Ready, Set, Nerd!

(Very sorry for being late. Better late than never?)

Here's what I bring to the Nerd Off table:

I may have an obsession with River Song from Doctor Who. I realize that some people have been irritated with how much emphasis has been put on her this season, but I'm fascinated by her story and love getting more bits and pieces of it. She may well be my favorite character. Also Doctor Who related, I have a lovely papercraft TARDIS a friend made for me that sits on my desk.

I'm a knitting nerd, both in what I make (I'm currently up to three Jayne hats and a wizard hat), and with my enjoyment of it. I've been known to occasionally look at swatches of stitching for long periods of time, mumbling "it's so pretty."


In more stereotypical nerd-dom, I've been playing D&D for a little over a year now. I've really enjoyed it, and it would be hard for me to go back to playing MMORPGs. I'm not knocking the companionship you can have with people from a guild, but I really like getting to hang out with the people I'm playing with face-to-face (it also makes it much easier to decode meaning since I can see body language and hear tone of voice).

I'm also pretty nerdy with my cooking and baking, especially the latter. I really like figuring out how things work, even if I don't ever end up making them from scratch again, and I've spent pretty significant amounts of time trying to make different sorts of artisan bread and pastry.

As I mentioned in my last post, I also really love reading. Or in a more general sense, I love stories. One of my favorite classes in high school was Advanced Placement U.S. History, because our teacher helped us see it as a story rather than segmented data about people and years. This story came complete with recurring characters and themes, as well as self-referential points as people tried to correct past mistakes (often over-correcting).

As for works of fiction, I just about grew up hanging out in the library and read a good chunk of their books. While I'm not a fan of stories that have a final "gotchya!" moment where something's revealed that no one could have predicted, I do like stories that surprise me. Often when starting a book, within the first chapter or two I usually have an idea of what that story might look like based on similar ones I've read before. When the story mixes it up on me, I'm pleasantly surprised.

And now, for my not-so-nerdy things. For one, I am awful at video games. I like playing them a little at a time, but generally by the time I come back around to play them again I've lost any skill I might've gained and end up back where I started.

My second one needs a little bit of explaining. I realize that there are lots of female nerds and geeks who've put up with clerks at game stores being patronizing and assuming they were buying things for their boyfriend, or only there because of a male. So when, on occasion, I agree to go to a Games Workshop (the people who put out Warhammer) with the guy I'm dating, I always feel a little guilty because I'm living up to that stereotype. Sure, there are things I'm interested in looking at there since they have some interesting models, but I have no inclination to play Warhammer and wouldn't go into that store if it was just me.