8-bit Allergy Fighter

Chronic Geek isn't just a silly name for my blog, as I've written about from time to time I have a number of long-term health problems that greatly impact my life. Managing my health is a full-time job and my love of gaming, comic books, sci-fi and the like helps me as a distraction and sanity saver. I've also found a lot of welcoming and understanding in the geeky community.

Over the past two years one of my health problems that had formerly been under control went wild! My allergies amped up and began really altering my life. Without insurance I had worried that I was just going to suffer, but thankfully I found a clinic that charges according to income. Huzzah! Then I found out that my seasonal allergies had branched out into Oral Allergy Syndrome. This can strike any adult with allergies, at any time, and causes us to become allergic to foods that are related to our pollen problems. Great, I thought, I already have Celiac Disease and had thought I was getting off lightly with all the gluten-free foods available now, as compared to sixteen years ago when I found out... Well, jokes on me as I found I was allergic to potatoes, corn, apples, and even avocados, among other things.

As my allergies have grown worse I have made changes to try to combat them. I moved to a new apartment surrounded by cement and that helped a bit. I bought a special vacuum, tried various new prescriptions, and kept the AC running all the time (poor environment, I'm sorry!).

Finally, I was able to afford some other things to try to help my allergies. Today, I received a Vogmask in the mail. Wow!

This 8-bit beauty is amazing. As you can see it's almost too big for my face, but luckily it just fits. Not only is the pattern great, but I also love that it's black since I'm fairly gothy in my style. The top of the nose seam has a soft wire inside of it that you can pinch together to fit it to your face. This is brilliant and completely comfortable. One of the reasons why I bought this mask was that every review stated that it didn't fog up glasses. I don't use contacts, so it was important to me to find something that wouldn't impede my vision. Well, I can report that it DID NOT fog up my glasses. What a relief! I was worried about spending the money and getting something that didn't work, but I'm very pleased with this thing.

Like a total dork I went outside to model it and test it out. I can tell you that as soon as I put it on I felt a complete difference in air quality. It was amazing. I never want to take it off. However, these are not washable and it will need to be replaced at some point when it becomes clogged with pollen. Given that I live near a huge freakin' forest that will probably be within months. We'll see. They do make a washable, organic cotton variety that I may try next, but it's not very Goth looking.. ;P

Even outside in the almost 90 degree Fahrenheit weather it was still comfortable and so much easier to breathe!

I plan to take this out hiking sometime this weekend and see how it does surrounded by plants, most of which I'm allergic to. (I'm not kidding).

So, that's the Vogmask. You can check it out on Amazon here.

LAN-SAKES!

You look at this picture and see a ballroom converted into a LAN party... Well, I was there and it was really more of a WAN party. Let me explain. While some people were playing locally against each other, there was also a strong contingency of people playing games like Warcraft. I don't see anything wrong with that, but I hadn't been to a true LAN party since around 2001, so things have changed a lot!

I actually really enjoyed being around a large group of people who were all so caught up in gaming. There was a definite sense of camaraderie and good natured joking. It was also refreshing to see so many girls there kicking ass at games and taking breaks to watch Invader Zim.


The gaming towers did not disappoint. My own equipment has suffered many setbacks this semester, which had cut down on my posting and internet use. Due to age some of my computer tech died, but it burned out with glory, believe me. It was nice to see some computers with cool lights glowing around the room. Meanwhile, I brought my netbook to the party and it tried its hardest to let me play League of Legends.

There was also plenty of console gaming, including a lounge with Xbox 360's and even some older systems. Some of my cohorts were also playing Pokemon on DS against each other.

All in all it was an excellent night! The event raised money for charity and everyone seemed to have a great time. I felt recharged being around all those fellow gamers. Oh, and hey! I also got some vegan take out sushi, so huzzah! With all the pizza being consumed I had to find some deliciously gluten free to nosh on.

Tell me about your favorite or least favorite LAN party experiences in the comments!

Legend of Gamers: Video Game Store

Tucked away off the interstate in O'Fallon Illinois is a video game store, that like the Tardis, is surprisingly big on the inside. On a trip to the St. Louis area I had a chance to visit this awesome store and speak with the very cool manager.

Legend of Gamers can be found at 511 W US 50 in O'Fallon. This area also sports several other stores worth checking out and is well worth the trip if you will be near St. Louis.

Inside you can find a variety of arcade machines and fun decorations.

The selection of video games range from Atari titles to Game Boy games, NES, Sega and all the way up to current titles. You can find a variety of peripherals. There is also a selection of anime DVDs.Want to compete against your friends? They have a comfy space to battle it out. Check out the systems they have set up.

I really enjoyed my visit and picked up Kirby for Gameboy. Next time I'm there I'll be picking out a NES cartridge to give away in a future contest!

IT Crowd...v1.??

This doesn't look like the typical scene from your average computer repair lab, now does it?

Today we had to use DBAN to wipe the drives on those poor monsters we hack up on a regular basis. The professor had warned us it would take awhile and an awesome classmate of ours brought an N64 and a TV. God Bless 'em.

We played Smash Bros (I ran as Samus and later Kirby) and Golden Eye while DBAN ate up the drives like a slow acid spill.

Aside from this life in the IT program continues on as incredibly busy. We are deep in the throes of working on our Java games. I am making the art right now and coding and coding and coding.

In the past few weeks I have been privileged to hear from some amazing speakers at my clubs and at conferences here on campus. I also got to teach a group of 11-13 year old girls the fine art of basic computer networking and setting up WiFi.

Here's a view of the Smart Board with the presentation loaded up. It was an amazing experience. The girls were engaged and willing to learn and 3 of them hope to work in engineering or IT. I also got to meet a professor who has been on sabbatical. She was very inspiring and I enjoyed working with her and the other two students for the presentation.


At an Innovations Conference two weeks ago I got to hear from industry leaders from Microsoft to Motorola and a really awesome Crash Space speaker with a Maker Bot:

He had a photo of it with a "Tea, Earl Gray Hot" cup on it, but I didn't get a good picture of it. Yes, this 3-D printer that you see before you could very well be the forerunner to the Replicator...

So, that's my busy life right now. I'm planning on going to the midnight showing of Harry Potter despite the fact that next week our campus is closing down early due to financial strains, thus interrupting my job and putting me in a very, very tight spot for what will turn out to be most of December and January. I must persevere!

Etsy Awesomeness

I have been meaning for months to post the awesome work of an Etsy artist and her shop, Jhoeymonster which includes a variety of crafts including tiny, perfect cross stitch pieces featuring some 8-bit stars.

I bought a Tiny Boo Cross Stitch from her this past summer and I have it up on my fridge, but I am planning on putting it along with some patches on the perfect geek bag, once I find such a bag.

So cute!

Recently I also bought and received two pieces from Neisse on Etsy. Each is the anime version of an awesome character, in this case Codex from "The Guild" and Leela from "Futurama". It was hard to part with the Leela, but I gave her to one of my friends who loves Futurama (remember the Bender that I helped build, it was with her!).

Codex and Leela are so adorable as anime characters!

I set up Bender to surprise my friend when she came over.

Here's Leela's new home. Look at all the purple. Perfect!

Boo and Blogs!

Who's scaring up trouble this time of year? Boo!

As the week draws to a close my weekend Halloween plans are troubled by the amount of Java coding I am faced with, due before Tuesday. I must persevere! Hopefully the braiiins I eat this weekend in my zombie form will sustain me and increase my nerd skills. At the end of every semester in Grad School I always did a Lvl. UP tweet on my old twitter that showed my stat increase. This semester I've been doing fast leveling, methinks.

So! I'm very excited about developments on the many wonderful blogs I read. My commenting is down due to time crunches, but I'm still loving everyone's writing. Geek with Curves has a cool post about pumpkin carving up. The Green Lantern corps pumpkins are brilliant! (Oh, comics. I have not gotten my pull list in two weeks due to my work schedule!)

Be sure to check out my blog list on the lower right. There is some great content up, as usual! Let me give you some examples.... Nerds in Babeland can be found at a new URL and have some Halloween make-up tips in video form. Girl Gone Geek miss graphic design extraordinaire has an awesome Peach Halloween banner and really great entries from NYC Comic Con.

Huzzah!


kill!

Rosie the Retrogamer

That's right. The image that has been co-opted for numerous causes now finds itself a place in the heart of this original 80's gamer.

Head to Shirt Woot if you want to buy one for $10 and perhaps accidentally run into me sometime while I'm wearing it and you're wearing it and BOOM we'll be TWINS! (Anne of Distilled Geek Commentary knows about this and even my arch-nemesis Osmotic Ricardo has found himself wearing a black shirt and dark green pants on the same day as myself).

What's even more perfect is that it's T-Shirt Tuesday around these parts! Woot! Indeed.

Cat Games

Last week I picked up WarioWare DIY and when I had some free time I did the first tutorial and then was set free to make a game.

Making the game was enjoyable and very quick to learn. If you have used a variety of art programs before you'll have an advantage when using this because the fun part for me was getting the chance to draw everything by hand and then ANIMATE some if it. There are also stamps that you can use so you don''t have to draw everything. You also get to write music for the game, which again if you have used some computer music programs in the past will be very easy. Even if you haven't the interface is well explained. You can also make comic strips and records on the game, but I haven't had the time to try that out yet.

Here's the game I made. It's based on the hunger my cats seem to experience on a constant basis and their love of vegan ice-cream (they try to steal it from me).



Too bad my camera doesn't pick up all the detail, but it did a fairly decent job for being a 5 year old digital camera!

Oh Donkey Kong...

Oh Donkey Kong do you even know what you are asking me?

In all seriousness I wanted to review the Donkey Kong arcade machine that I had the pleasure of playing this weekend. Unfortunately, I don't have a full shot of the cabinet as there were usually people gathered around it playing. Who can beat a game that's still just 25 cents!

Aside from the joystick occasionally misbehaving and a few random freezes the machine was in excellent condition and the game play was very enjoyable. We fed it many quarters in quest to see "how high" we could get.

In this game we have a character named Jumpman, who would later go on to be known as Mario. As usual there is a damsel in distress in pink, this time Mario's first girlfriend Pauline, and it is up to us to save her, even though we are foiled time and again by the great ape.

One of the most notable things about this arcade experience was the amazing quality of the sound coming out of the machine. It was very rich and had a tonal clarity and depth that one misses out on if playing the game on another platform.

As a funny aside I noticed that there were A LOT of bum shots in this game. Jumpman often died at just the wrong time...

If you get a chance to play this arcade, do! Relive your youth or if you are too young to have experienced these great arcade games then try it for the first time.

8-bit with Perler Beads

Anyone who frequents video game blogs has probably seen the 8-bit bead sprites made with a variety of medium including perler beads.

I will confess I have never used perler beads before, but I really wanted to try it out.

The first two creations are below. The heart turned out a bit better because it was the second run and I got a better hang of how much pressure to use when ironing the beads together. Irons and I are not friends...















Cut Man may seem like an odd choice for a first time spriter, but we were limited by the shape of the then available perler boards and the bead colours. I have now been able to track down a larger square perler board and more beads, so I am planning on making some larger sprites.

Let me warn you...having cats around makes this a much more difficult task. ;P