TotalMonkey

I plan on sprucing up the place sometime after the Fourth of July. If anyone knows of a quick reference document for Nucleus CMS layout, please let me know.

So, every year I try to one-up myself on the little one's birthday cakes, and this year I may have set my goals a little too lofty. I basically have 8 days to fabricate a tiered brownie cake in the shape of Optimus Prime that transforms between vehicle and robot via button-activated servos, with audio samples from G1 episodes. Oh, and I'm still waiting on the motors and driver board to come in the mail. I may be F-ed. On the bright side, I can still just as easily make matching chocolate and yellow cakes with the Autobot and Decepticon logos on each (respectively) if I miserably fail at "Plan A".

Details to follow.

I'd like to start off by stating that I'm what people who find fault with intellectuals for being intellectual would call an "intellectual." To everyone else, I'm probably thought of as a nerd, a geek, or maybe even a know-it-all a-hole. Basically, I enjoy topics and activities which would most probably be (or have been) thought of as "uncool": science, anthropology, history, computers, computer games, role-playing games, computer role-playing games,... yeah. I've collected comic books, I've seen about every Star Trek episode made, frequently quote Star Wars (but angry with George Lucas), I can explain how to calculate THAC0, I have identified and categorized marine decapods (using a microscope) into genera and species (and paid money for the experience), and my favorite travel destinations are the hometowns of famous scientists from European history. These days millions of people play MMORPGs on their computers, comic books and Star Trek are now made into summer blockbuster movies, and there are cable channels and hit television shows about science and scientific investigation.

Regardless, at the heart of this topic is that I find myself infatuated with women who would also probably be considered "intellectuals," i.e. nerds. So, everyone once in a while I will be highlighting a woman -- of some accomplishment in the nerdly pursuits -- that I find, in layman's terms, hot; and, in essence, explaining why I find them so. Now, most (if not all) of these women I don't know personally, and probably have never met, so I can really only make the claim based upon their kudos and accomplishments. Hey, you have your celebrity crush on George Clooney and Brad Pitt, right?

So, at the top of my list of unconventionally-hot ladies is Jeri Ellsworth. Her list of accomplishments are really and truly just... wow. Just from reading her Wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeri_Ellsworth) you'd think she's done enough that she could simply rest on her laurels: she's a chip maker and designer (reverse-engineered the Commodore 64!), race car builder (and driver), pinball machine maker and collector, entrepreneur (opened a chain of computer stores at age 21), etc. These days she is active in the "maker community" and is often popping up as the subject of various internet sites which tout geeky awesomeness (for example: LifeHacker.com's "MacGyver of the Day"). Did I mention the fire-breathing Furby?

Science!

So, TotalMonkey.com has been sitting (pretty much) dormant for the past four years or so, outside of its use as a basic file repository with remote access. Considering that I've had the domain for ten years now, I guess saying "it's high-time I put it too good use" is a major understatement. Hence, a blog. To me, the word sounds like something that exits a mammalian digestive tract, so perhaps I'll refer to it (the blog) by the domain name, in lieu of calling it what it really is: a blog. Web log.

Welcome to TotalMonkey.com.

First!