We met Ron Glass (aka Shepherd Book)!

This past weekend, Erin and I made it out to the Dallas Comic Con (yes, I am now an official geek!) to meet Ron Glass, the actor who plays Shepherd Book in Firefly and Serenity. On Saturday, we had a chance to meet him, get his autograph, and take pictures with him. Sunday, we went back to "the con" to sit in on the Q&A session. (You can actually listen to the entire Ron Glass Q&A online, if interested. He was very funny and had some interesting answers to questions.)
Meeting Ron Glass




Another great part about the conference was seeing all the people - young and old - dressed up as scifi characters.




But I think my favorite photos from the set (besides those of Ron Glass) are the pictures of the kids that were dressed up by their geek-like-me parents! (Roy says I can never ever do this to our kids. Yeesh.)







I had a *really* great time!! Many thanks to Erin for being my guide for my first ever comic/scifi convention.

Click here to see my entire Dallas Comic Con photo set.

My First Virtual Wedding

As luck would have it, during my lunch break today, after reading on the SLED mailing list about rituals in SL such as weddings and funerals, I found a listing on the Events page for "Slick and Samira's Wedding Day!" I decided to experience a virtual wedding in all its glory.

Well, I have to admit, I had a hard time taking the whole ceremony seriously. (However, all of the participants in the wedding, including the scantily clad bridesmaids, seemed to be taking it all completely seriously. Which is good for them.) I'm sure it meant a lot to these people. It was just strange to me.

Anyway, apparently there are weddings going on all the time inworld. People who are good friends "commit" to each other virtually. Sometimes, SL romance leaks into RL. Sometimes RL married couples renew their vows inworld. It's all very interesting

Erin and her fiance have experience in another online virtual world, World of Warcraft. She recently told me about how a group of players held an actual inworld memorial for a fellow player who had died in real life. (Unfortunately, the player who had passed away had also belonged to another more violent "guild", and those more rowdy players decided to as a group crash the memorial -- as they thought their friend would have wanted -- and kill all the other players, which sparked a pretty big controversy.) Interesting story, definitely.

Happy Halloween!

Whew! Almost didn't post this on time. Hope you had a Happy Halloween!

Firefox 2.0

If you haven't already done so, you need to upgrade to Firefox 2.0. (And if you haven't yet discovered Firefox, try it! You will never go back to IE!) They've made lots of of enhancements (to a browser that was already 10x better than IE), and the new tab functionality is great! Let me explain some of these new perks...

• Any link that is set to open in a new window auto-opens in a new tab instead. (Yes, I know you could do that before in 1.5, but I'd never tried it. Love it!

• Picture it: You have five tabs open (tabs 1, 2, 3, etc.). You're looking at tab #2. You click on a link, and it opens in a new tab (tab #6). You finish reading it, close the tab, and voila! You're back at tab #2! (In 1.5, after closing #6, you would have been looking at #5 instead of the original tab you came from. I *love* this feature.)

• Picture it: You have a link to a .pdf or .doc file, and the link tag has the "target="_blank". Well, in 1.5, it would open a blank window, then on top of that, it'd open the document in Acrobat or Word (or whatever program). Well, 2.0 recognizes that it is an empty tab (since it auto-opens in a new tab instead of a new window) and closes it. So no extra empty tab! So smart!

• If Firefox crashes, when you re-open it, it will ask you if you want to "restore session" (which opens up all the tabs you had open before it crashed) or "start a new session". Brilliant!

• Spell-check while filling out forms!
  

Just a few of the really great updates to Firefox. And as before, you can add extensions for additional functionality and themes to change the look of your browser! I'm currently using:

• Bookmark Synchronizer
• Sage
  
• CustomizeGoogle
• Forcastfox Enhanced
• Gmail Notifier
• IE Tab
• Map This

Now, if only they'd update my Saferfox theme to work with 2.0, everything would be perfect. However, I'm enjoying looking at all the different themes available, including the appropriate Halloween theme.

Blue October - Into The Ocean

This song is stuck in my head! Love it, though.

Random interesting SL sightings

Just some interesting things I've seen recently in Second Life.

Watching a yacht race ... with a dragon.





Godzilla wreaks havoc inworld.





The Luxor (Live Music Venue)







Silent Witness Display
Honoring Domestic Violence Victims & Survivors







Virtual Church Services in SL



So, that's my update for the many interesting sightings I've had in SL over the past week or so.

Race for the Cure!

Yes, I'm a week late in posting about this. Live with it!!

Two weekends ago (on October 21st), Roy and I joined an estimated 30,000 5K runners/walkers in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure in Dallas. And of course, we have pictures!
Click here to see the entire photo set.

Roy & Kat - ready to race!


Loved this lady's hat!


Energizer bunny ears were everywhere!


Some kids knew the secret to running
a 5K w/o getting tired!


Lots and lots of people!



Roy being silly


Click here to see the entire photo set.

Needless to say, we had a great time!

The Evolution of Darren

I'd just like to show you all how my coworker's avatar has evolved in SL.
First he was Darren...


Then he became Vader...


And now he is Darth Darren!
Love that tie-dye!


And his future Death Star


Coming Soon... Sith Lord Darren!

My co-workers in SL

I thought I'd take a few minutes to introduce you to my co-workers in Second Life. You've already met Erin. It's my pleasure to introduce you to...
...Qin



...and Darren



... and our collegue/pal
from UTA, Matt



Together, we make up a rowdy group of edtech avatars!

How to date/live with a geek guy

I must give credit where the credit is deserved. This person has absolutely nailed it. Ladies, below are tips on how to successfully date/live with a geek.

How To Date A Geek Guy

1. Be a straight female. Now, before you gay and lesbian geeks rush me, calm down. Yes, I know same-sex-oriented geeks exist. They're scarce. No, don't write to yell that you're a gay geek and so are four of your friends and that proves me wrong. You're rare. Anyway, this post is how to land a straight male geek.
   
   
2. Be direct. Geek guys tend to be in a shell. They are generally defensive and aloof. They aren't cold in the least; they're just extremely polite. Geeks tend to live by "do unto others". A geek guy who doesn't kiss you is worried about forcing himself. Grab him and plant one. Let him stagger and shake it off, but if he shows signs of recovering too quickly, grab him and plant one again. Subtlety and coyness completely fails with geeks; they'll be confused and expect that you're not on Pon Farr or are a nun or something. Where other guys need no provocation, a geek guy has to be brained on the noggin a couple of times, then he'll get the idea.
   
   
3. Be smart and/or funny. At least don't hide your smarts. Unlike some other breeds of men, geek guys have no insecurities about their masculinity and so do not feel threatened by a smart, capable female. Show him that you can be a good "teammate" in life - yes, geek guys think that logically and practically. As for funny, consider that geeks are cerebral and introverted - they rarely laugh out loud. Make a geek guy laugh, and you'll be on his mind for the rest of the day.
   
   
4. Don't cling. That is to say, geek guys are amazingly low maintenance. You need what attention you need, and of course should make it known. When you're thinking of doing something just for him, surprising him with small, thoughtful gestures and little favors go a lot farther than constant adoration.
   
   
5. Humor his "shop talk". If he works as a freelance coder or consultant or has a small start-up, he might not have a lot of people to talk about work with. If so, expect that he'll dump about ten minutes per day of incomprehensible babble at you. Put on your "I'm listening" face and wait til the stream of talk about his latest programming language pet peeve or hardware frustration or anti-DRM rant passes, then relax. You're done with it for another day, and geek guys need to share this kind of stuff as a way to explain it to themselves. Keep him in mind that you're not his debugger, however.
   
   
6. While respecting his work, do try to pry him off his computer or his Star Trek DVDs or his Dungeon-Mastering and get him outside in the fresh air every now and then. If his protests aren't in the shrieking range, it wasn't that important; he'll perk up as soon as you have him off the machine. Bonus points if you prowl town for interesting fun places to drag him to.

This information was found here.

Ladies, the information above is the honest-to-goodness truth! I can absolutely confirm it. Goodness knows, we love 'em, but they're true-blue geeks!

(P.S. I love you Roy!)

Building in Second Life

Greetings all! Sorry I haven't posted much recently. I've been spending a bit of time experiencing all kinds of events in Second Life - a conference with Philip Linden, the grand opening of the SL Library, live music, etc. My friend Erin has been learning how to build objects in SL, and I have to say -- she's getting really good, really quick! Below is a video of her building.



I like how sometimes, you see her avatar lower her head like she's really concentrating. :) This is her most recent project. Great things are happing, with (hopefully) more to come!

Below is a picture of Erin and one of her recent creations. You can see the really nice table she built on her second or third try at building. Pretty impressive! Unfortunately, I didn't get the matching stools in the shot. Next time!

More Serenity/Firefly Goodies...

Ok, I know it's not actually out in theaters right now, but I found some cool little Serenity web banners someone had up on flickr.






















I'm in a shiny mood, can you tell?