"... Although I do not know the way"

I met some new friends this weekend, and was inspired to pick up the actual Lord of the Rings books.  I've seen the movies, several times, and the kiddo adores them.  But I've never read the books.  I have read the Hobbit, but that's as far as I've gotten.

Listening to these new friends talk about their love for the series made me want to see what the fuss was all about.  I love when that sort of thing happens.  People are so enthusiastic about their chosen love that they share it with others who end up feeling the same way. 

Of course, I lost quite a bit of my geek points by not having read the books and asking questions, but I will regain them! 

Do I get extra points for raising a geek? 

Inspire: Geekier than Thou

I hung out with a bunch of SCA heralds this weekend at a friend's household party.  Over a decade ago I did a short stint in the historical reenactment group but I haven't touched it since.  It's a good thing I had some knowledge, though, because heralds have their own language.  If I didn't, I would have been mostly lost instead of only slightly.

One of the things that was great about the weekend was that it didn't matter how geeky, awkward, or crazy you were.  They were just there to have fun and catch up with old friends.

Having fun led us to share the Roll a D6 video with those that hadn't seen it yet. 

Imagine, if you will, a large table scattered with laptops.  Around one of those is at least ten people, about half and half on the sexes.  Now imagine the girls all rocking out to a song with the lyrics "Fighting dragons in my mind, just for kicks.  DM says your gonna die, roll a d6."  That was my weekend.  How cool was that?

Other than being a joy of geekiness, it was refreshing to hang out with adults - friends and strangers alike - who were really nice and more geeky than me.  I felt right at home.

Now I just have to keep telling myself that I don't have enough time to pick up yet another time intensive hobby...

Create: Naruto Headband Pattern

My son loves Naruto.  And he is always talking about wanting to save money to buy a Hidden Village of Sound headband.  I like Naruto, if you can space out the annoying voices...  There are many reasons I want to learn Japanese, unsubbed anime is one of them.  I made my son a cloth/cardboard/tinfoil headband for xmas but it ended up not holding together as well as I thought.  So I decided that this week I was going to crochet him one.

The music note isn't exactly like it is in the show, but it's close enough for me.

The pattern is pretty simple, only the note is a bit tricky.  Here it is for all you anime geeks. :)  Enjoy!

Naruto Sound Village Headband:
G Hook
Acrylic yarn

Headband:
Row 1:  Chain 120, chain one and turn.
Rows 2 - 6:  sc in each chain, chain one and turn
Row 7: sc in each sc across, fasten off, weave ends.

Plaque:
Row 1:  Chain 18, chain one and turn
Row 2:  sc in each chain across, chain one and turn
Rows 3-6:  sc in each sc across, chain one and turn
Row 7:  sc in each sc across.  Sc around the whole piece putting three sc in each corner.  Fasten off and leave a long tail for assembly.

Decoration:
In each corner of the plaque, use black yarn and a needle to make small x's to represent the connectors.  There should be three to a side, now that I look at the actual plaque.

Sound Symbol:
With a magic circle, sc 8.  Join together and chain twelve.  Turn and ss in second chain from hook, sc, dc, sc, ss, fasten off, leave a long tail for assembly.

Assembly:
Place the sound symbol in the middle of the plaque. Use the long tail to sew the symbol onto the plaque.  Attach the plaque to the center of the headband and use the tail to sew into place.

Tadaa!  You are done.

Write: The Geek Form of Writing

As I stated, I am a geek and a gamer.  My life was ruled by online roleplaying games for awhile.  Not the pretty WoW ones where there are pictures, but ones that were completely text.  One of those games was based off of a series of books by Laurell K. Hamilton, the Anita Blake books.  Vampires and werewolves and zombies, oh my!  I went through my old emails when I thought of Inspiration: Geek, and found a background story I wrote for my favorite character that I made for the Anita Blake Mush (Multi-User Shared Hallucination, text based RPG).

After rereading this background, I've realized that it would make a good idea for a story itself.  Change things a little bit and either focus on before she became a vamp - just do a piratey Bahamas story - or make my own vamp world.  So you might be hearing more from lovely Sophie.

I put it up on Scribd as it is a couple pages long.


Enjoy!

Inspire: Geeking It Up

I am a geek, no doubt about it, and I have no problem saying and showing it.  For Mother's Day, my son decided that in his obsession with trading card games he would get me a pack of Bleach cards.  Bleach is an anime series.  I was quite happy with this set of cards.  Of course, my friend also took him to get me some very nifty earrings.  I am very lucky that I have always found friends who share my particular breed of geek, or at least have complimentary areas. 

I started thinking that even though I've always been a geek and therefore see the geekiness in the world around me, 'geek' is no longer a bad word.  In face, it has turned from being a label of social outcasts into mainstream.  At least, this is my geeky view.

Comic books are blockbuster movies, nerds are hit TV shows (and I'm not talking Beauty and the Geek, although I admit I did watch a season of that), and computer games are in.  We are raising our children in an era where it's cool to go home and play online.  Geek no longer seems to refer only to a person with few social skills well-versed in a type of subculture activity like card games, computers, science, anime, or roleplaying (another of my areas).  Now it seems as though the term encompasses anything that someone is deeply into.

So what do you geek?  What random thing sets you apart and makes you awesome?  How do you deal with that thing that isn't shared by everyone?  Have you ever been an outcast?