Gradin.com » dork

Nerd? Geek? or Dork?

Olaf — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 13:01:30 +0000

My Score: Modern, Cool Nerd

69 % Nerd, 69% Geek, 13% Dork

For The Record:

A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.
A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.

I scored better than half in Nerd and Geek, earning me the title of: Modern, Cool Nerd.

Nerds didn’t use to be cool, but in the 90′s that all changed. It used to be that, if you were a computer expert, you had to wear plaid or a pocket protector or suspenders or something that announced to the world that you couldn’t quite fit in. Not anymore. Now, the intelligent and geeky have eked out for themselves a modicum of respect at the very least, and “geek is chic.” The Modern, Cool Nerd is intelligent, knowledgeable and always the person to call in a crisis (needing computer advice/an arcane bit of trivia knowledge). They are the one you want as your lifeline in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (or the one up there, winning the million bucks)!

THE NERD? GEEK? OR DORK? TEST

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Olaf — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 04:26:57 +0000

We’re doing the Harry Potter book release event for book 7 at “Bound to Read” in East Atlanta Village. It’s an exciting venue – it’s the last one as far as we know. We should have hit this market sooner – it’s a blast! The first one for us was in Gainesville at Chapter 13 Books. I think they actually filed chapter 13. “Bound to Read” is a cool little place right on the main drag in EAV. We’re getting quite the crowd of locals here, mostly in costume. The wife has put together a nice display including such props as the Sorting Hat, arcane books, and a large cow’s skull. There’s an interesting story around that last item, but it’s for another time.

Of all the dorks we’ve been associated or formed numbers with, Wizard dorks are some of the more tame. They’re about having fun, dressing up in wizardry garb, and reading books. Nothing too serious. I think a lot of them aren’t even really Harry Potter fans, they’re just interested in going to book parties and having a good time.

The only real problem with the deal was that they sold out of books from pre-orders and we didn’t get a chance to get a copy. That, and it’s like a million miles from Gainesville to East Atlanta Village. But this is good business for Celestial Studios.

*UPDATE Whoa! Just as I wrote that last piece, they wound up with three copies to spare. Sweet!

There’s Someone for Everyone

Olaf — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 14:15:11 +0000

A certain friend of mine has recently become engaged and I see no mention of the event on his own blog. As such, I hereby request his Geek Card until such wrong-doing can be redeemed. You know who you are.

(To prove you are worthy of your Geek Card, you must create a post and send a TrackBack ping to this post’s TB URL. Good luck, dork).

Revisiting D&D

Olaf — Sun, 29 Jan 2006 15:55:00 +0000

Saturday ended at 3:30am Sunday morning. I played D&D for the first time since the 80′s with a group of friends. They’re old pro’s, but I have some catching up to do. We played all day and night, so that’s a good way to get a refresher course. We didn’t actually have time for any combat, so it was primarily just role-playing. The game was fantastic! It’s vastly different from the games played in my early days. As one would imagine, the stories are more mature and the depth is amazing. The Game Master (GM/DM) really has to keep his head straight the whole time. Quite a task, especially considering the detailed storyline these guys have followed for over a year now.

Since getting ready to play this a couple of weeks ago, I’ve noticed my vocabulary mutating in my head. I say my head because it hasn’t ebbed out onto my tongue and spilled onto the ears’ of others *yet*. I keep thinking about situations I’m in in terms of DC checks. Criticals, modifiers, and situational effects keep gnawing at my consciousness. That will either fade with time or leak into reality where I will become the biggest dork ever!

Advent for Dorks

Olaf — Fri, 02 Dec 2005 14:21:50 +0000

24ways.org is an Advent Calendar for web developers. Each day, you receive a technique or tip from the world of WebDev. Related posts: webdev|Live! Verizon Contracts BlackBerry Cobbler Related posts:

DragonCon Wrap-Up

Olaf — Tue, 06 Sep 2005 17:02:00 +0000

As you travel life’s highways, stop and smell the roses…and get a piercing. That’s the advice Con’rs heard, anyway. DragonCon is, as of recent years, a five day event including labor day. The event takes place in Atlanta within the Marriott Marquis and Hyatt hotels (registration was actually taken care of in the Hilton this year). For the last two or three years, the Masquerade competition took place at the Atlanta Civic Center. This year, they put it back in its original Centennial Ballroom in a hotel. I enjoyed it more when it was at the Civic Center. Sure, you had to walk or ride a bus to get there, but I didn’t mind that at all.

The cultural aggregate in DragonCon is phenomenal. You see a lot of different people; all freakish in their own way. This is one of those places that the minority is a majority and it’s all good. The gamut goes from D&D dorks to Goth geeks. There are costumers, techies, thespians, ravers, and the insane. If you’re not in costume, you’re probably thinking of one for next year. If you are in costume, you’re in the ranks of a celebrity. I dressed up as Chewbacca this year, courtesy Jeff McClure’s costume. I already have big plans for how I want to dress next year, but I always do. I couldn’t help but notice that many of the costumes (or maybe they’re just outfits) required quite a bit of commitment. With Chewbacca, I need only blacken my eyes and slip into a skin. I can go further by practicing my growl and get the gestures down. But some of the costumes involved lots of shiny trinkets pushed through envelopes of skin. If there wasn’t a loose piece left, then skin was pinched up to make one. There were also excellent displays of tattoos, dye-jobs, and hair weaves. This kind of preparation has some permanence to it. You can’t just comb out those dreadlocks. You can’t use a rough soap to wash off a facial tattoo. And yet they persisted. I have to believe that DragonCon just may be one of the largest meetings for people with part-time jobs. All ages are expressed, but I just can’t believe that they’re all holding down bankers’ jobs in a teller booth somewhere. I present my work environment with pierced ears everyday, but I don’t know that they would be so nonchalant if I dawned a silver tooth through my lip. Maybe they would and I’m just short-changing myself. I seriously considered dying my hair this time around, but my wife (who’s hair was partly dyed purple) passively convinced me not to. I decided I didn’t want to go through the headache of bleaching and rebleaching my hair. I like the effect, but I don’t like what it looks like when you let it just wash out. I also wonder about the financial stability of these folks. DragonCon is not an inexpensive event. I assume that most of those people treated it as a vacation and went all out for it. There is the hotel cost, admission, and material goods and foods while you’re there. I doubt anyone with a hotel gets out for much less than $1,000.00. Plus, the costumes, piercings, tattoos, salon time adds up significantly. Maybe they’re just better money managers than we are. That’s too depressing though. I’d rather think they’re all deadbeats like me.

Along those lines, I’ll convey an interesting conversation I overheard in the lobby:
The Setup: Crowded hotel lobby filled with Sci-Fi convention goers. A guy approaches the mess wearing a nice button-up shirt and kahki shorts. Despite his appearance, he’s just another part of the crowd. He moves down the stairs into the lobby commanding “high fives” as he passes fellow fans. It’s not even noon yet, but he seems pretty drunk. He approaches a guy decked in Goth and starts up a loud conversation.

Frat Boy: Hey man! What’s UP!!! This is really great, isn’t it?
Goth: yeah. It’s cool.

Frat Boy: Why aren’t you drunk yet?!? (now with arm around the Goth)
Goth: Sorry. I don’t drink. (walks away)

This is one of those oddities you can’t imagine if you don’t know the type. Here’s someone, the Goth, that the average person assumes is into all sorts of evil; alcohol and drugs. In fact, it’s the otherwise normal-looking guy that probably does hold down a banker’s job somewhere. He’s the one that is drunk at 11:00 in the morning. I know it’s not always the case, but it’s a good example for the whole appearances thing. Give a Goth a chance, that’s all.

Prepare to be WoW’d

Olaf — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 15:18:41 +0000

I have friends that were involved in the World of Warcraft beta. The flimsy descriptions didn’t peak my interest too highly, and I kind of knew that I wouldn’t have time to invest in a MMORPG. I played Ultima Online and EverQuest back in the day. They’re both highly addictive. Fortunately, my wife really enjoyed playing them as well.

So Carlos comes to me yesterday and talks up WoW big time. He’s purchased the game and already joined a guild, of which other people we work with are members. We get into talking about all the dorky stuff that constitutes fun-to-play RPG’s and I’m totally hooked. I knew very little about the game aside from what I had read a long time ago. I go out and buy the game last night at Target and read through the manual. Now David C. is going to get into it (so we believe, anyway), and Andy B. has done the same. Andy took the day off to get a head start – that freak! I haven’t played yet, but I’m really excited about it. I just hope I can manage the nighttime play hours with my early morning wake-up routine. It’s already affecting my vocabulary too. I just offered Carlos the Grail of Wakefulness +1 (coffee).

Minimum Wage Help

Olaf — Sun, 10 Jul 2005 05:06:40 +0000

At Starbucks in Gainesville, the staff can be a bit dim at times. I routinely go through the drive-through only to try and convey to them that I have a mug and would like it filled with coffee. I realize that I’ll just have to drive up to the window anyway, but if I don’t talk to them on the mic and drive up automatically, they pretend I’m not there. So we get to the window this evening and order a strawberry something-or-the-other and I add that I have a mug I’d like to fill up as well. We arrive at the window and I give them my mug. She hands us both a sample of the strawberry drink that we ordered (odd, I think). She then hands me back my mug with whipped cream visible from it’s open top. I think, “strange, she put whipped cream on my coffee.” But no, she put the strawberry thingy entirely in my coffee mug. I then get handed a regular cup of hot coffee. Now that’s really bazarr. Now Amy has to drink her cold strawberry drink out of my coffee-stained mug and I get the paper cup with boiling coffee in it. Dorks!

X + Y = Bar Brawl

Olaf — Sun, 10 Apr 2005 16:47:12 +0000

I’ve spent that last two nights (Friday and Saturday night) playing Fable and Halo2 into the wee hours of the morning. I play on XBOX’s Live service, so there’s a collection of friends I can call upon to game with. It’s addictive sport, if not for the game itself, then the peculiar human interaction within the Live service. It’s mostly adolescent teenagers, around 13, and us; the X Generation trying to school the Y’s. For the most part, the Y Generation can kick our collective butts, but we do have a few redeeming members.

Because of my position within the house, and the meager size of it in general, I can’t be too boistrous in my retaliative communique with fellow team and opposing team members. I only play late at night, and I’d be sorry if I woke Amy or Balthazar. As it is, my insults and emissions of bravado are reserved for just the right moments when all others are silent. Which, by the way, is rare. I regularly play with a group – most of which are in eastern Canada – that consists of several people my age and a couple younger kids about half our age. The younger kids often talk in stream of consciousness. It should be annoying, but I find it pretty funny. When you finish a game, you’re dumped off in a stat screen where everyone can review their skillz and issue forth the smack-talk. It’s hilarious when everyone attacks eachother all at once. X Gen’s using their big words and old school insults against the deaf ears of Y Genner’s. We’re really just old dorks, no matter how good the insults are. Good times.