Geek Chic

You’ve probably had this marked on your calendar for months now, but just to remind you: today is “Embrace Your Geekness” Day! And in honor of this historic day, I invite you to research the topic. Do you know the difference between Nerds and Geeks??

I think I’m pretty geeky. I was in band for pretty much all of my developmental years. Wait, did I mention I was also in marching band? Yes. It’s true. Your beloved, chic, stylish blogger is a bandie. It’s okay. I balanced that out by also being voted “Most Likely to Skip Band” in high school. We good now?

Geekiness has really come into its own these days. People have love affairs with computer products and brands, the richest people in the world are men who you would have given a swirly to in middle school, and the advancement in technology demands an insatiable appetite for knowledge. But outside of technology and computers, I have discovered a love for a whole new level of geekdom.

There’s a board game called Settlers of Catan. If you haven’t heard of it, you’re probably in the majority. Basically, it’s a game that includes elements from Oregon Trail, Dungeons and Dragons, and all those pesky statistics and probability lessons we learned in high school (or in my case, never). But I love this game. I love the element of chance, the relationships you must try to build and maintain throughout the game, and the hundreds of different strategies. It’s a thinking game. You make jokes about resources, Victory Points, and trading. And the geek in me thrives on it.

Also very geeky? I listen to a podcast called The Skeptics Guide to the Universe. It’s hosted by a group of scientists and neurologists. Every week, they talk about developments in science, space, medicine, and general nerdiness. They debunk the rumors of “miracle drugs” by providing scientific evidence, and they discuss the importance of whether or not a moon of Jupiter may have rings. To be honest, a lot of it goes WAY over my head, but the witty banter, the clever, disparaging remarks, and their general attitude towards unproven science/medicine makes me thirst for more. P.S. Did you know there’s something called the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland that at this very moment is attempting to recreate the Big Bang? Yeah, it’s awesome.

So today, I honor my geekhood. I’ll remember the nights I spent watching Star Trek: The Next Generation (or TNG to all my fellow geeks) when I was younger. And tonight I celebrated this momentous occasion by going over to Prinna’s and learning about all kinds of nerdy computer stuff. Now, I have a brand spankin’ new RSS feed on my blog (yay! Subscribe!), and I can do awesome things like this (please do note the pretty pink theme that Prinna made):