by Brion Lau

Have you heard of Cali Lewis? No? She’s the popular host of GeekBrief TV – Video Segments and Podcasts on “Shiny, Happy Tech News”.

Cali’s real name is Luria Petrucci. Why the dual identity? Well, according to her Q&A section on Faqqly.com:

Cali Lewis was a character name in a book Neal (her husband) and I were writing. When we came up with the name Geek Brief, we had a flood of ancillary ideas. Geek Brief was a daily briefing for members of the Geek Intelligence Agency (G.I.A.). I would be its National Director, and of course, every spy has an alias! I love my real name, and that’s why I don’t hide it. But it’s difficult for people to pronounce, and difficult for people to spell, so it just made sense to use the name Cali Lewis as a screen name.

As a geeky girl who likes to read fantasy books, it’s easy for me to step into the role of Cali Lewis, your fearless leader on camera, and then be the shy, bookish, Luria Petrucci who giggles all the time in my real life. I hope people who watch this show have as much fun with the fantasy as I do.

How did she come up with the idea for GeekBrief TV?

In November 2005, Neal and I were addicted to listening to podcasts, and we were even doing an audio podcast. We saw Tiki Bar, and decided we would come up with an idea for a video podcast. We were both really into gadget blogs like Engadget and Gizmodo, so the idea was to create a news show about the latest and greatest gadgets. The first domain we registered was gogoshow.net, and I would be the Go Go Gadget Girl, like Inspector Gadget. Then on November 30th, we were both on GoDaddy.com searching for domain names. One of us typed in GeekBrief. It was available and we loved the name, so we registered GeekBrief.just about everything. Throughout December, we bought some equipment, software, and solidified the idea with the goal of releasing the first episode by Christmas, just in time for all those people who got new video iPods. We released Brief #1 on December 23rd, 2005.

When she’s not hosting GeekBrief, Cali enjoys long walks on the beach and relaxing games of Sudoku. If you have a question you’d like to ask Cali or would like to read other the rest of her Q&As, click Cali’s Faqqly.com banner below.

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