Geek, Dweeb, Nerd, Dork

The famous Steve Urkel, nerd, geek or dork?

There is an ongoing discussion I have with a previous coworker who will remain nameless,* about the difference between a geek, dork and nerd. It actually started way earlier last year between my brother,** the nameless person Matt and another nameless person.*** We looked up the definitions and tried to use examples in our own world to put them into context, such as World of Warcraft, but as soon as you think you have it under control World of Warcraft suddenly seems just as dorky as it is geeky, or is it nerdy? Well, don't stress over it because it's probably all of the above. You can be a geek and still act like a dork and do nerdy things. You can be a dork and have moments of geekhood which you will forever look back to as the prime of your life. You can be a nerd with traces of dork and then later in life transform into a beautiful geek-swan. Truth be told they're pretty much interchangeable. Here are the definitions I got from Dictionary.com and I promise you, I did not make any of the below definitions up, no matter how ridiculous they seem. I have added dweeb and spod because I believe it is important to the discussion and necessary to really get a grasp of these terms in all their glory.

* Matt

** Josh

*** Murray

Lego: Artwork, Repairs, or Both?

I have to give the credit for this post to my pastor. Anyone can include Lego in their sermon, but how many can do it successfully? Think about it.

The Art of the Brick

I'm no psychologist, but I think Nathan Sawaya might 
have some closeted feelings he's trying to get out.

To keep with my Lego theme (refer to post Star Wars and The Matrix in Lego), these are the works of Nathan Sawaya which can be found on his website The Art of the Brick, and they are all lifesize. They also may or may not be real people buried alive in a Lego coating. That would explain why they are so good, but I have not been able to get confirmation on that yet. If somebody emailed me asking, "Do you use real dead people in your art? 'Cause that's not cool," I would be sure to respond right away, so as not to go to prison.

Have You Been Schooled Lately?

I love shkool.

Our society says education is really important. You can’t get a good job if you aren't schooled. But then they school you by making you pay a million dollars to go to school. Then, when you can’t foot the bill because you don’t have a good job because you don’t have the schooling, they might let you take out a student loan, depending on whether your parents were nice enough to make under a certain amount of money but not nice enough to make enough money to pay for it. Then there are the really unlucky souls whose parents make more than enough to pay for school but they want to punish their child for all the pain and suffering they've caused. But what happens after you take out a student loan and you’re done all your schooling? Well, you’ve got thousands to pay off and not nearly as many job prospects as they pretend. I bet they didn't tell you they were playing pretend, did they? Maybe they don't know that when you're playing pretend you have to say, "Pretend you're the dad and I'm the mom and Jimmy's the baby," and then Jimmy will say, "Why do I have to be the baby?" And you'll say, "Just because, Jimmy, just because." The good news is that with any luck you might be able to get that good paying job that you couldn’t before. The bad news is that for the first decade of your life any money you think you are making doesn’t actually belong to you. You are not working for your livelihood, you are working for the schooling you had to take in order to get that job.

A Whole New Year

The only New Year’s resolution I ever managed to pull off was in 1997 when I resolved to hold my pencil like a grown-up. I can now safely say I no longer hold my pencil like a two-year-old with a crayon. As a rule, I try not to make New Year’s resolutions unless they are things I know I can easily achieve, which by nature are things I don’t really care much about to begin with. The things I really care about usually take a lot more effort. This year I half-heartedly resolved to work on my punctuality, but that is a pretty big resolution and we all know big picture things done half-heartedly rarely work out. In case you didn't know, I was actually born in the wrong era (refer to my post Tardiness). With that kind of ambiguous resolution do you fail the first time you are late in the New Year? Or is it a total of all the times you are late versus all the times you are punctual? Are you a double failure if the very first day back to work you are tardy? No reason.

Chompo and Olivia's Christmas Adventures

I would like to introduce to you my hamster friends, Chompo and Olivia. I gave them to my mother for Christmas and then decided to capture their fun with my Grade A camera skills. Chompo got his name from the Chompo bar in the book A Birthday for Frances by Russell Hogan. Like Frances' Chompo bar, he fits in your hand perfectly and makes you want to squish him a little and sing a song about it. These are their Christmas adventures.

Chompo and Olivia's Christmas Adventures

'Twas the night before Christmas, and Chompo and Olivia always read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas on the night before Christmas. This particular version was about a mouse family. They felt they could relate to mice more than people.

Old Spice Sesame-ed

Okay so you might have seen this already, but there's no logical reason why you shouldn't see it again. It's an oldie but a goodie as they say (geeks, I mean. Geeks say that).