My nerd points are wide, not deep

08.31.2010

A while back I was talking to Josh, my brother from another mother, at Haven on a Saturday afternoon and made a comment of how I don't feel as much of a nerd as many others I see in the comics & gaming circles. It was then he told me that I've spent my nerd points wide over a large selection of topics & hobbies, while most people spend their points deep into relatively few subjects.

Comic nerds are a special breed. Those with there points deep into the Comics Nerd class are special indeed. Years ago I learned not to go to a comic shop on either Wednesday (new release day) or Friday (too many nerds day). Today was Tuesday, so I thought I would be safe. I needed to go to The Deep to investigate some trade paperbacks.

For those of you with 0 points in the Comic Nerd pool, trade paperbacks are collections of individual comics from a series or storyline, usually anywhere from 6-12 issues. If you don't want to keep up with a story from month-to-month, trades are the way to go.

Over the past year or two I've amassed some Green Lantern trades and don't really know what order to read them in. I don't have everything for the story lines that intertwined, so I asked my local comic shop professional which trades I needed to read, and in what order, to get up to date. That's when Helpful Comic Nerd Who Helps Run The Register popped in. HCNWHRTR (Who I'm going to call "Ralph" from here on) was the same person 3 years ago who was walking around telling everyone the details of whatever collectible card game they happened to be looking at. I thought I had asked a straight-forward question - "What books do I need and in what order?". For a normal bookstore this would be met by people scurrying around and creating a stack of books for me to buy expediently. Not in a comic shop.

For the next 20 minutes I heard - while getting some books, checking out, walking out the door, and getting in the car - various details of the story line, minor and major characters, effects on the canon history of the DC Universe, and what were the current effects of what happened in a storyline form a year ago. While most people that work (for an hourly wage) don't go into this much detail, the volunteer workers for damn near every comic shop I've set foot in seem compelled to do this. I don't know why, but it's the key sign of all of your nerd points going in the comics bucket.

I'm not sure what, in Josh's view, makes my nerd point spending wide. I've always thought of myself as a nerd. Comics, Star Trek, computer games... these are at the top of my list. Maybe these days it takes more to be a hardcore nerd. I've met other types of nerds. Theater nerds (the ones that act in plays, not going to the movies), bicycle nerds, motorcycle nerds. The list goes on and on. I need to get more specialized. I don't think I can ramble on for 20 minutes about a comic book storyline, though.

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Slient Nights. And Days.

08.26.2010

It seems I've had nothing to say over the past couple of weeks.

Hmm.

It's been hot. Painfully hot. Maybe that has something to do with it? It's started to cool off a bit, so maybe I'll get talkative, or is it type-ative, again?

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The end of the World Sauna Championships?

08.09.2010

Continuing my trend of what's happening with current events, I saw that Vladimir Ladyzhensky, a Russian competitor in World Sauna Championships, had recently died. Not just died, but died during the World Sauna Championships! If you're like me, the first thing that popped into your head was "what is a World Sauna Championship?"

It's sitting in a hot tub. At 230° to begin with.

Although the Championships (there are men and women categories) have been around since 1999, the accident which caused the death of Ladyzhensky and injured Timo Kaukonen may bring the competition to and end. While it's easy to poke fun at people seeing who can sit in boiling water the longest, how different is it from the endurance stunts performed by Criss Angel or David Blaine? Makes we want to go beat the train across the tracks! Blindfolded. Tied to the tracks. In a tub of boiling water.

But the water would only be at 229°.

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Current Events

08.06.2010

For a commentary on current events, I turn you to Republican Gubernatorial candidate Basil Marceaux and Huntsville Celebrity Anoine Dodson.

The staff here at Russellmania now returns you to your normal interweb browsing. Thank you.

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July 2010 Wrap Up Show

08.03.2010

As I just noticed the 'Mania has been update free for nigh on 2 weeks, please enjoy an End of July summary.

I arrived home 2 Saturdays ago to find that it was hot inside the house. Normally when the temps creep near 100 the A/C has a hard time keeping up, so I'm not terribly worried when the indoor thermometer reads 80. Saturday around noon it read 85. I went outside and noticed that the fan on the outside unit wasn't going *whrrr*whrrr*whrrrr*. One of my biggest fears had been realized. It was July and I had no air conditioning. I went and hid at Gina's for the night, but came back Sunday to do some chores. At some point on Sunday it reached 91 inside. Hot. Hot hot hot. Monday the A/C guy came and pumped in 3 pounds of whatever refrigerant they have to use these days and the fan started spinning and the house started getting cooler. For about 3 hours. Then the fan quit again. Tuesday the A/C guy came back and replaced the fan motor. Since then it's been nice and cool inside. Most importantly I learned I won't die if the A/C quits!

Last Tuesday was errand day, one of those errands was to get the 15K mile service on the car. The only thing other than my usual oil/rotate/balance was checking the fuel and air filters, so it wasn't as expensive as I feared. On the way back home the next day I was driving via the interstate and finally got the car over 60 when I noticed my arms hurt. They hurt because I had a death grip on the steering wheel that was wobbling back and forth. Seems I was the victim of a bad balance job. I took the car back to the tire place the next day and they were able to fix it up in about 15 minutes.

Saturday was my social day. Saturday afternoon the kids came by for an Unsanctioned Widgey as part of Evil Mathias' belated birthday extravaganza. Special thanks go to Gina for whipping up some rotel cheese dip which was a big hit. Cheese dip seems to be very messy I learned. Not bad messy, but enough that you need some post-cheese dip cleaning on the stove afterward.

After the extravaganza was wrapped up, I made my way to Huntsville to join the boss at the final game of the season for local arena football team. We had seats down on the floor behind the end zone. Well, there were seats but we didn't really sit. You have to be on your toes when these guys are running around. One pass went over our heads and about 5 of us reached up/back/over for the ball. When I looked back to where I had been standing by the wall there was a football player laying there.

Sunday I made a dent in my washing chores (dishes, clothes, me) before going over to Gina's and watching Brooklyn's Finest. Although I get a lot of movies, the previews of this one led me to think the re-watchability was low. Now that I've watched it, I can confirm that is the case. The movie has a good ending, it just takes a long time to get there.

Now to see if I can do better with the updates in August.

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