I remember flying down the isle to see Return of the Jedi. I remember rocking Leia buns on the daily and playing Star Wars all the time. If you would have told little me that one day I would text my dad the trailer for a new Star Wars – a REAL new Star Wars that would make me feel like I was running down that isle in anticipation of Return of the Jedi starting again, I would never have believed you.

But, I so just did.

A Wookiee will forever be my co-pilot and I will always be a Rebel Girl. And now my two favorites are coming home. ‪#‎happyrebelgirl‬

And so are we.

For as long as I can remember, I have been a Star Wars fan. Every birthday I’d get pissed because I’d tear open my gifts and instead of an At-Tat or the Millennium Falcon, I’d get a freakin’ Monchichi or Strawberry Shortcake’s latest sidekick. Some solace was taken in the fact that I was the only girl that ever got to play Leia at recess. Part of that was probably the fact that I was the only one that could do the buns, but I didn’t care. I remember tearing ass down the isle to front row center when we went to see Return of the Jedi. While I may have lost my Star Wars sheet set along the way, I still have some of my trading cards left and my trusty rusty Return of the Jedi lunch box still faithfully holds some of my art supplies. And of course I own the DVD box sets.

One cold, rainy Saturday morning a couple of months after she turned 3, my eldest monkey figured out how to open the secret door of the entertainment stand and handed me “Phantom Menace.” “Mommy, this is my movie choice. I wanna watch this one.” The pride, oh the pride. I patted her head, told her it would be too scary and too hard for her to understand and insisted she pick a new one. Bless her gorgeously geek heart, she stood firm on her choice. Her arguments in the end were simple. “If I don’t understand something, I’ll ask you mommy and if it gets too scary, we can turn it off.” Hells bells, you can’t really argue with logic like that.

Ten minutes later, another fan was born. Two more actually, lilest monkey sat in wide-eyed wonderment cheering and booing right along with her. But, eldest took it to a whole new level. The rest of that weekend was spent watching all six in order up to her new beloved Anakin was “saved.” It floored me how little I needed to explain to her. There are so many favorite moments from that weekend. I think my favorite was when Luke made it out with Vader and she looked at me and said “Wow, he actually managed to pull it off.” Not remembering I was talking to my 3 year old and being mother of the year- my response? “Right? He’s kind of a wuss.” Sorry folks, I was a Han Solo girl all the way.

Most of my friends weren’t entirely surprised at my “how I spent my weekend.” I swear everyone we encountered over the next few months heard her tales of the battle of dark and light, the path of a Jedi, the power of the force, the wisdom of Obi Wan and Yoda, her undying love for Anakin and the importance of having really good friends be they human, wookie or robot. Then one of my friends sent me a now rather famous YouTube clip of a 3 year old explaining Star Wars. I watched it and giggled. It didn’t really occur to me the vast differences between that 3 year old and mine. VAST. Thinking she’d be happy to find a kindred spirit, I showed her this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EBM854BTGL0

I expected a giggle. I did not expect her to lose her lil mind. She seriously damn near cussed that lil girl out. It went like this:

(Bear in mind, I did warn her it was only about New Hope, aka “When they save Leia” – oops I forgot to mention she renamed them all. I’ll footnote the rest.)

“What? The ‘sand people’ are Jawas and they aren’t that important.”

“ ‘Shiny one?’ ‘Shiny one?’ It’s C3PO. Duh.”

(At this point I’m staring blankly at my irate lil monkey.)

*HUGE GASP* “NO ONE MISPRONOUNCES OBI WAN KANOBI’S NAME!! NO ONE MOMMY!!!”

“Huh? That ‘light up sword’ is a light saber! Light SABER!”

“Leia wasn’t in jail. She was being held captive by Imperial Forces.”

“That’s it?? That’s it?? What about the subplot??!” (WTF!? Did my 3 year old really just say subplot!?!?!) “No Han? No Chew? MMMMOOOOOMMMM!!!!”

“Yeah, Darth will getchya because you, you are NO JEDI!!” (Yes, she was totally pointing her lil finger at her too.)

“Mommy, don’t EVER show me that girl again.”

That’s when it became clear to me that she wasn’t your average 3 1/2 year old. It also became clear I was raising a lil ÜberGeekGirlie in training. In my book, that’s just awesomsauce.

Yes, she still plans on marrying Anakin and is desperately pleading her case to her sister for decorating their new bathroom all Star Wars. My money is on her. Lil geek girls FTW!

***As promised- she renamed them all right away to remember them better. Never mind the fact she could tell you who Qui Gon Jinn was. So, in order:

“When Anakin was little”

“When Anakin became a Jedi”

“When Anakin caught on fire”

“When they save Leisa”

“When Luke becomes a Jedi”

“When Luke saves Anakin”

It started with a tweet from @shimmer418. A little thing called #BoobieWed. What is #BoobieWed? It’s a group of women that have made it a mission to raise breast cancer awareness across Twitter, Facebook and Myspace by reminding men and women to self examine. Every Wednesday a sea of supporters change their avatars to show their support. Having lost my aunt Carol, my first official partner in crime, to breast cancer, this hit home. Early detection may have saved her life.

That one tweet led to a cathartic post. A declaration “Yup, I’ve Got Boobies.” And ultimately, my polka dotted bra clad breasts went up on Twitter for my little group of followers to see. The reaction was mixed to say the least. But, as soon as that post went up, my awesome tribe of geek girls responded with an outpouring of love and support that went beyond just RT’s. That’s how we roll. One makes a stand, we stand behind her.

We come in all shapes and sizes, each one of them gorgeous in their own right. We cover every spectrum you could declare geeky and we do it proudly.

We are strong. We are geek. We have boobies. We use our powers for good.

And I am so proud to announce that we have banded together to create a project for the cause.

Announcing The #BoobieWed Epic Geek Girls Edition Calendar!

Complete With:
Over a year’s worth of awesome women proudly displaying their geek and their girlie.
Monthly reminders to self examine
Major (and not so major) Con dates printed right on it

Featuring:
Amy Ratcliffe
Carie Small
Chelsie Tinordi
Geek Girl Diva
Jennie Zells
Jessie Gurd
Kara Evans
Katie Doyle
Kristin Reilly– Geek Girls Network
Lisa Manglass
Maria Palafox
Natali Heuss– Uber Dork Cafe
Nicole Wakelin
Ruth LoveCraft

Why This Calendar is so Important and What Your Purchase Means:

There are more than 250,000 women living in this country that were diagnosed with breast cancer under that age of 40. That does not account for the thousands that did not detect it early enough and lost their battles with breast cancer as a result.

The strongest weapon in beating breast cancer is early detection. That is the fuel behind this project- driving home the importance of it and reminding women (and yes men) to check their breasts regularly and remind those in their life to do so as well.

A portion of the proceeds of all Calendar sales will go to the following organizations:

The Young Survival Coalition: YSC works with survivors, caregivers and the medical, research, advocacy and legislative communities to increase the quality and quantity of life for women diagnosed with breast cancer ages 40 and under.

Feel Your Boobies: FYB is a breast cancer non-profit organization whose mission is to create an annual reminder campaign that utilizes unexpected and unconventional methods to remind young women to “feel their boobies”.

Remember #BoobiesAreStrongerThanTheForce But they still need to be checked.

Ready to purchase your copies? Click here!

Give the Epic Gift That Keeps On Giving.

I am sitting here at Intervention (Con not the show where someone is ending up in rehab) surrounded by some amazing talent and amazing people. Yet another congregation of people that get each other on some level even though they’ve never met. It’s so inspiring.

While I am still refraining from naming the names of the companies that decided they did not want to be “associated” with the words dork, geek or nerd, I don’t think I’m done with them yet. I still have a message to send them. Well, we have a message to send them. It’s a simple message really. In fact, we’ve been doing it all along.

We are who we are and we’re damn proud of it.

We’re not going to hide it anymore. We’re not going to try to fit into someone else’s mold or idea of who we should be.

Geek is gorgeous. Nerd is not negative. Dork is divine. Gnork is awesome cubed.

We have taken those terms that may have once been attempts at insult and we have fully embraced them and made them our own. We wear them proudly.

So how do we get the message to companies like that? How do we make our stand?

A friend’s answer to that? Oprah. That would totally work. You know who it made me think of though? E L L E N. Now, I have an immense respect for Oprah and what she’s accomplished. But I love Ellen. She is a giant ball of awesome that is definitely on my “Peeps I Want To Huggle Someday List.” I think if anyone gets embracing being quirky and different than the mainstream it’s definitely Ellen. She’s bravely looked peeps in the face and said “I am who I am” for years now.

I think Ellen would help us. Help us get UberDork Cafe and the message of gnork pride and gnork community out there for all to see. Whatdya think peeps? Do you think we can get Ellen on board? There’s only one way to find out. Let’s give it a shot.

Click here and fill out the form to tell Ellen you wanna see UberDork Cafe on the show!!

Some other great ways to help get the word out and get Ellen to notice:

Tweet “Hey @TheEllenShow! I wanna see @UberDorkGirlie & UberDork Cafe on!!”

Tweet the link out to your followers.

Share this on your Facebook page.

Tattoo it on your forehead and… wait no, that’s a bit much. 🙂

I know we can do this. I have faith in my community and faith in Ellen.

GNORKS UNITE!!!!!

For this last week and a half or so I have been pretty sick. After finally getting antibiotics for it, I ended up breaking out in hives from head to toe from them. My hives had hives. Soooo not attractive. Soooo not comfortable. I had hit the brick wall of burnt out.

Until last night.

I’m still wiped and still dealing with health issues, but it’s time to pick up the #truthbat again. This time, surprisingly, for the cafe. For everyone that believes in it.

You see, I have a weekly conference call every Tuesday night for the UberDork Cafe. I look forward to them for many reasons. What I learned last night floored me. Saddened me. When the shock of it all wore off, it downright pissed me off.

I’ve always proudly embraced the titles geek, nerd, dork. One of the many amazing lessons that I have learned on this incredible journey of UberDork Cafe is that us gnorks still tend to hide who we are. Stay in our lil corners of the online world and don’t tend to venture beyond that. Part of the whole goal of the cafe has been to give us a place to go to. To branch out from those corners. To give our future gnorks a place to go to meet others and to actually be able to comfortably be themselves in a place within the community, the real life community. To teach them and us that we don’t need to hide who we are. There is no shame in being geeks, nerds, dorks.

Last night I realized I might be wrong.

It might not be a fluke that there is nothing really like the UberDork Cafe out there. The fact that we tend to hide may not really be our fault. It seems others are more comfortable when we are contained to online. We may come out if we must, but we shall not refer to ourselves as dorks, or geeks or nerds. It makes others uncomfortable it seems.

Last night I was informed that major corporate sponsors of the first auction completely backed out. Why? Well, during initial contact the full name UberDork Cafe was used. From that point on it was shortened to UDC or “the cafe.” Then they got the press kit yesterday. These major corporations then stated that I would need to change the name of the cafe for them to follow through with sponsoring. Yup. They don’t like “dork.” And yeah, don’t try to replace it with nerd or geek either. Those simply won’t do as well. One of these major corporations makes a great deal of money off of us gnorks as well.

My response? (Ok, well the edited version, I won’t lie, there was A LOT of cussing on my behalf initially.)

Dear Giant Corporate People,

Shame on you. Shame on you for so very many reasons. For thinking you could just buy a name. For thinking you have that sort of power over people still. For thinking that us dorks, us nerds, us geeks are that weak that we would hide who we are, change who we are to suit your comfort. For being more than willing to take our money as long as we remain safely tucked away from view and deny who we are. For thinking that you somehow own us. For thinking that in this day and age discrimination is ok, as long as it has a price tag on it. For thinking that I am the type of person that is going to just roll over, change my entire character and teach my children that it is acceptable to allow a company, or even a person, to force you to change your name, your character, or who you are for them.

Allow me to enlighten you. Dork, nerd, geek… in your feeble minds may be words that show weakness or less than desirable characteristics. I hate to break this to you, but the term “corporate” invokes far worse feelings amongst a vastly wider population of people. People that span all age levels, races, income brackets, you name it. Do you know why that is? Because of things like this. Because you still live under the antiquated notion that bigger is always better. That money will buy you anything, anyone. I hate to break it to you, but it really doesn’t. In fact, it won’t even buy you one lil ole dork.

I’m not for sale. My children’s dream is not for sale. My friends, my family, the people that support this dream, that support the UberDork Cafe are not for sale.

And we certainly aren’t going anywhere. If anything, you’ve just made us a bit louder. A bit more present.

Thanks so much for reinforcing the need for the UberDork Cafe. Your shameful behavior has made my mission that much stronger.

Have a wonderful day!

Sincerely,
Natali
Proudly known as UberDork Girlie

It’s been almost a year now since I have written my “Yup, I’ve Got Boobies” post. To date it is the scariest, most emotional post I’ve ever written. Yes, even more so than the one outlining me standing there with a knife in my hand staring a stalker through my patio door. Breast cancer is far scarier than any stalker.

As soon as that post went up, my awesome tribe of geek girls responded with an outpouring of love and support that went beyond just RT’s. That’s how we roll. One laughs, we all laugh. One cries, we cry too- then whip out whatever we can to make that turn to laughter. One makes a stand, we stand behind her.

We are strong. We are geek. We have boobies. We use our powers for good.

And I am so proud to announce that we have banded together to create a project for the cause. Coming your way soon…

The #BoobieWed Geek Girls Edition Calendar

There are more than 250,000 women living in this country that were diagnosed with breast cancer under that age of 40. That does not account for the thousands that did not detect it early enough and lost their battles with breast cancer as a result.

The strongest weapon in beating breast cancer is early detection. That is the fuel behind this project- driving home the importance of it and reminding women (and yes men) to check their breasts regularly and remind those in their life to do so as well.

For more information please visit the amazing organization Young Survival Coalition.

And stay tuned for more to come on the Epic Gift That Keeps On Giving.

Now go give ’em a squeeze and make sure they’re happy!!!

Remember #BoobiesAreStrongerThanTheForce But they still need to be checked.

These last two weeks have been insanely busy, mostly in a really good way. As a result of juggling it all, I have been kind of missing in action online and for that I am truly sorry. I have really missed it too. So what the heck have I been up to??

Well… I found a place, though I’m still working on making it a signed, done deal. I’ve been doing some interviews with some amazing people that it still floors me would want to interview me and I’ve been working on the major announcement that will be made late Friday night. That announcement will include the next phase for UberDork Cafe. Oh! And I’ve been making and sending out my Woookiee Cookies now that they are available via the web site.

The Kickstarter page is now down to HOURS. They don’t even mark it in days at this point. With 51 hours to go (though it will most likely be 50 by the time I get this done, proof it neurotically a zillion times and post it) and 108 BEYOND AWESOME backers, the total sits at $6,480. I can’t begin to tell you how that number makes me feel. How all those numbers make me feel. To know that so many people support this, support me so much still gets me teary. My goal for the next 51(ish) hours is to get the word out as much as I can. The higher we get that number, the quicker this all goes. I’m not going to lie, I wish I was opening doors tomorrow. That I had the Wall of Love done and up and huggable. That I had each and everyone of you ready to walk in the door and share the big moment with me when it’s all 100% real.

This past weekend I made the trip down to Indy for Gen Con. I ended up leaving late Friday night and driving straight through. I was exhausted when I arrived, but giddy. The whole way down I had music people had suggested and one whole CD @dirty_saint made me. I LOVE Mixed Tapes! So, I didn’t feel even remotely alone on the trip. Then, I had @CapSteveRogers call to check on me right when I had to detour because some crazy lil Hwy 912 was closed. I was literally sitting on a dead end road by some railroad tracks wonderin where the heck I was when my phone rang. He navigated me back on a new route in no time. Our fearless @ThePowerGeeks host @DarthMolen also made me promise to call if I started getting sleepy and he’d talk to me the whole way there. Of course, by talking, he means picking on…but it’s the thought.

Saturday morning, I arrived and went to check in and get my press pass (THANK YOU @ThePowerGeeks!!). Before doing so, I started to fulfill my mission- I got to FINALLY actually huggle @NicoleWakelin! Into the press room we went! After hitting the press table for goodies, I turned around and @CapSteveRogers and @PeacockPub (who had ventured in with me) were sitting there with “O EM GEE” looks on their faces. Yup, sitting like two seats away was @FeliciaDay. Epicness already!! Right after that, I got to huggle the mess outta @KatieDoyle again and on to complete my mission. Whipping through the giant exhibit hall filled with so much awesomeness, I had but one goal.. to make it to the @G33kMade booth. When I did, I finally got to huggle my girls @GeekSoap and @KyleeLane. Whatever happened at that point during the weekend would be the proverbial icing on the cupcake. I can’t begin to tell you how much I love my sisters. Yeah, I called them sisters cuz it’s that deep.

Saturday morning was spent walking around with my peeps. Spending actual real life time with them and it was just as if we’d known each other forever. Exhausted, we made our way back to the G33k Made booth and I froze. Standing there before it was Wil Wheaton. With a ridonkilously huge grin on his face as well. I slipped on over and just started taking pictures. @wilw literally hung out there for quite a while. My favorite part of the whole entire weekend was listening to him talk to Lesley (the gorgeousness behind Geek Soap) and Kylee (the gorgeousness behind Luxury Lane Soaps). And then it happened. I swear Wil was gushing. He explained to Lesley and Kylee how amazing they were, how original and creative and refreshing Geek Made is. Then he told them how very proud he was of them. Wil, my dear, I have to say I agree with every single word that came out of your mouth. Lesley, Kylee and all the people they feature on G33kMade are what UberDork Cafe is about. SUPPORTING OUR GEEK COMMUNITY!! The things that can be accomplished when we team up! Well awesomesauce is just weak. We’re gonna have to invent a new word. I really need to state that Lucas, Lesley’s husband and Rory, Kylee’s husband freakin also rock in their own rights. Kick ass geek guys supporting the mess outta their gals is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

Later that day, Katie and I made our way through the parade of Cos Players (huge props to all of them!!) and back to the press room to sit and charge phones. There was some chef guy doing an interview with someone from Gen Con. It took everything in me not to stand up and scream “WTF!?!??!” In the short 10 min interview I heard some insanely horrible stereotypes come out of his mouth. “Ya know, at least the board game people have to get out and be social, not like those video gamers that sit locked in their houses by themselves playing their games all day and night.” SERIOUSLY??? “Well, I’ve seen some actual females here so maybe this generation of girls will start to break into this whole gaming thing.” WHAT!?!?!?! Some????? Start??? As painful as it was to listen to, it was a much needed dose of reality.

It drives home how important G33k Made is. How important UberDork Cafe is. How important WE ALL ARE. We’re not some group of freaks to come gawk at. We are a ginormous ball of freakin’ amazingness that, well if they don’t get it, they can kiss my big ole lily white ghetto booty. We ALL have geek in us. We ALL have nerd in us. We ALL have dork in us. Whether we embrace it or not. Why mock those that do?

So, I say we show the chef dbag’s of the world a lil something. I say we show them our gnork. Show them our love for each other. Show them what we are capable of as a community. Show them that if they don’t support us, we are just fine. WE HAVE EACH OTHER TO SUPPORT US. We get it.

And UberDork Cafe will be our lil physical safe haven. Our place to hang, to game, to learn, to chillax. Our continual con. Open all year round and passes never sell out.

Yeah, I haz a BIG love for my family. My family of gorgeous geeks/nerds/dorks. And to pull out one of my lilest’s quotes from an older post of mine “Yo! I gots your love right here!!”

Show G33k Made some love HERE!

Show UberDork Cafe some love HERE!

Let’s keep this BIG love going!!

MWUAH!

P.S. Some more love ya can show…

The Power Geeks
Cap Steve Rogers- amazing freelance designer
Nicole Wakelin- just plain amazing
Action Flick Chick
Game Couch
Geek Girls Network
Geek With Curves
GeekBoy Presents
Geek Girl Diva
Geek Shui
Giant Fire Breathing Robot
Girls Are Geeks
Has Boobs Reads Comics
Naked Hobo
Pop Bunker
Reality Amuck
Rock The Lan
Shiny Lines (I NEED THE GEEKBREEDER MUG!!)
The Carnival of Random
Troll in the Corner

I’m sure I’m forgetting all kinds of love. I’m scatter brained right now pretty, pretty please forgive me!

If physical structures could be built on love alone, there would be a string of UberDork Cafes open all across this world by now. Open, bustling and radiating more #GeekLove. I don’t know that I will ever be able to find the exact words to describe all the emotions this journey has conjured up.

What has started as my crazy lil idea to create a place for my daughters and my community has turned into so much more. Part of me would like to print out the Kickstarter Project pages, the comments, the statistics, every tweet, every amazing blog post, every kind word of support and encouragement and show it to the world. I would say “Look! Look at what this community is capable of! Look at the love! Look at the support! Look at all of these amazing people! Look at what you’ve overlooked! What you have underestimated!!” It is not just the group of people that has been overlooked and underestimated, it’s the power of love, the power of community.

The very thing that UberDork Cafe will exist to nurture, to support and to encourage.

From Apple’s “Think Different” to Einstein’s “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning. “ to Yoda’s “Do or do not, there is not try” – these things have shaped who I am in life. Who a lot of us are. They are concepts sadly often drowned out by media, by peers encouraging conformity while growing up, by adults that don’t get it staring down noses and speaking of “the right way” to do things.

This is my way of helping cease that. Media will still be media, peers will still be peers, adults will still be adults. But, we will all have a place to go, our future will have a place to go, that encourages us to simply be us. To embrace who we are, to let it hang out, to help our youth navigate through to be proud of who they are and confident in pursuing their true goals in life. The things that make us all happy.

There are just two weeks left now. Because of all of you I have made my goal. Which I am beyond grateful for. Part of me feels greedy to ask for more. But all of the voices that have come forth with “If only I had a place like this when I was growing up” and “I really need a place like this near me” make me want this open tomorrow. And those that have said “I have been scared to go for my dream for so long, but you have inspired me to go back to it and really pursue it” make me want it open yesterday. The simple fact is to make this happen as quickly as possible, I still need your help, your support. We are currently at $6130 with two more weeks to go. Just imagine what we can do in two more weeks!! Can we reach 200 backers?? $8,000?? Can we blow this completely out of the water?? I think we can!

I can not tell you how excited I will be the day I can stand up inside of the finished, open UberDork Cafe and say:

“Look what WE did!!”

If you’ve been following along, or know me at all, you know that the Wall of Love is going to be my absolute favorite part of this whole place. I will hug it every day and may the Force be with anyone who tries to deface it.

So, from a place for my daughters to go and a community to be nurtured and hope to be given, this has turned into the physical representation of what a community can do when they believe in something, when they believe in themselves.

To those that don’t believe, well my girls and I proudly stick our tongues out at you, wrinkle our noses and then smile and wave are lil geek/nerd/dork flags. And we are honored to have an entire community standing behind us doing the same.

“Life’s like a movie, write your own ending. Keep believing, keep pretending. “ ~Jim
Henson

To join the lovers, the dreamers, the community, click here to visit the Kickstarter Project Page.

One of the best feelings in the world is that which you get when something just fits. That comfy old T- shirt you’ve had for 10 years, hearing the perfect song on the radio that says everything going through your head at the time, snuggling in on the couch with the person that just gets you. A moment in time that makes you feel at home. That lil sigh with a dash of giddiness one feels when things just fit right freakin’ rocks.

It was the search for a place for my monkeys and I that would give us that feeling when we walked in that has lead to UberDork Café. It’s a giant quirky chunk of me. I once had a very good friend tell me that I “suffer from poor marketing.” He further explained that I call myself a dork, I look like a dork, but I’m so much more than that. He’s right. I am a great many different things. But, I am still totally a dork. And as I am always true to form, Uberdork Café is so much more than just the café of an UberDork. Getting to know UberDork Café is like getting to know me. So allow me to introduce you to us.

In essence, UberDork Cafe is Art + Science= Geek in a family-friendly environment that supports local vendors and artists, the earth and gives back to the community not only by providing a safe place for youth to play and learn, but also in financially assisting future Art + Science= Geeks.
I can see the “huh?” bubble over some of your heads, don’t worry, Imma break it down more for you.

Café- Yuppers there will be coffee, geeky baked goodness and a simple but delish menu. Complete with grown up “happy meals.” Which I will of course have to change the name of so Mc Donald’s doesn’t try to sue my lil ole self. But, us grown ups deserve toys too! Oh and of course plenty of snacky “gaming food.”
Family-Friendly- Having a kid’s menu, some crayons and high chairs doesn’t necessarily mean kid-friendly. The goal is to have them, have families, feel welcomed. The plan is to have an actual kid’s section. Optional of course. But, an area where kids can sit and eat and play. With a menu that is more than just chicken fingers and fries.
Supporting Local Vendors and Artists- While my motivation may have been my monkeys, it’s all about my community as well. The goal is to use as many local vendors as possible. To showcase local artists and talent as well. Whether it’s someone guest-teaching a class, hosting a local knitting group, a comic artist lecture or meet and greet or allowing local artists to exhibit and sell their works, there will be much opportunity to support the great vendors and artists that my community (both in location and in spirit) has to offer.

The Earth- UberDork Café will strive to be the greenest business it can be in every sense of the environmental term.

Safe Place to Play and Learn- Besides the café section, the other two parts that make up UberDork Café are a game room and a classroom. Play is an important part of life that we adults tend to lose sight of as we grow. One of my goals is to not only nurture that play but bring it back to those that have forgotten it. No matter what your controller of choice looks like, no matter how many sides your favorite die has, no matter how your board is shaped, UberDork Café will embrace and try to offer it. Come roll how you want to roll. Play how you want to play. And for those of you who may have forgotten, there will be classes. Art and science classes that families can take together, adults and kids may take alone and all will be adaptable to those with special needs. (Yup, I was once a special ed art teacher. Which is something not many people know. It was also one of the best jobs I’ve ever had.) And if you’ve been eying up a 360 but have never owned a console before, well we’ll give ya an intro to it. Always wanted to tackle DnD but were scared to be a noob? We’ll cover ya too.

Financially Assisting Future Art + Science = Geeks- I’m a giver. It’s just part of who I am and one of my favorite parts of my goal with UberDork Café is to help foster our future. Each year, UberDork Café will offer three scholarships. They may not be huge at first, but hopefully they will grow. The basic criteria to qualify for these scholarships are simple. 1. The student has to be from the inner city. The reasoning behind this is I want to support those that are often under-supported. Those that often get lost in the shuffle. Those that could use someone to look them in the eye and say “I believe in you.” b. The student must be going on to pursue further schooling in: Video Game Design/Development, Science and lastly a Geek Girl.

So welcome to UberDork Café and welcome to me. ☺

Now just when will we be able to hang out at the awesomeness that is UberDork Café? (hee hee)

Believe it or not, a lot of that depends on YOU. Yup, YOU. If you read my last blog, you will know that UberDork Café was selected as a Kickstarter Project. One that launches oh…. TODAY!!!!

The fun of Kickstarter is this- I get to promote my project any nonspammy way I can. The more awareness I get it, the more chance I have of people seeing it and thinking “Jinkies that sounds swell, lemme back it with $1, $10… etc.” And when people back the project, they can get fun UberDork Café stuffs for doing so.

What does that mean? What can I do?

I thought you’d never ask. >;-)

Simple answer- as much or as lil as you’d like.

This means you can go big by visiting The UberDork Cafe Kickstarter Project Page and backing it.

You can go medium by helping me spread the word by passing on the link via any way you’d like (email, twitter, facebook, airplane flown over baseball stadium with banner, racing carrier pigeons, etc.) Here’s the link: Http://www.tinyurl.com/UberDorkCafe

You can go small by following @UberDorkCafe and/or it’s lil home on Facebook.

Or you could go wild by shaking it up and trying various combinations of all of them. #geeksdorksandnerdsgonewild

As I write this I am a total ball of excitement and a terrified mess. This is my dream. And it’s possibly one GIANT step closer to becoming a reality. None of this would be possible without the support I have already received from some REALLY great people. People that get my vision, that get what UberDork Café is all about and are wonderful enough to believe in me. There are far too many to list here but there are two that CAN NOT go unmentioned. @CapSteveRogers and @GeekWithSoul. When I was at my wits end with being too close to this to come up with a logo, they stepped in and completely kicked ass. Both have come up with a variation of the logo that I will be using. One for larger scaled projects, one for smaller things where the lil graphic element of me will be lost. And I completely LOVE them. The logos and the guys behind them are beyond awesomesauce. Thank you and the giant tally of *huggles*tm they have coming there way don’t even begin to cover it.

Thank you all for believing in a café that is more than just the café of an UberDork and a gal that is more than just a dork with a dream.

*MWUAH!*