Category: Life

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Letter to the Deer that ate my Tulips

Dear Deer,
You may not remember me, but we met one evening after dinner. You had hopped into my backyard and were chewing on my rhododendrons. I had stepped outside to refill the bird feeder when our eyes met. I’ve always admired your grace and fortitude. Your ability to leap tall fences and survive harsh weather leaves me without doubt that you are a strong, adaptable animal.

Which brings me to the subject of the 45 tulips that were recently growing in front of my house. I don’t mean to imply that you are responsible for their recent disappearance, but the circumstances give me cause for concern. These tulips were from the Netherlands, brought to me as a gift, carted by hand through customs in an overloaded carry-on. Every day I looked to see how tall they had gotten. As they grew, I sprayed them with liquid capsaicin to make their leaves unpleasant tasting, not because I don’t trust you (because I do, deer) but to prevent any accidents. I didn’t want you to mistake my tulips for, say, the salad bar at Applebee’s.

This morning I woke to discover that all of the tulips had been eaten. Someone (and I don’t necessarily mean you, deer) had chewed them to the ground. If it’s not too much trouble, I wonder if you could describe for me your whereabouts during this event? I happened to notice some unusual footprints in the mud, a product of the rain which also washed off my pepper spray. They look cloven.

Would you mind clearing this incident up? I hate to bother you, but as you can see, the evidence is troubling.

Sincerely yours,
Erica

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Blarg

It’s 4 am and I’ve got some sort of low-grade headcold. I can’t sleep. The only advantage to being awake in my house at 4am is the cat is so! happy! to see me! He’s overcome his usual aloofness and has wrapped himself around my neck.

We’re back from Austin, where much fun was had. SXSWi was twice the size as last year, which means it lost some of its outsider geek charm, but it made up for it with better programming, better planning, and a greater number of women both presenting and attending. There were actually lines in the women’s bathrooms this year, which I choose to see as an indication of a brand new influx of women in the I.T. professions.
Achoo. Ok, the cat is now upside down and dragging himself along the underside of the couch like a furry rock climber. It’s zero degrees outside and I have to go to work tomorrow whether I want to or not. People wear parkas here. Here’s some links.

Sheldon is a great webcomic about a 10-year-old dot com billionaire. I met Dave the author at one of the many social functions which have now blurred together in my sleep-deprived brain. I recall him being very funny. So’s his comic, so check it out. Start a few weeks back so you’ll catch up with the whole Zod thing.

There was a good dragon this year. Every year Cornell students build, parade, and burn a huge dragon. Dragon Day is a tradition, dammit. A century-old tradition that only makes the campus police slightly nervous. They skipped the riot gear this year, to the relief of all. Also, a giant rabbit was involved. I can’t believe I spent the last week complaining that nothing happens in Ithaca.

This is broken is a bad interface blog. It’s just like hanging out with an interface designer, except without the annoying tendency to critique interfaces while others are trying to enjoy themselves. Sorry friends and family. (yoinked from sivacracy)
Finally, you’ve been reading 50 Books haven’t you? Well why not? What, you don’t like books?

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SXSW antics, continued

My ex-professor and information architecture guru Peter Morville is in town promoting his new O’Reilly book, Ambient Findability, which I’m going to buy and review, mexican.pngwhether you like it or not. For all you digital librarians out there, he had a slide showing some attractive ladies that was meant to illustrate how metadata is sexy these days. Not exactly librarian strippers, but better than nothing.

I also caught the end of the web comics panel, which was so popular I ended up enjoying it from the floor in the back. Bill Barnes from Unshelved was talking about the future of his comic, and how webcomics can become financially self-sustaining. I recommend everyone buy his books RIGHT NOW. Bill also showed up at one of the parties in his library FBI jacket, wowing the geeks.

I met one of my favorite writers, Heather Armstrong from Dooce.com at a local coffeehouse along with fifty of my fellow slathering idiots. Heather was, of course, funny, kind and gracious. I was, of course, a big dork. Meeting your favorite blogger is an inherently awkward social situation. But not as awkward as last year when Chris’ mom asked us why we haven’t gotten married yet. In front of three of my coworkers. Several times. Really loud.

Seriously though, I have an enormous gratitude for Heather and for the story she tells. There are so many women in my generation who are trying to create a unique existence separate from the ones we were raised with. I’ve got a small family and I’ve always felt that I haven’t had many examples of women doing what I want to do, living a modern life, living a creative life, becoming mothers without losing themselves in the enormity of the endeavor. Heather, along with several of my friends and other women who write about their lives, have allowed me to consider possibilities that I wouldn’t have had enough information or inspiration to consider before.

Last night I wisely avoided the nuclear tacos, and went to Trudy’s for Tex Mex instead, along with my savior Jenny Benevento. The Google party we went to afterward had hired a terrible dj who was spinning hits from what sounded like an MTV Party to Go cd. Everyone scuttled next door to the Adaptive Path party once the free drinks ran out. Geeks are fickle.

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Saved by a librarian!

Thank you to Jenny Benevento, the resourceful librarian who saved me a few seconds ago as I desparately searched for a knife to cut moleskin for my poor beat up feet after a run-in with some sandals last night. It was a pretty weird coincidence, since I was literally in the process of sending Jenny an email about meeting up tonight.

Or maybe it wasn’t a coincidence. I supect the number of librarians carrying useful tools in their bags is significantly higher than you know, normal folks.

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Austin, baby!

hothot.pngIt’s warm here! OMG you guys, they have this thing called “The Sun” that you have GOT to check out!

Chris, Scott and I are heading to Las Manitas for Mexican breakfast with Chris’ dad in a few minutes. Just wanted to update really quick and gloat at you. Migas, everyone! Migas! Mwahhahahahah!

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I will shoot you with my Barbie Gun

Ladies and Gentlemen: I’m coming out. As a gamer.

I game. I play video games. I enjoy shooting digital things. I have the ability to navigate three-dimensional space. There, I said it.
I don’t know what I was afraid of. I’m not going to be stereotyped. As far as I can tell there are no stereotypes of female gamers. It’s not like admitting “Hey you guys I love to shop” or “Gosh I love me some Jesus.” There are no social assumptions about being a female gamer because up to a few years ago, female gamers didn’t statistically exist.

These days however, I’m in good company. New generations of tech-savvy women are reshaping the game industry. According to the charmingly titled 2004 ELSPA report Chicks and Joysticks, female gamers make up 39% of US gamers. We’re only at 25.1% across Western Europe, but in Japan we rule a whopping 65.9%. Plus, in the US, women buy 53% of all PC games. We love The Sims. We love World of Warcraft. We can whoop you at Dance Dance Revolution. Female gamers exist, and we’re starting to eat up market share.

So what’s the problem? Nothing we haven’t handled before. The success of first-person shooters has left the market flooded with Uber-violent 3D games that don’t appeal to women (Well – women who aren’t me. Battlefront, anyone?) And, of course, decades of male-dominated gaming have left a legacy of seriously sexist game characters. Big-boobed wasp-waisted mistresses of the martial arts still grace the covers of RPG manuals and fighting games. I’ve included a few here for your amusement.

In a great article titled Why is my girl repellent chasing off all the hot chicks? Mythago describes the lament of the clueless male gamer: “Why aren’t there more female gamers, especially when we go to such lengths to make it clear they aren’t welcome?” He claims that the abundance of porn ladies gracing video and RPGs sends a simple message to potential girl gamers: “You don’t exist. We only think of females as sex toys.”

This whole rant got started because I just attended a nifty lecture here on campus by Michigan State Communications prof John Sherry called “Sex Differences in Video Game Play: What the Industry Doesn’t Know About Why Girls Don’t Play First-Person Shooters”. MSU is doing some cool cognitive psychology-type research on the relationship between game preference and cognitive abilities. It made me nostalgic for East Lansing, Midwestern accents, and Social Science research with its delightful openness to interpretation. It’s pretty damn difficult to say why most women seem to prefer one type of game over another, but I had a good time listening to the theories.

To finish off, and perhaps cleanse your eyeballs from all those huge electronic breasts, why not have a go at the fully girl-created online game Sissyfight 2000 which lets you become a bitchy schoolgirl fighting on the playground. Scratch, tease, and gang up on other girls, then try and look innocent. Then shoot them with your huge My Little Pony gun.