The Day with Girl Gamers Suck
Added at 12:37pm and filed under Geek Speak, awesome, gaming
Introducing my latest project – girlgamerssuck.com.
You know me. I like games. I often don’t have time to play as much as I would like – and when I do play, I’m often kinda crap – but I’ve grown up with gaming and I love it. It’s part of my childhood, part of my life and undeniably part of who I am.
I have loved the last six months I’ve been writing for AeroPause. Having skirted the world of online game geekery for a number of years – SHH.com aside, obviously – its been wonderful to fully immerse myself without the guilt or hang-ups. The guys I ‘work’ with are all kinds of awesome, and I hope to be there for many years to come. And it’s spurred me to run with an idea I’ve had for as long as I’ve been online – a gaming site for women.
Yes, there are loads already (although – in my defense – there wasn’t ONE when I first thought of the idea!). But they’re generally all pretty . . . meh. See, I don’t do pink. I don’t care about girl power. I also don’t care about pony games or dream weddings and I don’t play MMORPGs, either. So I’ve ended up creating what I hope is a gaming site for people who genuinely don’t give a shit about gender. People who wouldn’t mind exploring some of the psychology around gaming, as well as keep abreast with selected news and reviews.
It took forever to think of a name. I originally didn’t really want to focus on the ‘girl’ or female aspects but to be honest, it’s impossible for me to drive the message that girls can game without that focus – which is where my idea comes from. I didn’t want to rip off any other girl gamer sites with a similar name, but I realised that I also didn’t want to drop the female aspect – which is why I seemed to keep coming back to the sarcastically titled girlgamerssuck.com.
So please – come visit me! Comment and contribute. Is there anything you’d like to see on there – anything I’m missing? What do you like? Dislike? It’s been forever since I launched a new project from scratch so please tell me your thoughts and help me get this thing off the ground!
Comments: (6)
The Day I was Ill. Again
Added at 12:29pm and filed under Oh Mama, awesome, bff, family, health
Ugh. I’m ill again.
I think I recall crowing last year that I managed to miss most of the flu/coldy things floating about. My Fate God heard me, laughed outrageously, and has been making me pay ever since. Bastard. It feels like I’ve spent the last three months coughing and spluttering. I wouldn’t mind, but the cough is this disgusting, phlegmy gross mess that makes people cross the street to avoid me and my voice wouldn’t be out of place in a porn movie. Whispering in low, husky tones is amusing for about a week, but after that it just becomes tedious.
Anyway.
Thankfully though, I was phlegm-free for Christmas. Which was lovely by the way. S’s holiday started early thanks to three millimetres of snow we had the Monday and Tuesday before Christmas which somehow justified a school closure, and although that meant I didn’t get my leisurely rest on the first day of my own holiday, it meant that we got two extra days together – yay. Father Christmas brought everything S wanted (which was a fucking miracle, by all accounts – he was not easy to buy for this year) and his extended family got him everything else. This year he’s obsessed with football, mainly Tottenham Hotspur and Cardiff City, so his bedroom now looks like a teenage boy’s thanks to the football bed linen, trading cards, football shirts, balls and Tottenham Hotspur-logoed alarm clock. I don’t mind admitting that I get a little pang of regret when I look in there now; although it’s wonderful that he’s growing up, forging his own personality and likes and dislikes, but it feels like it’s all too fast.
As for me, I was very lucky this year. I received many books (including Stephen King’s new one, and the Ant and Dec biography), DVDs (Michael McIntyre, Russell Brand, George Michael, Grey’s Anatomy, 24, Steve Coogan) and games (Assassin’s Creed II, SingStar Take That and with Christmas money I bought the Batman AA Collectors’ Edition, Lips #1s and pre-ordered Bayonetta). M also bought me some ‘fancy’ walking boots and a decent all-weather coat, now that I’m at one with nature and am forced to – sigh – go walking with D, neither of which I have to send back ‘cos I think they’re gross. Score! One brother got me Zelda: Spirit Tracks and the other cash towards my Paul McCartney ticket (mental note: write that up soon) and two Guitar Hero figurines which are totally awesome. Heh. And the gifts we bought for our loved oones seemed to go down well, too. Which is always the best part. :)
Best of all? We managed to get through all of Christmas without putting anything on a (groaning) credit card. That is definitely a first!
Christmas Day itself was low-key but lovely; M cooked, S and I ate, and my in-laws joined us for lunch. Not for a second doubtful about Santa or his origins, Sam spent the entire day in raptures over his gifts and playing with everything – which meant I spent most of the day opening brightly-coloured boxes and untwisting those INSANE wire thingies that seem to hang on to every child’s gift in the universe. Between Christmas and New Year we visited friends and family and generally dossed about, and then for New Year we had our BFFs up from Brighton to stay, which was – as it always is – incredibly awesome. We christened one of M’s Christmas gift – a top-of-the-range slushy maker! – by making fruit slushies and loading them with vodka, washing down platefuls of antipasta and tortillas. A perfect way to chime in the new year, and no mistake.
As for 2010? I don’t really do resolutions, but I am hopeful. I’m proud that I’m significantly smaller than this time last year, and I would like to keep that up, but I’m trying not to obsess. I’ve, inevitably, gained a bit of weight of Christmas but a) who hasn’t and b) who cares?! Like I’ve said previously, I joined a gym in mid-December and – chest infection pending – I hope to get back into some semblance of regular exercise soon. Otherwise, I don’t have any particular promises I wish to make/break. All I hope for is a happy, healthier, financially-stable year, and to keep on loving my boys more with each passing day.
Comments: (2)
The Day I was Back for Realz This Time
Added at 8:06pm and filed under Geek Speak, Offline, awesome, family, go me, health, travel, updates, wordpress
Why, hello you! No, this isn’t a mirage or a sick, sick joke – it really is me, updating and everything! Come on in! How have you been in the zillions of months since we last spoke?
There are loads of reasons I haven’t updated, but none are particularly satisfactory, unfortunately. I suppose the main reason is that I got sick of self-editing; too many real-life people have this URL, and whilst I’ve never been anyone but myself in the confines of this journal, it does make it a tad more difficult to slag someone off when you know they’re probably reading. I also got a bit bummed at the lack of comments, and I’d become aware that my entries weren’t particularly engaging – which potentially explained the former fact, of course. So I took some time off, worked on other stuff whilst, as always, balancing my clients, too. (Work has slowed right down in the last six months or so, but I still have just enough dripping in to keep me ticking up. Just). I also, finally, finished up SHH.com in July which was not only a fucking miracle, but also infinitely satisfying, too.
And then, a few months back, I got an idea for a new layout. It’s so hard to work on something for yourself when you have to design to order (I don’t think it’s just me – lots of other designers seem to say the same thing) so this nugget of an idea took me by surprise, quite honestly. So I mulled it over a bit and half-heartedly opened Photoshop and then, a few weeks later – voila! A brand new look. (Hit the link to reload the theme if you’re still seeing an existing layout, BTW).
So, I’m hoping that the new look inspires me. My last theme had been up for three years – THREE BLOODY YEARS – but, unfortunately for you lot, I really liked it (I still do, actually!), so I wasn’t ever particularly motivated to change it. But the code was aging and there was little scope to include new stuff like Twitter updates etc., so I went back to the drawing board. What you see now is the sum of several months worth of chopping and changing but I’m really pleased with how it’s turned out and am glad that I took my time with it, even if the WP loop utterly kicked my ass for a while there.
It’s not perfect; known issues include a weird footer FUBAR in Opera on OSX (bizarre – usually Opera renders EXACTLY the same as FireFox) and a bizarre header misalignment in IE6. I could get sanctimonious and say that it’s a deprecated browser that was crap to begin with, let alone now in 2009, and insist that people using IE6 should REALLY get with the times and update. But since 40ish% of you guys seems to still be using it, I did go through and hack as best I could to make it legible. So whilst it’s readable, it’s not ideal and I will go back to it with fresh eyes. (And no, I’m not too proud as to refuse help. If any of you wish to take a peek at my CSS and suggest where you think I’m going wrong, please do!). Update 30/11/09: BALLS. There’s a header error in IE7, too, according to my work PC (even though it’s okay on my PC laptop at home – must be due float class and the screen resolution?). Have obviously arsed up some coding somewhere. Anyone got any ideas?? I think I’ve fixed the error now(?). I only have access to IE6 and IE7, the latter of which is stuck at a shitty resolution so may still be telling me all in a-ok when it’s not, but I’ve gone back to the code and think I found and fixed the error. Please let me know if you’re on IE and still having problems!
Otherwise I’ve tested it on FireFox (PC and Mac), Safari (Mac) and IE7 (PC) and I think everything is okay besides a stray code sitting expectantly on my links page that I can’t remove as it has something to do with WP’s auto-listing of links. I don’t have access to IE8 or Chrome (which is still PC only – boo), so please do let me know if you’re having problems viewing on those platforms – just drop me a comment and I’ll try to fix the place up. :) In the meantime, please be patient if things go screwy but do let me know if you think you’ve stumbled across something I missed!
Site aside, I’m doing pretty good. We – and by that, I mean all three of us – have just come back from a long weekend in New York City, which was – as always – thoroughly awesome. I started my MSc last month and while I’m crapping myself and struggling to find the time to do all the reading, I am enjoying my first module. Work is . . . well, work is work, but let’s cover that in a passworded entry another time (there’ll be more passworded entries – I’ve decided it’s the only way I can still write here without stressing about who’s reading it). I’ve shifted almost 40lbs since this time last year, which I’ve managed to do whilst balancing my desire to be thinner at the same time as never fully restricting myself. I don’t go hungry and I’m doing my best to be a little more active and it all seems to be working right now. Keep your fingers crossed I can keep it up! Sam lost his first tooth, and then promptly lost another. He also went through a horrible spell of being picking on in school where I’d never felt as helpless as a mother as I did right then. I think it’s mostly settled now, but it was a shitty time and one I hope never to experience again. Kids are so fucking mean sometimes. But otherwise I still completely love being his Mum and spend all the time we’re apart wishing that we weren’t. Heh. He amazes me every day and I’m so, so proud of the little boy he’s become.
Let’s see – what else? I’ve also picked up a writing gig at aeropause.com, a kick-ass site by gamers for gamers, and I’m loving every second of it. I went to the Eurogamer Expo in London last month and even though I went alone and was gawped at most of the time I was there (thirty-something blonde gals don’t really fix the gamer stereotype) I had a riot. Look out for Bayonetta and Heavy Rain – they rock.
So . . . yeah. I’m back. I’m sorry I disappeared. It wasn’t cool to up and leave like that, I know that I’ll regret this in years to come; my journal has always been about me and for me, and the moment I started worrying about other people was the moment I backed the hell off. I’ll now have five-month gap where I won’t know what happened, and all because I’m a prat. Pft.
Anyway, that’ll do for now. If you think I’ve missed something critical do feel free to drop me a question in the comments and I’ll bring you up to speed!
Comments: (15)
The Day with Girl Gamers Suck (6)
Introducing my latest project – girlgamerssuck.com.
You know me. I like games. I often don’t have time to play as much as I would like – and when I do play, I’m often kinda crap – but I’ve grown up with gaming and I love it. It’s part of my childhood, part of my life and [...]
The Day I was Ill. Again (2)
Ugh. I’m ill again.
I think I recall crowing last year that I managed to miss most of the flu/coldy things floating about. My Fate God heard me, laughed outrageously, and has been making me pay ever since. Bastard. It feels like I’ve spent the last three months coughing and spluttering. I wouldn’t mind, but the [...]
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