More Mraztastic Baby Names for a Friend

When our friend, Steve, was getting ready for his first child, I carefully compiled a list of baby names worthy of a son being born to such a Mraz geek. Now, our friend Jon Baron is getting ready for his first little bundle of expenses (and joy), and I want to give him the same honor.

Jon is just as geeky as Steve, but not in a Mrazy way. Just in the normal “I like to talk about components and quote Monty Python like Scripture” way. He can’t argue with that because he doesn’t have the password to edit this blog. Ha!

Steve knew he was expecting a boy, so his list was tailored to fit a little Whedonesque son. Jon is expecting a girl though, so I can’t recycle any of those names. Here’s what I came up with from scratch. Any children born to any friends after this will get leftovers.

Because a daughter born to a Baron should have a regal, royal name:

• Contessa
• Dutchess
• Lady

Because Jon may want to think back to his childhood summers in Norway:

• Danica
• Elsa
• Margit
• Petra (also a good geek name from the Orson Scott Card ouvre)

Because you can’t go wrong with Harry Potter names:

• Hermione
• Luna
• Lily

Because Jon knows his Simpsons almost as well as I do (okay, maybe even better):

• Marjorie
• Sherri/Terri (if only he was having twins!)
• Lunchlady Doris (I suppose this one could cause her to be pigeonholed into a career)
• Malibu Stacey
• Lisa (hey, it’s served me pretty well all these years)

Because his daughter may grow up to be a Whovian (I volunteer to take her on a pilgrimmage to see David Tennant):

• Romana
• Sarah Jane
• Billie (a much better name than Rose)
• Gwen (or maybe save that for the spin-off… er, second child)

Because Jon is well-traveled:

• Alexandria
• Cairo
• Safari

Because Jon insists on stealing one of the two names I would find acceptable for a girl, and I’m thinking maybe I can distract him and push him onto another Beatles-inspired name:

• Eleanor Rigby
• Penny Lane
• Strawberry Fields
• Lucy Sky
• Julia
• Martha Prudence (no Girls Gone Wild worries with this one)
• Blackbird
• Savoy Truffle (She would have her own show on Food TV before her twelfth birthday)

Or how about names of real people associated with the Beatles:

• Yoko
• Stella
• Sean
• Dhani

Because Jon loves Peter Himmelman:

• Dixie

But if I have to suggest the best ever baby name for a precious little darling girl being born to a geek, I have to go with:

Serenity Firefly Baron

No way could she go through life with that and not become a free spirit, a rebel artist, a compassionate thinker, a brilliant leader and pretty much better in every way than all her peers. Not that having Jon as a dad doesn’t already ensure that, but I think you should give a kid all the advantages that you can.

The one with the bright eyes, well she laughed her way inside this music box, stored away in the corner of my heart,
Lisa

Mraz Declares Himself God (of Galaga)

I love misleading headlines, and I thought that one would have a ring of the infamous “John Lennon says the Beatles are bigger than Jesus” incident, which was blown so far out of proportion.

I was watching “Help!” last weekend and decided that while Mraz would make a good Paul McCartney, Milo Ventimiglia wouldn’t be a bad George Harrison. I feel a VH1 bio-pic coming on. (I managed to spell “Ventimiglia” right even before I looked it up. All those “Gilmore Girls” hours really paid off.)

Back to Mraz. I enjoy the way he loudly declares himself supreme ruler of the Galaga universe while at the same time admitting that it’s not something most people would be proud of. He builds himself up and then knocks himself down, but gently, lovingly, self-depricatingly. The post, after all, is titled: “If I wasn’t such a dork i’d be really awesome.” I appreciate the mixed feelings of contentment and awkwardness because I feel that way pretty much all the time – geeky enough to spend lunch with a co-worker discussing how exactly the TARDIS manages to be so much bigger on the inside and how many rooms it has, but awesome enough to feel confident that during this conversation, the same co-worker is probably half-daydreaming about running off to Vegas with me for the weekend, but then deciding that I’m probably imagining that myself, and he’s really just being polite.

It’s a fine line we sexygoofballs walk.

Hey, it’s a thingie! A fiendish thingie!
Lisa

Geek Love: Monday Nights With Chuck

I know! I know! It’s not “Heroes” or “The Tudors”, although it’s just as cute as “Ugly Betty”, but I really love “Chuck”, and Chuck. I watch it and laugh and mourn the greatness that could have been Christopher Gorham’s “Jake 2.0” if it had lasted more than three weeks.

Do I usually put TV show titles in quotes, or do I italicize? No time to look it up now. (Can you believe I’m a paid copywriter? Me neither.)

Last night, the best dialogue of the show was something like:

Professor Dude: You work with the CIA? What do you do?
Chuck: Mostly I just wait in the car.

I think I’m enjoying it even more because I recently pulled out my “Buffy” (I’m sticking with quotes) Season 1 DVDs and had a mini-marathon of the ultimate comedy-meets-sci-fi/crime show. I forgot how damn funny it was. No wonder TV writers are striking for more money when they work so hard at coming up with these classic *tee hee* moments for us. 

Buffy to Giles: I cannot believe that you, of all people, are trying to Scully me. There is something supernatural at work here. Get your books! Look stuff up!

Joss Whedon used “Scully” as a verb, no explanation, no dumbing down; either you got it or you didn’t. Just like our Prophet Mraz, Joss knows it’s all about the wordplay, and that makes him awesome.

If the apocalypse comes, beep me,
Lisa

Portrait of the Artist Mraz As a Young Geek

Jason Mraz actually used the words “Nerd Alert” on his blog. As a caption. For his own photo.

Give me a minute here to get my grin under control.

Mraz also talks arts and crafts and tangos and cash (Sorry, I tried not to.), and he gives us some of his sister’s wedding details, and I think almost everything he said was something that we here have either mentioned or pondered or prophecised about him. It seems us Mrazonites are all very in tune with each other. He even got the New Kids on the Block in there, and his magic tricks are right in line with my latest read, Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. (Very good, certainly better than Franzen’s The Corrections, but not as engrossing as, say, Patrick Suskind’s Perfume.)

Mraz even threw in a little bit about redemption, which was all over our Harry Potter discussion of a few months ago, and talks about framing, which I just had done at my local Michael’s (an authentic Lisa Simpson sketch, which ties nicely into the magic/Chabon/Franzen connection – should I diagram all of this for you?). Does this mean Mraz is an avid Prophecies reader? Nah. He just speaks the same Geek dialect as the rest of us.

“I was weird in those days. I wanted people to see me on a greater adventure. The one I always had in my head. The one I’m currently living today.”

Amen, brother.