Saturday, April 12, 2008

Geek is the New Black

Now I'm not one to hide my nerdiness and all-out geek pride.

But on the other hand, it's not something I bring up with a whole lot of people. Largely I think it's just because I assume that not very many people can relate to me if all I ever do is talk about Linux and video games. In order to get to know people, I sort of subconsciously stay on their level of interests, which I'm pretty sure in most cases is not mine.

But I sort of got tired of it today. Tired of beating around the bush. Tired of going "Um, er, ah..." when people ask me what my hobbies are or what I do in my spare time and I wonder what sort of blank stares I'd get if I told the whole truth.

Somebody asked me today what I'm doing tomorrow. I said "Raiding Karazhan with my guildies in World of Warcraft." "Oh... okay," was the semi-stunned response. It was all slightly awkward but I felt good. I'd unabashedly outed myself and it was nice.

In the breakroom at work today somebody came in and sat down across the table from me. We sat there munching on donuts and he asked me what I did last night. I said "I played video games." "Ooh, what games?" "World of Warcraft." "Ah yes," he said. He'd never played it but he knew a lot about it. We talked about XBox 360 games and Starcraft 2 for a while before he finished his donut and made his exit.

Not long after he left, two other people came in. One was a departmental manager and the other guy was someone who started working there not long after I did. They had McDonalds and they came in and sat down at the table and set up their food. Then the manager turned to the other guy and said simply: "I'm telling ya, mining, herbalism, and an epic flying mount, and you'll be set for life."

The other guy replied, "Well, I've just got mining to supplement my engineering. I finally learned how to make the +10 damage scope for myself yesterday!"

The engineer, as it turns out, began playing five months ago or so and is a level 65 hunter.

I told him if he made Goblin Jumper Cables, people would love him if he feigned death in an instance and could then rez the healer. He was pretty impressed with this idea.

He said he was trying to work on gaining rep with a lot of factions so he would have kind of a headstart when he got to level 70. I told him to start working on his Cenarion Expedition rep so he could nab Glyph of Ferocity.

Then my break was over.

I foresee some more fun chats between the two of us in the future.

Apparently I was underestimating the world's geek level. And I'm glad to say so.

On a completely different note, my boyfriend, Mr. Pike (though he prefers to be called "LS"), the infamous warlock who little level six Tawyn trekked across the world to find, started his own blog a little while ago and now feels he has enough content to warrant some visits. So go on, head over to Wearing Black in the Back and read what he has to say about roleplaying (both in and out of WoW), warlockery, and a variety of other goodies.

*pushes you over*

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Keep in mind 360 Unidentified Plant parts will take you immediately from Neutral to Honored. My newest 70 hit honored with CE when she was 62.

You also can make a fair amount selling them back to the vendor. I think I spent ~60g buying the plant parts from AH.. and then made ~40g selling stuff to vendors.

Nibuca
http://chicanery.fibergeek.com/

Bell said...

There are more of us than you think!

I meet new WoWers all the time...it's amazing :)

LS said...

I never found WoW to be a very "nerdy" kind of thing. Saying WoW is nerdy is like saying Madden is nerdy.

It might be called a bridge between nerds and normies, but being a nerd isn't requisite for playing.

IMHO.

Lin said...

-laughs- There are indeed. Was on the bus the other day, and the kid next to me mentioned "I didn't know there was a WoW movie coming out!". Me, being me, mumbled "Yes, it's been announced for quite a while now" and we started talking that way.

Hell. Even three of my -teachers- play WoW. (Rather scary thought, honestly...)

WoW is always a good conversation starter, if nothing else, among fellow WoW-ers.

Anonymous said...

I don't know anyone in real life that plays warcraft. and I definitly try to avoid bringing it up. because honestly? before I played, I was totally the kind of person who would roll her eyes and think "guy living in his parents basement with no life and no friends" when I heard "warcraft." Now I know that is totally untrue. but yeah, I don't want people to think that of me I guess. (I wonder if that image came directly from the South Park episode?)

its pretty awesome that you have coworkers who play! I wish I knew someone I could talk to about the game.

LS said...

Case in point.

Anonymous said...

I was out on a date last weekend, spent a good one and a half hour discussing everything and stayed far away from WoW. Then we got into computers and I couldn't weasel out of explaining what I wanted my new computer to be capable of... and it turned out the dude was a Horde!!

Khol Drake said...

WoW is like a geek liaison, able to translate geekery into normie and vice versa.

On that note, when you work in tech support, there are lots of geeks to be found...

Anonymous said...

Make sure you tell your new engineering hunter friend about goblin jumper cables xl http://www.wowhead.com/?item=18587. Though he'll need someone who is goblin engineer to make them for him if he chose gnomish. If he went goblin engineering then he can go farm it himself from BRD but he'll need the key to get to where the guy who drops it is. That key is given by the quest http://www.wowhead.com/?quest=3801. Once you hit 70 this can be done solo.

Anonymous said...

Glyph of Ferocity is an amazing head enchantment. I was figuring out what to do with it after I became Revered with CE. Then I got Cowl of Defiance http://www.wowhead.com/?item=28732 off my one run of Kara and didn't hesitate to buy one. Unlike many people, I prefer questing and dungeons to gain rep, so I finished those quests early and just kept running Steamvault for my rep.

I've been fortunate to have a good number of classmates who have or are playing WoW, so I can make small talks with them about it. I don't really think it's something nerdy, more like a hobby.

Rilgon Arcsinh said...

Goblin Jumper Cables XL, dangit! They don't take up a trinket slot!

Anonymous said...

Oddly enough, even though my boss thinks Warcraft is "insane" he'll still listen to me talk about it. My weekend social life is structured around WoW vets and noobs...so there's never any real secret there. Different worlds I guess. I imagine if I spoke to my supervisor about Warcraft he'd just shake his head and wonder "why".