Gism Butter

There’s a huge kerfuffle in the blogosphere right now because the people at BoingBoing removed all the old posts that contained Violet Blue, or were about Violet Blue. For those who don’t know, Violet Blue is a sex blogger, a chick who writes erotic fiction, and a San Francisco tech scene fixture. There’s a lot of people supporting her right now, and calling for BoingBoing’s blood. I will, however, not. I actually feel I have some authority to trash her here, because one of the BoingBoing posts removed was my blogging of Violet Blue’s teledildonics talk.

I dislike Violet Blue. I think she’s an egotistical hack. The first time I met Violet Blue (the blogger, not the porn star, who the blogger is suing!), she gave a talk at DorkBot about teledildonics: The art of manipulating someone’s naughty bits over the Internet or phone line. I am not quite sure how she managed to do it, but VB made a talk about sex toys–and featuring a live sex act performed between SF and NYC–into the most boring Dork Bot presentation ever. She spoke in a monotone, she read everything from her notes, she talked too fast, and the actual demonstration had huge technical troubles.

I took a buncha bad pictures and detailed the event on this blog, when it was still Gism Blog 2.0 (we’re in version 3.4 now), and it thus got BoingBoing’d. Now it’s gone. I couldn’t care less, but evidently, Violet’s pissed, because she’s giving interviews to the LA Times and other news outlets. These aren’t exactly unbiased reports, but whatever. If someone flushing their archives is news these days, fine.

You know what isn’t news? Anything Violet Blue writes or films. She took over Geek Entertainment TV for a bit, and she covered the 25th anniversary of the Commodore 64 at the Computer History Museum. I was there too, covering it for the now defunct GameTap media outlet (Wow, another post that’s been deleted from the archives, or soon will be! Call the New York Times!

I got all my interviews and photos without bothering anyone. I did blind Jack Tramiel with the flash on my wife’s Nikon D4, but that’s par for the course. Violet, however, was not so nice. She dragged Jack around and asked him the STUPIDEST questions, as though she had no fucking clue what a C64 was. Then, she shoved a newspaper reporter out of the way and took Woz from him, mid question. I’m not even joking. She’s super rude, and obviously knows nothing about journalism. For one thing, when yer interviewing someone on film, shut yer god dammed trap when they’re talking. We don’t need you to say “oh? Wow! really? Huh.”

That newspaper reporter went and bitched to the event organizers about her, and they talked to her a bit. She then chuckled and made fun of them behind their backs with her camera crew, who at least have talent. I didn’t think it was possible, but Violet Blue makes one long for the quiet dignity of Irina Slutsky.

God, I hate getting all blog catty here, but I just got so pissed when I saw the BoingBoping thread on the removals. BB isn’t saying what it is she did to piss them off, but knowing Violet Blue, I am sure it was well warranted.

I go out of my way to remain somewhat mysterious on my blog and site. But when you log into Violet Blue’s blog, the first thing you see is a 3 paragraph byline, singing her praises, calling her a best selling author (writing 1 porn story for a porn collection does not a best selling author make!), and drops names like the Wall Street journal and Forbes.

Fuck blog drama and blog wars. I’d say fuck Violet Blue, but who the hell would want to!?

BTW, thanks to Scott Beale for the photo of Violet, above.

Hit my favorite flea market this past Sunday at Laney college in Oakland. While I didn’t score anything amazing, I did get a legal box full of carts for $30. The guy wanted $50, but I walked away, and by the time I was 2 booths down, he was shouting “$30!”

All of the above 2600 carts were what I’d label “uncommon,” though that’s a complete lie. Maybe about 1/3 were uncommon. The rest are distinctly common. But I’d not had a copy of M*A*S*H or GI Joe before, so I chalked these up to bringing my Atari 2600 cart collection up to snuff.

Of course, the Atari 5200 is worthless. Even the rare games don’t top $100 in the original packaging. I already have most of these anyway. But the three Sega carts, I felt, were worth it. Star Trek and Buck Rogers are both somewhat uncommon.

More Intellivision games for my collection. Plus a Ms. Pac-Man for 7800 that I can play. I have another copy in the sealed box. None of these are really worth anything.

The Genesis games were a great addition to the box. Especially Mutant League hockey. A great game, and somewhat uncommon. I had Ecco, but the others are additions to my collection, and thus I was happy to bring them home.

Finally, two cheat devices and an Atari 800 game. The N64 Game Shark was unexpected. And the Game Genie for Genesis was a nice addition too. You could easily make an argument that I over paid for this box, but I think I got a relative deal.

At this weekend’s San Anselmo Arts and Wine faire (which I hear only this year added the wine part), we partook in some Beowulf Mead. I’d never had mead before. It’s made from honey, and the Beowulf people offered the products of bees having feasted on various sorts of of nectar. The orange blossom was the group’s favorite. It’s a startup mead company, selling out of Ross Valley Winery, which cultivates some of its vines right in downtown San Anselmo. The mead is worth the trip out there, and the Beowulf people hinted that they could find a way to get it to you, provided you email them.

George Calrin died. If you watch nothing else he’s done, watch this movie of his routine, filmed in 1998.

Don’t believe me? Watch this video. Watch the whole thing.

Garry’s Mod is an addition to the game Half-Life 2, and it allows you to, essentially, play with everything in the game. That includes the people, places, things and even the physics. A buncha folks make movies with it, and I think the best of the bunch comes from the Idiots of Garry’s Mod. Above is their second film. Below is their first. Hysterical, and you don’t need to know anything about the game to laugh. Though, knowing some popular Internet Memes may help.

I went to City Hall today, hoping to find protesters to heckle. But all I found was a wonderful celebration of love and happiness. Not an evangelical in sight. I was kinda let down… Where’s Fred Phelps when you need him? Oh well, maybe I’ll drive out to Martinez. I hear there’s lots of backwards redneck protesters there.

The two newly married gentlemen below drove all the way from Tennessee over the weekend to get married in SF city hall. The fellow on the right was a blubbering mess coming out. I almost cried too. It was a joyous day for everyone involved. More pictures on my Flickr page. Congratulations to all who got married today. I hope you are able to find wedded bliss as I have. It’s about time everyone was allowed to enjoy the privileged of state acknowledged (and tax exempt!) love.

V and her dad picked up this Skull Clock at a storage locker cleaning sale. The place was going out of business, and was selling off the leftover locker contents. V’s dad paid $1.00. After doing some research, it looks as though the wooden variety of this clock, which this is, is worth around $800.

But who really cares how much you can get for this German clock? It’s too radical ninja to ever sell. Can you tell how it tells time?

Saw this cat on Haight Street after the Haight Street Faire. He was licking the window constantly, but I couldn’t get a picture of him doing it. I took this video, but it only shows him doing it the once. The street cleaner i filmed was also quite taken with this crazy kitty.

Alexander Hamilton’s house was moved.