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I was clicking through our archives recently and discovered something pretty impressive: almost every blogger on this site, including yours truly, has written about geeks and nerds at one point or another.Some highlights include: Stacy outing herself as a geek, Ransom discussing geeks and religion, Miss Cellania presenting some really fun geek cakes, Higgins on the Nerd Handbook and Nerdcore hip hop, and one of my favs, Becky posing the question: What is a nerd, anyway?
Clearly we have an especial affinity for geeks and nerds here at the _floss, and my hunch is you readers do, too. So why not share an anecdote, eh? What’s the geekiest/nerdiest thing you’ve ever done? I’ll get it going here by disclosing this: I was in Revenge of the Nerds II.
I know it sounds apocryphal, but it’s true; I was an extra in the film and actually made the final cut. In this screen grab, you can see me, topless, on the far right.
And what’s even nerdier than being in a film about nerds? How about this: You can see me pulling my glasses down to get a better look at the girls. Thing is, they were prescription glasses, not sunglasses. Ooops. (In my defense, I was 18 years old, sporting a mullet so dramatic it must have affected my ability to think straight.)
Your turn!
Forget the mullet, those are some chiseled pecs, David!
posted by Ransom on 1-9-2008 at 12:43 am
Only the truly gifted amongst us remember that our TI calculator cases had loops so that we could attach them to our belts.
posted by Egg Go Boom on 1-9-2008 at 7:15 am
I joined a scooter club. Activites include weekly scooter rides, rallies, and not getting beat up by local bikers. :)
posted by Amanda on 1-9-2008 at 7:50 am
Almost getting into a drunken fist-fight over the fact that Mel Torme is, and always will be, better than Frank Sinatra.
Oh, and I, like Stacy, also play World of Warcraft. For the Horde!!!
How ’bout that beer I owe ya, David? Just don’t bad-mouth my man Mel.
posted by ArtF on 1-9-2008 at 7:51 am
I used to play Dungeons and Dragons every Friday night about 30 years ago.
Some of my friends from that group STILL play it.
posted by Sheldon Siegel on 1-9-2008 at 7:57 am
I think my husband has one of those TI calculator cases buried deep in his Nerd Cave! A Nerd Cave of the Gods!
Since I’m a huge EC fan marrying a Marvel fan, our wedding invitation was a mini comic about our courtship (IMs, internet dating profiles, etc) with a subscripton/response card. The comic was self designed. I wore a hole in paper getting just the right angle for a panel featuring my bio-sib holding his latest iPod and proclaiming the future bride and groom nerds.
posted by gwendy on 1-9-2008 at 8:15 am
This isn’t me, but it’s so good it has to be said.
A friend is at an anime convention and sees a bunch of people really well costumed as anime characters. She goes to ask for a picture.
Response: “Are you sure you want to do that? We’re not even from the same anime!”
sigh…
As for me, I actually find “The Big Bang Theory” funny. That should be enough.
posted by Michael Wu on 1-9-2008 at 8:16 am
I don’t know what’s nerdier, the fact that in HS I had a gerber multiplier and a TI-85 graphing calculator in holsters on my belt, or the time I blogged about photon torpedoes in Star Trek not being guided. Or maybe the time I chose to watch a show on the History Channel about longbows over G-String Divas on HBO.
posted by Jim on 1-9-2008 at 8:38 am
My car is named Samwise, my husband’s is Frodo, and the car I had before Sam was Bilbo. I even had front tags made for Bilbo, but this was way before the LOTR movies and absolutely no one knew what “Bilbo” was.
And yes, my hubby and I both think “The Big Bang Theory” is hilarious.
posted by kani on 1-9-2008 at 8:44 am
I dressed up as old school comic book Rogue for Halloween one year.
Besides getting WAY too excited about new video games and computer stuff.. Im pretty tame in the geek department.
My friends bring their geek out in weddings. Most recently I went to a wedding where the bride walked down the isle to katamari damacy songs.
posted by Diane on 1-9-2008 at 8:49 am
Being both a Spider-Man devotee and Musical Theater buff, my life has had no shortage of nerdiness. But the most public example would have to be the time I performed Tom Lehrer’s ‘The Elements’ at a high school concert, complete with lab coat and safety goggles.
posted by Rev on 1-9-2008 at 8:53 am
Oh, Im sure most people have already seen Weird Al’s White and Nerdy… but if you havent you should check it out.
posted by Diane on 1-9-2008 at 8:54 am
Oooh… so many from which to choose…
I suppose mine would be the gift I requested of my then-fiance on the occasion of my undergrad graduation: a trip to the Greenbrier Resort in the mountains of West Virgina. Not for the golf, or the pastoral setting, but to take a tour of the decommissioned Congressional relocation facility (euphemism for Cold War era nuclear bunker) hidden underneath. I loved every minute of it! My notes from the trip found their way into my MA thesis.
Postscript - She also gave me an authentic, reflective aluminum Fallout Shelter sign as a wedding present. Very supportive of my weird scholarly pursuits.
Post-postscript - I too find Big Bang Theory funny!
posted by Roger on 1-9-2008 at 8:56 am
For Spring break my senior year of college, instead of partying with a bunch of friends at a beach house, I did the following:
1) Competed in a forensic speech tournament in the following categories: Impromptu Speaking, Impromptu Sales, Informative Speaking, Poetry, Dramatic Duo and a prose piece cut from Roger Zelazny’s “The Last Defender of Camelot” anthology.
2) Visited the following Smithsonian museums: Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, National Museum of American History.
3) Spent the remainder of the week in Williamsburg, VA exploring the “Living History Museum”, playing mini golf, and passing another couple off as our little ’sisters’ to get them into places at kids prices.
Gosh darn it… I was such a rebel…
posted by psychocellochica on 1-9-2008 at 8:56 am
In high school/the begining of college I lent my voice to Anime Fandubs. Noteable roles included Shampoo of Ranma 1/2, Cerberous of Card Captor Sakura and Dilandau/Celena of the Escaflowne series. I sang the themesong from the Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz movie for my high school talent show.
I recently discovered that I work with an old friend from Youth Group in high school. He couldn’t remember who I was, and then had a flash of inspiration, “Oh! you were that girl who doodled anime stuff ALL the time!”
I = nerd.
posted by Ashley on 1-9-2008 at 9:28 am
I went to two different engineering camps the summer before my senior year of high school.
posted by JCizzle on 1-9-2008 at 9:44 am
i was so clueless about pop culture as a kid that on my first day of high school, someone asked me what i thought of REM, and i said “rapid eye movement? it’s okay, i guess.”
the ensuing laughter was the birth of my musical education…
posted by terri on 1-9-2008 at 9:45 am
My boyfriend and I were lying on a little hidden beach and telling each other sweet nothings. I whispered, “I wish I was your derivative…” (you know that one) and he came back with “Mmm, teach me about calculus.” So I got all excited and said, “Really?” I jumped up, grabbed a stick, and started drawing graphs in the sand: “Ok, so say this is your original equation. This is how you find the derivative and then it would look like this…”
posted by Mari on 1-9-2008 at 9:59 am
Does checking this website every day count?
Okay, okay, haha. No, the nerdiest thing I have ever done? Well, there was this English assignment where we had to write down something that interests us. Most of the kids wrote down “music” or “track,” things like that. I wrote “the plays of Oscar Wilde.” No one knew why.
posted by Allison on 1-9-2008 at 9:59 am
The comic books, the D&D, or the honeymoon trip to Jamestown. You decide.
posted by DW on 1-9-2008 at 10:12 am
In 1985-ish, I got my computer merit badge for BOY SCOUTS by PROGRAMMING a DUNGEON AND DRAGONS character generation program on my old school IBM.
Beat that nerdy trifecta!
posted by Chad on 1-9-2008 at 10:23 am
Ooh, ooh I love this game.
I was way into the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) where I was apprenticed to a master cook and researched and tested different flours to create authentic puff pastry. There are other things as well, but aging the flour and grinding it by hand for fun is pretty damn nerdy. I gave it up when the feminist in me couldn’t tolerate being called, “M’ Lady” one more time.
An old coworker beat me by telling me he and his friends would compete to see who could remember pi to the furthest digit.
posted by Julianna on 1-9-2008 at 10:30 am
Chad, I bow to your trifecta.
posted by Julianna on 1-9-2008 at 10:32 am
In grad school, we went to a geography conference in New Orleans. It was the week of Mardi Gras. While we did get drunk one day, we spent the majority of the conference on the “Geography Bowl,” a jeopardy-like trivia bowl game that we got way too worked up about. And when we got 2nd place, instead of complaining about not winning, we complained about the map projections in the consolation prize atlases.
posted by Jenny on 1-9-2008 at 10:32 am
In college, sometimes I played bridge as a drinking game.
posted by JL on 1-9-2008 at 10:37 am
I have STAY GEEK tattooed on my knuckles. The “a” is an apple. The font is old dot matrix/atari style.
posted by Witera33it on 1-9-2008 at 10:46 am
My name is in the D&D 3rd Edition Players Handbook on the “Thanks” page.
posted by Kevin McKee on 1-9-2008 at 10:51 am
A ‘geek’ by definition is someone who eats live animals….I’ve never eaten live animals.—Crispin Glover
As for the nerd in me. Wayne’s World– the scene where the girl hits a parked car while riding her bike and checking out a guy. Yeah, been there. And think that goes up there with most embarassing also.
I was told by someone once that the kids in junior/high school didn’t talk to me because I was smart. I had a B average. Not sure where that came from. I think I just looked like a nerd, therefore I must be smart. And avoidable.
posted by Ella Blue on 1-9-2008 at 11:18 am
Not taking into account I was in the chess club (founding member), debate club, played magik ( in tournaments), made clothes for my LARPing friends, Play Risk, Scrabble (tournament rules only), Morrowind, Have won Spelling bees, and translated passages of the hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy into 1337 (%05 $n4r|{1n r00P!!!111!!!!111)…
The nerdiest thing I have done and still do is–
My father and I play jepoardy against the people on TV… and keep score (and remember it doesnt count if you dont answer in the form of a question). ive been doing this since I was about 8 or so, Im almost 23 now, and still once a week we call eachother and play.
I have decided nerdiness is, in fact an inherited trait..
FYI… My dad is a computer programmer, and writes code for fun…
posted by Alicia on 1-9-2008 at 11:52 am
I wrote and researched, for fun, an essay about the debate between teaching evolution and creationism in schools.
…Set in the Pokemon universe.
(The explenation for those scratching their heads: In the original Pokemon games, we were told that all Pokemon had descended from a Pokemon called Mew. In the latest games, however, we are informed that the god of all Pokemon, Arceus, created the world and all Pokemon in it. Hmmmm… It seems, somehow, familiar…)
An excerpt: “They were not well known in Europe at the time, but a scant 30 years after the publication of The Origin of Species, the New York gatecatcemologist Mary Mulberry wrote the controversial and influential paper On the Speciesation of Plusle and Minun: Four Theories.”
posted by Freezair on 1-9-2008 at 12:07 pm
I went to a Harry Potter convention in Toronto, Canada. I flew out there from Los Angeles. The amount of money I spent on it is embarrassing. I didn’t dress up though.
posted by Lauren on 1-9-2008 at 12:22 pm
Oh yeah, I also forgot to mention I was the champ in my local arcade’s annual Super Street Fighter tournament two years in a row AND my high score on Space Ace was not beaten for 3 years. Booya!
posted by ArtF on 1-9-2008 at 12:23 pm
I founded a roleplaying club in college, rather questionably titled the Society of the Rusty Sword for RPG’s and miniature battle gaming.
posted by rexology on 1-9-2008 at 12:36 pm
I used to go to all the Star Trek cons and even wore a costume. I also made costumes for my cohorts. Here’s a pic.
www.misscellania.com/miss-cellania/2007/8/26/star-trek.html
posted by Miss Cellania on 1-9-2008 at 12:36 pm
My wife and I went camping near Crescent City, CA in the redwoods where they shot the Endor scenes in Return of the Jedi. We ran as fast as we could through the forest, ostensibly recreating the speeder-bike chase.
And Allison–Oscar Wilde is tha bomb!
posted by Johnny Cat on 1-9-2008 at 12:40 pm
I once spent a good hour at a party debating with my husband and a couple of friends whether or not the letter “w” could be or has ever been considered a vowel.
posted by Marcy on 1-9-2008 at 12:44 pm
I too have a wide variety of nerdy activities to choose from. I can’t decide if the creme de la creme would be my vacation at the Michigan Interscholastic Press Association summer camp, (Funny side note, every girl I dated in high school I met via the school newspaper.) or the fact that I base my hairstyle on Spiku, the main character of the Anime cartoon Cowboy Bebop. I also have a suit that I custom ordered to as closely resemble his as possible. My current girlfriend would hotly debate both of these for a slew of other dork moments and hobbies though.
posted by Nathan on 1-9-2008 at 12:48 pm
My third-grade teacher started laughing at me when I told the class my favorite TV show was 60 minutes.
posted by Kevin on 1-9-2008 at 1:12 pm
Wow, Dave, nice body, there!
I’ve done the usual: played D&D et al, high school band, learned all the lines to Monty Python’s Holy Grail (and can still recite my favorites from memory), worn glasses since I was 14. About six years ago, I outgrew it all and got a Harley… :)
posted by Lisa on 1-9-2008 at 1:25 pm
Ooh, yeah, almost forgot about the SCA. Thanks, Julianna!
posted by Lisa on 1-9-2008 at 1:31 pm
I suppose all hardcore research projects are nerdy, but mine was about whether two pagan characters in two Chaucer stories could go to heaven according to the theology of the time. While my friends were at the beach, I was elbow-deep in Dante, Aquinas, and lots of scholarly work.
I’m also obsessed with Google. Yesterday, in an attempt to find out why a customer address in Italy wasn’t working, I went to Google maps to see what they gave me (since they will often give you the correct address if the town is slightly off or something). Except I went to google.it and clicked on maps. Even though I don’t speak Italian.
There are way too many others to mention…..
posted by Kate on 1-9-2008 at 2:03 pm
Oh, there was the time I studied abroad in New Zealand, went to several LOTR film sites, and took pictures with my friends reenacting certain scenes (then comparing them with screenshots from the movies when I got home).
Also, as a kid, I always tried to stay up past my bedtime to watch tv…..and by tv, I mean Nick News.
posted by Kate on 1-9-2008 at 2:07 pm
In fourth grade I did a book report on an atlas.
posted by John P on 1-9-2008 at 2:24 pm
Hubby and I spent part of our honeymoon in the Greek Isles. Not nerdy until you realize that instead of lounging on the beach the whole time, we were out hunting down various historical and archaeological sites.
I’ve also been competing with my dad in Scrabble since I was very, very young. I refuse to give up until I beat the man!
posted by Jenn on 1-9-2008 at 2:28 pm
I used to sign my name in elf runes (a la LOTR). In 1967.
I decided I didn’t like the calculator apps on my computer, so I programmed a GUI sliderule. It took me longer than it should have because I was determined to do it in FORTRAN.
The second weekend of every year in high school included a fantasy draft of women celebrities. Twenty or so of us would sit around and take turns picking movie stars, athletes, etc. We would trade draft picks as well as spots in upcoming rounds. Draft order was in inverse ranking of the previous year’s GPA. I’m certain that none of us had more than a vague notion of what would happen once we had our “team” in training camp.
posted by Loomis on 1-9-2008 at 2:50 pm
I was always pretty cool but hidden underneath was a geek… in HS the online diaries became really popular, and all my friends had one. I took it one step farther though for mine and secretly taught myself HTML to improve it. When they found out, boy did I get it!
posted by Kelly J on 1-9-2008 at 2:52 pm
#36, Marcy—Ah, another linguistics geek! I can’t compete on the geek scale here, really, but I did a semester project in grad school in which I made a grammatical analysis of the dialogue used in an interview of a biologist on a Discovery Channel documentary on the Galapagos Islands.
My father is proof that once a geek, always a geek. Although he retired from the Air Force as a fighter pilot (not generally known for their typically geek mentality), his college degree was in civil engineering. Two years ago, he and my mother were in a car wreck in which a motorcyclist hit them head-on. He knew the weight of their car and the speed that they were going when they were hit. As soon as the state troopers could tell him the weight of the motorcycle, the weight of the deceased cyclist, and the estimated speed that he was doing when he hit them, Dad whipped out a pencil and paper (Dad is old school) and calculated at how much force the guy hit their car and subsequently, at how much force he hit their windshield. There was no real reason to do this—Dad just wanted to know.
posted by ansav on 1-9-2008 at 3:16 pm
I bought a friend a build-a-bear as a graduation present and named it “ablaut”. That’s the classification for verbs that change tense by changing the central vowel, such as “run” -> “ran”. I think that’s fascinating. And Marcy, [w] is a coarticulated consonant.
posted by TyCho on 1-9-2008 at 3:19 pm
Some friends and I drove a couple hours to a neighboring state so we could play in a ‘Risk’ tournament, just so that we could win some expansion packs that were not available for retail sale. This gaming store basically was not going to have a tourney, but they were willing to since we brought enough people. So, we basically drove a few hours to play Risk at some dude’s nerd store, so we could play Risk a little differently.
It was fun.
posted by Ben on 1-9-2008 at 3:33 pm
I can use a slide-rule.
I was born in 1983.
posted by Kate on 1-9-2008 at 3:43 pm
I used to write out long-division equations along the lines of 789 into 1321694613219684616846431684961321984321684351354 to keep my restless hands and mind busy while watching TV. Now I just play with my hand held Nintendo. Thank goodness for technology.
posted by Helen on 1-9-2008 at 3:55 pm
I own a t-shirt with a periodic table on it. As a matter of fact, I wore it today while I was helping my mom shop for shoes. She said to me, “Tell me why I should take fashion advice from someone wearing a chemistry-themed t-shirt.”
posted by Sandy on 1-9-2008 at 3:58 pm
Our license plates in Hawaii have 3 letters followed by 3 numbers (FNG 397) and I find it incredibly hilarious when the first 3 letters almost spell something or if they form an acronym. My favorite almost word is PNS and my favorite acronym is JVD (jugular venous distension - I’m in nursing school). Also last night on TV I saw a commercial for a college called Universal Technical Institute (UTI). I cracked up for a few minutes while my boyfriend stared at me like I was the hugest dork ever.
posted by Leah on 1-9-2008 at 4:20 pm
1. I built my own computer
2. so I could play World of Warcraft
3. with my friends that I played Dungeons and Dragons with
4. and our guild in the game was “The Borg.”
posted by Leah on 1-9-2008 at 4:24 pm
Oh yes, and I was also a “Zoologist” for Halloween in 5th grade.
(I had a shirt with the animal tracks of North American Mammals that glowed in the dark - I wanted to wear it!)
Re: the people who find Big Bang Theory funny -
I don’t understand how you can be a nerd and find that funny, unless what you find humor in is how similiar it is to your own life. I tried watching that show, and the things that were supposed to be funny just seemed normal to me. And when they said things trying to prove how smart they were (i.e. “a tomato is actually a fruit!”) I was not impressed. Don’t 5 year olds know that theses days? And it only make sense to me that if you’re experimenting on how to make the perfect scrambled eggs, you’d need eggs of each type and size, and water content would be an issue. Where’s the humor in that?
/ rant.
posted by Leah on 1-9-2008 at 4:33 pm
Jenn- My fiance and I are going to Rome for our honeymoon for the same reason. With a side trip to Pompeii of course!
posted by ls on 1-9-2008 at 4:37 pm
Hey Leah #53 - are you young enough to have had Star Wars jokes made about your name your whole life?
I was born in 1983, and every Halloween as a child (until 3rd grade) I would dress up as a princess… because everyone would call me “Princess Leah” and I didn’t know why.
posted by Leah #54 & 55 on 1-9-2008 at 4:51 pm
Yes!! I was born in 85. People have been calling me “Princess Leah” forever! My name is actually pronounced Lee-yuh and not Lay-uh so that very joke has made me want to change the spelling of my name since I was like 10. I’m so glad to meet someone else with the same problem! For awhile I took it as a compliment like ooh they think I’m a princess but then I realized what it meant.
posted by Leah on 1-9-2008 at 5:04 pm
I was in the Junior Classic League (Latin club) in high school. At conventions, we bragged about reading comprehension scores and we performed skits relating to current events in Latin (to be judged, of course). Secret favorite memories from those years, even though I maintained a prepster athlete facade.
Also- if I get to choose the date, I try to go to a historical landmark….and judge my date on their reaction. Increadibly cool.
posted by emily on 1-9-2008 at 5:16 pm
1. I play D&D with my friends every monday night,
2. I read Homer’s Odyssey two months before my class did Sophomore year.
3. I used to be addicted to Runescape(a really bad MMORPG that’s still up and running)
4. I am a HUGE anime fan. Not quite otaku level, though, but I still grin like an idiot whenever I see someone wering cosplay stuff.
There’s more, but things just get sadder from there :)
posted by heather on 1-9-2008 at 5:22 pm
Probably not the nerdiest thing I’ve ever done (there are so many), but in 1977 I programmed a TI calculator to find perfect numbers counting up from 1. It got to the third one overnight (496).
posted by Bill on 1-9-2008 at 6:09 pm
Well, my name is Dell and when I went to visit my sister in Austin Texas we went up to Round Rock to visit the Dell corporate headquarters. I demanded a tour of the facility on account of my namesake, but they said they don’t give tours.
So I resolved to have my picture taken next to the Dell sign at the front entrance to the campus.
posted by Dell Thornhill on 1-9-2008 at 6:32 pm
Nerdiest Pastime:
Running around San Diego playing Lasertag back in the late 80s. Our group had 40+ members.
Nerdiest Mod:
Reversing the LEDs on my Lasertag rifle so it appeared that I was firing in the opposite direction. Suckers!
posted by Robert on 1-9-2008 at 6:35 pm
Asked a girl out through a website I designed exclusively for the purpose.
posted by Greg on 1-9-2008 at 6:40 pm
I was co-captain of the Knowledge Masters team at my high school (computer based competitive trivia). We did some of those “knowledge bowls” too.
posted by Sara on 1-9-2008 at 6:43 pm
I am so in love with all of you. I wish I’d known you when I was in high school - even though I’ve never been ashamed of being a nerd, I never really got to exercise it much, maybe because I also played sports and knew everyone since I had grown up in the little town. But I was definitely the only girl I knew who read the ENTIRE Dragonlance series . . . and still own it, and plan to re-read it someday! Plus I own a bunch of LotR replica swords (two of them from united cutlery, and if you know what that is, you are definitely a nerd!). And there are lots of other things, of course. Again, I love all of you, and thanks for making my day!
posted by tara on 1-9-2008 at 6:43 pm
I once got into an argument with my boss at work. She was our new customer service manager and no one liked her after 3 months of her being there.. one day she got onto me about something I was doing… so I was like
” you are not worthy of my life or my blood, But I will stand for the company(you)”.. a twist on a good ole star trek quote
I tend to reference star trek, star wars, the periodical table of elements, science stuff, electronics, engineering, math.. everything nerdy at work. One day I built a trebuchet in the back room out of cardboard tubes and stuff I found. It was pretty good too.. flung oranges 30 feet at the wall!
posted by Joe on 1-9-2008 at 6:44 pm
I read every comment on this page!
posted by cj on 1-9-2008 at 6:46 pm
Friends and I talk about Guild Wars like sports nuts talk about football: Constantly, aggresively, and in public shamelessly.
posted by Chris on 1-9-2008 at 6:48 pm
Once late at night at a strip club (yes a strip club) on Halloween, a group of characters came in ….one dressed as a stormtrooper…
I shouted out “Hey…TK-421…why aren’t you at your post!!”.
Nobody got it.
posted by casper on 1-9-2008 at 6:52 pm
I play D&D every monday night (used to play on tuesdays as well but some of the guys moved away :( )
I build robots
I am building my computer
I am rebuilding a really slow car
My girlfriend is also a huge nerd
I know the exact specs of every piece of tech gear that I or any of my family owns
So much more….
posted by Adam on 1-9-2008 at 6:56 pm
Let me think… I was on the math team in hs, participated in model un, was in french club, beta club, nhs, mu alpha theta, etc. now, i own a wii (waited all night long for it), xbox, psp, ds, original gameboy, mini gameboy, gameboy color, imac, have played WoW, watch diggnation, history channel, doctor who, heroes, the office and yes, I STILL LIVE WITH MY PARENTS!!!
posted by Lyndsy on 1-9-2008 at 6:59 pm
Wow. Maybe I should have designed this as a contest, with a free mental floss t-shirt to the nerdiest? though I’m not sure who i’d pick because there are so many killers here.
Greg: did she go out with you? Is the Web site still up??? Other nerds need to know!
posted by David on 1-9-2008 at 6:59 pm
I remember a few years back I went camping and between the 6 of us who went there were:
2 Xboxs
2 T.V.s
2 Gas powered generators
2 Tents which were duct-taped together so that we could ’screen-look’
1 link cable and
40ish Pizza-Pops… with no microwave so we opted to eat them as they thawed without heating them.
posted by Rory on 1-9-2008 at 7:01 pm
I stopped on the side of the road and took pictures when the odometer on my car hit 123456. Even nerdier, I reset the trip odometer at 122667 so when I hit the number it read:
123456
789.0
posted by Tony Black on 1-9-2008 at 7:02 pm
Ok, so this one isn’t about me, but I can’t help but share. My dad was out to a movie with my mom once, and she asked him to call home to check on us (the kids.) My dad whips out his flip phone, flips it open and says “Kirk to enterprise” and it called home
my father is the biggest nerd ever
posted by Rachel on 1-9-2008 at 7:03 pm
I remember sitting up with my partner one night discussing whether two plus two could ever equal five. The thing is the discussion went on for about four hours until about three in the morning!
One of the interesting points I remember bringing up was whether it could ever be disproved that two plus two could equal five in another time and place, dimension, or universe.
Also I write programs for fun (in C++), work in the IT industry, and can recall the match scores and attendances for Australian Footabll League matches going back a few decades.
posted by Andrea on 1-9-2008 at 7:08 pm
nerdiest thing i have ever done?
last year there was a party in my computer repair class and i brought my xbox 360 and guitar hero. I had to lug the x-plorer guitar around strapped to my back all day. most people gave me weird looks or asked wtf is that?
This was before gh became popular.
posted by jordan on 1-9-2008 at 7:09 pm
Well, last year I calculated, for fun, approximately how many Watts were released in each explosion in each cylinder of my car by 1) looking up the energy content of a gallon of gas on Google 2) looking up my average speed on my Garmin GPS, 3) calculating my average miles/gallon by looking at my gas receipts (where I record the miles driven between fillups), and 4) eyeballing the RPM off my car’s tachometer while driving at the average speed.
Seemed pretty obvious to me!
posted by Notmy R. Ealname on 1-9-2008 at 7:13 pm
I’m 19 and I still play Pokemon on the game boy, yeah I know… Gota catch em all!
posted by Mike on 1-9-2008 at 7:19 pm
Getting really excited when I found out that I had a copy of Gyromite ( old nes game ) that contained a famicon adaptor inside it. This is very pointless because I live in the united states and I would never buy famicon games because it is much easier to just download the games and play them on an emulator, but I was still very excited.
posted by robert on 1-9-2008 at 7:20 pm
Hey Emily!
Ubi Sub Ubi!
Anyone else who gets that _terrible_ Latin “joke” gets nerd points in my opinion.
I went to Nationals in New Orleans in ‘01. Had a total blast.
At regionals that year I did Grammar and Dramatic Interpretation and can still remember the first few lines of it in Latin. The next year I did Grammar and Mottos, Quotes and Abbreviations. Took home Best In Show for the second.
posted by sara on 1-9-2008 at 7:20 pm
i once wrote out my name in binary on a small slip of paper..
and left it at the top of what seemed like (at the time) a very large hill while hiking in alaska.
also the last 4 digits of my cell phone # are 1337.
do i win? :>
posted by mike p on 1-9-2008 at 7:24 pm
In high school, I taught myself how to multiply and divide in Binary on paper, programmed a Mortal Kombat ripoff swordfighting game with characters composed of ascii characters, and for an english project filmed A Clockwork Orange with stop motion Lego men.
Oh, and a friend and I spent an entire summer spray painting huge murals on a dam near his house… with pictures from tshirts that Lister from Red Dwarf would wear and book jackets of our favorite books.
Oh, and now I’m getting my masters in library science.
posted by hawkins on 1-9-2008 at 7:27 pm
Nerdiest ever?
Hmm, playing wargames with cardboard peices with my wife on our honeymoon in Bali.
Either that or writing essays on the nature of religion in 40k.
posted by Agmar on 1-9-2008 at 7:28 pm
Ummmm… In grade 9 I entered 2 different Science fair projects to the same science fair, and one of them was a homemade 6″ reflecting telescope.
posted by Kabukie on 1-9-2008 at 7:29 pm
On a Saturday night, I drove around with my friend looking for a 24-hour Kinkos so we could make copies of our accounting book we were sharing (too cheap to buy two books lol) so we could study more efficiently. Ugh…gosh, why isn’t Kinkos open 24-hours!? There are ppl who need copies on a Saturday night at 1am.
posted by Mary on 1-9-2008 at 7:32 pm
I once was fired for playing robo-rally instead of finishing my door checks (it was a security job)
posted by anon on 1-9-2008 at 7:32 pm
Bringing my Linux Kernel Internals book as well as my Rubik’s cube on my trip to Cancun.
posted by Louie on 1-9-2008 at 7:34 pm
On a Saturday night, I drove around with my friend looking for a 24-hour Kinkos so we could make copies of our accounting book we were sharing (too cheap to buy two books lol) so we could study more efficiently. Ugh…gosh, why isn’t Kinkos open 24-hours!? There are ppl who need copies on a Saturday night at 1am. How lame.
posted by Mary on 1-9-2008 at 7:35 pm
built a pc using a cardboard box
posted by freqhz on 1-9-2008 at 7:39 pm
I know that it will show my age but I used to whistle in to the old modems where you would put a telephone handset in to. Top speed on these dial-up divas was 300 baud. You could actually get the remote system to start the handshake protocols.
OK, how about putting 9 volt batteries on your tongue for a ‘REAL’ buzz!
One more, OK. The ring tones on my cell phone sends Morse code depending on who is calling. I always know who it is but no one else does. And I have NEVER heard a duplicate ring tone.
posted by Bit Slicer on 1-9-2008 at 7:43 pm
On Pi day, my friend and I decided to each write a script that calculated pi the fastest on two identical systems at work. Not being nerdy enough for us we then took it a step and started doing performance analysis to find out why where the bottlenecks where.
posted by Gaby on 1-9-2008 at 7:44 pm
I remember one morning my then girlfriend (now wife and mother of my children if you can believe that) called me to meet her at home for “lunch” one afternoon.
When I got home, I found that my new Gateway Desktop (my first brand new one) had arrived, and I spent the rest of the afternoon setting it up and tweaking it…while she watched, mouth agape.
Only latter did I realize that I had missed out on a “nooner”.
posted by brian on 1-9-2008 at 7:44 pm
Hmmm, where to start…
Regularly hosted at my parents’ house a bunch of guys and a few of us girls who played D&D. That was circa 1980, I think.
1981 - Made a French flag, drove to my German teacher’s house and drapped the thing over his car. My goodness how we laughed at that.
Wore a t-shirt with a picture of the Enterprise flying through a window to middle school around 1975. Um, my jeans were tucked into ankle boots…
Needless to say, wore a Star Wars t-shirt my entire 8th grade year of 1977-1978.
1981 (I think): Saw Monty Python and the Holy Grail for the first time. Memorized it on the spot. Walked around with my friends speaking in really bad English accents throwing lines from the movie back and forth.
Today. 44-years-old. 2008. My nephew, his aunt (my sister that’s not his mother) and I quote from the Old Gregg series on You Tube.
The same sister as above and I had a contest at Christmas to see who could come up with the most clever gift based on the song “Lotion” by the Greenskeepers. She won by giving me a bucket with a rope attached, lotion in it and part of a black rubber hose.
Geeks and nerds are far more interesting than “the others”.
posted by Lisa on 1-9-2008 at 7:50 pm
I was in the Australian reality program ‘Nerds FC’ where Australia’s nerdiest learnt to play Soccer under Australia’s best players. When I was about 13 I memorised the first 486 decimal places of Pi. I would’ve kept going but my dad admited defeat at that point so I stopped.
posted by Ben Smith on 1-9-2008 at 7:52 pm
I watched all seven seasons of Star Trek: TNG in chronological order, with all the DVD extras, over a period of weeks. Many times this occupied a good bit of my weekends. I am just now getting to season 7 of DS9. Getting a PhD in math has cut into my Star Trek time greatly. You know what? Let’s just widen the net and agree that the last four years of my life is the nerdiest thing I have done.
posted by K.S. on 1-9-2008 at 7:53 pm
There are so many of these….
1) My friends and I dressed up as LotR characters for the opening of Return of the King in theaters. I was Samwise, complete with the frying pan. We roll played for the entire night in front of the crowd waiting to get in. We had all 4 hobbits, an elf, and a nazgul. We also did this for Halloween 2 or 3 years in a row. For the Halloween during my senior year, I decided my boyfriend needed to join in our festivities so he got made into an orc. I made both my costume and his costume.
2) Prior to highschool, I dressed up an Ewok in the 6th grade and an ensign from Star Trek in the 7th grade.
3) I worked as a wench at the local Renaissance Faire for a summer and made part of my costume except for the bodice.
4) I participated in school musicals, marching, concert, and jazz bands, and was a co-creator of my high school’s literary magazine. I met my nerdy boyfriend through these activities.
5) During middle school and junior high school, I attempted to wall paper my room with the pages from Star Wars day by day calendar. I wore out my boxed set of the original trilogy.
6) Currently, I will be earning my bachelor’s in mathematics this coming spring.
posted by Ali on 1-9-2008 at 7:54 pm
I learned to read on Magic: The Gathering cards. And my girlfriend concurs — awesome.
posted by Sam on 1-9-2008 at 7:58 pm
I grok you all.
Here’s my nerditude:
In grade school my friends and I would stay out late..with our telescopes.
In high school I was a member of the Chess Club and Amateur (Ham) Radio club. For English class I wrote a SciFi short story and an essay on sub-atomic particles.
When I took the GRE tests (for graduate business school), the reading comprehension test was an article on quarks - I ace’d it.
I went to the very first Star Trek convention (although not in costume).
My blog’s name is a pun on entropy and PCs.
posted by KevinK on 1-9-2008 at 7:58 pm
A nerd and geek are not exactly the same thing.
A geek is someone the is totally enthralled by a particular subject. Sports geek, computer geek, design geek.. etc..
Now, a nerd is a geek who is socially inept or awkward.
posted by Sp`ange on 1-9-2008 at 8:03 pm
I made strawberry ice cream with liquid nitrogen during college.
posted by Matt on 1-9-2008 at 8:07 pm
I made the front page of my local town newspaper when I was 10 years old for solving the Rubik’s Cube really fast.
posted by Doug on 1-9-2008 at 8:11 pm
Chose to learn FoxPro 2 (Not visual) from scratch and use it to write software for video store management as my HS computer project, instead of using Access to do it like everyone else.
Got an A+
posted by House on 1-9-2008 at 8:15 pm
www.youtube.com/watch?v=24FhTl_f9Vg
posted by Remo2012 on 1-9-2008 at 8:15 pm
I applied to and currently attend a Math and Science school in Northern Maine (right on the Canadian border), where I built a robot likeness of the Residential Intern for my wing. It read a poem for an open mic night here.
posted by Tony on 1-9-2008 at 8:17 pm
im a horny teenager with a gorgeous girlfriend and i passed up sex to installed ubuntu onto my laptop.
also, everytime she falls asleep i dont wake her up and get out my headset and play CS or Call of Duty for a few hours.
posted by Ian Stone on 1-9-2008 at 8:18 pm
You’re all amazing. In middle school I knew so much about our Mac at home (Performa 6200 thank you very much) that I was able to lock my mom out of using it, after she told me I wasn’t allowed to spend so much time on it.
I also read so much Star Wars that I can still remember the names of the imaginary companies that made each kind of ship. Incom for an X-Wing but Sienar Flight Systems for a Tie Fighter…
Why can’t I get a girlfriend again?
posted by Greg from GCC on 1-9-2008 at 8:23 pm
In elementry school (10 years old) we had to dress up, i went as young einstin and designed and built an “electric guitar” which consisted of a back pack full of batteries wired up to the steel strings on the guitar and a plectrum that had a wire completing the circuit with a speaker mounted on the guitar (along with a crapload of switches and circuitry) obviously no distinction of notes, but a hell of a lot of distortion!
posted by Danny S on 1-9-2008 at 8:31 pm
Well, would it be interning in my high school’s technology department, convincing all of my friends to play DnD with me for the last 5 years or trying to convince my friends at army basic training to game? They all seem pretty geeky to me!
posted by Josh Cook on 1-9-2008 at 8:31 pm
1, Learned to convert HEX to binary by hand. 2, Logged 180 days played in Everquest. 3, used a blue box to make free phone calls
posted by mac on 1-9-2008 at 8:31 pm
1. I have a stack of technical books that probably could touch the ceiling.
2. I can’t step into Borders or Barnes and Noble without at least buying something.
3. I and friends wore towels to opening night of hitchiker’s guide. No one else there got it.
4. I’ve written programs in C,C++,C#,perl,asm (x86,arm,z80), vb, and basic.
5. I used to play AD&D, magic, and MUDs.
6. My first programming experience was on a TI-86 calculator, and I went beyond it’s basic language with the z80 asm i mentioned.
7. I purchase every issue of Wired, 2600, and of course Mental_Floss.
8. I used the nickname Mental_Floss before I knew the magazine existed.
posted by Brandon on 1-9-2008 at 8:34 pm
I have some serious nerd cred. I was captain of the robotics team at my high school, and I was on the math team.
posted by Paul on 1-9-2008 at 8:38 pm
First debate tournament in Grade 10 Novice PFD almost knocked a podium over. Thoroughly enjoy xkcd. Had a star wars at 30 marathon, being a star-wars freak from age 4 (When they re-released I was obsessed while nobody knew what I was talking about). When Guitar Hero 1 came out, I went to my friend’s house and we got to expert within the first week, played for five hours straight, and put all of our scores into an excel chart. Then graphed them, noting our highs and lows at various levels of tiredness. Had a Tarantino/Smith movie marathon at age 13, with my friend and I reciting the “independent contractor” scene from memory, and we plan to do it at our next forensics tournament as a Duo Interpretation piece. We’ll have to fake the source, though. Was first kid I knew to get an emulator and beat ocarina of time on the PC. watch diggnation religiously, loved AOTS at the beginning, then it blew. was a stormtrooper for halloween at age 5. pokemon fan. can solve a rubik’s cube in under a minute and a half. have been to japan twice and am about half-fluent. am in the national latin honor society. Started having LAN parties at age 13.
But here’s what tops it all:
When I was fourteen, I went on a school trip to Panama. I, with one friend, spent all but two days out of ten playing resident evil 4 for at least 4+ hours. Oh yeah.
posted by Macon M on 1-9-2008 at 8:45 pm
I learned the alphabet for elvish writing from Lord of the Rings, wrote my name in it, and have it tattooed on the top of my right wrist
posted by Ashley Lynn on 1-9-2008 at 8:46 pm
This will show my age, but…. used a slide ruler in high school (pre-calculators), played contralto clarinet in high school band / marching band; learned to program in Fortran on punch cards; created a punch deck that would print out the Star Wars poster in ASCII on a Univac line printer; worked as a computer operator at my university some (ahem) years ago; also worked at Radio Shack; built a HeathKit oscilloscope; used a Western Union teletype (that’s 110 baud, punch tape, all uppercase - anyone know why all uppercase?); first calculator was HP19c (currently own HP 41c and a TI Programmer - does bin/hex/dec/oct math and conversions); played D&D for 20 years, still have the original DMG, Players Handbook and Monster Manual I; life member of local SciFi society; work at the local RenFest; published 4 board games; all my home computers have been made by Apple; founding member of local Apple club; prefer Chez Geek to Munchkin and prefer Carcassonne over both; house is wired for x-10 technology; oh, and I ride my scooter to work.
Glad to know there are lots of us still around and willing to admit it.
posted by Art on 1-9-2008 at 8:57 pm
Nerd? I am an anti-nerd. Of course, I am a nerd, I was running an anarchy bbs back in the ooold days (the kind of thing that would bring down the homeland security goons nowadays,) and later hacking anything I could get my hands on, but none of my friends knew it. Until one day I quit my job as a roofer because I was going to work at IBM. Needless to say, my friends were very surprised!
Geek? Got that covered. Eating live fish at the carnival. Many times. Win the little fish and then eat it! Always good for a laugh!
posted by OMFG on 1-9-2008 at 8:59 pm
Nerds! Nerds! Nerds!
OK, had to get that off my chest.
Well at 12 I learned to write in english/runes, using the circular writing pattern. Which was handy because my next girlfriend also knew how to write in english/runes. We first met after we had both self taught ourselves. No one ever bothered to try to decipher our love letters… which was good because they would have had a fit if they knew what we were really up to.
Set up a LARP club and almost set up a second.
Got voted onto president or committee member positions of every computer club I have ever joined. I solved that problem. Don’t join computer clubs.
Have the favorite animal of my nerdy wife engraved on my wedding ring. She is an animal nerd. We went on an animal safari for our honeymoon.
Love to tell people I grew up down the road from the Shire.
And I will never forgive Bill Gates for the damage he did to computing in the late eighties/early nineties.
posted by NotSure on 1-9-2008 at 9:01 pm
I must say I pale in comparison to you all, but I’m only 16 so I’m working on it. I got into the fantasy/RPG scene with Morrowind when I was 12, taught myself ActionScript, Flash, and Photoshop, and played DnD for about 2 years. I have the first Star Wars trilogy on both VHS and DVD, and know who Buckaroo Banzai and what the Neverhood is. I watch Diggnation and run track.
posted by Matt on 1-9-2008 at 9:15 pm
Too many to list, these are the highlights:
Played D&D in college…in the library, as well as lounge areas in the dorms.
On the subject of dorms, one year half our floor was returners who had signed up to be there to be around each other, and we spent the year playing video games in the floor lounge, and when we weren’t playing we were watching others play (and these were mostly single-player RPGs.
Read every Star Wars book from pre-episode IV to the Hand of Thrawn series.
Helped a friend playing Text Twist…in class.
Spent the week before class started my freshman year reading books.
Watched the LotR trilogy back-to-back-to-back.
And tried (we ran out of time in the school year) to get a friend to watch the Star Wars movies in order (episode I, then II, then III…).
posted by Paul on 1-9-2008 at 9:20 pm
Ported my favorite BBS door game, Legend of the Red Dragon to the TI 85.
posted by Jason on 1-9-2008 at 9:24 pm
@17 i was so clueless about pop culture as a kid that on my first day of high school, someone asked me what i thought of REM, and i said “rapid eye movement? it’s okay, i guess.”
LOL! Trade out Ozzy for REM, and Ozzie Smith the infamous Cardinals shortstop for “rapid eye movement” and you have my unwittingly introduction to the father of heavy metal as a teen!
Also, I got in trouble in Science class for rolling my D&D dice across the metal dissection tray while drawing up some adventure. On the plus side, since I was an A student and had finished my work, all he said was, “Keep them on the counter, and off the trays, please.”
Finally, as an exotic dancer (yes, even nerds eventually grow up and, sometimes, out), I once realized I’d gone way to far into the geek during a discussion with a customer about the feasibility of forced singularities as a propulsion device (something I’d seen on one version of Star Trek or another the night before). Poor guy, his eyes were glazed over like a too-far-gone fish at the butchers. :-D
posted by Soni on 1-9-2008 at 9:25 pm
I used to play D&D in the Comp Sci lab during lunch, even got the teacher in on it.
posted by bigbrother on 1-9-2008 at 9:28 pm
I waste money on online cash in a Massively-Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game, to make my character look cooler…
posted by Mile on 1-9-2008 at 9:31 pm
Here in Vegas, there is a show called “homework hotline” for kids k-12. They had a “question of the day”, and the first person to call in with the correct answer got a 10 dollar gift card to borders or toys r us. Once I got to high school, I won EVERY TIME I watched the show. If I had a particularly uneventful after school schedule one week, they would tell me I couldn’t win anymore. I got all of my friends information and started using their names to collect my prizes.
posted by kelly on 1-9-2008 at 9:31 pm
I canceled my subscription to maxim magazine so i could afford to get a subscription to popular science. I then failed to renew that subscription so I could buy scientific american
posted by joshua Rothhaas on 1-9-2008 at 9:35 pm
In college, I over clocked my TI-81 calculator
posted by Rafael on 1-9-2008 at 9:37 pm
I was once the Secretary of a Commodore 64 club.
posted by Maury on 1-9-2008 at 9:38 pm
Dressed as a Klingon complete with latex headgear at a Mensa con. >.
posted by MrPeach on 1-9-2008 at 9:39 pm
Played most computer games known to mankind back from the Apple green screen days. Nowadays more involved with trying to debunk the myth of ebay and IM.
posted by Marsello on 1-9-2008 at 9:41 pm
I memorized PI to 12 decimal points for extra credit…and then bragged about it.
3.141592653589 IN YOUR FACE!
posted by jason on 1-9-2008 at 9:45 pm
I brought my gamecube over to my girlfriend’s house the day I got Resident Evil 4 and blew off sex to play all night.
I even woke her up so she could solve a puzzle at the part where you’re saving Ashley in the castle.
We broke up 3 weeks later :)
P.S. I too love The Big Bang Theory
posted by Stephen Gallagher on 1-9-2008 at 10:04 pm
As a kid I hacked Chuck Yeager Flight Simulator’s anti piracy system using a Hex editor so the answer to the mystery question was always “286″ I was proud of all 16 of my Mhz.
posted by KirkH on 1-9-2008 at 10:16 pm
I went to school in da hood. But I still kept it nerdy. Middle school talent show, I played the Star Wars theme on my keyboard with backup drums I programmed in. Joined a ‘geek’ club devoted to learning HTML back when 3.1 was in style. Have strange obsession with stacking things on top of each other: managed to stack 10 bowling balls. Engineering degree yadayadayada.
posted by Sean on 1-9-2008 at 10:27 pm
I joined the Pure Pwnage Gamer Army :(
posted by J Menchions on 1-9-2008 at 10:27 pm
Me and my college roomates have sat around for hours, reminiscing about specific moments in Counter Strike:Source. Detailed moments from years ago.
posted by Pulch on 1-9-2008 at 10:30 pm
I knew a David at UofA (where the Nerds films were shot…actually knew him in Phoenix growing up, and his last name was Israel…of course as a Classics major and sweater-vest wearer, I was too nerdy to be an extra in those films…
posted by Mike Brown on 1-9-2008 at 10:38 pm
If I happen to glance at a clock and the time is 3:14, I get a little thrill. The sad thing is, when I mentioned that to a friend (at 3:14), and the person had no idea why I was excited, it took me a moment to realize that not everyone cares to know when the time is pi. And this is probably the least of my idiosyncrasies.
I’m not alone in my family–my dad is an inventor in his spare time (patents and all that), my brother is a bio nerd who knew the latin names to all the plants in our yard at the age of 5 and my sister draws anime characters on any piece of paper she gets her hands on. We’re a super cool family!
posted by Jackilina on 1-9-2008 at 11:02 pm
Heh - My phone also does Morse code as ring tones, and so do a few of my friends
Played a LOT of D&D in High School and College. Met this nice girl there - about 1.5 years younger than me. Started dating March 1980, Married 1988, have two kids.
Guess Our Christmas presents? She asked for (and got) the “Death Star” book, and I got a leggo Y-wing
Did the “generate D&D characters” on the computer thing back on my C64 - found a couple of logical confilicts in the original AD&D manuals (still prefred original D&D with the chainmail combat system)
posted by kg2v on 1-9-2008 at 11:11 pm
1. Clocked 2500 hours on a text-based RPG (mud)
2. can recite (sing) pi to 250 digits
3. modded a computer to use a key ignition power switch
4. wrote a computer program to help play risk
5. made a 10 lb rubber band ball when i was a kid
6. made an aztec step pyramid out of cardboard as a book report
7. i sing sea shanties
8. i own ataris, nes’s, a colecovision, vic 20, commodore 64, trs-80, apple 2, and two magnavox odysseys
posted by erick on 1-9-2008 at 11:14 pm
This topic is so fun. Here’s a couple of little nerdinesses that I’ve remembered:
1) My friends and I once decided to keep a running tab on how many times we randomly burst into song during the day. Yes, we actually burst into song so frequently, we felt a need to keep tabs on how often we do it.
2) We also have entire conversations made out of nothing but direct or oblique video game quotations. Well-known games are OK, but the more obscure the game, and the more obscure the quote within it, the more “points” you get. There aren’t really any points, but I guess you do earn a certain level of admiration the more odd you can make it. If there were a system, it’d probably look like:
“Dodongo dislikes smoke.” = 1 point. Weaksauce. You can do better.
“Thou art dead.” = 3 points. Getting warmer, but the Internet has pretty much milked NES-translation humor for all it’s worth. Get a little more modern.
“No WAY, Leon!” = 5 points. Mainstream game, but why are you remembering this silly string of dialoge?
“My bone. Bone’s bone. Bone bone bone.” = 7 points. Offbeat game, and an uncommon quote, which probably looses to the abstract but more common “ZOOM! DING!”
“Is that… bacon?” = 10 points. Obscure game, and more obscure quote. Also has a tendency to make specific members of my friends fall down in spasms of uncontrolled laughter.
“Served, ribbit!” = A long, ardurous playthrough of the game in question, just to make sure so-and-so isn’t making it up.
3) I once stopped reading a book due to the author’s egregious misuses (and apparent misunderstanding) of a certain Japanese word beginning with “H”, and wondered if the author didn’t perhaps mean “Sentai,” and THEM wondered who the heck outside of Anime fans and Japanese people knows what “sentai” means either. Also, this book was a YA fantasy novel.
posted by Freezair on 1-9-2008 at 11:35 pm
I know they always say “the last liar always wins,” but seriously, I’m a huge nerd.
You guys, I spend my days formulating skincare products as an R&D supervisor in a cosmetics manufacturing facility, while simultaneously working on a biochem degree, selling (get this) TUPPERWARE, playing the Sims 2 (with all expansion and stuff packs) and perusing for hours on end the comments left by fellow flossers, denouncing their normalcy to the anonymous masses.
For fun, I reread classic novels from the list of books that made normal students cringe in high school, teach my toddler daughter random facts, read the PopSci blog (fascinating, some days) and Damn Interesting, accidentally proofread the labels on common household objects, and watch NatGeo, Discovery, the History Channel and (new to me) the Smithsonian Channel in HD on the massive 55″ plasma TV mounted to the only solid wall of my 10×12 livingroom.
To break up the monotony (!) I make up little contests for myself: take the tickle IQ test again, see if I score higher; learn ten words today; calculate the volume of my house; find a new interesting site to check out every hour (on the hour) every day for updates; etc. And of course, I check out the CNN Politics page to see how it’s going for my man Obama. I also make lists of plot ideas for novels I would write if I were to ever write a novel (unlikely). If you’ve got any good ones, let me know, I’ll see if I’ve got it on the list.
Gotta love the randomness of the overactive brain.
posted by adrienne on 1-10-2008 at 12:07 am
got a tribal tatoo just for the movie the matrix: reloaded (i was in it.. well, kinda.. I was “background”.
posted by rob on 1-10-2008 at 12:08 am
I placed 2nd in the overall International Crystal Growing Competition in Glasgow Scotland, U.K. back when I was in high school.
In grade school I was fond of making motion and light sensing alarms on circuit boards in case someone broke into my nerdy bedroom. No one ever broke in.
In university I would often inhale from a bong made entirely of Pyrex and stolen Chemistry-lab materials.
And for 2007, I also would sometimes choose playing World of Warcraft instead of “going to bed” at the same time as my girlfriend.
posted by Tran on 1-10-2008 at 12:21 am
In high school I placed 2nd in the overall International Crystal Growing Competition in Glasgow Scotland, U.K.
In elementary school I was big on building circuit boards that had light sensing and motion sensing alarms in case anyone tried to break into my nerd domain (my bedroom).
In 2007 I frequently told my girlfriend I would be coming to bed late in order to finish questing on World of Warcraft.
posted by Tran on 1-10-2008 at 12:37 am
So, so many.
My blog is entitled “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Star Wars.”
On a related note, I read through th entire Star Wars Encyclopedia, cover to cover. In one week.
I read the dictionary for fun (when I run out of library books).
I also read any and all computer books for fun. Especially the old (pre-98) ones. I was born in ‘89 so they seem so… quaint to me. My current favorite is an old MS-DOS manual my dad had in the basement, the runner up is a ‘96 HTML book (”Don’t use tables! They’re such a new tag!”)
I, too, know how to use a slide rule. I’ve used my dad’s old one. (did I mention he’s an engineer?)
I have never seen the Big Bang Theory, but I am torrenting it as I type, so that counts.
My friends and I have entire conversations made out of movie quotes, and my boyfriend and I sign each of our emails with quotes from Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, or The Matrix. (Yes, we’re all geeks/nerds)
posted by _Darth_Indy_ on 1-10-2008 at 12:38 am
I had Mork and Mindy suspenders in Jr. high.
posted by shampoovta on 1-10-2008 at 12:48 am
1. LARP (not anymore, though)
2. D&D on Monday nights
3. I own a Sonic Screwdriver
4. My idea of fun is learning new programming languages… I’m up to 6.
5. At various points throughout high school, I was in the concert band, the pep band, the computer club, and president of the art club
6. I’ve written two sci-fi novels for the fun of it.
7. FFRP in IRC, with the same group of people, for 9yrs now.
posted by Kelli on 1-10-2008 at 1:05 am
Not as nerdy as some of these, but here are a couple:
1. I taught myself HTML.
2. Sophomore year of high school, I had a chemistry class. For a couple weeks, I spent way too much of my free time making a program in Macromedia Flash that would calculate the molecular mass (or something like that, I don’t remember) of the elements in the periodic table, given certain inputs. (Chemistry is way gone out of my brain by now, so that might all be jibberish).
3. At a football game in high school, myself and two other friends eventually went to the back row of the bleachers and faced the other direction so that we could have an impromptu brainstorming session for a possible invention for delivering the content of our internet radio show.
posted by Dan on 1-10-2008 at 1:11 am
I mounted light sabers on the wall of my dorm room.
posted by jacum21 on 1-10-2008 at 1:23 am
After wedding, drove around town beeping the horn in Morse Code…
Used “Mark Parity” as a pseudonym…
Sent a “loop of death” fax…
Wrote bluebox software…
Walked through a video arcade with a 300 lb pull Alnico magnet in my napsack, distorting every CRT that I walked near…
Converted an FM transistor radio into a transmitter, and used it to jam the stereo in a neighboring apartment, declaring “THIS IS THE VOICE OF GOD!”
For months, pranked every payphone I encountered by making it ring itself…
Made and successfuly used a “black box”, based on the Ramparts article…
Powered my Sinclair wrist calculator kit with a picket battery and wires running up my arm & down my shirt…
Used my amateur radio to trip car alarms throughout a parking lot…
Wrote self modifying code that ran inside a Commodore 1541 disk drive - for a living…
…and a bunch of others… Hey it’s a way of life, man!
posted by Ruggy on 1-10-2008 at 1:41 am
On a trip to San Jose. I made my wife take pictures of me in front of Google, Apple, Yahoo, and eBay’s headquarters. Looking at the pictures I still don’t know why I wasted a half day doing this.
posted by Joel on 1-10-2008 at 2:13 am
I camped out to see Star Wars… for two weeks.
posted by Cassie on 1-10-2008 at 2:17 am
I recreated all of the ansi’s with my own art for Legend of the Red Dragon (LORD) on my (Renegade) BBS. The mouse conflicted with my Modem so i opted for the modem in true nerd fashion and had to create all the ansi’s by keyboard using “TheDraw”.
i also have created 100’s of ansi/ascii art.
I also created my own Magic Cards :)
posted by MikeK on 1-10-2008 at 2:31 am
In HS I was in Latin and our class decided to have a Roman banquet one night just for fun. We all dressed up in togas and talked in Latin while eating roman-styled food. There were about 13 students in the class and, needless to say, all of us were definitely uber-geeks.
posted by Lysa Marie on 1-10-2008 at 2:35 am
wow.. I’ve always thought of myself as a nerd, but I don’t even know if I can compare to alot of these.
I never really learned to program, I’m not much for video games or consoles, but here’s what I do know:
-I love electronics, especially computer or stereo equipment.
-I’ve built or had a hand in repairing every computer in my house
-I read books for fun that make my stoner friend’s head’s explode.
-me and my friends sometimes (get drunk) and play Magic: The Gathering, Risk, or Life.
-I use Anglican spelling
-I’m shooting for a bachelour’s in Astrophysics and I once wrote a missive on “Time And It’s Relation To Particle-Wave Duality” for fun, and research. I’ve also sent an email to Stephen Hawking asking him for some answers on various topics in Quantum Physics. :P
posted by Jesse on 1-10-2008 at 4:06 am
Started an internet blog. LOL
posted by speedracer on 1-10-2008 at 5:52 am
have and use daily a binary watch, weirds people out when the ask me the time.
posted by memals on 1-10-2008 at 6:18 am
I’m older than most of you, so some of the geek stuff may be obscure.
0. Watched Star Trek when it was a series on TV. Star Wars didn’t happen for another decade…
0a. got up at 5-6am to watch every space launch.
0b. watched Armstrong step onto the moon real time on TV. I had a hard time telling the difference between artist drawings and the real video. The real video seemed so good (at the time) that I wasn’t certain if it was real.
1. took sliderule grocery shopping in college to calculate cost per unit volume. *That* was a chick magnet!
2. built digital slide rule from kit in grammar school.
2a. used crystal radio to listen to AM stations in Chicago from New Jersey.
3. High School - Knights of Columbus Computer Club (1971?). 16K of RAM, loaded OS from paper tape by keying in octal machine codes using touch sensitive buttons on front panel of HP 2114B computer.
3a. programming projects included Simpson’s Rule and estimations of Pi using power series (ok, I didn’t know better).
3b. Same club - another member wired a ‘blue box’ to make free phone calls to timeshare system (Megasystems?) in Philadelphia (we were in NJ). Had free accounts there and Philadelphia School System via teletype and acoustic coupler.
4. mixed own gasoline additives for high compression engine on Volvo P1800 sports car (early 80’s). Had a graduated cylinder, goggles, and rubber gloves in my trunk.
5. 1984? - Setup UNIX based system on 80286 system with National Semiconductor 32000 (NS32000) add-on card running GENIX (BSD 4.1 based).
6. Same system - node on Internet w/UUCP connections to Philadelphia colleges for mail and newsgroups. Public access shell accounts, full development system, four phone lines (DigiBoard), running on two 140 Meg (not typo, Meg) drives on RLL controller. The drives were pulls from some commercial CAD/Engineering workstation.
That was a fun trip. I should write this stuff down more often.
Regards,
Dad
posted by Paul Begley on 1-10-2008 at 6:42 am
I have PI memorized to about 115 places. Seeing as to calculate the diameter of the universe to within an atoms width requires about 45, it is certainly pretty useless.
posted by Max on 1-10-2008 at 7:39 am
I love acronyms, and once, during my senior year of highschool, got suspended for inventing one particular acronym that contained a questionable ‘F.’ Prior to this I had never even had a detention.
I was supposed to be kicked out of National Honor Society, but I made such a compelling arguement to the disciplinary committee as to why the acronym was justified that they kept me in.
Also, the valedictorian cheated off of my physics test.
posted by Yarga on 1-10-2008 at 7:56 am
During college a couple years back, we were doing presentations for our networking class. The group that was presenting one day was always referring to themselves as the network Jedi. We thought it was funny.
During their presentation, they decided to poke fun at one of their team members by saying that he was not a true network Jedi, and that they had a picture in the next slide of what one really looks like. The picture was of some guy who obviously needed a treadmill, dressed up jedi style.
I raised my hand for a question and when called upon, I stated (in front of the whole class) that the man in that picture is no Jedi, but rather a Sith due to the color of his lightsabre (red). Of course at this point the entire class is laughing.
The guy who was being poked fun at then told me that he would use his Jedi powers to get back at me. I stopped him in his tracks again by stating he must obviously be a networking Sith as Jedi do not seek out revenge on others.
The professor awarded me 50 geek points for that day.
posted by Taylor C on 1-10-2008 at 7:58 am
When I was 8, I used to stay up until 2AM to watch Mr. Wizard on Nickelodeon reruns. I also enjoyed watching The Straight Dope tv show when it was on (Anyone remember that?)
I will gladly get into arguments with people regarding proper HTML coding and my hatred of WYSIWYG programs such as MS frontpage, and how much junk code it adds.
Not to mention the comic books and D&D. At one point I hand knitted dice bags for my entire group at the time, they were pretty sweet. I also created character sheets and item inventory lists on MS Publisher so that everything looked ‘pretty’. I married the DM a few years later, LOL.
posted by Kelly on 1-10-2008 at 8:26 am
Once when I was having an orgasm, I came to a strange conclusion on a problem I was studying for partial differential equations.
posted by Darren on 1-10-2008 at 8:53 am
I went to a Weird Al concert.
Alone.
I stood in the back of the club, arms crossed, my lips imperceptibly, yet perfectly, synched to every word of many of the songs. My head may have even bobbed a little during “Nature Trail to Hell.”
I bought a t-shirt.
I was 29.
posted by JD on 1-10-2008 at 9:49 am
I was playing around with WLAN and noticed that a new network had appeared that was completely unsecured and gave me access to the Internet.
I stitched together a little script that read out loud the signal strength to that particular network once every two seconds and set out to find the AP with the laptop in my backpack and wearing earplugs.
The first door I tried was the correct one(this was in a blockhouse, lucky me). The girl was really surprised I knew her ISP and the speed of her connection. I instructed her to secure her AP with WPA. The next day she’d taken down her wireless completely, never to be returned.
posted by Henrik Ala-Uotila on 1-10-2008 at 10:07 am
Hmmm… I’m only 13, so I don’t have very much geekery built up. however…
1. I play DnD every Sunday with some friends.
2. I know this much Pi: 3.141592653589793238462279
3. I read Shogun in under a month during seventh grade. Best piece of literature I’ve ever read, so far.
4. My list of great literature goes like this (no particular order):
Shogun
Watchmen (yes, the comic book—read it!)
V for Vendetta (again, the comic book)
King Rat
Ender’s Game (this was the only good one, in my opinion)
Ummm… no more on my mind.(I’ve read lots of great stuff, but my mind is drawing a blank.)
5. I have read roughly one-third of the Discworld novels. Currently on Lords and Ladies. I like Rincewind and the Night Watch; despise the Witches and the History Monks (although this Witches installment is pretty good)
6. Subscribe to PopSci and Mental_Floss.
7. Read Digg every day.
8. Think Zero Punctuation is hilarious (and I read the rest of The Escapist, too)
9. I don’t say “er” or “huh”, I say “hrrm” as a result of reading Watchmen too many times.
10. I listen to the Beatles and Jonathon Coulton instead of rap and rock (which I hate).
11. The kicker: A few weeks ago, there was Holiday Hat Day at my school. Almost everyone, if they wore a hat, wore a boring santa hat. I wore a Half-Life 2 Headcrab Hat. The only person who knew what it was was my best friend. It was awesome!
posted by Max on 1-10-2008 at 10:07 am
1) My watch tells time in binary.
2) For my birthday gift from my parents one year, I asked for and received both an IDE software suite and a new hard drive.
3) I’ve been known to alleviate boredom by inventing and doing spur-of-the-moment calculus problems.
4) I can build Turing machines.
5) No matter how good WYSIWYG HTML editors get, I still code in notepad.
posted by k on 1-10-2008 at 10:14 am
When I was in college we used to do those “one shot of beer” a minute drinking games.
We snuck into the chem lab (I went to an engineering school, duh) and stole miniature beakers.
Then we hung up a periodic table and toasted one element each minute. When we ran out of elements, we made our own up.
posted by whil on 1-10-2008 at 10:35 am
I started a Halo Club at my school.
posted by lewlerskates on 1-10-2008 at 11:08 am
As a teen I always played with my dad’s HP calculators. When he got the HP-41C (the first with an alphanumeric display (such as it was), he told me to keep my hands off it for at least a couple days so he could play with his new toy — I had it in my hands within 15 minutes.
Then in high school and college ,I had my own HP-41C calculator. I also got the time module for it and the PPC synthetic programming kit allowing me to access undocumented calls created by tapping internal contacts just the right way.
With all this, I created a 5×5x5 dungeon maze with signs, teleports, pots of gold, hit points, three kinds of monsters, and a fair chance of losing melees. I had to completely clear out the calculator to make room for this thing when I reloaded it from my dad’s magnetic strip card reader. Eventually the calculator was eaten by my brother’s ravenous dog, Sydney.
I won’t talk about the Big Ben quarterly-hour chimes I programmed into it, nor the variable alarm clock that knew my class schedule so I could sleep in when possible. Nor the quadratic equation that my dad simplified into a 24-byte program.
Come to think of it, I should be telling you about my dad.
posted by Chris on 1-10-2008 at 11:17 am
i read this site everday
i dressed up as Arther Dent for Halloween a couple years ago. no one got it…
i understand the Theory of Relativity
i am currently scouring eBay for Creature from the Black Lagoon toys.
i also cannot go into a bookstore without buying something.
i love Monty Python
posted by the creature on 1-10-2008 at 11:22 am
The first car I ever bought was an Infiniti G35 Coupe back in 11/02. I have a spreadsheet that tracks every single drop of gas and every penny I’ve ever paid for it over the last 5+ years. I have columns that automatically calculate MPG, average price/gallon, and cost of gas per mile. In addition I have graphs for Price of Gas over Time and MPG over time.
posted by Pucky on 1-10-2008 at 11:30 am
Darren, number 164, your experience is by far the best.
Anyway, in high school, I intentionally failed my history class during the second semester of my freshman year because I realized I knew more about history than the teacher (I made sure it was a zero percent). I corrected him almost every day (on various things, too); On the final, out of fifty questions, I made corrections to eleven questions. But my story is not the best from that class, a friend of mine, who was not in the same period, but a later one, found him particularly rused one day and apparently was asked if he wanted to teach the class. He did for an entire forty-five minutes. I wondered why he never asked me.
I also nearly exchanged blows over a Marvel vs DC discussion.
posted by The Escapist on 1-10-2008 at 11:36 am
At my wedding, hubby and I searched high and low for a non-cheesy wedding cake topper (if only the Wii had come out in 2004- then we could have had our Miis made…), and we just settled on two of our favorite miniature toys- he was a mini Optimus Prime, and I was a small Hello Kitty. And I walked down the aisle to Led Zeppelin’s “The Rain Song.” We’re geeks, but are walking the fine line between geekdom and ultranerd- I draw the line at online gaming. Sorry. I do.
posted by Holly on 1-10-2008 at 12:02 pm
Where do I begin?
1. As a child, I had a succession of digital watches. The cheap black plastic kind with an LED display, and I would have to push a button to display the time. Since I grew up in Florida, I never knew what time it was when I was outdoors.
2. My dad worked for IBM and always had cool toys. He had an early TI calculator that cost around $100 and it had the most buttons I had ever seen. I was so proud when the TI-30 came out and I bought one and showed him that my $30 calculator could do just about everything that his more expensive model could.
3. In junior high, I went everywhere with that calculator in a brown leatherette case attached to my belt.
4. In school, a friend and I would chase away moments of boredom by designing new Starfleet ships, with ever increasing numbers of engines. (Dreadnought? 3 engines? Gimme a break!) Small wonder that we both grew up to build our own hot rods.
5. I used to own about 2 dozen Avalon Hill wargames, and I would take over my mother’s dining room table for gaming. Given that I grew up watching “Hogan’s Heroes,” I must have thought that the Nazis weren’t so bad so I often ran the German war machine (with varying levels of success).
6. I had a Magnavox Odyssey, the Sears version of the Atari 2600 (hey, it cost less than the Atari brand), an Atari 5200 (complete with 2600 adapter), and a Sega Genesis. Played on friends’ NES a lot too.
7. I had a Sinclair ZX81, an IBM PCjr with original chiclet keyboard, and a Macintosh Plus. Built a SCSI hard drive for the Macintosh Plus using parts sourced from a hamfest.
8. I learned to use computers at the science museum on a Commodore Pet.
9. I took a commercial Battle of Midway game that was written in BASIC for the TRS-80 and ported it to the PCjr, adding colors to the text-only output.
10. I built my own radio control unit for use with R/C cars, airplanes, etc. from a Heathkit.
11. In college, the teaching language was Pascal. I never used the TTYs on campus, rather I would write code on my PCjr using Turbo Pascal, upload it, and compile and run on the university mainframe.
12. I can identify every Star Trek episode by title and possibly guest star. Old school TOS, that’s how I roll.
13. I have a poster of Captain Kirk in the Uncle Sam pose exhorting “Starfleet Command Wants You!”
I could go on with my geekery, but y’all get the picture.
posted by Ken on 1-10-2008 at 12:03 pm
While doing research on lateral solid phase epitaxial growth in undergrad, I used to visibly wear my lab pass on campus to be cool until I got in trouble for it.
posted by Darren on 1-10-2008 at 12:09 pm
By lab pass.. I mean geiger counter.
posted by Darren on 1-10-2008 at 12:12 pm
In the summer following my junior year of high school, I began a year-long sceince project inspired by professors at both ASU and U of A, both schools which I spent a considerable amount of my own time working at (through summer programs in which I moved out of my house to live on campus for). I finished the project at the end of my senior year. The project was a Transposon Mutagenesis in Agrobacterium vitis. I identified and mapped two genes in the organisms genetic make up that were crucial to it’s existence. I went on to win first place at the Arizona Sceince and Engineering Fair in the microbiology category for the project. My work is also to be published through my mentor Dr. Steve Slater at Arizona State University. :)
That was last year
posted by Ryan on 1-10-2008 at 12:13 pm
..and I just realized I’m wearing flipflops with socks on. Okay I’m done.
posted by Darren on 1-10-2008 at 12:17 pm
On the day Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows came out I wore a shirt I made on Zazzle that said “VOLDEMORT KILLS SNAPE ON PG. 658.” I then traveled all around my city, making sure I walked into book stores. After that I went to the Apple Store at the mall and, with a friend of mine, put all the computers on that Leeroy Jenkins/HP Spoiler video that was making the rounds on Youtube.
What’s ironic is that I had actually bought the book the night before.
posted by senfood on 1-10-2008 at 12:21 pm
Well, since this has become a list of all your nerdy habits instead of the nerdiest thing you’ve done, here it goes.
1. I built my own computer
2. so I could play World of Warcraft
3. with my friends that I played Dungeons and Dragons with
4. and our guild in the game was “The Borg.”
5. Dressed up as a Zoologist for Halloween when I was 11.
6. Have collected rocks since infancy
7. Met my fiance online, was charmed by his facts about geckos’ feet.
8. Played Magic the Gathering
9. Played D&D twice a week for 3 years straight until we moved away from our geek friends.
10. Was in GATE
11. When I was 9, (1992) took computer classes at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and learned to program and animate in LOGO - also witnessed the infancy of IM there.
12. Was on the Academic Decathlon team all through high school and won medals
13. Majored in Anthropology
14. solved Sudoku puzzles years before they were popular
15. I know all the words to “It’s the end of the world as we know it” by REM
16. I own a Jayne hat and wear it proudly(my fiance and I got them as engagement presents from my nerdy aunt who made them)
17. I attend Comic Con International yearly.
18. My computers are named “Arthur Dent” and “Ender”
19. I bought a HD DVD player specifically so I could watch Planet Earth as it was meant to be seen.
20. I stopped watching CSI because I was sick knowing everything that they were doing wrong
21. I downloaded 2 gigs of music using a very poor 56k modem in high school.. it was about 30 min - 1 hr per song.
22. My fiance and I are planning a treasure hunting trip where we drive to all the places in the US you can search for gems, fossils, and other treasure
23. When I was a child I went on Paleontological digs with UC Berkeley every summer
24. Our honeymoon will be nothing but history and archaeology in Italy
25. Part of my “engagement weekend” was going to a gaming convention where I got to play D&D with the author of my favorite webcomic, Something Positive
26. I’m marrying a DM.
posted by Leah on 1-10-2008 at 12:32 pm
Hah, I know it was said somewhere around 68 or so so, but “reading every single reply” might be up there…reading every single reply up to 164 and then refreshing to see what has been added is also kind of impressive.
Since people are adding a few, I used to spoof e-mails to my friends in jinior high with TelNet exposing all the “gossip” and such that happens when you’re thirteen. Oh yeah, I made up complete routing addresses as well.
Even though my nerdiness has worn off somewhat over the years, I have no problem with the mainstream social acceptablity of video games and Guitar Hero touraments at bars. The only problem I’ve run in to is having the joy of living in the same city as one of the GH development teams :-(
posted by SLF on <