Vangie "Aurora" Beal

My first contact with Vangie, was way back when she was just PMS_Aurora, and I was a lowly Towel Boy wanna-be. I had become friends with her clanmates during the "Quake's Sexiest Male" contest. Although there was pretty stiff competition ( Paul Steed and the infamous Sword picture ) I came out victorious with the help of all my voting friends at PMS. Matter o' fact. . . . I pulled out all the old pics I could find, blew some dust off em' and looky what I got here:

PMS_Aurora, FireSea and Anna circa: 96-97 ( last millennium )

Before and After

1) How'd you get started in the WebMastering Game and/or who was your inspiration.

Actually, my wonderful friends in my old clan (Clan PMS) were the inspiration. But I got started… for many reasons. Doing ‘GameGirlz’ was something that I thought about for a long time, but just couldn’t find the time in between work and a few rounds of playing Quake with the clan to actually do it. Due to getting ‘very large’ early on in my first pregnancy, I ended up taking my maternity leave from work early, and found I had lots of free time while playing the waiting game. Enough time to find a few people to help work on the site, design it and launch it. But yeah… had it not have been for being in the clan and realizing how much fun it was meeting other girls who were into gaming, I probably never would have done it.

2.) What's the most outrageous thing you ever did ON your site?

Posted a really odd pic of me done for a Newspaper… I was in combats with a gun and a big bad Quake tattoo. The e-mail didn’t seem to stop from people who didn’t realize it was a ‘dress-up’ shot and thought I spend everyday looking like Ms.Rambo on crack.

3.) People you admire in the industry. (Please limit your answer to 2 people and EXCLUDE me, thats a given.)

Margie Golick- She is 70 years old and still loving her job. She is a Ph.D. Psychologist, and does a lot of work with television and game companies who are making products for kids. One of the reasons I admire her, is because she is from a small area close to where I am.. And she has proven that no matter where you come from, if you have determination and desire you can do anything and be anything you want to be. Recently she worked with Kutoka on two excellent children's games, Mia: The Search for Grandma's Remedy and Cyber Grannies. If you were to ever check out those games, you'd see that they aren't 'pink=girl, blue=boy' type titles, which is something else I feel is very important. Margie Golick is just an amazing woman with an incredible career.

4.) What's the most annoying thing to deal with as a WebMistress? ( hehee, I like the sound of that . . . )

e-mail. E-mail. More e-mail. Sometimes It’ll end up taking me like almost a month to respond to an e-mail, if at all. I do try and answer all the comments and questions sent in… but there just isn’t enough hours in the day to actually do that. The second worst thing is still e-mail, but more along the lines of the content. I can’t count the number of times I’ve gotten e-mail from guys who feel they know me enough to believe I’m a gay, butt ugly female who does nothing but sit at home with no life (because they can’t seem to comprehend that some girls may just happen to ENJOY playing games and writing about them once in awhile). Not that nameless/faceless people’s views actually count mind you, but e-mail is the medium which shows you just how many stupid people there really are in this world. Yeah, e-mail in all aspects is the worst part of the job.

 (interviewer's note:  this was an e-mail interview as well. . Doh!!!)

5.) Does your Boyfriend still nag you to "Get off that damn computer before I break it" now that your a famous WebMistress.

Not anymore… I have a new boyfriend :).

(more interviewer's note's:  . . ummm, tough crowd )

6.) Tips you can give WebMistress' in training . . ..

Have fun with it. Do something that will hold your interest, and don’t get frustrated. Some days you can feel annoyed by having to run a website, and other days you can load it up and feel proud of the amount of work you and others have put into it. But don’t give up, and always make sure you’re doing something that you can have fun with, and not just call it ’work’.

7.) Drink of Choice

Coffee first (preferably Star Bucks with raspberry flavoring in it) , Guiness second.

(note:  mmmmm, she said beer. . . . . Girlz + Beer = kick ass ) 

8.) Tunes of Choice

(Ever so Canadian) Anything by Counting Crows or Tragically Hip.

9.) Stud of Choice ( ahem, this should be obvious. . . . . )

Why… YOU! Followed by Steven Seagal. (What can I say…any man who can run the full length of an exploding train and jump out the back door safely onto the waiting rope ladder hanging from a hovering helicopter has got to be a stud muffin).

10.) I remember back in the "days" when people were vying to be your "towel boy", If you

could chose someone from the industry to be your "towel boy" who would it be, and why?

Hahha… towel boys rock! Last year at E3, we actually had a few guys in towel boy attire for a quake match with Heat.net players…. But umm… I’d have to go with <ponder> Jason Hall, cuz… well... he’d look really good in a towel!

and the bonus question:

If you could do or say anything to the in the Web Community and NOT be held accountable for it, it would be . . .

To those of you who feel that stuff women gamers do (the female tourneys, ladders, events etc) and the stuff they write about (reviews, previews, columns etc) is not newsworthy and not worth posting about because it was contributed by a female… you suck! To everyone else, thanks a bunch for the support :)

(You did say I wasn’t accountable for that, right?)

The funniest part of this interview, depending on your frame of mind that is, is this being the third female WebMistress I have interviewed, I can only say that my respect and admiration has only grown since starting these interviews. I have always tried to be an open minded individual so that I wouln't inadvertently ROB myself of the pleasure of knowing great people like Aurora. Go see what the GameGirlz have cookin'. . . but before you do, I'm jumpin' out with the big Jerry Springer like final thought here. . . .

One day everyone will wake up and realize that if there was no color or gender tommorow, we would all still find a way to descriminate. . . Big people, little people, fat people, skinny people, big nose, glasses. When you descriminate against someone based on their gender or race, you only rob yourself of the person you are descriminating against. There is really only one race, the human race. 10 fingers - 10 toes - 2 eyes - 1 nose. So please think about the things that EVERYONE has to offer. Sometimes, even when the  person is a grade "A" certifiable asshole, you have still learned from them, you've learned that thats not the kind of person you want to be. < stepping down from soapbox>

Go see my friends at GameGirlz and see how they boogie over there

**click me****click me**

And, just because I can. . . . here's the picture we've all been waiting for: Two Hot chicks feeling another chicks boobs..