I saw the #GeekyThingsAboutMe hashtag on Twitter recently and identified pretty heavily.
Not that I’m into manga or Funko Pop figurines, or that I decorate the kitchen with comic-book themes, or that I organized a party for the 50th anniversary of “Doctor Who” (complete with Dalek bread), or that I was a regional spelling bee finalist* (to name a few examples).
However, I do have some geeky/nerdy tendencies. They say the difference between a geek and a nerd is that geeks or more social and nerds tend to be more introspective.
Both groups can be a bit insufferable, due to their encyclopedic knowledge of Harry Potter/DC Comics/whatever, and due to their frequent need to share that knowledge.
I try not to be too terribly insufferable. However, when someone shares an interesting story or fact, I do often want to say, “Ooohhh, and did you also know that (related fact)?” Sometimes that engenders even more conversation. Sometimes I just get blank stares.
For example, when my daughter was buying ginger beer to make Moscow Mules for a party, I mentioned that “ginger beer” was Cockney rhyming slang for “homosexual.” Blank stares for sure that time.
Which brings us to the first of five #geekythingsaboutme:
1. Weird, random facts intrigue me.
Did you know that Salmon P. Chase appeared on the $10,000 bill? That both Scotch tape and The Grange were invented in Minnesota? That George Romero made a short film for “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” before making zombie movies like “Night of the Living Dead”?
Completely useless info, unless you’re on a game show or play in trivia tournaments. Still interesting, though.
Besides, when attending a trivia night with my daughter and her friends, I had the answer that no one else did. The topic was “words beginning with ‘sub-’” and the clue was “the process by which frozen water turns directly into vapor without first melting.” (First person to post the answer below, without Googling it, wins bonus nerd points.)
2. I love superhero stuff.
Yep, I said it. Most of my favorite reads are timeless literature. We don’t own a television. Top 40 radio doesn’t get played in our home because we’re classical music nerds.
Yet I’m a sucker for movies about the Avengers and the X-Men and Captain America and the Black Panther, and I’ve stuck doggedly with “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D” despite some really confusing plot lines.
Fortunately, my BFF is a complete fangirl who understands it. She also DVRs the stuff so that we can watch it together, or goes to the movies with me.
3. I also like “speculative fiction” movies/TV.
“Grimm.” “iZombie.” “The X-Files.” “The Walking Dead.” “Arrow” and “Once Upon a Time” (although the latter got fairly sloppy in the last few years).
I don’t read a lot of science fiction, but I like the idea of alternate worlds and possibilities. Will be checking out “Carnival Row,” too.
4. I’m intensely curious about how things work.
That’s one reason why I like being a writer so much. For 35+ years I’ve been paid to learn about things like fish smoking, mosquitoes, investing, child care laws, in-floor heating systems, what “wheel dog” means** and the ancient art of “waulking” (making fullcloth). So yeah, if there’s a documentary about how they get the peanut butter inside the pretzels, I’ll be tuning in*** to see it.
5. I like collections.
It’s not necessary for me to like the things themselves. I just enjoy seeing them and, if possible, asking the collector questions about how/why the collection came to be. A few examples: Christmas ornaments, toy trains, , dolls, primroses, Harrison Ford memorabilia.
DF just mentioned the existence of a hammer museum in Haines, Alaska. Hmmm…
Okay, readers: Feel free to share some #geekythings of your own.
*But I probably could have been, given the chance. Spelling was one of my favorite subjects, but I grew up a rural area with no gateway to the regionals (let alone the nationals).
**The wheel dogs are the ones placed right in front of the sled. They’re the ones to pull the sled out and around trees or corners.
***If it’s on YouTube, that is. Otherwise I’d have to drop by my friend Linda B’s home, because as noted above we don’t have a TV.
(Slowly raises hand)..My name is Cheryl and I am a geeky nerd 🙂 I was a Geeky Nerd before the Big Bang Theory made it “cool” and trendy!
I was/am a spelling champ, and made it all the way to the Florida championships – ended up 3rd in the state.
I love campy old B movies and watch “Sci Fi Saturday night” every weekend on METV – its a block of SciFi/Horror from back in the day! Wonder Woman / Svengoolie / Star Trek/Buck Rogers, etc. Svengoolie is a horror host from Chicago with a cult like following — he shows the 8pm feature…think black + white original Dracula, or B classics like THE BLOB…etc.
I have a Svengoolie action figure on my dresser, gifted to me by a friend 🙂
I also have two 1970’s “Planet of the Apes” action figures in my room!
I still shop at a comic book store, and have comics in my nightstand reading pile. My BFF sometimes grabs me the Archie Digest at the grocery and leaves them at my house 🙂
I flew to Baltimore to go to their Comic Con because Lynda Carter (TV’s original Wonder Woman, my childhood hero) was performing there – she is a very good singer and tours the country – we were in front row and she shook my hand…I was over the moon for a week! LOL
I coerced my entire dept at work to dress like the crew from Star Trek (original series) for the office costume contest – I was Spock and won first prize.
I have at least 5 super hero shirts in my closet, and they get worn regularly.
I’m considering a Wonder Woman design of some sort as my next tattoo – but haven’t pulled the trigger on it as of yet.
Sublimation
For full geeky cred, I am apt to talk about things at the dinner table that somehow gross people out. Generally about anatomy, biology, or surgery (Mom was an OR nurse). Opossums have 2 reproductive systems, plus a third birth canal which opens when they give birth. 🤣
Sublimation? If that’s right, the only reason I know it’s because I recently bought a Cricut machine and that’s one of the techniques for applying designs to t-shirts. Lol
Doh. When I replied it said 0 comments. No extra geek points for me today!
1. I used to read the encyclopedia for fun as a child. My kids would probably ask, “what is an encyclopedia.?”
2. I also tend to remember random obscure facts. Came in handy when we wandered over to a trivia game on board ship and won for our team.
3. I have over 100 blogs in my Feedly.
4. I have a pretty decent vocabulary- a college friend still calls me Ms. Words-but your ice word is a new one for me.
5. The house could be burning down and I would still be reading.
In high school history class, I once won a current events bee by knowing that ICBM stood for intercontinental ballistic missile. (Late 1970s.) I was a huge comic nerd (mostly Marvel) in high school and college. My parents have a small collection of those electrical insulators.
I read Marvel comics with my brother. Once I was 11 and started babysitting, I pretty much bankrolled his collection. One of the highlights of our young lives was writing a letter to the editor of the X-Men comic — and having it published!
I still wear polyester slacks a lot,especially around home, which really embarrasses my daughter. Don’t know if that is classed as geeky, but surely out of style. They wash good and are comfortable, as jeans cut in my waist by the end of the day. We live old western movies and collect a lot. We never go anywhere, but left my daughter talk me into going with them to Arizona the end of the month. Wondering how that is going to go? Hubby is looking forward to seeing Monument Valley where some of the Western movies were made.
I can go you one better on the polyester: This summer it’s been so hot (by Alaska standards) that I went outside to water wearing just a cotton bathrobe. Suddenly I understood why women of a certain age love them some muu-muus: loose, light, comfy. I remembered seeing some women in Phoenix wearing what looked like big polyester caftans, which I guess could be considered muu-muus, and actually entertained the thought of looking for some next time I visit my daughter. At my age I’m built for comfort, not for speed.
Thanks for reading, and for leaving a comment.
Probably not the first, but “sublimation” popped into my head before I’d finished reading the question. 😀
Not sure they all count, but a few #GeekyThingsAboutMe:
I’m a word nerd, in terms of both spelling and usage.
I was very active in the Society for Creative Anachronism for many years, and still have reproduction period clothing, accessories, and some really weird craft stuff in my closet.
Closely related, I’ve (almost) never met a fiber art I didn’t like*, and have tried my hand at leathercraft, chainmail, and glass bead-making as well. *The sole exception I can think of is the drop spindle. Never got the hang of that thing.
I love historical dance as well, and once performed during the Candlelight Tours of a local-ish historic attraction.
I don’t do it often, but I have played and enjoyed a few role-playing games, primarily D&D.
When I lived in Oak Park, our downstairs neighbors were into SCA. They made their own chain mail, for heaven’s sake. One day I walked back through the yard to get to my car and saw them fighting with broadswords. They stopped and looked at me, somewhat embarrassed.
“I begged you two to seek counseling,” was all that I said. They put down the swords and laughed until they had to lean on each other.
I knew “sublimation”; I confessed to a group of friends (also 60-ish ladies) the other day that I used algebra to calculate the relative volume of cake pans to know how to adjust cook times; I’ve never lost a trivia game. Guess that makes me a geek.
I’ve seen sublimation! Last winter I happened to glance at the fence on a very cold day with bright sun and witnessed vapor emitting from the snow along the fence top. Was so excited I called DF to come and see it, two. #geeksinlove
Now I’m fighting the urge to google “Cockney rhyming slang …”
Geeky things:
I have ear training CDs in my vehicle to help me learn to identify the songs and calls of birds, insects, frogs, and toads. If you attribute the first frog calls of the spring to “spring peepers” in my presence, I will correct you and tell you they’re actually western chorus frogs (in our neighborhood, at least). Spring peepers don’t start calling until later in the year.
My favorite type of museum exhibit is a gem and mineral collection. I go to gem and mineral shows on occasion, but I’m not a full-fledged rockhound. Beautiful specimens are spendy.
The one item I collect is non-tangible: it’s the location of all the nature trails, rail-trails, purpose-built bike paths, and other places within a 30-mile radius of home where one can go for a walk and/or bike ride without using a roadway or city sidewalk. I use Google My Maps to keep pins of all the locations and make notes about each one. One of my bucket-list goals is to visit every pin on the map at least once. In the meantime, I freely share the map with other trail-lovers so they can discover new places to visit.
Abby and I were at the Smithsonian today and saw its gem and mineral collection. Have to say I preferred the raw materials to the finished ones, i.e., the Hope Diamond wasn’t as interesting to me as amethysts contained within rocks.
Dinosaurs, too. Only problem is, I keep saying “Rawwrrrr” at random times.
I always knew I was nerdy and it’s nice to know I have company!
1.I collect cow cream pitchers. Not the sugar bowls or salt & pepper shakers, just the creamers. At age 18 I had a job at a local pharmacy/gift store where I spotted(no pun intended) a beautiful cow cream pitcher stuffed with Easter candy on our shelves. I bought it, not for the Easter candy but for the pitcher. Thus began a lifelong interest. I am now 60 and have about 15 of them. I use them when I have company. My guests seem to get a kick out of half and half pouring out of a cow’s mouth.
2. I would rather curl up and read a book on a Saturday night than go out on the town. I don’t consider myself a party pooper and have a wide circle of friends. I do go out and am definitely not a hermit but I love my home and the time I spend in it especially doing my favorite thing: reading.
3. I used to read the dictionary for entertainment. This is perhaps my nerdiest.
4. I have a friend who lives about 20 miles away. We went to school together and are longtime friends. We still write each other letters and notes and send them by snail mail. We see each other now and then for coffee but love to send hand written letters.
I probably have many more nerdy things but those are the ones that stand out.
Oh, Christine, I still read the dictionary!! My favorite book includes word derivations, and I keep it handy while I read or watch TV. It gets as much use as my Bible.
I, too, read the dictionary when I was a kid. I still remember my dad showing me how to use the book.
And in my writing course I suggest people use a paper dictionary vs. a virtual one. When you ask Google what a word means, it tells you that and only that. But as you skim down a page looking for the word you want, you may find a word you need.
I’m a complete and utter weather nerd.
The weather channel is on constantly, I read books on natural disasters, I have thermometers placed strategically around the house, and a weather app on my phone.
My friends say they get tired of my telling them how hurricanes start or what to look for in attempting to understand wind currents. They’ll listen politely and then change the subject. Oh, well, I get the last laugh when they check with me in the winter about road conditions, etc.
The upside? I always know when to wash the car!!
I won the county senior spelling bee two years ago. I know how to spell most words.
Reading the dictionary and studying the globe as a child was the result of no tv. I graduated to reading the encyclopedias. As a teen I sat n the driveway combing though rocks looking for fossils.
I learned about sublimation when I was 14 and 30 years later educated my grad school classmates about sublimation in Wordsworth–smoke on roof. I am still not sure if they were bored or interested. A grad school English prof said that I had the ability to take an idea or thing and investigate it as far as could be done, that I had good investigative abilities. Was that a compliment?
I am very good at trivia games!!!
We should all get together! Made it to the state spelling bee, myself. I love knowing how things work, and was called ‘Encyclopedia Girl’ in middle school. My favorite thing about a Kindle is that you can look up words and go down a rabbit hole of derivations. Trivial Pursuit is my favorite game! Although I’ve been accused of memorizing the cards…Nice to know there’s others out there!
Isn’t “memorizing the cards” another way of saying “learning a lot”?
And yeah, we should probably all have lunch together. I’d feel sorry for nearby tables, though.
I know I’m a little late on this one, but I am a geeky nerd, too:
1. Have passed the Jeopardy! online test twice, but was only able to go to the in-person test/interview once. They’re only in a few cities and generally in the middle of the week, so I couldn’t go to Philadelphia on a Thursday.
2. I made it to our local finals of the Scripps-Howard spelling bee when I was in 8th grade, which was televised on our local PBS station. I lost on “julienne” which I will never misspell again. As a parting gift, I got a globe, which was engraved with my name and the year. My name was misspelled.
3. I spent 2010 reading only classics, and listening to only classics on audiobooks during my 45 minute each way commute.
4. I read the encyclopedia as a kid.
5. I’m married to a Marvel nerd. Does that count?