I spent (misspent?) large parts of my youth with my nose in comic books, rolling oddly shaped dice to determine whether my elf would be able to bash in the skull of an orc/troll/dragon/duck/whatever, and playing with Star Wars miniatures. My mother, the Swedish/English teacher, must have been dismayed to have one son with no interest in serious literature (me) and one with no interest in literature whatsoever (my brother). In the end, I think we turned out alright. Ish.
Nowadays I read the occasional graphic novel (comic books with more pages) and roll oddly shaped dice to...eehm...determine whether my elf will be able to bash in the skull of an orc/troll/dragon/duck/whatever. But with more story. And more pages. As for the miniatures, I don't play with them anymore (only when alone on a Friday night, really really drunk), but I still buy them. Not specifically Star Wars, but there are toys all over the place at home. Stewie. Ralph Wiggum. Pinhead. The Sarge.
And I spend a lot of time around other geeks. Music geeks, gaming geeks, tech geeks... I've come to the realization that you can be a geek about just about anything.
Back in the day a geek was a computer wiz with glasses with thick rims and questionable hygiene. I can safely say that I fall into none of those categories. I might be more tech savvy than the average Joe, but don't expect me to fix your PC.
By spending time with geeks, I get exposed to a lot of interesting and downright weird phenomena, special interests, sub-cultures, etc.
SETI is one of those phenomena. I have been aware of SETI through various books, movies, TV shows, articles, etc, for quite some time, but I had no idea I could contribute. Readers, meet SETI at home (Wiki, official site). Now go do your part, to help us all find our benevolent friends in the sky (I choose to ignore Alien, War of the Worlds, Predator, Independence Day, Footfall, Martians, the Inhibitors, etc. Real aliens are cuddly-wuddly).
Batman AND a ninja-ish assassin. That's almost too much...And to continue the geek theme. I walked past a comic book store on Sunday and was unable to resist. The title above and a Lobo trade paperback now sit on my shelves. Mmmm...geeky.
6 comments:
"I might be more tech savvy than the average Joe, but don't expect me to fix your PC." Or to turn on a microwave apparently...
OH NO!!! I thought I had rid myself of the many-sided-dicey kind!
Damn you, internets! Damn you to HELLLLLLLLL!!!!!
(PS RE: Swedish/English teacher mother. Phew. Now I at least -- and at last -- have the answer to my burning question as to why you speak (or write) English like a native. So there's that. And, in light of that, I guess I can forgive the D&D thing. Maybe.)
misstv: Uncalled for!! ;)
ege: We're everywhere. We have infiltrated all levels of society. Resistance is futile (I'm not a Trekkie, I hate the stuff, but the quote fit).
PS. I also spent a year in an American high school when I was 17, and 95 percent of the books I read are in English. When I speak English, I still do so with an American accent and when I've read, written or spoken a lot of English in one day I tend to dream in English too. Wow, I just wrote "English" four times in one post. Alright, five if you count that last one... And it's not D&D. I'm slightly offended here. DS.
My first memory of Martin; Him talking about said high school and asking a girl for a "rubber". Haha!
Ehm...that's my legacy to the world. Stupid school that taught me old-fashioned British English. Eraser. Not rubber. E-R-A-S-E-R.
I hate SETI! Okay, not really. But I used to run the program, dividing my time between SETI and various protein folding projects (I am a protein biochemist, aka protein geek!). But it seemed like no matter what I did I was always falling behind the deadline and getting no credit. And it seemed like it was constantly overheating my laptop - sometimes it was hot that I could barely touch it. So, no more SETI for me.
Post a Comment