I was reading LawyerWriter's entry on Nerd vs Geek. Sure brings back some memories.
Like LawyerWriter, I've pretty much been a hard-core geek almost all my life. I wonder where girls like LawyerWriter have been all my life. They certainly didn't appear in my teenage years. It would have made my gawky teenage years much easier.
In the spirit of my discovery that girls like LawyerWriter actually existed, I set out my own geek credentials.
My Top 7 Geek Credentials
1. I not only own some of the old Dungeons and Dragons game books, I owned books from every edition ever published except the very first edition published in 1977, where you were able to play a young balrog. I know the current version 3.5 is a misnomer - there were boxed sets published way before the version 1.0 was published.
What's my favourite class? Depends. I often joke to my gaming buddies that I play whatever gives me the most plusses.
That's just for Dungeons and Dragons. I have more game books from other genres than I care to admit. Chances are, if it was ever published, I'd probably have played it at one point in time or other.
2. I wasn't addicted to a computer game. I was addicted to entire gaming platforms. My first gaming platform was the Commodore C64. Then a Nintendo, Nintendo 16 bit, Sega Genesis, Neo-Geo, PS 2, XBox and PC games. I've beaten someone on Street Fighter 2 one-handed and looking away from the screen. I've beaten every Rockman released except a recent 3D spin-off.
I'm already seriously addicted to World of Warcraft, but my long-time readers already knew that.
3. I've watched more anime than I care to admit. Apart from old standbies like Robotech, Captain Harlock and Voltron, I've watched Crying Freeman, Fist of the North Star and Legend of the Overfiend at the tender age of 14, not to mention the "core" watchings like Akira and Ghost In The Shell.
4. I wasn't just picked last for games - I well and truly suck at them despite my best efforts. I still can't catch keys thrown at me.
5. Steady bullying during my youth - check. At least 2 different stages of life - check. "Popular" bullies - double check. With life experiences like that, you stop taking things like social acceptance seriously.
6. I had, and still have, an unhealthy interest for theoratical science. I look forward to the day I can control my computer through an implant (for plebians, the first bit of culture that referenced this was NOT "The Matrix"), taking Soma, meeting a Selenite, or leaving the Silent Planet, or discovering Great Mambo Chickens, or building a Dyson Sphere (or Ringworld).
7. Three words. Han. Shot. First!!!!
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
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10 comments:
Here is where I rate on the geek test:
My D&D experience is limited to playing the Eye of the Beholder computer game.
I have never gotten addicted long term to any computer game, much less gaming platform. I still have never owned a gaming console.
Okay, I love anime. But, please, strictly speaking Transformers, Voltron, Battle of The Planets, Robotech, Pokemon, Digimon, god-knows-what, by this I mean the American-adapted versions, are not anime.
I also love tokusatsu/sentai live action superhero TV shows. Ultraman. Kamen Rider. Again, American bastard ripoffs like Mask Rider and Power Rangers do not count.
SAT. Once is enough. Please.
Was a member of the badminton school team, but even now I wish I was better at it.
Can't remember being bullied. I think I was unware of what was around me that I did not even know where the playgrounds were.
Poor complexion, check. Bad hair days, check. No hair days, check check check. Wish for bad hair days back, check.
I am a techie. HiFi Audio, check. Linux, check. LaTeX, check. Will only code standards compliant HTML without programs like Dreamweaver and Frontpage, check. Builds own desktop computer, check. Considers obsession with cable management to be poorly understood and underappreciated by others, check. But still not technogeek enough, check.
Yet to read or watch LOTR. Hey, you, at least take a deep breath before gasping in sheer surprise, dying from disbelief, or just doing the ROTFL thingie? Oh, did I mention Isaac Asimov and his Foundation trilogy...?
Did not know what a BBS was until age of 15. Geek (nerd?) credentials just nosedived.
Someone tell me about X-Men related developments since 1993? Why would I care about Marvel Comics characters, in particular, after all the foil covers stupidity of the early 1990s?
And if being a geek (or nerd) has something to do with whether I have or will fall in love with someone who appreciates geekdom/nerddom, it's that I have put myself in the situation whereby I don't try hard enough at all.
oi! why you say me shoot first? lol.
1. Gamebooks, check. Not just D&D, but also Sword and Sorcery and various other ones I can't remember.
2. Games. PC, NES, SNES, and some arcade. I was constrained by the fact that mum didn't like me playing too many games. First game I remember playing on the PC was some RPG on a green monochrome screen. Later on was Double Dragon. That was kickass on a CGA screen. But best all-time game I ever played on a PC so far was Star Control 2. Ever.
3. Anime. So many, cannot count. I've always been a Big Robots fan. Macross, robotech, gundam, etc etc...
What about appearance? Heheheheh.
Blackrx, 'Isaac Asimov and his Foundation trilogy' is hardly geek literature. There is no stench of fandom there. Try Heinlein for golden age geekdom. (and other reasons of course...)
Hey- when are you going to challenge me to KOF then? I'm also particularly good at Fatal Fury.
And nobody has ever beat me at Bishi Bashi (any edition) - you want to try your luck?
Oddly enough, I never got into KoF. Fatal Fury was particularly cheesy for me - I usually used Kim Kaphwan or Andy Boggart to wear the opponent down.
LOL yeah Kim Kaphwan was my favourite character to use - until people banned me from using his downward-kick move because it was broken.
You should try KOF one day though I must say that I much prefer the earlier editions. 95 onwards just got...bad.
Heh heh... to me, the internet was green phosphor in dim rooms; I actually have a set of the paper-bound 1977 rules and a hard-bound set of the 1st ed AD&D rules, although my before-1st ed dice are sort of all-rounders now. Geek reading? Funny. I must've been a true SF fan, never thought of reading Doctor Who and Heinlein and Clarke as being geeky. Games; I think I only obsessed over Ultimas and LodeRunner, while giving the rest a bit of time. Or giving time a bit of rest.
7. Three words. Han. Shot. First!!!!
Amen bro. Thou shalt not revise scripture. I've toyed with the idea of filing a class action lawsuit to have the Star Wars intellectual property taken away from George Lucas. I don't think he should have it anymore.
Zach,
It's one of those morality vs legality issues. Morally, you're probably right. Legally, Lucas has an iron-clad case.
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