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As The Curtain Draws To A Close

December 18th, 2009

I have said before sometimes thank you is not enough. But I am going to try my best to express the flood of thoughts that is going through me at the moment as I prepare for my final Geeky Pleasures radio show tonight.

I was going to do on air thank you however I have been prone to spontaneous eye leakage all day today and I am afraid it will happen tonight while people not only listen, but worse, they watch.

Thank you to everyone who has supported me for the past year and half while I did my thing at Party 934 | 102.5 FM Hudson Valley NY.

Thank you to everyone who not only allowed me to entertain myself but allowed me to entertain you in the process.

Thank you to everyone who has embraced (as one listener put it) my unique brand of geekiness.

Thank you to everyone who laughed at me while I laughed at myself.

Thank you to everyone who supported and allowed me to feel normal at least one day of the week, as normal as a geek/nerd can feel. This is a big one. My radio shows allowed me to have a few hours a week where I could pretend I was doing something productive and meaningful, and I was not living with Lupus (except for the one time I almost fainted during my show). From the bottom of my heart, you will have no idea how much this means to me.

Thank you to all the people behind the scenes who have laughed with me and cried with me while I went through the roller coaster that is my life. Thank you especially to those who just listened. Those that didn’t try to fix it. Those that didn’t try to compare battle wounds. But those who really just listened and allowed me to feel what I was feeling and let it pass when I was ready to let it pass and not when they wanted it to pass. If it were not for your support, I don’t think I would have been able to maintain my normal level of insanity. It would have spiraled into something not as fun.

I hope that sometime (sooner rather than later) I can find a way to make Geeky Pleasures live again in some audio format where we can all come together and geek out in real time with the world. Being able to geek out with people from all over the world in one place and allow the world to listen in is a truly unique and special thing. You are what made it happen. Without your input, without your contributions, without your own unique brand of geekiness it just would not have been as awesome as it was.

Thank you.

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Posted in Lupus, Party934, chronic illness, entertainment, geek, internet, media, personal, radio

So Long, Farwell

December 17th, 2009

Apparently I need to blog about this again as some people seem to have missed the memo. And you know, I think that angers me just a little bit.  Consider this my two week notice to the internet.

Two month ago and without warning due to a lack of funding, I lost a contract that made it possible for me to be online, made this blog possible, made my Geeky Pleasures website possible and made my Geeky Pleasures radio show possible. I am an independent contractor and every single dollar I earn is the difference between keeping a roof over my family’s head and food on the table, and being homeless. The contract was not a huge amount by most people’s standards but it is a devastating amount to my family and me. It is what paid for me to do everything else that you see me do. Because even at the radio station, I am an independent contractor and I did that as a labour of love and not because it made me money. The joys of helping start up a new business venture is that you do not always get paid for the work you do even if it is a legit media outlet.

I would have been offline two month ago if I had not borrowed money (which I still feel sick over as I have never been in debt until now) 1 small design project and a donation that helped pay my bills for this month. And let me tell you, I have hated every moment I have put into all of this ever since. I use to do all of this only for my own amusement. Then people told me that I can’t go offline and they love what I do and it can’t go away etc., etc., etc. Well harm fuzzies does not feed my kids, pay my bills, put a roof over our heads or presents under the Christmas tree. My children do not get to have that part of Christmas this year. If it were not for living in wonderful socialist Canada and the help of a couple of friends and food banks, I would have no food in my cupboards at the moment. If it were not for the fact that I qualify for disability and Canada at least has some decent socialist safety nets, I would be homeless come January 1. I think it would be fair to say that I am resentful at the moment. Not so much at the support and kind words, but at the fact as a result I have become an unpaid, debt laden, dancing monkey.

I even gave people options as to how they could help out if they felt so inclined, if they indeed did really care, and I got nothing but more warm fuzzy words that at the end of the day don’t fix the situation even if they are appreciated.

This past weekend I was able to escape for a few days thanks to a really close friend who decided I needed a change of scenery and I needed to be surrounded by people who really care. He kidnapped me for the weekend and thanks to a visit with another friend, I was able to gain a better perspective on the situation. I told her of something I was doing for someone and she asked, “Are they paying you?” “No”, I replied. Then we got to talking about how people expect me to do all this stuff for them for absolutely nothing. And since we do not live in Gene Roddenberry’s future, I am the one that is getting seriously buggered as a result. Honestly, would you do what I am doing for nothing? Somehow I really doubt it yet you all expect me to do it for nothing and then when I say it is going away, you feel you are entitled to get upset over it. Well you aren’t willing to pay for it so I am no longer willing to provide a service for nothing.

My Geeky Pleasures website hosting is paid up for a couple more month. There is a possibility that I can use my landlord’s internet connection to at least maintain that from time to time. But as for the rest of it, it just is not going to happen as I will have no phone, internet or cable come Jan 1. I am not going to put 40+ hours of my week into what I do with no return except for warm fuzzy feelings from the masses and have my family continue to go without as a result. Maybe sometime in the future the rest of it will be revived but until someone is willing to pay for it to happen, my answer will continue to be “it ends here.” I refuse to be a dancing monkey any longer and have people take advantage of the services I provide.

Happy holidays and have a good 2010.

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Posted in Party934, entertainment, family, geek, internet, media, personal, radio

Would You Like A Side Of Entitlement With That?

September 29th, 2009

There are some things I will never ever understand and or get use to. And I hope I never do get use to them. Days like my last 5 days, I wonder why on earth I bother doing what I do. Everyone wants a little piece of whatever and when I give them what I can, it is not good enough and they complain. There has been many instances the past few days concerning many different things, but there is one major one that has me the most pissed.

And to make it even worse, they do it behind my back and act like bloody trolls. I spend 10+ hours out of my FREE TIME to make available things I do not have to. This is my time and I choose to give it to others. I am even nice enough to take the time to explain this. To tell them you know, if you don’t want to hear a conversation or put up with some blips, maybe you will not want to listen. You would think they would be thankful that it was made available because I could say “You don’t tune in, you don’t get to listen. Suck it up and next time… Well maybe there won’t be a next time you ungrateful gits!”

To make it worse, I have to hear about it through other channels. They don’t even have the balls to say a damn thing to my face. They just complain that they should be getting more. And then when someone offers to clean it up a bit, that isn’t even good enough because again, they want more and fuck that the more they want breaks a million and one copyright laws. No, that doesn’t matter.

I am not your fucking dancing monkey. Others are not your fucking dancing monkeys. You are not entitled to a damn thing from me or anyone else. I do this out of generosity. Just because it can be made available doesn’t mean I have to. I even give permission to share it, which I do not have to because I own the damn copyright! Shut your damn pie hole or at least have the balls to say it to my face instead of behind my back in a forum that I cannot even reply to so that I can tell you to your face to shut your damn pie hole! At least here, it is open and I will not censor my comments or the comments of others who choose to reply, good or bad.

/rant

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Posted in internet, media, personal, radio

Shane Nickerson Interview

July 12th, 2009

So on Friday night (July 10, 2009) I had the pleasure of Shane Nickerson sitting down with me and co-hosting my Geeky Pleasures show on Party 934. He also co-hosted my Ustream feed which was a double bonus. Needless to say, I had a blast! It was very nice to just geek out about so many different things. I have listened to the interview a few times now and I still have not been able to find words to summarize all that we discussed. Some of the things we talked about were science fiction, gaming, t.v. shows, gadgets, twitter, sexual fantasties and so much more. I am afraid that maybe some parts of the show will not make sense for some listeners as it sounds as if all of a sudden Shane and I start to talk about random things. Some of these random things were as a result of those who decided to log into the Ustream chat, actively participating in our discussion instead of just being voyeurs. Others were because of visual events. An example of something that may not make sense is you will hear me comment on Shane’s t-shirt. (Speaking of Shane and t-shirts, please vote for this t-shirt.) He was wearing this really cool dinosaur t-shirt and unless you were in Ustream, that comment doesn’t make too much sense as it was a result of something visual.

Couple of show notes:

  • Lately, I do not know what it is with technology everytime I do an interview. Technology failed me yet again for this interview. The audio is very choppy at some points. My computer decided that it was going to slow right down as soon as it was time to go live on air. And I am not even going to get into the preshow tech fails plus postshow tech fails that occured during the editing process.
  • The day of the interview I was going over my checklist of must remember to do. I went over it again and again and again. I had this nagging feeling that I was forgetting some important aspect of the show that needed to be done. Show time came and I had chalked it up to just being excited that the night was finally here to geek out with Shane live on air instead of on the phone or by other means (which is beyond cool as well but it was great to share the juicy geeky goodness with others). Half way through the show I realize yes indeed, I did forget an important step. That was to record the Ustream feed. Normally I do not record the Ustream feed. The reason why I wanted to record it this time was because there was a lot of dialogue between Shane and myself when the mic was on stand-by for the on air portion that one could only hear if they were tuned into the Ustream as well. Ah well, maybe next time I will not forget.
  • I had a mental list of things I wanted to bring up during the show. A lot of them flew completely out of my brain when it came down to talk to him live with people eavesdroppoing. This happens quite often in my world. It happens most often when I get to geek out with someone. As I was discussing the show with a friend afterwards, Star Trek came up and I remembered something Shane had told me during one of our conversation prior to the show that had to do with an experience he had with Star Trek. It would have been uber cool to share on air. Hopefully next time, I will not forget to bring that up along with other things I remembered after the fact.

I do not think I could thank Shane enough for his time. Between the busy filming schedule of his latest project for MTV (Rob Dyrdek’s Fantasy Factory, click here if in Canada) and his family, for him to take out 2 hours on a Friday night to geek out with me live is just so HAWESOME. Oh and Shane, maybe my fetish for Optimus Prime is not all that weird after all. It has been brought to my attention that I am not the only one who thinks of having sex with robots.

NSFW

Below you will find the interview. I hope you enjoy it even a fraction of how much I enjoyed doing it.

This Flash Player was created @ FlashWidgetz.com.





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Posted in Party934, Shane Nickerson, entertainment, geek, interview, radio

Finally A Song That Says It All

June 24th, 2009
I have issues. If you ever listen to my radio show at 9 pm PT on Fridays or have read my blogs, you may have some idea of these issues. Not only does my list of 3 include Optimus Prime, Data and Superman but I get this really weird perverse pleasure from David Hasselhoff. My perverse pleasure in that area doesn’t end there but we will begin here. If I am in a foul mood, I watch a David Hasselfhoff video and I get all stupid and giddy and jumpy and warm and fidgety and all kinds of stupid happiness.

Well tonight on America’s Got Talent (shush, its my guilty pleasure) there was this guy. His name is David Johnson. And he wrote this song which pretty much sums it all up:

OMG! I. CANNOT. STOP. WATCHING! Oh man, if you could only watch me watch this video or any other Hoff video. Just what I need, another thing to obsess over.

Now here is where it gets even more “odd”. I get the same stupid giddy warm fuzzy jumpy fidgety feelings when I listen to a William Shatner song and watch his cheezy ass. I think I just love cheezy asses. The cheezier and the campier, the better. I LOVE this cheezy, campy, sexy, awesomeness of The Hoff and Shatner so much, during all of my Geeky Pleasures shows I play at least a Shatner and Hoff song. And I explode every single time, no matter how many times see them or hear them.

One of my geeky wishes in life is this: That

AND

star in a movie together. Not seperate cameos like in “Dodgeball”, but actually starring opposite each other in a movie. That would be AWESOME! I don’t know if my brain could handle the AWESOME! I think it may even deserve a HAWESOME!





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Posted in entertainment, geek, radio, television

Geeking Out With Shane Nickerson

June 20th, 2009
I was going to hold off writing this until the morning but I am afraid I will not be able to sleep until I get this out. So there is this guy and his name is Shane Nickerson. He is a pretty funny guy. Well a really funny guy. I became aware of just how funny this guy is through this blog by Wil Wheaton, in which this video was posted (do not watch if you are opposed to used of the word F*ck).

F Twitter from Shane Nickerson on Vimeo.

Twitter is slowly ruining me. This is my cry for help.

Shane is the executive producer of the MTV show “Rob Dyrdek’s Fantasy Factory.” If you live in Canada, you can watch full episodes here. If you live in the States, here. As well, he is a blogger, vlogger, geek, dad, tweeter, writer and actor, among other things. He is also going to co-host my Geeky Pleasures show at Party 934 on July 10, 2009 from 9 pm PT – 11 pm PT. Now this is going to be very cool because not only are we doing the on air thing, but he is also going to co-host the Ustream part. So you will get your chance to see and hear what we talk about when the mic goes to stand-by PLUS you can chat live with us in Ustream chat. Now if you think that is cool, it gets cooler. At least for me on my end.

Tonight (well technically last night) while I am doing my Geeky Pleasures show, guess who shows up unannounced to just hang out and talk in Ustream chat? Let me tell you, it was a bit of an “OMG this cannot be real” moment. I hadn’t even given him the link to the station or the Ustream yet. I joked with him earlier in the day that I was going to go all fan girl on air because he had replied to a reply I sent him on Twitter about something. I was going to do this “OMG guess who I tweetalked with today?” only for him to show up. He shows up unnannounced and my brain vacated my body. I am still stupid with exitement over this. I love the internets so much. Because really, how cool is it that you can have someone show up at your place of work when one of them lives in Hollywood and the other in a small town on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada?

To add to the wonderful surprise of him just showing up unannounced and the brainplosion that ensued, I was having some difficulties with audio settings on my end. I had received a complaint last week from a listener because they could not hear the music on the Ustream and had to listen to the site as well. I wasn’t going to do anything about that but I had figured well maybe I will try fixing that problem. I will not be doing it again for reasons you are about to read. I hijacked the sound so that what was in my headset would stream on Ustream. This caused me to hear myself talk in my headset with an echo from the feed and it totally messed with my brain (which was already messed with because I was virtually hanging out with Shane Nickerson!). My mic breaks were a complete disaster thanks to this audio echo thing. I failed completely on the night that Shane stops by unannounced. It was so very cool.

And to make it even better (did I say this guy is funny) he added to my geek topic of the night. The topic was favourite geek websites or videos. One of the sites he contributed was seanbonner.com. I had made a mental note in chat to pronounce is BONner otherwise boner was sure to come out. As I am doing my mic break and giving out the web address, I am keeping my eye on chat. I see Shane type out, “NO! Its boner” so I say on air, “Never mind that, its Boner” (did I not just finish saying I experienced a brainsplosion?) only for Shane and another chat member to start virtual laughing and say no you had it right for first time which caused me to have to say SHIT it is Bonner and explain the whole situation that is going on in chat on air. You have to remember this is all in one mic break and is occurring in the matter of mere seconds. It was chaos (in my brain). It was a riot! I laughed so hard and I may have even blushed because I couldn’t believe I fell for that. Especially after we had just finished talking about how I was prone to say boner on air and had been repeating bonner over and over again in my head just moments prior.

My day rocked! I got to virtually hang out with Shane Nickerson. We chatted for close to two hours. Talked about our mutual obsessive natures. Geeked out a little. I cannot wait to do it again. And I cannot wait until Shane and I get to geek out with the listeners.

Shane if you read this, I really am a cool person. I am not normally flighty and fan girlish. But as I said to you in chat, you made my day. And I wanted to share it with the world.





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Posted in Party934, Shane Nickerson, Wil Wheaton, geek, internet radio, interview, radio

In Which Someone Decides to Save My Soul

June 13th, 2009
Last night’s Geeky Pleasures show was so much fun. It was the first time that not only did people get to hear it on the radio either through the FM feed, iTunes or going to the station’s website itself, but they also had the opportunity to see what goes on behind this end of the computer while I broadcast through USTREAM. I had one person come into chat on USTREAM complaining that I wasn’t saying anything there. Well that is not what the USTREAM is for and it is explained in the show description. If you want to hear the show, you need to tune in from the station’s site, iTunes or 102.5 FM if you live in the Hudson Valley, NY area. If you want to listen and watch, then you tune into the station’s site and USTREAM feed. Plus with the USTREAM you get to join me in a live chat while I broadcast. This will now be a weekly occurrence.

The topic last night was Geeky Sci-Fi Fantasies. My inspiration for it came from a discussion that took place here. If you are too lazy to click the link, here is a quick summary. You know how people make those lists of 3 or 5 people that if they were to meet them and they were in a relationship, they could have sex with them and it wouldn’t be considered cheating? Well my list doesn’t include any real people. My list includes Optimus Prime, Data (not Brent, Data because I want to see how fully functional he really is) and Superman (sex while flying would be cool). As well, I always include listener’s contributions in my show and last night I had some really good ones. Beside the Geeky sex talk, I also read the “Top 15 Science Fiction Geek Pick-up Lines” and “Top 10 Geek Pick-up Lines on Twitter”.

Well I guess all the Geek and Sex talk (let me tell you it got pretty steamy) offended someone. Half way during my show, this arrived in my e-mail. A listener decided that my soul needed saving. The beginning of this starts of a little slow, but trust me its worth the listen.





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Posted in Party934, entertainment, geek, radio

Geeky Pleasures Exposed

June 12th, 2009
After a lot of feedback, you now have the option of not only listening to me live on air, but you can see the shenanigans that occur on this end of the computer.

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Posted in Party934, entertainment, geek, radio

Technology How I Love Thee Yet Loathe Thee

June 7th, 2009
I don’t think frustration even begins to describe what is going on at the moment. I don’t know if I should laugh or cry. I love technology. I love gadgets. I am not the typical chick. I hate clothes shopping. Not much for the make-up unless I am having to make some public appearance, doing a photo shoot or am on stage. Screw buying me flowers or chocolate. Flowers, even so they are pretty, die. Chocolate, even so it is oh so yummy for my tummy, ends up coming out the other end. You want to get into my good books and woo me, give me a gadget. My best Valentine’s day gift ever was half a gig of RAM and new video card. You want to give me the best thing on the entire planet, give me a gift card to a store where I can buy computer parts, accessories, games or gadgets. I will love you for the rest of my life!

So imagine my frustration when first I realize just how much I need yet another hard drive. I was thinking I could put of this purchase just a little while longer. In order for me to do what normally would have been a simple and quick editing job, I had to uninstall THREE of my games from my PC. What should have been a simple mp3 to wav to edit out music to mp3 conversion and maybe 2 hours of work, turned into over 12. And that isn’t the only tech FAIL that occurred during the process. Finally I think it is all done. I have the files uploaded to the station’s FTP server, added some different coding to my blog to make it easier for people to find and listen to past interviews and my most recent interview, and made sure that it all worked and would play. I am not happy with the editing job for many reasons but after 12+ hours, I was done. It would have to do for now, otherwise my normal love affair with my PC would have turned into the most bitter break up on the face of the planet. I still hadn’t uploaded other interviews that should be made available.

So I walked away from “work” for the rest of the evening. Now normally it is not work for me as this is the type of thing that really gets me off and gives me a chubby. So imagine my even further frustration today when the station’s server goes down! All of that hard work and NOBODY CAN LISTEN and people are wanting to listen. The server provider tells us later that someone hacked into a different server in the data center so as a precaution, they shut down all the servers to stop this punk hacker who seems to have nothing better to do with their time but mess with people’s lives and businesses and will have to check each server (there is about 10,000 in this data center) to see who was affected and who was not before they would put everything back online. I get the obligatory “you may be down for another 48 hours” line. You have to be joking right? 48 HOURS?!?! ARE YOU INSANE?!?! No no no no, this cannot do!

So I think okay I need to get at least one of the interviews uploaded to some free hosting site temporarily and I will deal with the other stuff later, cause dude I can’t handle this! My normally very wonderful love affair with technology is turning sour. This is so not cool. So I get it uploaded to a temp storage area and make the appropriate link. No sooner is this done, I am informed that the server is back up. So I update as many people as possible that YAY we are back up and live and its all cool. But there is this little nagging voice in the back of my head saying, “SUCKER! Do you honestly think that after technology beating your ass all weekend and showing you who is boss for once, that it is just that easy?” So I say to that voice, “You know maybe you are right, I will keep that back up link there for now but still let people know we are live. Yeah, that is what I will do.” Within 4 minutes of updating that we are back up… You guessed it! We were down again! And there is technology mocking me and saying, “YOU GOT PWN’d! BYTE ME BABY! THAT WILL TEACH YOU FOR STICKING YOUR RAM INTO MY MOTHERBOARD!”

So, I do apologize IF my love affair and my current falling out with technology is causing you any inconvenience. Imagine it from my end of the computer! I wish I could give you a firm time for when everything will be back up. Unfortunately, I have to give you the “please wait at least 48 hours for us to be back up and running.” As you have noticed, I didn’t even link anything cause right now there is no guarantee that it will give you the goods.





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Posted in geek, interview, radio, technology

Dr. Phil Plait Interview

June 6th, 2009

Click here to listen to the interview with Dr. Phil Plait. This link is the temporary fix until our server issues at the radio station are fixed. Thank you all for your patience during this time.

Last night (June 5, 2009), I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Phil Plait aka The Bad Astronomer live for my Geeky Pleasures show on Party934. We discussed a variety of topics from the Hubble Space Telescope and NASA to the antivaxx movement and homeopathy, plus a few other topics of interest to the both of us. A warning: I drop the “s” word a couple of times during the interview. So consider yourself warned. At the very end of the interview, Phil gave me some inside scoop about a couple of projects he is working on. You will only hear it here. The total runtime for the interview is 1hr 38min 23sec.

I want to apologize in advance for the editing of this broadcast. Phil sat down with me live last night and we took a couple of breaks to play some music. I had to edit out the music portion of the interview as it would be in violation of the station’s royalties contracts had I left the music in. After close to 12 hours of editing and technology failing over 20 times during the process, what you are hearing now is the best that is available at the moment. I wanted to make sure the broadcast was available as soon as possible for people to listen to and give feedback. Hopefully I will be able to find the time soon to clean it up a bit.

It was a real pleasure interviewing Phil. I had a lot of fun doing it and my impression was that he did as well. A couple little show notes:

I was very surprised how silent the listeners were as we discussed a couple of topics that have caused Phil to receive some heat on his own blog. We discussed these topics very frankly and openly. Considering the feedback he has received on his own blog regarding these topics, I was expecting some listeners to come out and put him to the fire while he was live on air and accepting questions. This did not happen. This leads me to conclude that people are much braver behind a computer typing out words than when they are given the opportunity to express those opinions live and in person.

You will notice during the interview, that I appear to be tongue tied, at a loss for words or do not complete my thought. There are a couple of reasons for that. The first reason is that when I do an interview, they are not scripted. I like the interview to have the feel of two friends sitting down to a cup of coffee and talking about subjects of mutual interest. Yes I have a general outline of what topics I would like to discuss, however I do not script out the questions and the person being interviewed does not know what questions I am going to ask. This allows for a more natural and organic conversation to occur. The second reason is almost 3 years ago, I suffered from a stroke. So whenever I am excited or passionate about something, my ability to communicate (both verbally and written) is one of the first things to be affected. And let me tell you, Phil gave me many reasons to be excited. Not only is he a very passionate speaker, he is extremely funny.

I think that is all I really have to say about that at this moment. I hope you enjoy and your feedback (both negative and positive) are more than welcomed. As I said in the interview, bring it on!





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Posted in Dr. Phil Plait, Party934, antiscience, antivaxx, astronomy, entertainment, geek, interview, radio, science, vaccination