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Okay, so it's September 28th, and I'm finally back. I had to take an unplanned blogging hiaitus, as some design work, other projects, the start of the new schoolyear, the Philly Fringe/Live Arts Festival (30 shows this year, up from a mere 16 last year), and life in general sort-of got in the way.
I'm sure my hordes of adoring blog fans (all, like, three of you?) must have been going through withdrawal. Sorry about that.
So I have at least a half-dozen incomplete or yet-to-be-started posts waiting in the wings. It's probably going to seem anti-climactic after the long wait, but in case you're still wondering why my geek factor must be so much higher than yours...
Near the beginning of August, for the 7th year in a row, B and I attended Defcon, a convention in Las Vegas, dubbed as "the biggest underground hacker convention in the world" or something like that - although it's hardly underground, given that your typical attendee is either a nerdy high school kid, a professional programmer/problem-solver like B, a security specialist sent by the big company they work for, or a Fed. Now, while the fact that I still go to this convention with B every year (and the fact that I almost always thoroughly enjoy it) does increase my geek factor to a degree, that's just the tip of the iceberg.
[Please note: hacker ≠ criminal. That symbol between them means "does not equal." The equation of hacker to criminal was something that began when the media and the government co-opted the term in order to identify individuals who used their skills and know-how to commit internet/computer-based crimes such as compromising others' personal e-mail or bank accounts. Most hackers are guilty of nothing other than being highly intelligent and creative problem-solvers. And while it is true that most people who identify themselves as "hackers" identify specifically as software hackers or computer hackers, the term hacker is not exclusive to the field of computing. One way of defining "to hack" (aside from the obvious definitions relating to slicing or chopping) is "to re-engineer something in order to use it in a way that is different from its intended purpose." Therefore, I could identify myself as a "costume hacker" if I wanted to. Believe me, some of the stuff that ends up being used in costumes is used in a way that is strikingly different from its intended purpose. Take, for another example, the Ikea Hacker. I don't mean to be getting preachy - I just had to clear that up in case the words "hacker convention" had raised anyone's hackles. The definitions (and arguments) over the term hacker could make for a very long post, and that's not what this blog is about. If you would like to read more about it though, consider this article.]
So...while we're in Vegas each year, we usually try to go to Quark's Bar for dinner one night, as we did this year.
The friends we look forward to spending most of our time with at Defcon each year: Brett and Shanna, Dustin and Melanie, me and B. And those are mini Warp Core Breaches we're drinkin' (the green ones... I don't remember the name of the brownish ones).For those of you who aren't in the know: Quark's Bar was a restaurant located on the Promenade deck of Deep Space Nine, the space station aboard which much of the action in the television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine took place. The real Quark's Bar in Las Vegas, which was modeled after the fictional Quark's Bar of the television series, is (or was, until very recently) part of the Star Trek Experience, an attraction consisting of two multi-media themepark-style rides, a museum/timeline display, a couple of stores, and the restaurant, all housed in an area of the Hilton Hotel that was designed to look like it came out of a Star Trek film or television eposide. As an admitted Trekkie, this place was known as Mecca for me and my people.
This particular trip to Quark's Bar was to be a bittersweet one, because the Star Trek Experience closed on Labor Day. Go ahead and laugh, but I'm getting choked-up just writing about this. The big Star Trek convention that takes place at the Hilton every year fell on the same weekend as Defcon this year, so we had the pleasure of being surrounded by fans even more geeky and devoted than myself during our visit. We had the luck of getting to sit next to some amazingly-costumed fans, who let me have my photograph taken with them after I went over and gushed at length about how awesome I thought they were.
Women from three different planets - how cool is that?
Sorry about the shiny forehead. It gets hot in Vegas.
Many more photographic highlights from the evening:
Dustin and Melanie had their picture taken... how romantic!
My posse says to live long and prosper... Gangsta.
And so do I.
So long, Star Trek Experience.
But I haven't gotten to the geekiest part of the story yet. In what I can only describe as a fit of extreme sentimentality, perhaps heightened by the consumption of a mini Warp Core Breach and the rest of someone else's mini Warp Core Breach (Whose? No idea.), I spent an absurd amount of money, a figure which will remain undisclosed, on Star Trek-related memorabilia before I was able to tear myself away from Trekkie Mecca for what I knew would be the last time ever.
I advise clicking on this photo to get the full effect.
Some close-up shots of the toys..
a communicator:
It makes Star Trek sounds!
a phaser:
It's a "water-emitter." Get it?
a com badge:
It makes that characteristic blippy noise when I tap it.
If I ever get up the nerve to wear my 2001 Halloween costume again, those are going to be such an improvement over my T.V. remote control and late-90s cell phone!
The weekend was a blast, but I neglected to take pictures of much else. I had dinner with dear, wonderful, you-make-me-want-to-move-to-Vegas-to-live-near-you, college friend Sage on Thursday night, and I managed not to require an ambulance ride to the emergency room like I did last year. I watched the beer-cooling contraption contest on Friday, as I have for the past few years. I really wanted to enter it this year, but I couldn't think of a design that would be easily transportable on the plane, and wouldn't require purchasing dry ice or liquid nitrogen in Vegas. A contraption idea, so simple a kid could have thought of it, came to me while I was watching the contest. If all goes as planned, I intend to be a significant contender in this contest next year. A few of this year's entries:
Team "HeBrew." They're Jewish twin brothers.
These first two entries incorporated dry ice.
This one incorporated liquid nitrogen.
Their lines are frozen and they're trying to defrost them on the Vegas asphalt.
Deviant Ollam takes the temperature of a (revolting domestic) beer that had been sitting in the Vegas sun for a while, before it gets poured through a cooling contraption:
