Geek Love: Brief Elegy for Gary Gygax
Dr. Ding’s almost brother-in-law, Nater, requested that I discuss my first experience with Dungeons&Dragons, thereby repping my set, aka Gamer Nerd Brethren and Sistren. Nate knows a closeted gamer when he sees one, and he’s right, I need to let that phreak phlag phly¹.
Picture it: Shampoo-Banana, Illinois. One languid summer, 1981. Polyester plum-smugglers had just come into vogue, and there I was, playing D&D in our basement with a family friend, and a buddy of his he’d invited over. I don’t remember said buddy’s name, but I think it was something exotic like “Wesley” or perhaps “Todd.” He had a peachfuzz moustache and was wearing (non-ironically you see, for it was 1981) a tight ringer tee-shirt and the aforementioned plum-smugglers, with dark, feathered hair. I also recall that he (more…)
| Etsy: QueenBodacious |
Stroking The Inner Nerdette
Dr. Ding, it must be told, was an avid comic book reader in her youth. Hence, this video. Plus: this world needs more fucking superheroes, God(dess) damn it.
| Etsy: QueenBodacious |
Edumacation
Dearest snarkficionados.
Dr. Ding thinks you should check out the following blogs and sites, for the good of the order, and for the care of souls.
Local Blogs:
The Bloggess Dig those kee-ray-zay curlers. And she’ll steal the corset off a dead Gold Rush whore, stat. Do not underestimate her powers.
epiphenita Makes Dr. Ding look like a total fucking pantywaist. Brutally honest, inventively funny, and she has the best vocabulary this side of the Pecos. I totally stole MarriedToTheSea comics from her.
chookooloonks Gorgeous photos. And her adorable daughter almost makes me want to become a parent. Almost.
Slices From the PearLady Her SFW blog wins awards. I have technical envy as well as glittery pear logo envy.
Exquisitely Bored in Nacogdoches Okay, so it’s Nac, but it’s so righteously ring-a-ding-ding I don’t care.
Dr. Miggy Smart, eclectic science/music enlightenment purveyor. She plays Cesaria Evora on her radio show, which makes her aces in my book.
Sites:
The Institute of Official Cheer This site makes me laugh and cringe simultaneously. It’s pure internet crack.
Skwigg’s World Gen-X’s fitness guru and I shouldn’t love the obssessive pictures of her abs, guns, and eats. But yet I do.
HCWD Come for the incisive social commentary, stay for the deconstruction of the post-millenial American male waxing-tanning dialectic as it obtains in Long Island and New Jersey proper.
Dandyism.net My latest find. Exceedingly delightful.
LUSH No, it’s not what you think. It’s about conditioner that smells exactly like pumpkin pie.
Pup Scouts Top Dinger Trainer’s site for all things doggish. I need to get Pooperella over there, stat. Oh and possibly myself since it’s my behavior that’s the problem. But not the actual pooing. That’s all her. Yes.
indiebride and Offbeat Bride The only two wedding sites that make any sense whatsoever.
Blogs:
Brass Goggles The lighter side of steampunk. For Victorian nerddes.
LOTD By turns sophomoric and utterly brilliant.
midwest neurotica When I yearn for my midwestern roots, I come here. The recipes alone are killer bee.
Technoccult High weirdness indeed. Come here to get your conspiracy theory freak on.
Slaying the Scale Monster JeAnne is one of my heroes. Not just because she lost the weight, but because she gained a rich, interesting life and hard-won self-acceptance. Love her. Love her!
There are lots more, these are just the ones I’ve been ritualistically, compulsively checking over and over peeking at lately.
| Etsy: QueenBodacious |
Winding My Beanie Propeller
Voodoo Ventures is hosting the NOLA BarCamp next weekend. I like the name. More than I should.
Dr. Ding thinks it would be freakin’ sweet to have a private practice with a name as cool as Voodoo Ventures, something that nods to the corny practice-naming tradition of including words that sound like something a bearded, mid-1990s sweater-clad, avuncular dude would put on his 2-color family therapy brochure, yet which also connotes something as otherworldly as voodoo.
New Zombie Horizons.
Dr. Ding’s Pancake House of Pain.
Arsenic and Head Case.
Undead Directions.
One gets the impression that perhaps such a practice might not attract much clientele, but I think it would be worth the warm satsified glow I’d get just registering the DBA name of Dr. Ding and Her Righteous Goth Army of Renegade Generation X HellsBellsettes, LLC or something equally fantabulous.
| Etsy: QueenBodacious |
Partners In Blog
Dr. Ding is proud to share with you her proto-blogroll of Houston bloggers she met at Mama Drama Con Queso II!
Sk*rt - Very cool, innovative concept for this website! You can find almost anything you need here, from organic tampons to simple tips on world domination. Imagine the possibilities.
El Blog de Jamie - I have one thing to say, sashay, chantay. No, seriously, it’s: Jamie had green punk hair! Old school. I give props.
chookooloonks - Photoblogger extraordinaire. I LOVE Karen’s stuff. All of it. Gorgeous and lush. I mean lush in the non-alcoholic sense.
Slices from the Pearlady — Dr. Ding thought she was 18 upon meeting her, but despite that, she wouldn’t cough up the name of her goddamned moisturizer. I’m jealous of this blog’s interactivity and layout.
The Bloggess - The one, the only. She loves 80s Goth/Punk as much as Dr. Ding. Plus, she’s my heroine for having, with utter eclát, once appropriated a corset that belonged to a ghost-town prossie.
The Fuzzball - Hi. Lar. I. Ous. Around the world and backsnap, sweetie! She makes Dr. Ding want to be a fallen debutante too.
Who Cries Over Spilled Milk? - Dr. Ding now feels like a total tool for barely being able to take care of herself, The Beyonce, and Pooperella, because WCOSM’s kids a) don’t poop in the living room and b) well, see a).
Big Pink Cookie - Soul sister! We saw Star Wars in the same movie theater in the year of its release. In another state. She’s a knitta, and if Dr. Ding had dranken another glass of medicinal martini, I would have had to appropriate her scarf.
Cybertoad — Dr. Ding lurves the gorgeous green color of her blog. If I weren’t a shrink, my hair would be that color. Plus, isn’t Cybertoad just a nifty name, like something a Superheroine should have? Methinks the answer is yes.
Pup Scouts - I need to call her, stat. This blog has everything you ever wanted to know about dogs, and more. Amazingly complete.
If I met you, didn’t list you above, and/or inflicted a long-winded, raphsodic narrative on you extolling the many gastronomical virtues of bacon and queso, please shoot me an email and remind me so I can put you in the Blogroll. Dr. Ding was all a-twitter meeting people who didn’t smell of despair and soiled diapers*, and forgot to write everyone’s name down.
So, loyal readers, please visit my treasured bloggish colleagues. Texas, and particularly Houston is a tad short on free-thinking, progressive, creative people who don’t run around in ostentatiously expensive gear, crying “Ladidah, well I do declare, who tore the Prada bumper sticker off my leased Benz? Smell my money! Smell it! Smellllllll it.™ ”
Bloggers are sorely needed to provide an antidote to mass-produced, (non)intellectual consumerism; we’re a refreshing blast of DIY cold air amid the twice-breathed miasma of popular periodicals and whatever AOL or Amazon thinks your ass should be reading. Click on the ads, too, dammit, so we can continue to chase the queso dragon. Mean it.
*Dr. Ding spends approximately 100% of her clinical time in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. I probably need to get out more.
| Etsy: QueenBodacious |
Bad Blog Contest Reminder
Click here for more deets.
Let the proclamation go forth across the land: the AskDrding reader who sends me a blog even worse than DateJesus will receive at no cost a free Dr. Ding CafePress item of their choice when the store opens in January of 2008.
CONTEST RULES
1. You must be over 18 and under 100 years old to participate.
2. The blog submitted must be an obviously active blog. It should have the most recent entry made not prior to October 31, 2007.
3. You may submit only one blog at a time to [email protected]. If you’d like to change your entry, just email me a new blog and tell me to cancel your prior entry.
4. Last date for blog submission: January 2nd, 2008.
| Etsy: QueenBodacious |
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