Beyond 2010 Hackathon Announcement!

 

Good morning geeks!

We’re happy to finally be officially announcing the hackathon! I have to tell you, when we were first told of the hackathon concept, the image above is the first thing that sprung to mind. Of course, then Shauna got me back on track, and has been in many, many discussions over the past month.

So what is a hackathon?

Traditionally a ‘hackathon’  is an event that brings together idea generators, coders, designers, programmers and more to collaboratively work on one project. On Wednesday, October 20th Edmonton will have its own Hackathon in conjunction with the Beyond 2010 Conference and partners Microsoft and Edmonton Girl Geek Dinners.

What will our hackathon be like?

It will be slightly different then most hackathons. While we work on our project, we’ll also be sharing what we’re working on with Seoul and Birmingham as we ‘follow the sun’.

We’re going to spend 24 hours trying to create the blueprint for an app design that can be used in cities all over the world. An application that will help families prepare during a disaster. An app that will list emergency muster points, emergency info, alerts during disasters, and what you can do. After all, although floods and tornados are both emergency situations, you don’t handle them the same way. This app will hopefully keep people safe, and we hope to come up with a guideline of how it should look – so that app designers around the world can pick up the guideline and run with it.

We’ll also be having a Girl Geek Mixer in the evening. But it’s important to note: although it’s called a Girl Geek Mixer – this event is for EVERYONE. We’re going to need all hands on deck in order to accomplish what we plan at the hackathon… so bring anyone who can help. And everyone will be invited to hang out at the mixer and rest their minds before we get back to our planning.

I have to make this clear: Male and Female Geeks Unite! We’re all a part of the Hackathon.

So, if you already know what you want – where does this leave me?

Happy you asked, bold font. Shauna and I, although major fans of apps and tech minds… aren’t able to do this sort of work. We can help, but we don’t know what you need to know or have at your fingertips to make this work. Also, the idea for the application is still pretty general. We’re going to need your help to conceptualize the options, and then run with one of them. This hackathon is very much a design and discovery event, rather than development.

This sounds great! Where do I sign up?

We need you to join us for this day of brain storming, idea generation and at the end of it all, helping cities around the world.

If you are a copy writer, developer, programmer, designer, engineer, marketer or have a knack for problem solving and generating ideas – we want you at this event!

The Hackathon will be a 24-hour event, come for a little or as long as you’d like.

We will begin the Hackathon at 9:15am Wednesday, October 20^th, and continue until 9:15am Thursday, October 21^st, we will need people to join us to help conceptualize and begin development on the chosen application/website.

To make this a fun event and as a thanks we will be supplying refreshments, snacks and lunch, not to mention your opportunity to join us for the YEGGirlGeek Mixer on the evening of the Hackathon.

CLICK HERE to RSVP for the Hackathon and let us know when you will be able to join us. We have segmented the time periods in 3-hour increments; choose one, two or as many time slots as you’d like to attend.

Questions?  Email us, tweet us, or leave a comment below!

Hope to see you there!

s1e3 – post dinner recap

Hello Geeks!

Sorry about the lengthy time between dinner and recap again. I promise this isn’t going to be a habit – it’s just a very busy couple of months!  One thing that’s keeping Shauna and I busy is the Hackathon – which we asked you to save the date for! It’s October 20th. It will also be the first ever #yggm that night. What’s a #yggm? I’ll get to that after a teensy little recap of what went on during the last YEG Girl Geek Dinner.

Our latest YEG Girl Geek Dinner was held at 100 Bar + Kitchen.  The staff were fantastic, and the food absolutely delicious. Thanks to Marko, Ned, Mike, Natasha, Executive Chef Phil, and Dave for helping make the night run so smoothly.

Once again… how great was the dessert?

We started off with introductions and our wildcard question. This dinner the question was to name your favourite geek girl in history, tv, books, or movies. I was amazed at the range of answers! From Penny of Inspector Gadget fame, to Noble Peace Prize winners, to Astronauts, to Felicia Day (and Delicia Fay), to Velma from Scooby Doo – there is never a shortage of fantastic answers that always surprise me.

Our speakers this month were Ashley Casovan and Cam Linke who spoke about Beyond 2010, the upcoming Hackathon, Apps4Edmonton, StartupEdmonton and DemoCamp. (Which by the way – don’t forget that DemoCamp is happening this Tuesday September 28th! See you there!)

We are very, VERY excited to be working with Ashley Casovan and the fine folks at the City of Edmonton on the upcoming Hackathon. All the details are being finalized – but we do ask that you save the date of October 20th – because it will be a blast!

Speaking of October the 20th — it will also be our first #yggm. What’s #yggm stand for? It’s a Yeg Girl Geek Mixer! It won’t be your standard Girl Geek Dinner. This will be more about mingling and meeting everyone. No speakers, just you and your fellow geeks chatting away. It’s going to be a lot of fun, and a great break for those of us spending copious amounts of time in the Hackathon! Stay tuned for further details – but mark the calendar!

Another thing we announced at the last dinner was The Great T-Shirt Challenge! We’re looking to create a fab shirt for YEG Girl Geeks and friends to wear. But we need YOUR help to design it. A reminder that you only have until October 7th to get those designs into us! Full details can be found in the original blogpost. (along with my fantastic idea!)

So why haven’t you submitted your ideas yet?! If you’re an ideas person – team up with someone with the design know-how and submit as a team.

Also – for more s1e3 photos, head to flickr. And don’t forget to take photos at the dinners and add them into our flickr group. (Because I haven’t had time to actually play with my new camera yet – and my photos are rubbish.)

Look forward to seeing your t-shirt designs and talking to you at the Hackathon/Girl Geek Mixer October 20th!

The Great T-Shirt Challenge

Shauna and I have been waiting for a long while to announce this… (in fact, there are a number of things we’re waiting to announce – but you’ll have to wait for the rest!)

We’re holding a T-Shirt Challenge! We need the ladies and gents of Edmonton to put on your creative hats and come up with a shirt that you think embodies Edmonton Geeks or that promotes geekiness. These shirts will commemorate our inaugural year, and pay homage to the International Girl Geeks, as Girl Geek Dinners was started five years ago.

Is it just a woman’s shirt? Nope, it’s a shirt for everyone. Your design should be unisex and look good on a black background. We’re getting the design printed on the front of black shirts, just-so-you-know.

There are no colour limits on the shirt, so feel free to get as creative as you want to get. There doesn’t have to be any words, but if you choose to put words on it, we ask that you don’t directly quote movies, tv shows, or song lyrics. As catchy as the Girl Geek song is.

Feel free to use our logo if you’d like to.

So…. Rules:

• Anyone can enter! Man, woman, geek, geekette, or t-shirt designing robot.
• You can only enter a max of 3 times each.
• No corporate logos or copywritten images.
• Entries can be emailed to yeggirlgeek@gmail.com until Thursday, October 7, 2010.
• A team of esteemed judges, including Shauna and Brittney shall judge the top t-shirt, which will be printed.

THE PRIZE! Will be 1 year of Girl Geek Dinners (minimum of 10) and a free t-shirt with your design on it! Also: fame.

So get designing! Start sending in your submissions… otherwise we might have to go with my submission. Would you wear this?

Of course you would. Everyone wants to wear it.

Needs more unicorns.

The best parts of Comic Con 2010

Firstly, Morgan Smith gives us her Top 5 of Comic Con:

5. Off-Site Events

The Geek Girl Network Tweetup and Comedy Central’s free show were little diamonds Brittney and I were happy to unearth. Brit and I met some awesome people at the Tweetup and walked away with awesome swag – like a limited edition scent from BPAL called Dungeon Crawl!

The Comedy Night was more hit or miss, but I got a free iPhone case out of it, discovered some new comics (and a new future husband in the form of Chris Gethard), AND we got to watch John Oliver’s unannounced set at the end! Huzzah!

And though it wasn’t an official off-site event, I did enjoy getting festively soused with my friends from L.A., Rob and Nick Sitter. Nick, in fact works on one of Brittney’s favourite shows – he does the background art for The Big Bang Theory. Hooray new friends!

4. Preview Night

This was the night not everyone could get in for.  This year, they cut down on the number of preview night passes sold, so not everyone who had a four-day ticket could get in.  That made the Exhibition Hall especially pleasurable to get around. PLUS exhibitors weren’t sick of the throngs of geeks yet!  Brittney and I met and chatted with Matt Fraction (Cassanova) Bill Willingham (Fables), Jeph Jaques (Questionable Content), Meredith Gran (Octopus Pie), Ryan Q. North (Dinosaur Comics) and the Penny Arcade guys!  And we discovered a new short story collection we’ll have to check out when it’s published: Unicorns vs. Zombies. Happy we bought our passes for next year on Sunday, because preview night 2011 is already sold out!

3.  The Scott Pilgrim Experience

We all know SWAG is a big part of Comic-Con, but not often am I so impressed with what’s obviously a love letter to fans. By visiting the Scott Pilgrim Experience you got (FOR FREE):

• garlic bread
• a T-shirt
• a flip book starring myself and Brittney
• ANOTHER T-shirt – one where I got to pick the colour, size, and silk-screen pattern
• to meet actors from the movie (Brittney and I have photos with Ellen Wong, the lovely lady who played Knives Chau

I also got to be within spitting distance of ANOTHER of my future husbands, director Edgar Wright. Though I could think of much better ways to swap spit with him.

2. The Expendables Panel

Speaking of Edgar Wright, he had the crowd in stitches when he MC’d his own panel for Scott Pilgrim. Michael Cera was hilarious too, showing up in a padded Captain America Costume.  That wasn’t the best part of Hall H on Thursday.
Now, I loved seeing Tina Fey and Will Farrell swap the comedy for the Megamind panel, it was neat seeing Angelina Jolie for Salt, and it was fun watching Warren Ellis seethe with contempt for the Hollywood version of the very terse graphic novel he wrote (Red), but The Expendables was the most entertaining panel, hands down. The reason? Sylvester Stallone, who is HILARIOUS. No, I’m serious guys. Plus, Terry Crews actually said about his pulsing arms “The gun show is here in San Diego.” And he made his pecks dance. Probably won’t see the movie, but wow, I had a good time watching the panel!

1. AMC’s The Walking Dead panel

Brittney is so sick of hearing about this, but this was really the highlight of the Con for me. I am a HUGE fan of the comic.  I’ve been collecting it since trade number one. It’s a brutal, gritty comic about survival in a world ruled by zombies.  It’s a zombie film that never ends – and a TV show is the perfect medium for it.  Look at this pedigree:

• AMC, the network that brought us two of the most amazing shows of the last decade: Breaking Bad and Mad Men.
• Greg Nicotero – If you’re at all a Zombie nerd, you’ll know who this guy is. He’s the genius who brought zombie dismemberment to life for the father of the zombie – George Romero.
• Gale Anne Hurd – the producer who brought you Aliens and the Terminator. Yeah, she’s pretty gawddamn awesome for so many reasons, the latest of which is The Walking Dead.
• Frank Darabont – the same man who brought us the very best Stephen King film adaptations. This is the guy behind The Green Mile, The Shawshank Redemption and The Mist. He does NOT pull his punches.
• Robert Kirkman – He’s the creator and writer of the comic. And he’s written an episode of the series. He’s heavily involved, so we won’t be seeing a government scientist come and save the day. At least not for a while.
• And announced at the panel… The guy who brought us that pounding single note on the piano for Battlestar Gallactica will be scoring the carnage for WD – Bear McCreary took the stage unexpectedly to tell us he wouldn’t be doing what everyone expects.
• And finally the trailer! OH THE TRAILER!  It’s agonizing and horrifying and brutal and the Walker Bros’ “The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore” will give me chills for the rest of my life.

Myself and people up and down the row I was in were stunned into joyful silence watching the trailer. The girl next to me had goosebumps I could see. So did I.  Everyone on the panel was so excited, you could hear it in their voices and see it in their faces.  They knew they had something special.  This is why I love TV. This is why I love comics. This is why I love Comic-Con!

Thanks Morgan! I want to add now that she is a fantastic traveling partner. Really puts up with all my bull, which really takes a certain type of person. (Not that I’m ever difficult…)

Now what you’ve all been waiting for… Brittney’s top parts of the con.

5. Preview Night

The elusive preview night. Rumoured to already be sold out for 2011 (we both already have our tickets!) - preview night tickets for 2010 was scaled back from previous years. Which made it more coveted and (more importantly) less crowded. Last year, I didn’t care about missing preview night. Now that I’ve gone, I’ve changed my tune. You have a better chance of seeing the preview/pilots of shows on Wednesday night… and more up my alley, the floor is VERY much less populated.  Want to take your time to browse booths? Want to mingle with writers/artists/stars/etc? Want the friendliest booth employees? Want breathing room? It’s all there on Wednesday night!

Speaking to creators/people who aren’t sick of the crowds yet is a really nice treat! Well worth the extra monies.

4. Hall H on Thursday

Okay, I have a tough time narrowing things down. Especially at an event where I have a crazy low amount of bad experiences. Hall H, for those unfamiliar, is a MADHOUSE. Consider this: a nearly 7,000 person hall where the line to get in is usually a 4+ hour wait. Sounds crazy – doesn’t it? It’s really not that bad. Yes, standing for 4 hours on a hot San Diego day isn’t on my list of things to do… but this year, I had line-luck.  Morgan and I got there around 7:30am.  We were among the first 1,000 in line and people quickly piled up behind us. We got inside in time for the first panel – Megamind! It was a great time. Then there was Tron, which was not only amazing – but we got to record bits for the upcoming movie. So very cool!

After Tron, we snagged some seats close to the stars and close to the bathroom. Glorious. All day we sat in that hall, learning about Megamind, Tron, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Haunted Mansion, SALT, RED, Battle: Los Angeles, the Expendables, Joss Whedon and JJ Abrams, and Scott Pilgrim vs the World. We saw tons of celebrities, heard a lot of interesting info on upcoming movies, and saw two of the most genius minds of television.

Spending a whole day in one Hall sounds a bit crazy, I’ll admit, but we lucked out on scheduling with a list of panels we both wanted to see. (Ballroom 20 was similar on Friday.)

3. Ballroom 20 / Barenaked Ladies

One of the coolest things about San Diego Comic Con  is that you never know who or what to expect. This was the biggest for me in Ballroom 20 on Friday when during the Big Bang Theory panel – which was already filled with an awesome cast and moderated by Wil Wheaton – was made even cooler when the Barenaked Ladies came out and performed the extended Theme Song in front of all 6,000+ of us!

Also in Ballroom 20 on Friday was my new San Antonio friend Ryan, who kept me company the whole day. The panels we watched were Stargate, Caprica, the Big Bang Theory, Bones, Joss Whedon, the EW Girls Who Kick Ass panel, and True Blood.  There was so much awesome, I almost worried my head would explode.

2. SWAG

Okay, I’m not a swag-monster by any stretch of the imagination, but who doesn’t love free stuff? And at Comic Con – swag doesn’t always stand for Stuff We All Get. Because of this, there is always plenty of panels, booth, or street giveaways that you miss. So, comparing swag is one of the fun experiences you get at Comic Con. The best swag was definitely from Scott Pilgrim. They had a whole Scott Pilgrim Experience set up.  Inside the Experience, a design-your-own-t-shirt where you could pick your own shirt, design, and colour – and if you were really lucky, one of the Scott Pilgrim stars would silkscreen the shirt for you. You also could play the Scott Pilgrim game, record a movie to send to Facebook and get a Flip Book made of you and your friends. Outside the Experience, a big sign that said: “STUFF”.  There, you got free stuff – including Scott Pilgrim Shirts! (Diane won one at the Girl Geek Dinner)

True Blood also had amazing swag. If you went to their panel, you got a ticket which – after taking it to the fulfillment room – you got your prize! A black True Blood bag which included a Sookie Stackhouse book, postcards, vamp-stamps (bandaids which are meant to cover up your vampire bites), and an empty notebook. That’s a lot of swag considering some panels (I’m looking at you Family Guy and The Simpsons) give really terrible crappy buttons. No one wants to wait in a line in the sun for the fulfillment room for a crappy button.

Which brings me to other awesome swag – buttons! Haha, I know, I just complained about buttons… but I said I hated waiting in line in the sun for buttons. Most panels who handed out buttons, or booths with buttons just gave them to you. There was no waiting, no ticket for a button. Panels who wanted to give away fun buttons simply handed them out! And considering that most people put their buttons onto their lanyards, showing them off to everyone they meet – buttons are a great small treat to hand out.

1. Meeting People

My absolute favourite part of Comic Con is meeting new people. One of the most fun events I went to was the Girl Geek Network Tweetup. There I met many a fantastic person, delighted Americans with tales of Rat-free Alberta, and listened to geek music. It was amazing, but my migraine cut the evening short. But there’s always next year!

The all-time best place to meet people? Lines. That’s why I don’t mind standing in line, not one bit. I don’t understand line-rage… because you need to stand in line to get anywhere. It’s really standard for Comic Con now-a-days… but people get so growly. You know who I’ve met in line? Nick, who’s an artist who has work used on the Big Bang Theory, and a number of folks from Edmonton, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Antonio, Ohio, Illinois, etc, etc, etc…

Meeting people with similar interests is possibly the best experience of them all. And that is what keeps me coming back to Comic Con, the fun experiences.

If you want to see what I can’t explain with words, you should check out the flickr set of our trip.

Oh, probably one of my favourite moments which I can’t put into words?

s1e2 – post dinner recap

Phew! What a crazy week! I can’t believe I’m getting this Dinner Recap up a week late. My apologies about that folks – returning to a normal schedule after Comic Con was harder than I thought it would be. Sure shows me for taking a vacation… Speaking of Comic Con – the recap post there is coming too. (So’s Christmas, I know…)

So. Dinner. Our Second Dinner – Season One, Episode 2, was held at the fabulous Lux Steakhouse. Thanks so much to Chef Tony Le, Chef Andrew Cowan, Robin and Jade for all their help! The meal was amazing – and the gluten free chocolate cake ruined other cakes for me.

This was so amazing.

Our guest speakers were Jason Suriano and Chris Dunsing from Seek Your Own Proof and Catherine Vu of Pro-Active IT Management.

Seek Your Own Proof was interesting because it reminded me of my love for Carmen Sandiego (Do it Rockapella!) and it was really neat to see the character development and how it changed over the years for their girl characters. (Also, I now want to sign up and try my luck at all the puzzles.)

Christine Vu gave all of us interested in consultant work or considering our own businesses a good rundown of her experience.  It was definitely helpful to those of us starting out, or considering branching out in the future.

Another highlight of the night? How passionate the group got when the spaceship debate came up. It was Firefly vs… well, it doesn’t even matter, as the Firefly would win. Unless it was against the TARDIS. What? Adam Baldwin, Alan Tudyk, and Nathan Fillion are on the Firefly… what did you think my answer would be?

I’ll admit, I dropped the ball this past dinner and totally didn’t take enough good pictures. So if you snapped some shots, why not send them our way or add them to our Flickr group, for the world to see.

Lastly, I bet you’re probably wondering about Episode 3… well, I can release the date – which is September 16. Other than that… mum’s the word! We’re trying to secure something pretty cool, and will hopefully announce it mid-August. Until then, and as always, suggestions, ideas, criticisms, and love notes are always welcome.

I kissed a nerd – and I liked it!

Wow, we’ve been WAY quiet lately.  Sorry ladies and gents. It’s due to the fact that I spent all my energy waxing nerdlitical on The Unknown Studio with Adam and Scott.

If you haven’t heard the podcast yet, I was their guest on Season Two, Episode One – The Brittney Show! We really out-geeked ourselves… even talked Heroes for nearly 10 minutes!  I finally got to do  the Fast Fifteen, which I’ve got to say, makes me feel like I’ve finally made it. (Made it where? I’m not sure…)

I’ve also spent a lot of time playing new boardgames, Dungeons and Dragons, and dreaming about Comic-Con, which is only a few short weeks away! I’m also reading a book on Dungeons and Dragons for ladies, and will be posting about it when I finish. (It will probably be a plane book for the trip to San Diego, so don’t expect it next week!)

Anyways, on my trips around the Internet, I came across this little ditty, which is a parody of Katy Perry’s “I kissed a girl and  I liked it”.

With lines like: “For you I’ll do roleplaying games / And learn to factor” and “I kissed a nerd  just for science”, this parody is pretty fun.  Give it a whirl!

Thanks to Geekologie for the original post on the parody video.

Send your face into space!

Have you ever wanted to head into space? Seriously… space – the final frontier if you will.

Alright… so I can’t promise that you can go into space. I mean, what is this? Spacecamp? Let’s face facts… it takes a lot of training to be an astronaut.

Next best thing? NASA is going to fly YOUR face into space.

Not to be confused with Space Your Face, another NASA site… which… okay, what the what is that?

Oh… kay then.

So, anyways… Face in Space is a program where NASA will put a picture of you on one of two remaining space shuttle missions and launch it into orbit. You’ll become a part of history, and, after the missions, download a special certificate that shows that you’ve left your mark on space travel.

So how does this work? Head to the site and click the big Participate button towards the bottom. Then select a picture you’d like to see on a space shuttle, and add your name.

Don’t want your picture included? You can just sign up with your name.

Then, you’ll be given a confirmation page with your flight information. Print this off.

After the landing of the shuttle mission, return to the website. You’ll be able to print off your very own Flight Certificate – which will be signed by the Mission Commander.

How freaking awesome is that?

So send your face into Space! I’m sure it will be out of this world. (Ha! I’m hilarious.)

The Booth Babe

E3 is on this week. How much do you wish you could be there? I’d even wear a stupid poncho to attend.

But, with any geek convention, comes the Booth Babes. You know the ones, those perky ladies in their tight sometimes-skimpy outfits. Their purpose: to draw the male geeks like flies to honey. Do they work? Yes, yes, they do. But with the growing number of women attending geek conventions, are they really still necessary?

This week, the Geek Girls Network announced Geek Girls are taking over Comic Con. There will be a massive Girl Geek tweetup, and a panel about how we (gasp) do exist! I’m surprised it’s really taken this long. (Also worth noting: I hope to be at both events and provide you guys with an update)

So, there are so many of us that we’re getting our own panel at San Diego Comic Con, one of the biggest geek events in North America.

And yet, things like this still happen.

@dkaszor on Twitter pointed out this video from the 1Up Network. To quote Dan: “To show off the new 3DS, Nintendo tethered each one to a ‘booth babe.” I find this deeply unsettling.” I too, find this unsettling. (Except for the 3DS, that looks cool.)

Watch the video, (which for some reason I can’t embed) and let me know what you think. Should Booth Babes still be around? Are you okay with geeky conventions still using women to hawk their wares? Would you let a guy play a 3DS that’s chained to you?

And if you’re not comfortable with the Booth Babes, what should/can we do about it?

s1e1 – post dinner recap

Thank you all for coming last night to the first ever Girl Geek Dinner in Edmonton! Shauna and I can’t begin to tell you how much we appreciate all the support. You folks have been fabulous! If you weren’t able to make it out to the dinner last night, don’t worry. There will be a lot more in the future.

Here’s a recap of last night in case you missed it, were overwhelmed at finally being able to get geeky with ladies, or were just consumed by the thought of painting robots. Now that you ladies know, I won’t be stopping until a robot paints me a picture.

So we all arrived, and put stickers on our name tags. Then people chose a seat and began to mingle with other attendees. Some attendees include: Ruth, Adam from the Unknown Studio, Kathleen, David, Rhonda, Kimberly, Jeanne-Marie, Angela, Allie, Duncan, Jaynne, Rachelle, Lea, Kim, Jodine, Cam, Ken, Cindy, Sam, Chelsea, Adam, and of course, Shauna and Brittney. (If you’re not on the list and want to be, or are on the list and don’t want to be. Just tweet/email Shauna/Brittney)

The Registration table

Lea starts a trend by standing on her chair to introduce herself.

Duncan comes prepared. The introduction questions were sent out in advance, and he had them ready.

After introductions and appetizers came more mingling and dinner ordering. While everyone enjoyed dinner, Shauna and I explained our thoughts about Girl Geek Dinners in Edmonton, our geekiness, and where we want to go from here.

We also mentioned that we’re opening up the blog to our fellow geeks! So if you want to talk about the reason why Buffy is the best geek show on television, or about the space shuttle orbiting Edmonton, or anything inbetween – send us an email! Keep the email addy handy to give us a heads up on any events going on around town that you think our ladies (and gents) will want to know about.

But we’re not just about dinners! Every fourth Girl Geek Dinner or so – will actually be an event night! Whether that means lazer tag, trivia, bowling, a movie night… it’s all up to you.

That gives me the opportunity to say… We want your input! Who do you want to come speak? What topics do you want to learn about? What sort of events do you want to do? Please say build painting robots. Because I want that to happen! Also, where do you want to have dinners? Do you know of any gems around town? Or do you know of any groups that want to sponsor us, or that we should invite out? Let us know your thoughts in the comments, or by sending us an email. Thanks to everyone who’s already given us feedbank and ideas, Shauna and I will be meeting within the next few weeks to go over them and to tweak our plans.

Shauna talking to the attendees.

Next was mingling, door prizes, and goodbyes. With the last of us stragglers leaving around 11:00pm. Thanks again to Ceili’s for the sponsorship, and fantastic service!

Our next Girl Geek Dinner (s1e2) will be on July 29 at Lux Steakhouse. Tickets will cost $25.00 and will include a family-style meal. Tickets will be going on sale sometime this next week.

Until next time… Robotically yours,

Brittney

Best Girl Geek Week (of this year)

I don’t like to brag, fellow geeks… but I’ve had a fantastic geek week. It all started last Saturday when I went downstairs at work and visited the garage sale we were having in our warehouse. There, I spotted… this:

Yes, an original NES. And I scored it for $20, including two original Zelda games, Mike Tyson’s Punch Out!! and Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt. I also got a few other games and some controllers.

Also on Saturday, I attended the User Created Content birthday bash at Hi-Tech Gaming. I competed in two tournaments – a Super Mario Bros 3 tourney and a Bomberman tourney. Other tournaments were Street Fighter 4, Rockband, and Call of Duty 4. (None of which am I any good at.) I was second in the SMB:3 tourney, and completely suicidal in the Bomberman tourney. In my defense, it was the first time I had ever played Bomberman.

After purchasing my NES, a fantastic hero on Twitter, @adampatterson, offered to sell me his old NES and games as well. I picked a huge box of games up from him in exchange for mere pocket change. More on the amazing-NES (ha! Amazing-NES) later.

Because that was Tuesday, and next comes… Wednesday! And a trip down to Calgary to see Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog, LIVE at the Vertigo Theatre! (If you have never seen Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog… watch it NOW!) The adaptation was pretty good, but I was left wondering if the actor playing Captain Hammer had ever seen the musicial. He seemed to not understand subtley.

Phew. I haven’t even mentioned Adam Rozenhart‘s amazing Q&A with YegGirlGeek Dinners founder Shauna McConechy yet! You can read the post on the Unknown Studio’s website. My favourite part? When she mentions the Buffy-bot.

Thursday I drove back to Edmonton, and attended the fantastic event Pecha Kucha for the first time. It definitely, definitely will not be my last. It was inspiring, and it’s great to be in a room with so many talented and brilliant people. I’ll echo Jeff’s remarks, it gives me hope for the future of our city! You should absolutely read Mack‘s post on the evening at his blog, and follow the presenters on Twitter.

Which brings me to Friday, where I caught up on some much needed sleep, had a great pre-Girl Geek Dinner meeting with Shauna, and then took the NES for a test drive with new friend Matt Bisson.

You can get the full rundown of the evening’s events by checking out my flickr stream – but here are some highlights.

We played Super Mario Bros 3, Excitebike, Captain America and the Avengers and Track and Field II.

To get the cartridges to play, we had to jam The Beatles White Album into the console to hold down the game.

We MacGyver’d the games, and in the end, there were many wins by a certain player 2. (That would be me!)

So that’s been my awesome Girl Geek Week… how’s your week been? Any rad geek moments?

And anyone know where I can get my hands on some NES games on the cheap to free scale?