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We haven’t died here at Stolen Droids . . . it’s just the season for getting bogged down with everything else in life! We’re going to continue our little break here until after Christmas and look forward to writing for you again next week. From everyone here at Stolen Droids, have a very happy and safe holiday season!

Not in that it’s commercially available, but it was used in a commercial.  This song and video make me happy.

Well, I originally had a few drafts I was going to finish up for today . . . but things happen.  So instead, we have a random list of observations/thoughts for today. An actual post will be up tomorrow instead.

• Wordpress updated to a new version today.  I of course instantly upgraded.  I of course did not back up the old installation.  As a result, when we realized that no matter how cool the new admin menus were, they didn’t mean much when we couldn’t write anything, we also realized we couldn’t go back to the old system.  After maybe an hour of looking around online, we found that another plug-in the site uses was conflicting with the new back end, and all was cleared up.

Many of my friends have specified geeks as being people with near obsessive (or in many cases, totally) interests.  They further clarify that geeks are not nerds, who are just socially defunct.  It is, of course, possible to be both, but this particular definition of ‘geek’ has started to gain some ground in the general vernacular.

And then some weirdo goes and ruins it for us all.

Le Trung and his robotic girlfriend, Aiko

Yeah, so all those jokes about geeks not being able to get a girl, so they build a robot girl in their basement actually have a basis in reality now. Way to go!

First reported today over at The Sun, Le explains that he never had any time to “find a woman”, so instead he built one.  Granted, the man is a robotic genius and Aiko really is an extraordinary piece of technology; you only need to see the video to understand that.  But it’s his own statements about her that strike me as disturbing.

The interweb is a funny place.  There are a lot of people who use it everyday and have no clue as to how it works.  There are people (myself included) who know exactly how it works, but also know that someone else knows more.  Then there are the scary people who REALLY know how it works, how to get around it without being seen, and how to get whatever they want from it (they are usually tagged by the FBI . . . not kidding).

The problem with so many people being on the web and not knowing what is going on behind the scenes is that they leave rather large wakes in their path; all the crappy poems they wrote when they were mad at their ex, all the embarrassing photos you didn’t think would get out, that one video (yeah, that one).  It’s all on there forever!  And it’s traceable.

In three separate movies that I’ve watched this year, I’ve seen the same actress . . . get snubbed.  Olga Kurylenko (who, as best I can tell, is not a leper) has been in Hitman, Max Payne, and Quantum of Solace.  Her role has varied from film to film as one would expect and she seems to do well with whatever material is given to her (not saying much for two of those three).

However, one thing that is constant is that the male star seems to have absolutely no interest in her at all!

May Payne

Photoshoot for Quantum of Solace

Hitman

In two of the three movies she is topless and just about begging to guy to have some fun with her, and she’s shut down each time.  Not even Bond has a roll with her.  Of course, she’s a little more angsty in QoS than most Bond Girls are, but it’s never stopped him before!!

 . . . is the music I find from it.

I found this song after hearing it play in the background to one of those annoying caveman ads.  The video (I think) is awesome, since it’s pretty much how I see everything around me.

I apologize in advance if I’ve posted this before; I thought I had, but I couldn’t find it in our archives so I figured I was safe.

When Blizzard and Activision merged earlier this year, they announced that they would not be continuing a couple of titles that were under development.  One of them was Ghostbusters, and I weeped inside.  However, the rights were bought up by Atari, and it’s back on schedule!

Hooray for voice acting from the actual actors and writing from the actual writers!

I realize that there are many words that geeks/gamers use that are entirely unique to our sub-culture.  However, there are others that were originally not meant for us at all, but we’ve adopted anyway; frag and uber being two that immediately come to mind.

Now, to the uneducated, those words sound like they had to be created by some Halo players and managed to be sneaked into the common vernacular, but in actuality the opposite is true!  It’s just that many of these words have fallen out of use by the general public and have now become associated with geeks.

The inspiration for this post’s subject came from a rather unexpected place: maxi pads.  No, I’m not kidding.  While watching TV, the commercials came on and my brain stopped paying attention.  Right up until one word was uttered in the weirdest context.

I would like to think that I’m rather handy around the house; I like to fix things, improve things, and learn new skills to do so. One slight downfall is that I’m usually learning how to do something, while trying to fix it at the same time (installing new power outlets, having never done so before). I usually figure that I’m bright enough to figure things out as I go.

This is normally ok, as I’m often right and can figure out the basics and go from there very quickly. This is how I learned how to build computers, service furnaces, maintain a car, rewire circuit breaker boxes, reassemble a clothes dryer, crimp networking cable, and troubleshoot Microsoft Windows. It does, however, leave me with an end product that is a little less than polished: the laptop I’m using now has no fan so we have to use it in short bursts, I’ve electrocuted myself more times than I can count (or remember), and never use a grounding strap when building computers.