy two packs of Stock Art (illustrations on a theme, purchase grants a license to use the art in private or commercial projects, with proper attribution. I've never bought a license for IP before. It seems odd, but childishly intriguing. What would I use it for? Lacking any real business plans or skills to make such plans, where can I paste up said art plus text such that it will drive net-traffic back to the Freels' storefront? maybe the Icons Wiki could use some trolly characters? Is there a t-shirt site that would allow fundraising for a good cause?), some Adventures and comicstrip compilations, and a minimalist rpg called _Bean! the D2 Roleplaying System_, designed for teaching newbies and children the art of RP. Inspired by Tunnels & Trolls, and furthermore _endorsed_ by the creator of Tunnels & Trolls, which makes it somewhat odd that the negative review it received accuses it of being a ripoff, nay, a "plagiarism" of T&T. Maybe this is like in 'Finding Forrester' where Sean Connery has to come out of hiding to give public permission for his protege to use his work? Honestly, I wasn't impressed by Tunnels & Trolls, and yet I assume Bean will be far better and am already plotting what settings to subject to Rule Minimalization. Gritty Street Crime? Shadowrun? Occult Conspiracy? Space Opera? It will probably come down to the quality of the puns. Expect a city called 'Beantown', or Mean Bean Space Marines (actually, they're Navy Beans), or a future post about the Unbearable Lightness of Bean.

3. Taking lots of notes for lots of little creative projects that someday may see the light of day. Wrote two pages today about a game scenario I might run if a certain combination of players are present for an Icons game before that party falls apart or gets recast as different characters or whatever happens. The notes took all lunch hour. I'm not sure why time races while I'm writing. Maybe it's like a trance. all manner of tomfoolery slowly coalescing in my notes: the surreal steampunk fantasy novel, the superhero board game, the gritty realist variation of Welcome Back Potter ( a mashup, not a typo), a letter for the future about what's it like to be living in America now, Christian poetry, superhero poetry, social commentary, a Generic Universal Do-It-Yourself Trading Card Game, geeky song lyrics (eg. what if Voltaire the musician did a song based on my favorite quote from Voltaire the philosopher?), angelic secret agents, three paranormal romances (Martian Kisses, Her Name is Mystery, and Judith & Joshua), a story about a man trapped in a single minute of time, a Die Hard in Orbit / family feel-good action tale, plus the Glory novel, various cartoon scenarios, and the usual vampire/werewolf/panda-bear situation comedies. I haven't entirely abandoned other projects. Maiden Pink lives... somewhere. It's possible when she gets her big rewrite of existing material, I should think in terms of webcomic (page by page serial) instead of 22 pages in a clump. Also, the car music death story at least has a working title now: 'A Pattern in Red and Black'. still unsure what it needs in order to be properly fleshed out.

4a. Arkham Horror is Call of Cthulhu without the Keeper/GM. Munchkin is D&D without the DM/GM. WoW is D&D without the DM/GM. Thing is, as product, they sell; as entertainment and social interaction/quality time, they work. (So does Monopoly, under optimal circumstances, but there is no Wall Street rpg, so put that aside for now.) As a GM, I feel a bit redundant now. Is Instant Mix Gaming the wave of the future, or is that what they said when Magic: the Gathering came out?
4b. AH and Munchkin also seem part of the larger trend of .... let's call them Metaclones. New but with definite nods to old, or newfangled ways of doing old games, or bridging the threefold gamer paradigm by simulating the gameplay of gamist ancestors while leaving space for narrative. Icons and Savage Worlds being examples that are not GM-free Zones. ...and don't get me wrong, I'm not opposed to this at all. Icons is my Champions now. However, I wonder where all the nostaliga is coming from. Is the customer base for comics, rpgs, etc. getting older? or has geek culture always relied on pop culture to fuel its evolution, and now that geeks themselves are cool, geek culture must feed on itself: new comics are reinvented old comics, new rpgs are reinvented old rpgs, new movies are old tv shows and new comics based on old comics, and the cutting edge internet frontier is full of geeks talking about new comics, old comics, and movies.
4c. I now understand, by the way, that not only can I _not_ read the entire internet, I can't even keep up with the Net's coverage of one narrow topic. comics? zillions of blogs and news-sites. plus gazillions of webcomics. Heck, it would take me hours to keep up with "what Neil Gaiman did yesterday".

Johnny Parker made a deal with the demon Mephisto to save his dying Aunt May. Unable to claim Parker's soul, Mephisto instead dropped him into a world where his wife, Wanda Jane Jackson, was married to another man, and bonded Johnny to an ancient totemic spirit predator, whose inhuman rages Parker is determined to vent only upon the guilty. When night falls, and the vengeful spirit rouses within him, he grows a black costume of living necroplasm and sprouts tendrils of mystic webbing as hard as iron chains... and haunts the night, as the Ghost Spider!

Mildly chagrined, but not really surprised to find that clicking "Previous 20 entries" on this blog takes me back almost three years. Haven't posted much. attention spread too thin, maybe.
While surfing for data for my NEGACon games, I'm shocked to discover that _Pride & Prejudice & Zombies_ (the complete text of Jane Austen's original, interwoven with new scenes of the main characters as zombie-slaying ninjas) became a New York Times Best-Seller within nine days of publication, and within four months is already optioned for a movie deal. Apparently, it's the sort of postmodern hybrid that makes you appreciate the original parent strains more. (Among the NEGAmers, (pronounced "en-ee-gamers") the prime example would be Shadowrun, which has magic, but still works as cyberpunk... and gets played 50 times more often than _Cyberpunk 2020_ in my experience.)
...ok, so the first thing I did was check their website to see if they take Submissions. clever website, looks like EC Comics reincarnated as a publisher of How-To Books. (Short form for those who don't know the chapter of Comicbook history that 'Moon Girl fights Crime' refers to: These people understand the three E's of writing: First, you entertain, then you can educate and maybe enlighten, once you've got their attention.) will keep an eye out for an idea they might take. However, they seem to deal in entire books, and I'm not so sure I could promise to write them a whole book when I can barely keep up on correspondences with friends and a few blogs...and 2-4 convention games... and assorted life maintenance stuff like housework, car repairs, and a job. To quote Calvin & Hobbes, "the days are just packed". Box by box, I keep unpacking. Eventually, all my metaphorical stuff will be where I want it to be.