So, I finally joined the cult of the iPhone.  I loved my Blackberry, but the battery was dying and Barnes & Noble were no longer supporting the Nook eReader software for Blackberry, so I couldn’t get to half my books, which was the last straw.  Look, I’ll put up with my phone dying at inopportune moments, but when you mess with my access to literature?  Oh no, it is ON.

So, yeah, iPhone.  I’m still getting used to it. I liked the actual physical keyboard on the Blackberry, so my friends are getting some hilariously autocorrected messages from me from time to time, especially when I’m on the bus.  Seriously, if one more person asks me if what I just sent them was a euphemism…

Saturday, after dropping off the foster cat with his family (Hooray!), picking up some bowls from some baking The Geek Husband What Rules did for a friend’s party last month, he took me to the Apple store so I could get a case for my phone.  I was wearing my WeLoveFine Loki God of Mischief* t-shirt, this becomes important later.   I spent about fifteen minutes dithering over the “Keep Calm and Carry On” case, the really intense, super protective case, the marginally less protective case, and this awesome case that looked like a leatherbound book (and was $60).  The book case was black, which is fortunate, because if it had been red and looked like the book in Labyrinth, it would have been all over and I would have blown $60 on a stupid phone accessory.  But instead, I settled on a purple slightly less protective case.

While I was dithering, one of the Mac store guys came up to us and said, “I’m going to ask if you need help in a minute, but first I have to say I love your t-shirt.  And I’m guessing you’ve seen Avengers, and liked it.  What did you think of that Hiddleston guy who played Loki?”  The GHWR rolled his eyes, and I managed to restrain myself to, “He did an amazing job, and he’s kinda hot.”  The guy laughed and said, “Yeah, my fiancee feels the same way.  She’s always looking at pictures of him online.”  So we talked about Avengers, the other things Tom Hiddleston’s been in, and geeking out in general, before he rang up my phone case and sheet protectors, and we headed out to play Miskatonic School for Girls at the Best Girlfriend in the World’s house.

I love wearing geeky shirts, buttons, hoodies because it means that people who dig your interests can find you, and you can have awesome conversations about movies, actors and comics in the Apple store on a busy Saturday afternoon.  I love meeting people that way, because as geeks we spend, or used to spend, so much time feeling isolated.  At least us older geeks.  The young’uns are growing up with the internet and so they have vast networks of what a lot of my friends refer to as “imaginary friends”** all over the world, who share their interests, feelings and develop into a real emotionally supportive network of friends.  And that is is awesome.

I think the media focuses too much on the bad that comes out of things like Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and not on the good.  The constant re-blogging of notes with things like, “If this gets 1,000 reblogs, I won’t cut myself for a month for every thousand reblogs.”

Kids killing themselves due to bullying is not a new phenomenon, it’s just that the media is now bothering to report on it.  We had three suicides in a six month period at my junior high, and multiple attempts, that got no notice from anyone, not even really the school authorities, until one of the students who died was a popular football player.  Two other students had died, and there was not a “please see the counselors if you need help coping,” or anything.  The foot ball player died, and they brought in this fundamentalist Christian group who told us all that the secret to not killing yourself was praying to Jesus for help.  Not counseling or anything useful, a bunch of religious nutjobs who told us that Jesus would keep us alive.  Yes, it was a public school.  Sigh, the separation of Church and State, not so strong in Idaho.

Oops, sorry.  A little bit of angry slipped out there.

The point is, geeks are everywhere.  Every time I wear a skirt with no tights, and people can see my Nightcrawler tattoo, or I wear a comic themed t-shirt, I get stopped by someone who wants to talk about it, usually other women, but sometimes guys.  The internet is filled with nerds banding together over their shared love of movies, books, TV shows, actors, and webcomics.  And it’s a beautiful thing.  On the bus the other day, I heard two high school girls gushing over manga.  You have no idea how happy that makes me.  Having a salesguy make a point of coming over to help us because he liked my shirt makes me ecstatic.  People noticing the rainbow GEEK pin on my bag is awesome.

I love nerd culture, and I love that we don’t have to hide in the Server Closet*** about it anymore.  Heh, we’ve got several of the punk rock guys around here into roleplaying games, they’ve started playing Magic, when Jake came over to help the GHWR fix his Kitchen-Aid, the GHWR taught him how to play Dominion and apparently at the show that night he wouldn’t quit raving about it.

Now, on to the update on the last post about Real Person Fic.  I had someone respond to that post, not here, that in the late 80s, she’d had someone write nasty, sexual RPF about her and circulate it via hardcopy and BBS because she had in some way pissed them off.  And that it had been incredibly hurtful to her that someone would DO that to her, about her.  She’s come to terms with it now, but I just can’t imagine doing that to anyone.  It’s like a more permanent version of the awful rumors that flew around my jr. high about me (it is amazing how many sexual partners one 13 year old virgin to whom most people won’t even speak can have in a year, I tell you).  So, guys, I’m not going to tell you not to write RPF, but be mindful of what  you write and where and how you post it.  Please.  The people you are writing about, be they celebrities or someone you know, are real people with feelings.  Don’t be an asshole, ok?

If you like the blog or the podcast, or if you would like to help fund my desire to own every Loki t-shirt currently on WeLoveFine.com (and they have a LOT), please, please, please donate to keep us going.  Donations go to pay for the podcast hosting and website domain, primarily.

T-shirts will happen, however, vet bills and end of life cat care have sort of put everything else on hold for awhile.

Oh, and Honey Badger’s first two songs are available for download here, for free or pay what you want.  Also, we have stickers!!!!  We’re playing a show in the lounge at El Corazon this Saturday, if any of you are local and interested.

Remember we’ve got the GGR Twitter, Tumblr and Facebook page.

*This shirt is awesome for two reasons: 1. Loki, 2. the Mucha-esque influence.  I love Mucha.  
**We don’t mean to denigrate those friendships by calling them “imaginary” because for many of us, our online friendships are just as real and intense as our IRL friendships.  It’s just our shorthand for online -v- meatspace friends.   Neither is any more or less real.  
*** Computer dork reference, for the technologically reclined.