My company is likely going to send you a bill for a new computer monitor, I just blasted mine with coffee from my nose.
I realized I was a geek when I had no idea what a touchdown was but could tell you the exact shade of blue your police call box had to be to traverse space and time.
Other kids wanted a pocket knife for Christmas? I wanted a sonic screwdriver.
Other kids wanted a pocket knife for Christmas? I wanted a sonic screwdriver.
Some kids liked Transformers because they liked cars, I liked them because I like robots.
After listening to the cast and letting it digest, I have come to this conclusion:
Anyone who is not a geek, is not interesting.
Allow me to explain.
In this cast and in other places, geek has been redefined not to just mean someone really interested in Sci-fi, fantasy, comics, technology, books and other traditionally “geeky” topics, but someone who is, as Chuck said, a fan of anything to a certain degree.
You can be a sports geek. If you know all the stats, do fantasy leagues and collect replica jerseys are a total geek.
If you are a die hard fan of a band, who collects the box sets, goes to the concerts and looks for the unreleased singles then you are a geek.
Almost everyone is passionate about something. Some people wear it more proudly than others. And if your not passionate about anything, then what the heck are you doing with your self?
That may sound like a harsh indictment but I have to say that I thought about it as well and came to the EXACT same conclusion. Life should be a little more than just passively experiencing things pushed in front of you. Life should ALSO include curiosity and discovery. You don’t necessarily need to CREATE anything, but getting into the details of something someone else created, deeper than they intended, makes you feel like you’re part of it somehow.
I realized that my wife is a shopping geek. She’s NUTS about sales, researching sales, figuring the time of day to get the best deal, the time of time of day to avoid crowds, analyzing the type of people that go to a store (for some reason, I don’t know why), even WHO she wants to go shopping with depending on what she’s shopping FOR.
I don’t understand it but I support it.
What’s this? A bit of “geek snobbery”? (“Only a Sith deals in absolutes.”) 
I know a lot of non-geeks who are interesting people. They know I’m a geek and they don’t care and I don’t care that they aren’t geeks. They all have interests and hobbies but don’t take them to the point of being a geek about them.
I’ve been a space, sci-fi/fantasy geek from way back in grade school (like in '67/'68) when NASA’s Gemini program flights were broadcast on TV during school. That got me reading anything related to our space program and then onto Sci-Fi…which lead to Fantasy…etc. I don’t hide that I’m a geek…it’s a part of who I am…not what I am.
I know a lot of non-geeks who are interesting people. […] They all have interests and hobbies but don’t take them to the point of being a geek about them.
Depends how you look at it I guess. They must be interested in something more than a little, right? Maybe it is snoby to say that, but I do admit to being a snob at times.
I think I agree with Fenatic. A person who is geeky abouta topic, any topic, is mroe interesting than someone who has no particular interest in anything.
As an example, there’s the age-old question, “What kind of music do you like?” Which answer is more likely to pique your interest?
1 - “Oh, all kinds.”
2 - “I’m really into folk, from Bob Dylan to Bon Iver.”
Yeah, but that leaves out the ‘Jack of All Trades.’ People who have a broad range of interests, but none in particular depth, are often crucial for making connections between disciplines.
By my definition, they’d be a nerd, but not a geek.
Then let me be the first to welcome our nerd overlords, and remind them that as a geek, their services are in great need.
And my answer to that question would be the same as #1. Guess I’m not very interesting…even for a geek.
To answer your question about which would pique my interest, quite honestly both would. To the first answer, I would ask them what genre of music they listen to most often. To the second, I’d ask them what drew them into folk music. From their answers, I would learn something new about both of them.
Learning new facts…gathering data. GEEK!
See my above response.
To answer your question about which would pique my interest, quite honestly both would. To the first answer, I would ask them what genre of music they listen to most often. To the second, I’d ask them what drew them into folk music. From their answers, I would learn something new about both of them.
Learning new facts…gathering data. GEEK!
That last bit is the crucial one, I think. Being a geek or a nerd means you think about stuff.
What I meant by my hypothetical question is that some people just say, “all kinds of stuff”, and when pressed, can’t really give you a favorite. For some people, favorites are temporary things, always ready to be replaced, and they don’t give thought or invest emotion into things they truly cherish. I’m not trying to judge that kind of behavior, but I can’t understand it, myself. New music doesn’t trump old music just because it’s new. I like watching my favorite shows and would rather re-watch something I enjoy than something new that isn’t very good.
I’ll apply it to the GWC 'cast. When they covered BSG, I was fascinated because the crew knew so much more than I did about the show. I didn’t even know Cavil was a baddie until they told me so.
When they covered Harry Potter later, I could tell they liked it, but they weren’t nearly as well-versed on this topic as they were on their namesake. So it was admittedly not as interesting to me as the BSG podcasts were. Still good, of course, because Chuck, Audra, and Sean have charisma for days, but it was not quite as interesting as a Potterphile discussing Potter would have been.
And a geek/nerd loves to find new stuff to think about. 
I know geeks who jump from obsession to another and never look back too.
One was absolutely a PC person…could run loops around me with them. Now it’s Apple is king and PC bad.
On the casts for BSG vs anything else they’ve cast about, of course they knew more. They watched the episodes week in and week out and cast about them for years . And between seasons they did re-watches and cast about them again.
I find all the casts interesting and thought provoking. Like this week learning about Solai Potter site Hagrid’s Hut. It sounds wonderful. I’m sad that I didn’t find his site while it was running and at the same time glad that I didn’t find the site back then. Everything was dial-up and I lived in the middle of NO and WHERE. My phone bill would have had me in bankruptcy.
When I say “not interesting” it’s not necessarily bad… from a certain point of view. My best friend in the whole WORLD who I’ve known for thirty years is not an interesting guy, but we talk almost every day and hang out every week. We go camping, cut down trees, chase our dogs around the yard, go swimming, go to concerts, watch movies, play pool, throw darts, go fishing, B.S. about life in general… but there’s no one thing he knows or does in-depth that makes him interesting to ME.
He’s not a geek about anything, but that ABSOLUTELY doesn’t mean I snub him, nor does that mean that he doesn’t have to listen to me geek out about my favorite things. He believes very strongly in geek tolerance. 
That’s why he’s my very bestest friend.
Sorry if I gave anyone the impression that I was looking down my nose at them, I didn’t intend to. I’m just saying that I couldn’t sit in a bar and talk about one thing for one or two hours straight with him. He doesn’t have the depth of knowledge for that, and being able to discuss things in great detail with passion and understanding is what I call interesting to me.
So why do I hang around with him so much if I don’t find him interesting? Well, not everyone needs to be interesting all the time. I find him to be a HECK of a stand-up guy with a great sense of humor. And I think that we need people like that in our lives more than we need geeks.
Hopefully I haven’t explained that to death but I don’t want anyone to think I’m being a snob.
I really like that explanation, that is kind of what I meant.
Yeah, if I surrounded myself with interesting geeks I wouldn’t get anything done, I’d be WAY too excited all the time. Heck, I’d probably overload at the GWC meetup if I were to attend.
For example, I chatted with Audra for only two hours at the Irish Rover a couple months ago and the conversation was so interesting that by the end I was brain-tired. It’s rare for me to talk to someone like that, so mentally stimulating that I get excited.
Maybe I’m just weak-minded though.
You know, when the GF and I started dating, she was the president of the campus SCA chapter. She’s less involved these days but did do half of Penssic this year. It’s fun to tease her about it, but I also think it’s adorable.
Oh gods. I was following the Pennsic wars back in the eighties.
Man, I wish I got more involved in all that.
And I also adore your GF Starbuck. Commandment 3 and all that.
She’s pretty adoration-worthy 
From what it sounds like, Pennsic is fairly friendly to newcomers. The bigger challenge is having a huge chunk of time to take off work and go live in a tent in the wildlands of… Pittsburgh.