Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Talk Nerdy, the film


Hello guys and dolls!

Lindsay here, your plucky adventurer. I realize I haven't written to you fabulous people in quite some time. Apologies for that. When one is employed in creating all the things, one has a tendency to get caught up in everything. Luckily for me, I have a Misha to help set things to right. I also have the added benefit of taking a seminar in effective leadership and community projects; this seminar gives me rocket-boosters to whichever thing I've gotten my wee fingers in at the time and really refocuses my attention to one step at a time as opposed to my usual scatterbrained WANT TO DO ALL THE THINGS PERFECTLY RIGHT NOW. Don't lie, you know you've been there, too. <.<

I want to share with you guys what, exactly, has been taking up my free time and CPU. Many of you may know my professionl background is in the interactive entertainment (a.k.a. the video game industry.) This life-long passion for video games stems from a love of human interaction and the possibility video games have for becoming tools to help us interact with a world very quickly becoming impacted everywhere by technology. 

Growing up, I loved gaming for hours and hours. Summer vacation was the best. I could wake up, turn on my N64 and eat cereal and play Podracer, Mario Kart, Rogue Squadron or Golden Eye all day long. I even did an entire weekend solid of Day of Defeat, my first LAN party. And don't get me going on my dark, dark The Sims months. Those poor people... As I aged, I became increasingly aware of just how singular I was among other females my age who grew up doing things like sports or... cheerleading... /shudder. In my quest to find someone, anyone else like me, I discovered there wasn't much in terms of a someone I could look up to. There were "geeky" icons, to be sure, but not one of them was an adamant gamer. I would have to really dig to find any role models in the late '90's and the early 2000's.

I am lucky enough to have experienced some amazing things in this industry and have met incredibly talented men who share the same passion I do for games. And yet, in 2013, I still find it difficult to find influential women and their contributions to the industry highlighted. Anywhere. 

I want to change that. I am making a 20 minute documentary highlighting women in the gaming industry. I want to find female executives, coders, designers, programmers, artists, writers, talent and media personalities from across the globe and spotlight their passion for gaming and how they got to where there are now within the industry. I want to create an entire slew of women role models for the girls out there growing up, like I did, engrossed in technology and be able to have resources for future industry professionals.

I want to inspire everyone with this project, because it inspires me. And that's the long and short of it. 

I have some great resources at my fingertips, however, this project is geared to involve those of you out there who feel similarly inspired. Bay Area people who want to help, please send me a PM. If you have a suggestion on who would be great to interview, I will be grateful for your time in writing to me. If you know of anyone who would be willing to help get this shown at E3 in Los Angeles in June (hell, or shown anywhere) let me know. 

So that's my life right now. Kinda crazy, kinda big and scary and full of Doubt Monsters who like to come in and tell me I'm not good enough and no one wants to help with this film and gnaw on my brain at night (we have fun, Doubt Monsters and me.) I am being courageously self-expressed, however, and going balls out for this project. And I'll be giving updates weekly in my newsy show on my YouTube channel, so please be sure you subscribe there if you haven't (YouTube.com/geektroncodex). 

Are you interested in helping with the documentary? Do you have an excellent blog about geeky/ game-y/technology goodness and want me to share it around? Let me know! The way I see it: we're all one global community, why not celebrate each other, help one another and all be Bros? Dude bro. 

Hang loose,
Lindsay

Monday, February 4, 2013

Damn You, Shark Week!

Ahoy, fellow people!

It's been awhile since I've written to you folks. Remind me to do so more frequently. K, thanks. Also, Shark Week*. So, everyone can just... diaf.

ONWARDS!

I'm gearing up for another week of show prep, and I'm sourcing a ton of neat shit that's been percolating the ether since Friday. Holy shitballs, people. The world is a wacky place. D: I completed two photoshoots. One of which is me being a human chessboard, a pic of which is coming soon. The second shoot's pictures are up on my Facebook page. Go stalk at your leisure.

I also did a drunk stream extravaganza on Twitch.tv last Friday night. I had nearly an entire bottle of wine to my lonesome, and even in spite of my drunken debauchery I managed to glean some more minions... er, followers. I don't remember the latter half of the evening, however, thanks to modern technology, I am able to go back and relive the unremembered flaming glory. So glad I was able to preserve this moment for posterity's sake. Cheers, mothafuckas!

Being the genius I am, I decided that drinking a whole bottle of wine the night before I had to be on set for 12 hours was a good idea. Luckily enough for me, le Misha knows how to cure what ails his retarded girlfriend. So Saturday morning I was still a little... buzzy. But I had no time for such trivial matters. MAGEHAVEN WAITS FOR NO MAN. Or a hungover bitch. Whatever.

Saturday was my day to shoot my scene in the upcoming episode of Magehaven, a gritty fantasy web show. I play the barmaid, and Misha came along to be in the show as the barkeep. The entire cast and crew of this show are incredible. Seriously. I love being around pros whose passion really gels everyone together. I can't wait for everyone to see this shit. Fuck yeah, stuff!

And Sunday = Niners got pwnd. The end.

So that's what's been happening. I have lots to do, so I'm keeping this brief, like.. my... mom...? I'll try to blog tomorrow, as well.

Happy Monday, everyone!
~Lindsay






*Shark Week (TMI ALERT!!!)
= what I call my period. Because. Yes.
Profit??


Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Like a BOSS

Write scripts:
Like a boss.

Model undies:
Like a boss.

Grocery shopping:
Like a boss.

Make dinner:
Like a boss.

Edit shows:
Like a boss.

Dance Cancan:
Like a boss.

Manage workflow:
Like a boss.

Touch penis:
...wut? 

Hi Kiddies,

It's your trusty friend Lindsay here with another exciting blog post! I know, you've all been on pins and needles since last Wednesday. LET ME KEEP MY DELUSIONS.

Since I've blogged last, some pretty neat things have happened. Last Thursday I drove into San Francisco to retrieve a GoPro from a former co-worker. He was on set for a sci-fi web series, and upon my arrival, thrust his Rebel T3 into my wee hands and told me the director wanted me to shoot some behind-the-scenes footage. FUCK. YES. So I did. I got to hang out on set, where I ran into Jeremy Jones (of Pico Mause fame) who was there not only as the fight coordinator, but also main cast as well. He said the director wanted to see some of my acting work (of which I'm woefully short in actual video) for Season 3. ERMAHGERRRRRD. This guy, Jeremy, also sent Magehaven director Chuckie Marshall my way, and we're still set to film February 2-3, and he wants me to head up interviewing cast and crew for more documentaries about the series. OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG. Can't. WAIT.

Thursday I edited my video, and posted it Friday morning. Friday evening, Le Cancan Bijou was scheduled to perform at 9:37, so I took the GoPro and filmed this wee video of more behind-the-scenes shenanigans with the help of my best friends, Chalyce and Stefani. I thought a vid about what it's like for historical showgirls to do their thang at one of these events would be neat. Whatevs. Don't judge.

My weekend was full of projects and editing and planning the next 4 months. And Monday I edited the Edwardian Ball video. Tuesday I streamed on Twitch.tv. I really have the best audience ever. The dudes who patiently watch me embarrass myself twice weekly are incredible. If I ever am lucky enough to meet them irl I would hug them until they pooped. (And no, I'm not be facetious.)

Monday I had a "nerdy boudoir" photoshoot with a great photographer. More cute with Star Wars shirts and my coke-bottle thick glasses (which, if I may add, are NOT fake... I'm horribly blind... D:) Here's an iPhone pic I made Ian take to torture my poor boyfriend:

(Pro Tip: If you're a male photographer {hell, ANY dude could use this advice}, and you want to make women comfortable around you, TALK TO THEM. Ask them questions, make them laugh. Talk, talk, talk. If you're not threatening and desperately trying to get their attention, it's amazing how comfortable, and how far, you'll get with us. You're welcome.)

Misha has gallantly taken the reigns as my Head Writer for a group of amazingly funny people, and they've already punched this weeks' script up. Holy eff, it's going to be great. I'm working on scripts for the Game of Thrones video I'll be shooting in about a month with Jon and Tom of Mars Rising Films down in LA (and hopefully, Trucker Pirates will be filmed while I'm down there as well...)

I have another modeling shoot where I'll be recreating this picture.

I'm really excited for it. I never thought I'd be into implied nude modeling, however, as the concept of this shoot is me as a chessboard... yiss..... I shall take this job.

WHEW. And all that was in just one week. Who knew being your own boss would fill up all your time?? I love it though. So much win.

And that's all the time I have for you this week. I gotta go shoot my show and go buy ALL THE GROCERIES with le Misha. He's so dreamy.

Until next Wednesday, my people.

Stay classy,
Ron Burgundy. 

Don't forget to sub to my YouTube channel!!
youtube.com/geektroncodex


Wednesday, January 16, 2013

The Blog that Skrillex Helped to Write

Hello intrepid friends!

It is I, your friend Lindsay! Not entirely sure what this blog will be about, so just bear with me. It may even be amusing!

Let's begin with a wee bit of gloating: my former tenure at Curse garnered me some neat stats, my favorite among them being that 6 of the top 10 most popular videos on Curse Entertainment feature yours truly with the most viewed video having 122,974 views as of today. Ahem. Juuuuuust sayin'.

I seem to be getting the hang of this working from home schedule. I gotta say, it's a little tough... even though I don't have an imperious boss looming over me and telling me I suck anymore and the commute is really hard to beat. Hell, I can even work on my stuff without wearing any pants! (Proud to say that today I am wearing pants, thankyouverymuch.) Proof:


Where we're at: iMac is coming home again FOR REALS this time. My Weekly Geekly show will happen! FUCK YEAH. I have people in mind to interview, and I cannot wait for everyone to see the results. And even though my iMac was D-E-D dead, I still managed to get a weak-sauce craptastic video out yesterday, which is a rough concept for my Monday morning show.

Working on some video projects apart from the weekly show, like Magehaven. We shoot in February and I get to show off my l337 ren faire skills.  And thanks to Pico Mause and her boyfriend Jeremy for the lead on this one.

Also working on ASOIF video with my Beastie, Jon, from Mars Rising Films down in LA as well as Trucker Pirates, a Grindhouse-esque movie trailer about revenge and... trucker pirates. I get all ass-kicky in this one.

Streaming seems to be going well. The learning curve on League is really steep, especially since I never really PVP'd before. I kind of panic and mash buttons until I die or am able to outrun whomever is stabbing me. Also on the list of streaming shenanigans is to play some Minecrack with David and Toby from Minecraft Forums. Hopefully, Sacheverell will join as well because I love me some Sach. In that way. Want to also organize lowbie raids in WoW.

And there you have it. All the news that fit to print. Or something. I'm going to head offline now and clumsily strum my banjo and then head to Cancan rehearsal. HISTORY NERDS FOR THE WIN.

Please be sure to share this to your friends, and check out my YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/geektroncodex. Sharing and retweeting really does go quite a long way to help, so thanks to those who help. To the rest who just take and take and take: TAKE THIS:


KTHXBYE,
Lindsay

Friday, January 11, 2013

Noon Came and Went, or, Feck Off, Universe

Hello trusty friends,

It is I, your Failure for the Day: Lindsay. Let me preface this post with a picture of the Monster Coffee (and our Rebel for comparison) I have to get me through today:



My protestations of having my new show debut at noon today seem to be for naught. I'm sure some of you may be curious as to why I've gathered you here today. STORY TIEM, KIDDIES. Grab a seat and some crappy popcorn, because this is funny. In a sad WTF kinda way. It's how I roll, bitches.

Yesterday, your pals Lindsay and Misha retrieved our crApple from its' 4th vacation on the exotic island of Fuck You, We're Apple and We'll Take our Sweet-Ass Time Fixing Shit. Our way home was delayed by me forgetting my driver's license at the Apple store and having to turn around with no U-turns and using an Ikea parking lot to flip a bitch, little old ladies driving 10mph, women crossing intersections with their strollers, a million red lights and I'm fairly certain a vengeful, angry Universe telling us to calm the fuck down. \o/

So, we get home. I was patiently waiting on the Class Fucking 10 SD card. It arrived early. And it also happened to arrive the same time construction dudes showed up to install new windows in our penthouse. They were scheduled for Wednesday, but being in cahoots with the Universe, they arrived the day I was supposed to shoot.


Fuck. OK. Whatever. I'll just hang out. And by "hang out", I mean spin my wheels and sit stewing in Impatient Soup. So the installers finish up around 4, leaving me alone to my own devices. Now, I'm not sure how much experience y'all have with shooting video. It can be a real old bitch sometimes when you have a whole crew and shits' not lining up and you're hemorrhaging money. Shooting video by yourself with manual focus on a 50mm lens? I felt like Sisyphus with the largest goddamned bolder you've ever seen with Oprah perched on it.
 


Being the super awesome bad-ass that I am, however, I persevere. I do some test shots to test focus and white-balance, and prep audio. Everything is set. I shower, get my Face on, look reasonably attractive but nothing to skanky. I'm going for that credible look here, people. I know my bullet points to keep me on track, know what I'm going to say and I even have some funny quips about cats and the new Illumiroom from Microsoft. I'm set. Speed on camera. AND GO.

10 minutes, and I'm done with Take 1. That is, until I realize I forgot to get speed on sound.

/sigh. OK. So all is not lost. I can do another take. I can use the footage I shot to check out how everything looks, and make any adjustments before doing it again for realsies this time. I remove the brand new Class Fucking 10 card from my camera, and thinking "I sooooo got this" I slid the card... INTO THE CD READER. NOT the card reader.



In one fell swoop, I managed to mangle my iMac (and guaranteed the 5th vacation) and lost the brand new SD card. Stand back everybody, we have a bad-ass over here. <.<

And that's the long and short of it. I spent the rest of Thursday crying all over the place like a depressed hippo and watching the West Wing, because Aaron Sorkin is a genius and I wanted to make myself feel awful for not making Aaron Sorkin-caliber content immediately, and by myself.

I'm going to stream some League of Legends while I discuss what I was going to talk about on my show after I take a nice, long walk around the lake across the street. Nothing makes me feel better about myself than seeing homeless people fighting over refuse brought in by the watershed. Also, I may have promised to be a second for one of them, as it often comes to blows and they need someone to hold their garbage when they get into fisticuffs.

And being the hormonal Sharknado clusterfuck that I am right now, I'm going to leave you all with my renewed hopes of having my show air next Friday at noon.

Happy Friday, you awesome people.

Much love,
Geektron.

P.S: Thank you to Stefani, Jon and Misha from talking me down from the proverbial ledge. Tough days are tough.











Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Everything I Need to Know, I Learned from the Internet

Hello dear friends,

So we've come 6 days from my last blog post. In that time, Misha and I have been working diligently on our studio:

We have training.
We have editing software. 
We have lights.
We have sound.
We have picture.
We have composition and focus.
 We even have a possible sponsor for the show already.

Super duper, right? What's the deal? Why am I writing this blog and not filming ALL THE THINGS RIGHT NOW OMFG?

Well, funny thing: when learning something new from people who have been at it for some time is that small details seem to get glossed over and spackled as common knowledge. Because, of course, *everyone* knows you need a special class of SD cards on which to record your video data using a DSLR. Like, that's basic Video 101. Duh. Everyone knows that shit.

Everyone. Except for me. Fuck me, right?

So here I sit, impatiently waiting on our 32 gig, Class Fucking 10 SD card to finally show up so I can get this goddamned show recorded. Coincidentally, I learned all about SD cards from Google. Take that, Kindergarten.

So that is what is up on this cloudy and cold Hump Day in California. I'm confident the show will be posted by Friday at noon on my YouTube channel. But don't worry: I'll be sure to spam the crap out of it. I won't give you the option to miss it. I'm a giver, what can I say? ;)

Stay classy!

~Lindsaurus Rex

Thursday, January 3, 2013

My Kingdom for Coffee

Hullo friends! 

Lindsay here, continuing to chronicle the journey to dominate the wily and mysterious Internets. Elusive bugger. COFFEE! Must... drink... all the coffee! Ack! Troubleshooting is such an energy-zapper. Who knew?

Today brought a new (to us) Canon Rebel T2i! Thanks, Random Guy on Craigslist! And HUGE thanks to Misha for his super hardcore mode in driving our asses nearly 2 hours roundtrip to hop on a great deal. /hi5 I think that's his Mutant Power. And now that the focal point (heh) of our Sky High Studio has arrived, we're finally able to iron out the next kink in our massive, sprawling plot-line. Joy! 

Up next for us: to have our Battle Station fully operation by Tuesday. I have a show to produce here, people. Troubleshooting thus far has been the biggest time-sink. The learning curve is quite steep, and testing compatibility between OS X and Win 7 is a tricksy Hobbitses. Not sure if any of you have experience with this sort of thing, however, we are more than accepting of suggestions, advice and recommendations. 

The little I was able to glean from working with others, as well as Misha's inestimable ability to keep us moving forward and organized and flush with everything we need, has served us in getting this venture off the ground. 

Thanks to the support of you amazing people, we now have subscribers on my YouTube channel. I suspect this may be the only time where the number of subscribers will be higher than the number of videos for awhile. I'm so totally O.K. with that. For now. /shakes fist

I'll check in with y'all tomorrow for another post about the goings-on with us. I'll also be streaming some League of Legends on my stream, Lindsay Online, at some point tomorrow. Calloo callay! 

I shall end this post with what will become standard: PLEASE be sure to spread this around like jam on toast. Your reposts, likes, shares and Tweets really do more than money can right now, and it really is just the click of a button. Also, please be sure you like and sub to our channel and FB page, and follow us on Twitter. 


Look at it this way: if we garner enough support through you guys, we'll stop spamming you! We all win! ;)

xox
Lindsay