Nerding Out Every Day

In January I started keeping a log of nerdy things I do each day. I don't want to be a poseur; I am what I am and that is a genuine nerd. My bedside notebook became my log of things ranging from wearing a superhero shirt to playing Dungeons and Dragons all weekend. A current trend is to throw on a fake pair of glasses, wear a comic book character shirt and watch a Harry Potter movie and that's what it takes to be a "cool" nerd. It takes a lot more than that.

Being a nerd doesn't necessarily mean a person is a genius; however, there is a correlation between a person that is an expert in a topic and their passion of said topic, and that is what classifies that person as a nerd. And people in this group tend to enjoy nerd culture such as Sci-Fi/Fantasy, comic books, gaming, and reading for fun.

So putting aside my Marvel shirts, allergy meds, and several gadgets, there are many things to establish my nerd cred:

When I started making this list I was reading Harry Potter for the seventh time. Yes, all 4,100 pages for the seventh time.

My local comic shop staff know me by name, and they know my style. So every Wednesday when I check in to Hijinx Comics, Neil and company have my pull list and usually a suggestion of a new title.

Weekly Twi-Fi meetings: I have a group of friends and we established our club almost three years ago. All members love Sci-Fi/Fantasy and adventure. We read books and see movies in that genre, and what really inspired our club was our collected love of the Twilight Saga, calling ourselves the "Twi-Fis." We meet weekly and our topics always include Harry Potter, Star Wars, and vampires. We plan out costumes for movie premiers and have an extensive list for 2011.

My tattoos: Ink is very trendy right now, with people of all classes, professions, and subcultures taking part in this super art form. It takes a lifetime commitment to wear a tattoo, so a person must choose what is nearest to her heart. The closest things to my heart are Death Eaters, the East India Trading Company, Iron Man, and the many races of Middle Earth. Future tattoos will include more Marvel characters and Indiana Jones.

Though I've only been playing RPGs for under two years, it's an important part of my social scene. My gaming group plays D&D 3.5 and we have also played Munchkin.

And then there is the squealing like a fangirl at the sight of a new book or toy. Like today when I saw a Thor Pez dispenser, an audible "squee" could be heard down the aisles of the toy store. This was just after fanning myself over the Thor action figures.

And now, Saturday night, I will start a jigsaw puzzle, chat with friends via Twitter, have Star Trek playing in the background then settle in for the night with a good book.

Puzzled

Piecing together jigsaw puzzles is one of my favorite quiet activities. They are great paired with an audiobook. Since I have been listening to Harry Potter, I've had many hours to get work done while listening to the story. Some times I'll do chores while Jim Dale reads, but mostly I'm using my puzzle board and assembling a fun picture. I like at least 500 pieces and seem to favor still life of candy and sweets, and artist renderings of sealife.












Some puzzles look good enough to eat.

Nerds and Other Candy

Powell's Sweet Shoppe is an old time candy store with candy from different eras and some hard-to-find treats as well. They have endless bins full of open stock candy like jelly beans, chocolate candies, gummies, tarts, jaw breakers, allsorts, sours and more. They have common name brand candies and those that can only be found in specialty candy stores.

They also sell fun trinkets like unusual flavors of lip balm, rare sodas, tiny board games, candy-themed hats, shirts, and ties, and other fun tchocthkes.

On this visit I picked up an Edward Cullen chocolate, Spider-Man blowing gum, Drooble's Best Blowing Gum from Harry Potter, Mario Bros gummies, and a Boba Fett M&Ms dispenser. My non-edibles included a Pirates Mad Libs, a pocket size Boggle, and a Grow-Your-Own-Nerd.

I love saltwater taffy, and since I couldn't make it to the coast to get a fresh batch, this was a good fix.

Periodic Table Puzzle

I've been told that working on a jigsaw puzzle is nerdy. This same person told me doing a puzzle of the Periodic Table of the Elements is the ultimate in nerdy. I completed the 1000 piece puzzle in the time it took to watch twelve episodes of The Big Bang Theory. It's a pretty picture and I would like to frame it and hang it in my library.

Big Box of Books

It's a good day when I receive a box of books. I have a long wish list, and with a gift card I received for Christmas I was able to order a box of happiness.

Included in the box:

*Inferno: New Tales of Terror and the Supernatural, edited by Ellen Datlow. (Books like this are the reason I don't get freaked out by books like The Shining and movies like Paranormal Activity)

*The 351 Books of Irma Arcuri by David Bajo. A woman vanishes and leaves her library to her lover. I wouldn't leave my library to a lover. Well, unless Daniel radcliffe was my lover, then I would leave him anything

*The Ghost Huntress: The Awakening by Marley Gibson. Young Adult paranormal fiction is one of my favorite genres. That's not saying a lot, I like most genres of fiction.

*Ghost Radio by Leopoldo Gout. A ghost-story call-in radio show. What's really neat about this book is the format. Each chapter is a seperate call, which lends itself to being a casual read.

*The Gates by John Connolly. I read his "Book of Lost Things" and really liked the story, so I wanted to give another one of his books a try.

*Blood Memories by Barb Hendee. Another vampire story

*Tigerheart by Peter David. This is a re-imagining of Peter Pan. George Takei reviewed it!

New Year's READolution

As I've said before, I don't make resolutions for a new year. But I do have an outline for what I would like to achieve with my reading.

I buy a lot of books, and I read a lot of books. When I buy a new one, the one I bought previously gets put on a shelf in favor of my shiny new toy. I have a lot of good books in my TBR pile and I want to get started on them. So rather than read the newest book, I grabbed a selection of over forty books to read this year, in addition to my regular reading. My "regular reading" includes Harry Potter, which I reread, and will reread for the rest of my life. I also read at least one mystery every week, and another piece of fiction that strikes my fancy.

Today I pulled a variety of books from my TBR and selected certain ones.









Most of the books I pulled are childrens or young adult, and most are the first book in a series. Some were reccommended, others I decided to take a chance on them based on the synopsis and genre. I can easily read all forty-two books in addition to my "free choice" for want of a better word.

My biggest challenge now is choosing which book to choose first.







Looking over the list, I chose Artemis Fowl Book One by Eoin Colfer. And that will be in addition to The Philosopher's Stone, The Shining, Vampirates 4, and The Lost Hero, all of which are my current reads.

It's going to be a busy year.

And a Geeky New Year

I don't resolve to do anything in a new year. I do what I need to, when I need to. Sure, there are areas of my life that need work, but they aren't things that are urgent.

What I will do this year is keep a list of nerdy things I do every day. I plan to jot down a couple notes every night before bed, just before I settle in to read. It will be part of my routine just as brushing my teeth, putting on pajamas and other bedtime rituals are. There isn't any real goal here, I would just like to see after one year how many things I do that are essential to my nerdy make-up. On the list will be things as mundane as watching a Sci-Fi show, reading fantasy, or shopping in a comic book store, to as big as dressing up for a midnight premier or planning and going on a geeky vacation.

This idea came to me last night as I was getting in bed. I spent New Year's Eve with my Twi-Fi group. It's a name I made up for my bookish group pf friends that love Sci-Fi/Fantasy and all bonded over Twilight. We all talked about our usual things such as Harry Potter, Star Trek, comic book heroes, and which books we are currently reading. There was a lull and all I could think was "I want midnight to get here so I can go home and keep reading Starfleet Academy." I don't know why that stuck with me, but I wanted to write it down. I happened to have a notebook and pen at my bedside and I began my list. I call it my "Captain's Log" and the first entry reads "Creating this journal".

Today's entry will include watching an Indiana Jones marathon, organizing my books, and shopping at Barnes & Noble. By 12/31/11 I plan to have a notebook that will tell the story of who I am.