The New Thing: Tuesday Roundups!!

At a recent, very important "business lunch" (not something we use as an excuse to drink and watch YouTube), Lulu and I decided to start weekly posts. Tuesdays will be roundup days until further notice! We'll continue to post random things throughout the week, but Tuesday is the day you can count on my Stumble roundups!

I need to sue someone for likeness rights.

Oh. Your. God.

A lot of you may have seen this already- but watch it again!!

FUNNY:




Reason I like Obama:




Feel good about humanity movie:

Bad Bad World from Guster on Vimeo.

Definitely not Lulu and me:

That's the best of this week... stay tuned for amazing things this Thursday!

Can't wait for Tuesday's roundup

This is too good. One of my very favorite online comics, The Oatmeal, made me even happier when he mixed a harrowing movie with my favorite thing. Behold:



We DO NOT own this image, we're just sharing it. To see more, please visit his site.

If you pay attention to Geeky news at all, Matt (the guy who owns/run/draws/everythings at The Oatmeal)has been having a major run-in with the admins at FunnyJunk (a site that posts pictures and makes money on advertisement? seems shaaaady). Many users of FunnyJunk have launched personal attacks at him, etc. We'd like to say that, although we're totally posting images he made, and owns the copyright to, we support him. Check out his blog about it.

We're not making money off it, just fighting the good fight.


FELIX OUT
Einstein is a hard name to remember.

Aaaaaaand....BOOTY!

Good news, somebody!!

In addition to Felix's Boobs Vol. 2 post from earlier today, we have some more slightly less safe for work goodies for you...prepare for some Portal 2 goodness, booty-style.

[Felix said that we need to start using cuts, because we don't want anyone getting fired. So...here's my first cut!]

Boobs. (Vol. 2)

The Fallout 3 Edition!

Lulu and I decided that we'll be posting regular segments twice weekly- on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Tuesdays are Roundup days (more on that on Tuesday!) and Thursdays are our other regular segment days! Today- Nerd Girl Bras, or... Boobs!

I'm in love with Fallout 3. Seriously. So, I thought I'd make a bra for it! Picture after the jump!

HAPPY GEEK PRIDE DAY

HEY ANYBODY!

If you are sorrily out of touch, the good news is you came to us!
Today is Geek Pride Day!!!

We here at 8-bit runway like to think we're geeks, so in honor of the day we're launching our facebook fan page!

Please stop on by and "like" us if you like us, like like us or just plain, like, support us!

It is also Towel day- and you know what that means...We hope you know where yours is!

If not, you can play this amazing game called Sissy's Magical Ponycorn Adventure, written, drawn and voiced by a 5 year old girl! We can only hope to be as amazing as her some day!

[EDIT: The game linked above seems to be taking some heavy traffic, and as a result, the connection is a little touch-and-go. Keep trying, it'll show up eventually! And is totally worth it!]

1971 Trek fanfilm!

I don't think I've mentioned the fact that I'm in love with TREK. Please enjoy this amazing thing.

The 7 Stages of Playing Against a Girl on X-Box Live

Awesome article from dorkly.

Click here to read...

Boobs.

Alright, kind of...so two of my favorite things are video games and boobs. (I know I'm not the only one!)
(Mildly NSFW Pictures after the jump!)

Post-rapture Round Up

Okay, so, in order to keep my random findings postings down to a minimum, I'ma start posting round-ups/ favorite things. Because as we all know, I Stumble a whole lot, and find some pretty awesome things.

Behold:

Best way to make sure people are actually old enough.

I NEED THIS WATCH

Katie Couric as Donald Trump

Kirby Team Fortress

Can be found here

I can not express how much I love this.

If I had been smart enough to do things like this in school, I'd have a real job!

If you don't like this, the terrorists win.

In other news, I just found out about this guy, and can not stop watching his not-news news show, The Philip DeFranco show. You can find it on YouTube.

But seriously, some real stuff is upcoming, we're just terrible at working and writing.

Hair, etc.

I very often find drawings of girls on the internet and think "I could TOTALLY look like that!", forgetting that they're well, drawings, and no real people look that way. I stumbled on this picture and thought "I'm SO doing that with my hair".



To be fair, I'm not planning to shave the sides. But I kind of have the top going like that a little already. And yes, I'm going to grow/make a weird under eye eyebrow.

Miss Lulu and I have some fun things upcoming, so stay tuned!

Jerks are born, not made.

Proof of that:



I jokingly texted my parents from work this evening at 6pm to make sure they'd not been the only ones raptured, and got no reply. When I returned home from work (yes I live with my parents, I don't want to hear the stereotypes), I found this waiting for me. I could hear quiet giggles from their bedroom, waiting to see if I'd fallen for it or not.
My Luddite mother is, um, a Luddite, and thus I can safely say that she came up with this idea on her own, with no help from the various ideas for it on the internet, as well as her idea to "leave one pair of shoes, a shirt and some pants somewhere in the street so people think one single person was taken".

Seriously guys, she has a free LG phone from 2006 when she finally got a cell phone she routinely forgets to charge, and her email says "welcome, Bet!"... and is yahoo.

Until next time!

[EDIT: Please understand that when I call people "jerks", I mean it in a loving way. And I love my parents very much, they're who made me the smart-ass you all love!]

Bad news, somebody.

Dear Earthlings,

So, about The Rapture. It was a typo, I meant to let you know that The Raptors are coming.

Sorry, my bad.

xoxo
Jesus

PS: Did you know that they can open doors?!?

What's in your purse, nerd lady? (Vol. 2)

Like Lulu said, my purse is clearly more interesting. Also, because Lulu loves her camera more than most living creatures love their young, she took many pictures.
Here is a picture of the outside of my magic purse. If you know me (or girls like me), you know we have Mary Poppins bags- far bigger on the inside than on the outside.

Don't worry, there's a whole lot of geek in there.

And here is a shot looking into my purse. I promise, this gets mind blowing soon.


Here is [almost] everything from the inside of my purse.

In no particular order:

• Two pairs of sunglasses (there is another pair in my pencil case).
• Lotion
• Eiffel tower tissues
• My precious iPhone 4
• A tiny set of colored pencils with eraser and mini pencil sharpener
• Extra Strength Tylenol
  
• My keys (yes, I have a lanyard.)
• iPod Touch
• Pack of millinery needles (for hand sewing)
• A PDX Cocktail Camp pin
• Not one, not two, but THREE cocktail rings (my accessory of choice)
• Earbuds for safe phone call driving times
• A drawing pen
• My Hello Kitty compact (actually a happy meal toy)
• Two decks of Magic cards (Red/Black, Blue/Black)
• My journal
• My extra-cool DS
• Betseyville wallet/clutch-I-use-as-a-wallet
• Pencil case (contains pens, sharpies, pencils, sunglasses, two chapsticks, a nail file and other assorted goodies.

Below, Lulu took some close up shots of the best things:

Cocktail Camp, Needles and a Ring. In case you couldn't tell.

Hello Kitty!

The note from my "son".

There you have it! I'm some kind of nerd, and I'll go ahead and let you draw your own conclusions!

HAPPY RAPTURE DAY

Jesus Says...

Don't worry, we here at 8 bit runway will still be here after the Rapture- which is today at 6pm, local time.
I'd just like to remind people that this Rapture simply means the beginning of the end, not the actual end. The chosen ones will be recalled to heaven, and then depending on which prophecy is right, we either get until October or 7 years to decide if we want to repent or not.
In these trying times, we should use images to recall what Jesus looks like (wait, should we? Isn't that sacrilegious or something? Won't he look different this time?). So please, take a moment to review:

I knew it.

I knew it!

I KNEW IT!

Oh, right.

Enjoy the rapture, everyone!

Whats in your purse, nerd lady?

Felix and I have decided to let you all in on our secrets...that being, what nerdy chicks carry in their gigantic purses.

I am a bit of a tomboy (and will freely and proudly admit this fact and then go climb some shit), and have been known to favor stomping around in gigantic footwear as opposed to tottering around in pretty little heels, and until recently, shunned the idea of carrying a purse. I carried my camera bag, which had enough room for my wallet and some gum, and that was all I needed. And then I needed a large purse one day (long story), and just...kept on carrying it around. I'm about two weeks away from being a crazy bag lady who pushes around a shopping cart with her entire life inside. No foolin'.

So here's a little glimpse into my nerdy little purse. I'm amazed that all of this fits inside (and I left out my random assortment of pills and checkbooks, since that stuff is kinda boring?). Also, it prompted me to clean it out a little bit (not much), so that's a good thing...? Felix will have hers pretty soon, and I promise it is much more interesting than mine.

SO.



From the left:
· Handmade arm warmers (my office building is freezing)
· Cancer sticks
· Not one, not two, but three pairs of sunglasses (look for the third in my next style icon post)
· Work name-tag...playas gotta get paid.
· Large headphones, teensy MP3 player (last played: MSTRKRFT's "Easy Love")
· Perfume
· Business cards from my tattoo artist (the delightful Ximena Quiroz of Skeleton Key in PDX)
· Janky wallet, full of cards
· A CD made by my good friend Michael, of the group [product]
· A pen, cause you never know when you'll need an emergency tracheotomy
· Buck Bumble for the N64 (yes!!)
· Phone #1
· Keys, most of which are never used, but my keychain contains a bunny, Darth Vader and a Gamestop card
· A Magic deck, neglected as I have not yet learned how to actually play
· Lighter
· Burts Bees
· Phone #2
· Felix's flash drive
· Business card from my favorite pizza place
· Case containing various lens filters
· A couple of lens adapters
· The manual for my camera
· A Canon Rebel XS (not pictured, and I'll let you guess why)

So there you have it. Who knows what kind of nerd I am, exactly, but if nothing else, I'm certainly a pack rat.

Not-Birthday Birthday

One of the two people in this picture has a birthday upcoming... I won't say which one. Just know that it is celebrated around the world in different fashions, and hiding all day playing video games is the one chosen this year- a so-called "jiggyfest". Please don't ask what that means.

So, everyone, plan your May 20ths accordingly...

[Explitive delteted] and pain

Here's a clip of one of my favorite Geek Girls, Kari Byron, testing the myth that swearing increases your pain tolerance in true Mythbusters fashion!

Oh my goodness gracious!

Just look look LOOK at these nails! Nothing really to say and I don't know where this image comes from...but seriously...wow. Whoever owns this hand is probably the poshest Miyazaki fan ever.

Nerd Movie-Ladies

Hello again!

So I'm just gonna come right out and say it, I'm a huge movie nerd. And that sort of nerdiness is on no way a secret; I'll quote Tarantino (my future ex husband, and he doesn't know that yet, so shhh), quote The Rocky Horror Picture Show word for word (hellooooooooo, lonely childhood!) and I actually own a movie called Kung Fu Death Punch. I'm the sort of elitist asshole who patiently explains that my old myspace name was not from the original "The Cabinet of Dr Caligari" but from the 80s b-movie, "Dr Caligari," and will argue until proven wrong who was in what movie which year and which awards were won...often times continuing after I've been proven wrong. But movies are an excellent source of nerd girls, and sometimes, you get the sort of awkward love story that freaky hermits like myself can swoon over in between rounds of Mystical Ninja: Starring Goemon.

Today's Nerdy Movie-Lady is:

LILY
(from "Eagle VS. Shark" (2007))Played by Loren Horsley

Lily, while lacking in nerdy obsessions, is the sort of awkward, sweet person that you want to just scoop up and put into your pocket forever. (is that weird?) She and the love interest (played by Jemaine Clement, a la Flight of the Conchords) have a meet-cute at a party devoted to dressing as your favorite animal. Him, an eagle, and she, a shark. (Hence the title...betcha didn't see that one coming, hmmm?) Better yet, their eyes meet and sparks fly during a video game tournament! She's a social outcast with a heart of gold, like we all are, and it is her isolation that opens the movie (she is mocked at work by her coworkers). The movie is wrapped around Lily's devotion to Jarrod (Clement) and Jarrod's devotion to revenge over a highschool bully. And isn't that something that all of us nerdy folk can relate to? This is the sort of indie movie I can handle, and the kind of love story I can love.

Check out the movie trailer below:

I'm past the end of the Internet!

And onto some kind of new, better level of Stumble. It's like the repetitive sites were a boss battle and now I've found the hidden extra level where everything is gold coins and monsters that are weak to my favorite attacks!

This is what I found:



You can find more of this here.

I can't stop thinking about...

How much I want to play Brink. Okay, sure it's out, I have [some] money [I really shouldn't be spending on games right now]. But I'm kind of living in three places right now- one(1) my kind, loving, amazing parent's house in Portland, two(2) my kind, loving, amazing boyfriend's house in Bloomington (Illinois, because that Indiana one is pure silliness), and three(3) a storage unit (that is neither kind, nor loving, though it is amazingly full of stuff). My (read: our/his) Xbox is in the home in Bloomington, the PlayStation3 cuts my eyes (seriously, why do I need those lines to be that sharp?), and I run a Mac (and because I think PC Gaming is silliness unless you use a real controller, not a stupid mouse. I mean, come on).

(I clearly need to stop using so many parenthesizes. Sorry.)

Anyways, I'm not really a big fan of games that rely on my, um, shall we say... ability to aim at things while running using two sticks and a trigger. Seriously, unless it has some kind of pause-the-game-and-allow-me-to-aim system, as with the Fallout VATS system, I'm probably boned.

Though I may talk like a life-long gamer, I've owned exactly three systems on my own, five if you add joint holdings into the mix. When I was a kid, I had a GameBoy brick. That's the one before the GameBoy Advanced, and the GameBoy Color, and it looked like this:

How far we've come...

I played Kirby's Dreamland on it and was terrible at it. Really. I got stuck after level 2 almost every single time. I now own a Nintendo DS, which is made infinitely cooler by the TriForce on it, and it's tiny little Mario carrying case.

It's okay for you to be as jealous as you are right now.

Again, as a child I owned a N64 with my brother (he now fully owns it, and that boyfriend I was talking about earlier bought me one of my own), and played Mario Kart, GoldenEye 007, and Quest64 (it is really called that). Extra points to anyone who can tell me in 100 words or less how lame Quest64 is. Plus the fact that I never really learned to play any of those games. I now also co-own an Xbox 360, the only Microsoft product I can say I'm proud to be "co-owner" of.

The number of games I've actually played all the way through is quite slim. But I say it does not matter. I can be a gamer no matter how many games I've played. And Brink has caught my attention. Sure, I'm excited for Portal 2, but people are done talking about it. Everyone has beat it, hacked it, and pushed it to the wayside, allowing me to be excited in my own little bubble. Now, however, all my favorite geeksites are all posting about Brink. Which, of course, means that I can not stop thinking about it. Even though I know very, very little about it.

Behold, the comic the two men who will be my best friends created, just for me (not true):

Mike Krahulik, you are my hero. Via Penny Arcade.

I find this very funny. You probably should, too.

In other news, according to one of my friends, I've reached the end of the internet, proven by the fact that Stumble keeps giving me the same pages. This is the last original Stumble I got, and I'm addicted. Seriously. I downloaded the mp3, and have been listening on repeat.



His stuff is pretty awesome.

Nerd-girl Style Icons Vol. 1: Margot Tenenbaum

Hello hello there!

So, as promised...the first version (of many, I hope) of the Nerd-Girl Style Icons. Presenting...

MARGOT TENENBAUM

"I love you, kind of."

Margot Tenenbaum hails from the 2001 Wes Anderson movie "The Royal Tenenbaums." She's a thirty something playwright going through a personal crisis (writers block, failing marriage, in love with her brother, etc), and is as secretive as they come. Throughout the movie, her deadpan intelligence allows for some of the best one-liners. Played by Gwyneth Paltrow, Margot is one of my personal favorite style icons, and the throwback 1970's style of the movie suits her perfectly.

Wes Anderson, while not necessarily targeting the nerdy, has made a career out of awkward people with strange obsessions. Take the characters of The Darjeeling Limited, as an example: three brothers, one obsessed with his absent mother, one with his dead father (he is seen carrying his deceased father's luggage throughout the movie and even wears his glasses, even though the prescription renders him half-blind), and one with his ex-girlfriend (said ex girlfriend is Natalie Portman, though, so you can hardly blame him). Margot is no different; she is a playwright obsessed with secrecy; she has been a secret smoker for 22 years.

Why is she a nerd, you might ask? In addition to having off-kilter obsessions, there is a brand of nerd girl that I'll dub "the secret nerd." A fairly normal looking person with a deck of magic cards in their purse. (Guilty.) A cheerleader who stays up all night playing World of Warcraft...you get my drift. Margot is this "secret nerd," hiding her smoking habit at all costs, and in order to maintain her private life, she resorts to keeping an apartment under a pseudonym and locks herself in the bathroom for hours at a time.

STYLE STAPLES:

· shirt dresses
· penny loafers
· brightly colored hair clips
· long fur coats
· massive amounts of black eyeliner

[side note: an interesting part about this character and her style, and this was done on purpose by Anderson in regards to all of the Tenenbaum children, is that she is still wearing the same clothes she did as a child in the 1970s. This gives her a somehow alluring Lolita vibe. Another obsession?]

PRACTICAL APPLICATION:

Alright, so I'm just gonna go ahead and assume that not many of us have penny loafers in our closets, but subtle ballet flats will do the trick. All you need is a long coat, a dress that could also be worn by a little kid, and a pack of smokes. Oh, and lets not forget the heaps of black eyeliner. Cutting off one of your fingers is optional, and not really recommended.


Try it out! And if you do, I wanna hear all about it!

Have an awesome day!

Not a usual fan...

Okay, so, I like video games a lot. I've never played, nor will I ever play Call Of Duty, but this clip was too good to pass up.
Please enjoy the wonders of being unlucky.

Video Game obessions

I'm in love.

Seriously, I'm in love. With this:

[Not a Cyberman]

If you're a gamer of any kind, you know the euphoria that comes with falling in love with a game. It's always the little things, like the music, or the way that the menu is sorted the way you would've done it if you'd designed the game. For me, this new love affair comes from the suggestion of two of my most trusted gamer sources. They both, independently of each other, told me about Shin Megami Tensei when I asked for advice as to what game to purchase for my DS (I left all the games the TSA didn't steal from my stupidly checked bags in Chicago, again, stupidly).

For me, games are all consuming. If I like a game, I love it. And if I don't, I probably don't even want to be in the room while it's being played. I was mildly excited to see that the game came with a CD of the music when I opened the box. Now that I've sunk some serious play time into it, I'm ecstatic that I'll be able to annoy all my friends with music from the game. The only reason I put it down last night was because I died a few times (okay, ten) in a boss fight and couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong. I tend to play a game through once doing all the stupid stuff I tend to do, then go back and, um, to use a term gamers often use, rape it. For that, I'll use gamefaqs and walkthroughs unabashedly, but for my initial play through, I try to do it for myself. I asked Morpheus (please review your Greek mythology if you thought the Matrix) for a dream which would present the solution. What did he give me? An epic battle tale which I might glean some knowledge from? Unless a flying cruise ship my father saved me from and a mall employee dropping my phone into a custard-from-whence-it-would-never-return counts, no.

THANKS MORPHEUS. I should send you back to the Matrix.

Anyways, which I'm trying to say is I'm in love with this game. There are a few of these games released in the US, and all in the Final Fantasy vein- all set in the same world, all independent stories. This particular installment, Strange Journey, chronicles the exploration of a strange void growing at the South Pole. It's a strange world you find yourself in where this is the smart-mouthed rebel:

His name is Jimenez. Isn't he suave?

This is what an angel looks like:

And yes, you fight these (and can ask it to be "my demon")

And this is a dude:

Oops!

And yet I still love it. It's originally from Japan, which will not surprise you. I'm not reviewing it or anything, because its been done. You can Google for a review and find about a million that would be better than mine.

I just needed to express my love.

Nerdy Burlesque?!

So I'll bet there are two things that I can safely say that EVERYBODY loves: cartoons, and ta-tas.

This was from an article in LA Weekly back in January concerning Devil's Playground's burlesque show, featuring Pikachu (squeee), Serena from Sailor Moon, Trixie from Speed Racer, and many others.

Check out the article about it, and the full photo gallery:

Devil's Playground Presents Anime Babes

Oh, this, too.

ALSO, somehow it slipped my mind that it is STAR WARS DAY (I say my mind because one of us *Lulu* has not seen Star Wars... which makes her a horrible human being).

For that, I have one more gift for my future/hypothetical children.

Enjoy, little ones:



















This book can be found here.

Ever name a character in a video game thinking there's one more slot than there is and end up with names like "chappingto"?

Because I totally did that while nicknaming my Pokémon character today.

Anyways...

As I am currently, shall we say, "between jobs" (really, I am, I work in theatre...), I have a lot of downtime.

Sure, I could go volunteer (I totally tutor a 2nd grader who's mind was blown when I asked him if he had both Pokémon black AND white), I could hang out with friends (which I totally do... online...), etc.

OR

I could be a good little geek girl and play catch up on all the video games I've been missing out on while doing that pesky "graduating from university in four years" thing.

OR

I could just lay in bed and Stumble all day.

Guess which one I picked?


if (you guess the first one)
{
you can stop reading this blog now, because you are clearly not the 8-bit runway demographic.
}
else
{
you guessed right.
}


And my Stumble knows me pretty well. We have a close relationship. If you want to check out my profile (and see the 513 sites I've "thumbs up"d), please feel free. Also, feel free to friend or follow me. Yes, I am a whore.

Here's the thing, though. Recently, I've begun to suspect that future me is trying to send me a message through Stumble. It comes in many forms, but this series of links I'm about to share with you will more thoroughly explain the situation.

I give you the awesomeness my future/hypothetical children will receive:














A pirate ship in the bedroom




















A Narnia playroom



















A Tardis cupboard















A real, working coin block (for weekly allowance?)















A Legend of Zelda Treasure Chest with sound.

Yes, future/hypothetical children, this is your future/hypothetical future. All these things and more may one day belong to you, although if you never exist, they wont, and I'll just be the coolest 40-something cat lady in the world. All the neighborhood kids will like me and it will be weird.

Felix OUT

... is also weird. And we shall never speak of it again.

A brief introduction...

Ahoy there!

My name is Lulu, I'm another contributor to the budding 8-bit Runway blog! The pseudonym "Lulu," by the by, comes from my favorite installment of the Final Fantasy series...and I'm pretty sure that I'm alone in that particular preference.

[I don't look like this.]

As Felix was discussing in one of her earlier posts, being a geek girl can mean a lot of different things. Maybe you're way into video games (hours spent indoors playing the N64 have left me with a milky white complexion. Thanks, Nintendo!). Maybe you're obsessed with something a little outside of the ordinary (I don't think my cockroach farm is weird at all). Maybe you're just a nerd by the very classical definition, a la Revenge of the Nerds.

Whichever you are, ladies, this blog is meant to pertain to the geeky girls out there! I look forward to contributing here, with upcoming articles about nerdy style icons, geek girls in movies and other terrifying things found in the dark corners of the internet. Much more to come, but for now, I leave you with this: