A little bit of skivving never hurt anyone

Sometimes you just need a skive day, ya know? Especially after the day I had yesterday.

Without going into too much detail, I ended up calling an ambulance for someone last night around 3am. Long story short, the person in question is totally fine and the story isn't actually that interesting. But it did result in a night of insomnia which further resulted in an unexpected day off from work.

Things could be worse, really.

While researching for one of my final papers, I got distracted by the source material and ended up having an accidental Hellraiser marathon. It's been deliciously nostalgic… I adored these flicks and this mythology when I was a teenager. Hellbound: Hellraiser II was the second horror movie I ever saw (the first was Poltergeist 2), when I was maybe twelve years old. Hellraiser: Bloodline (the fourth movie) came out around the time I graduated high school, when my infatuation with Fangoria was at its peak and I was consuming horror movies like they were going out of style (which, for the record, they weren't). Bloodline (aka Pinhead! In! Space!) is the only one I've seen in the theater… after that one they were just churned out straight to video and are now up to… oh, nine? Ten? At any rate, the first four movies were pretty important to my development as a horror connoisseur (doesn't that sound fancier than fangirl?), so it's been a load of fun revisiting them.

Sadly it means I'm not getting much work done. Just for the record, I have a 3000 word essay due on Wednesday, another 3000 word essay due on Friday, a 1750 word essay due on Saturday, and a 2500 word essay with is thankfully not due until January. Plus one final exam on Monday. No pressure!

Random observation of the day: Say what you will about the NHS (National Healthcare System) here in the UK, but I can't tell you how much of a relief it is to be able to summon an ambulance knowing it's not going to put anyone in debt. This is what we're missing out on in the US and it sucks.

Geek Weekly: We. Are. Everywhere.

I'm starting to think it was a bad idea to put a specific day of the week in the titles of my theme posts. I'm not this good at committing.

I work in an office that is only slightly different from any basic corporate/government office in that we all know and use sign language on a daily basis. Otherwise it’s exactly as you’d expect… fluorescent lighting, cubicles, people who tetch and roll their eyes at each other’s music, a kitchenette with a sign on the microwave imploring people not to make popcorn. Just another of the many, many skyway-adjacent offices you’ll find in any Midwestern metropolitan area.

Being a geek is a bit like being gay.

Bear with me on this.

Both sets of people tend to hide this part of their lives in the everyday world. Or at least, not call attention to it. Both will steer clear of subjects that bring it out in the open when they are in certain environments (like work), for fear of alienating people with their unique nature. Both were probably traumatized by bullying and ostracism by the “normal” folks when they were young, and often when they find out that a person is gay- or geek-“friendly” (or gay/geek themselves) in a work or similar environment, the floodgates open and they can finally be themselves.

At least geeks can marry each other.

But I digress. My point was that it’s sometimes hard to know who I can talk about random geek things with and not get the blank stare (or worse, polite smile and shifty eyes that says I’ve set off some sort of DANGER, WILL ROBINSON! signal in their brain). So mostly I just keep it to myself… unless someone sets off my geekdar. Or even better, I set off theirs.

The two geeks I’ve met in my Office Space-like environment are H the delivery guy and K the security dude. Both of them are almost always in uniform when I see them, which is why I didn’t catch the geek signals from either of them… although I have seen K in his civvies on a few occasions, so I suspected. But H hides his geek well, under the guise of his good looks (and awareness of them). But in both cases, I ended up out myself to them.

With H it was excited babble about a pending trip to the UK, during which I’d be attending a “Doctor Who”-centric sci-fi convention. When he heard this, he promptly told me how he’d always dreamed of going to Comic-Con, and that he’s a total Star Wars nerd. It was an instant connection, the walls came tumbling down, and we were suddenly geeking at each other with the kind of enthusiasm rarely seen or heard in Cubicle World.

It was another con that outed me to K. I do sign language stuff for a local sci-fi/fantasy convention, so had brought some flyers to work in an attempt to maybe grab the attention of some of the deaf folk who never bothered to go because they didn’t realize there were interpreters. K spotted the flyer, with its eye-catching Metropolis-inspired artwork, and it was 45 minutes before we emerged from our horror-themed geek fugue.

Sometimes it's hard to imagine that all the normal people we interact at our jobs or in our daily lives with could be as geeky as us. But the truth is, geeks are everywhere.

Geek Weekly: Growing up geek.

Time for a little nostalgia kick. Once again this is going to be an interactive post... leave a comment with some of the geeky things that you loved growing up!

My mother swears that the first movie I ever saw in the theater was The Empire Strikes Back. I would have been three years old at the time. I'm assuming my first movie would have been Star Wars, but I was still in the womb when that one came out. At any rate, I can imagine my tiny toddler brain absorbing the sights and sounds of Lucas' epic and becoming totally hooked.

As a child of the 80's, I was raised on sci-fi and fantasy movies like The Neverending Story, Gremlins, The Goonies, The Explorers, Willow, and of course the aforementioned Star Wars movies; cheesy but fabulous television shows like “The Hulk,” “He-Man,” “Wonder Woman,” “V,” “The Greatest American Hero,” “Star Trek: the Next Generation,” and “Alien Nation;” and spent lots of time playing with my Transformers and my Atari (favorite game? “Joust”). At a young age I also developed a fascination for classic movie monsters, an obsession that would have had me fit right in with the kids in Monster Squad. I prided myself on my expertise in all things ghost, werewolf, vampire, and the pantheon of Universal movie monsters.

My love of Stephen King's books began at the tender age of ten, when I started reading Pet Sematary by skipping the first 100 pages, and moved directly on to The Shining... and have now read and re-read most of his books.

I became a teenager in the 90's, which was when my focus began to shift towards horror movies. There was a dearth of horror then, but there was some great stuff on television: “Friday the 13th” (not to be mistaken for the Jason Voorhees movies), “Tales from the Crypt,” and “The X-Files” are a few that I loved. Most of my horror movie viewing was stuff from the 70's and 80's, such as the various Freddy and Jason movies, Alien and Aliens, all the Hellraisers and Halloweens, plus every cheesy camp-counselor beach-party prom-night movie I could get my hands on. It wasn't until Scream reminded us just how awesome horror flicks are that the genre began to pick up steam again, and I was in heaven.

Unlike the kids today (please do picture me hunched over a cane shaking my fist as I say that), I had to grow up in the internet-less vacuum of the 80's and early 90's, virtually unaware that there were other kids like me who rejected the possibility of having a life on Saturday nights because ST:TNG was on, or haunted their local video store's tiny horror section (usually located in the back corner, by the curtained door leading to the porn), or wrote stories in the world of their favorite show. Had the internet existed, I would likely be as addicted to it as I am now. But I'm glad I didn't have it, because the movies and shows I loved feel more like discoveries I made myself.

It was a great time to grow up geek.

Geek Weekly: I am a geek.

In the past few years, it's become cool to be a geek.

You've got Wil Wheaton and the characters of “The Big Bang Theory” (not to mention dozens of others) showing us how easy life is for a geek. But see, there's a secret no one's telling you. Are you ready for it? You sure?

It's actually no cooler to be a geek now than it ever was.

The thing is, most of the stuff that geeks have traditionally loved (translation: obsessed over) have become mainstream. All those people out there claiming to be geeks? Most of them are just “normal” people who happen to like the Lord of the Rings movies or read the Harry Potter books. The true definition of a geek is somewhat different.

Take a look at this handy visual guide I found on the internets to see what I mean:



See, there's a lot more to it than meets the eye. Geeks (or nerds, or dorks) tend to have poor social skills. They obsess about the things they “fan” to a degree that all those other people find disconcerting, if not downright alarming. They have such a difficult time relating to the world around them that they prefer to live in a universe created by George Lucas or Neil Gaiman. They can only find a certain amount of acceptance among other geeks. The only reason they seek acceptance at all is because human beings are social creatures and want to be with other humans. Well, that and they want to make sure as many people as possible know how much they know about “Doctor Who.”

Another thing about geeks? They are fiercely protective of their status. They are True Geeks because they have suffered. Unfortunately, in their (usually futile) attempts to shelter and protect themselves from The Bullies, they often end up shutting themselves off from the world instead. It's a vicious circle, really.

I consider myself a geek, although I don't feel that particular sense of protectiveness. If the backward-hat and khaki-shorts wearing college boys want to play D&D on the weekends, or to wait in line for a midnight showing of Avatar (the third re-release, with 28 seconds of new footage!), then more power to them. The fact that they like something that I like, causing it to become popular, can only benefit me. It means that more of the things I like will get made, because they bring in the almighty dollar.

To be honest, I sometimes feel on the outside even amongst geeks. Because no matter how much you've always wanted to be on the inside, no matter how much pain and suffering you've gone through to finally get there, once you've finally arrived you look at those poor souls still on the outside trying to get in, and you lock the door against them.

It's even worse, now that it's become cool to be a geek.

But enough of that emo shit. (Don't you hate emo kids? They're so lame.)

In spite of that, I wear my geek badge with pride. Because the best part about being a geek is that there are so many flavors. Mine is based largely on a Star Wars/“Star Trek” background, with a healthy dose of Stephen King and a massive affinity for horror movies thrown in. My tastes have changed over the years, evolved into something different with every new discovery. After resisting for years, I finally dove head-first into the world of Harry Potter and never looked back. More recently I discovered the joy that is the “Doctor Who” reboot (Eccleston is totally my Doctor). About a year ago, my obsessive tendencies drew me to a strange little German soap opera called “Alles Was Zählt,” because of the gay storyline. And that's only scratching the surface of my fandom experience.

There is so much more about me that makes me a geek, most of which I'll explore at a later time, because this entry is already too long as it is.