Week of Geek

Probably won’t make many posts like this often as adventures tend to get their own posts and not a jumbled collection… but this week has been full of mini geekery and I feel like sharing some of it.

Just to cover the extreme personal aspects and explain some of why the fun was possibly more fun than a “normal” person would think, this week has not been entirely fun. Monday I had to take my elderly cat- Pudgey- into the vet due to his left cheek being swollen. Turns out he has an abscess in his mouth and so I get to spend the week giving an 18yr old, grumpy bastard cat antibiotics and holding a hot compress to his face. Fun. Also… cost me a little over $200. Ouch. Additionally, I have been sick all of April with what started as a fever and then morphed into either bronchitis or walking pneumonia. Who knows. Eh, I’m down to the killer cough now and while it isn’t fun, it is survivable. So then, Thursday, I’m driving from my apt to UCLA for a show (I’ll discuss this in a few) and I swear I see what appears to be either smoke or steam coming from my engine. Now, my Tardis has no indicator lights on, the temp gauge is normal, and there are no smells or noises. So I’m worried but I’m almost to UCLA so I persevere. Text my roommate and one of my guy friends who I’m hoping is on that side of the Hollywood hills that night- just in case. After the show, I checked fluids and blah blah blah. Needless to say, I got home safe that night and after waiting forever on Friday for CarMax to come through with a simple answer, my car is at Chrysler and I’m driving a huge Jeep that I’ve nicknamed, The Beast. For the record, there’s an oil leak and something needed to be replaced in order to fix my car. Another $700. Ouch. Double ouch!

So there you have the non-geeky parts of the week. And they sort of sucked. Expensive and worrisome. So obviously, I needed my geek fun in order to survive. You would too.

The most recent of the geek fun is that my roommate and I have finally finished watching Smallville (OK, this is a lie. We were supposed to finish but we failed. She has one disk left to watch. But the rest of this paragraph stands and she’ll be back soon and then we can finish. It will happen!). Well, I finished watching when the finale aired. And I’d already watched the DVDs all the way through. But earlier this year she was out of town for a bit and I was baking stuff and I like to have noise when doing housework and what not, so I threw the first season DVDs on. And then marathoned the series. I had to stop at the end of season 8 because she had last seen mid-season 9. So since the start of March we’ve been playing the scheduling game to be able to sit down and watch the last two seasons. Seriously. But… it has finally happened. Yay! I will say this- even though I have already seen it, it’s still really fun to watch, especially with someone who hasn’t seen it. Also, while Smallville is not the best series ever- sorry, but it’s true- it was a lot of fun. Especially when marathoned on DVD and not watched one episode at a time. The series is fun and the elements of humor, adventure, and drama are strong throughout. Additionally, I love the chemistry in the Kent family; I love the chemistry of Clark with Lois; and I love the chemistry of Clark and Chloe’s friendship. Sad to see the marathon end, but I’m sure I’ll get caught up in it again next year. 😉

I should also mention the marathon of Bones that I was doing has also ended. When I first got sick with the fever all I wanted to do was lay down and rest. So of course, I threw on a DVD and just went with it. In that situation, I prefer things that I’ve seen before so that if I happen to fall asleep or what have you, I don’t really miss anything. So I chose a favorite. 🙂 Took me a bit to get through the entire series- and there were several episodes in seasons 3 & 4 that I did not remember at all!- but I did and am caught up to the current episodes (btw- I love season 7.)

So there’s the TV/DVD geekness. Now on to the real-life adventures.

A week ago my friend Emily messaged some people about attending the Renaissance Pleasure Faire this weekend. I was intrigued as I had not made it since moving to LA 3 years ago, but with the cough I was iffy. Then mid-week I decided I would go. Then my car got sick and while The Beast would be awesome to go out to wherever it was, my wallet would not be. But Emily offered to take me as a belated birthday gift… so we spent Saturday out in the wilds of Irwindale having a lovely afternoon in the boiling sun enjoying the fun. I’m sad to say that I do not currently have in my possession an appropriate outfit, so while Emily appeared in her pirate wench best, I was in jeans. Which is, of course, the reason the pic is of her and I’m being goofy behind the wood pirate sign. Aside from the ungodly evil heat, and the extreme amount of unpleasant boobs, it was a fantastic afternoon. Really glad I went! And… I shall endeavor to have an appropriate outfit for next time. Which also means that I must determine how to do that and not break my cosplay rules!

But that bit of time travel fun was not my only geeky history trek this week. Remember how I said I was driving to UCLA for a show? Well, I had picked up a discount ticket to see the LA TheatreWorks latest- Frost/Nixon. Now I love live theatre. I would go more often to shows in LA if it wasn’t so darn expensive. Also, I want to see new stuff… so I try to avoid theatres that do things I’ve seen before- like Sound of Music, etc. I love the Blank Theatre company because their shows are “edgier” or at least… they make the effort to show things that wouldn’t have been done in my hometown (Fresno, my hometown, tried to do “Into the Woods” back in the 90’s and people walked out at intermission. Personally… it’s one of my favorite musicals). I enjoy “radio” style theatre as well… this is what I consider theatre done as staged readings, with the goal to be recorded and then broadcast or sold as an audio play. It’s a little different than seeing a standard play because it’s still up to you to imagine the world- it’s like reading, only someone else does all the voices. And if you haven’t guessed by previous posts or by visiting the people I’ve met page, I’m a bit of a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan. Mind you… I don’t often pay to see James Marsters– or at least, I don’t pay much- because though he is a nice guy and funny, I’ve seen him/met him before and he tends to have a little hoard of superfans that honestly, sometimes are a wee bit frightening. In fact- though he seems to do one of these shows a year, I’ve never seen him perform (as an actor) live. So not only was this a chance to get out and see a show, for a discount price, but I could see an actor I like? Um… hell yeah! Also, though I am a pure-bred American, born in the 1970’s (barely), I’m not as well versed in the political history as I should be. Mostly because even though in college I specifically signed up for the history courses that were after the Civil War, I’ve never had a teacher get closer to the present day than the start of the Korean War. Clearly a failure of the American education system. So it was of interest to me to hear (see) this story. And it was stellar! The cast was well put together and the writing clear and excellently performed- I’m not sure if the script is different from a standard play script since it’s more of a staged reading than a play. In any case, I had a great time. I thought the gentleman (Tom Virtue) who played Nixon was really great- He had both the look and sound down. By the way- in linking to him, I realized that I know who the actor is, but I had no idea that I’d see him or knew him from any other role when I was at the show. That, to me, is a good thing because it means that though recognizable for other things, the actors performance was such that Nixon was all I saw on that stage. Marsters was also very good- though after about a decade of watching him/ “knowing” him it’s hard not to see James (hey, at least I didn’t say all I see is “Spike“). He had a great accent and even though it’s a radio play, essentially, he had great gestures and expressions throughout- he was David Frost throughout the entire show. It was a reminder, to me at least, that I need to stop whining about money and go see the man do more theatre- he really is fantastic on stage. One point of amusement to me was that I seemed to laugh at moments when many others did not (though we all laughed together often)- clearly I have a strange sense of humor. But I kept hearing the woman behind me laugh at the same points. I realized it was Marsters wife at intermission- lady has the same twisted humor I do, I like that.

The gallery at the bottom of the page contains pictures that I took at the Renaissance Faire and pictures that I have borrowed, with permission, from my friend Rebecca Doe (known to some as Mad Brilliant) that she took before or after “Frost/Nixon”. No photography was allowed during the show but I loved some of her shots and thought they’d be nice additions to this entry. Also, if you’re a fan of James’ take a look at her site- she has some amazing photos!

Tags: Action Flick Chick Posts, Actors, CosPlay, Costumes, Events, FanGirl Squee, James Marsters, Nerdtastic Ramblings, Personal, Theatre