Do Geeks Dream of Androids Dreaming of Electric Sheep?

For as long as I can remember, I have had the most messed up dreams imaginable-out of ANYONE I know.  While parts of my dreams do come from things I was thinking about the night before, work, movies I’ve watched  or  potential worries that I have, for the most part, I can’t make heads or tails out of the things my brain comes up with.  Not only that but my dreams are so vivid, it isn’t uncommon for me to create original soundtracks, written works and entire speeches in my dreams.  I dream in full colour and experience each and every one of my senses when I sleep.  A lot of the time, I wake up even less rested than when I went to sleep because my brain goes into overdrive creating these crazy experiences for me. 

Two nights ago for instance, I dreamed I was riding a bicycle down a hilly road when I ran into (not literally) one of my husband’s friends.  He proceeded to turn into a turtle, a fluffy white rabbit that walked on his hind legs and finally a baby.  I then had to try to piggy back him while riding on the bicycle but he must have been covered in baby oil or something because he was so slippery.  And of course-even though he was still fully conscious of being a 20-something grown adult, he would not hold still because he thought the whole thing was hilarious and kept laughing at me.  Now let me tell you I do not have children of my own and do not own a bicycle, rabbit or a turtle.  To me the whole thing makes about as much sense as Princess Peach feigning surprise that she’s being kidnapped yet again by Bowser. Of course Freud might have some theories but I’d rather not venture down that particular path.

My husband however, does not have this problem. I can’t remember the last time he told me that he remembered what he dreamed.  When I inevitably wake up at night-which I do normally at least once either from his moving/snoring, my peculiar dreams or our puppy whimpering in her own dreams, I look over at him and he’s happily snoring away.  On occasion, I’ve heard him mutter a few things, once about some starfish which seemed to be attacking him which I’ll admit made me laugh quite a bit, last night he was even laughing a little bit, but I never get to hear about his dreams outside of these utterances.

Of course since we’ve been married, his geeky ways have started to infiltrate my nighttime escapades.  On several occasions I’ve been part of the zombie apocalypse, trying to save myself from getting infected-or-giving in and joining the hoard.  Let me tell you in all my own zombie loving years-I never had a zombie dream before I was married.  I’ve also had dreams where I’m attacking aliens a la Halo Reach and dreams where I turned into a D&D gamer and spent the night rolling  the dice to beat back the oncoming goblins and otherworldly creatures. I don’t think I told my husband about that one-one girl’s nightmare is another man’s dream after all.

I’m hoping that one day my husband will be able to share his dreams with me.  I wonder if they will offer any insight into his hopes and desires for the future…although, in the same way, I sure hope he doesn’t try to read too much into my dreams.  I’m not really looking for a shape-shifting child and I really don’t harbor any desire for an alien invasion or an apocalypse of any sort-nor am I ready to take up the dice and join in on the weekly D&D game.  But I really would like to know; do geeks dream of androids dreaming of electric sheep?

Thank Goodness for Zombies!

Earlier this week the power went out at work, and naturally my first thought was-maybe it’s the zombie apocalypse-of course this made me question if my first thought was really natural-perhaps not so much.  It could have been that on the way into work my husband and I heard about someone having hacked into those light up road signs and warning people that there were zombies ahead (something my husband thought was really cool and thought it would be fun to do until I pointed out the illegality of it….) but I think that this would have been my first thought regardless.

Now I don’t really believe that the zombie apocalypse is really a problem I need to prepare for (or do I?)  but I’ve had an unnaturally curious interest in zombies since I was a little girl, before I even really grasped what zombies were. Marrying my husband has only served to increase it.  I remember at the tender age of four my uncle sat me down to watch my first zombie movie.  You can be assured that my mother had no knowledge of this and I, who was prone to nightmares, should have spent the night screaming-but I didn’t.  I was entranced.

Throughout the years I have spent many an hour watching zombie movies.  Romero is still probably my favourite director but the 28 days/weeks saga was also amazing.  They actually accomplished something the Romero movies were never able to do-they made me jumpy for a good few days. Of course I can’t forget to give props to Peter Jackson’s death by lawn mower scene….that one is truly a classic.  But, it wasn’t until university that I realized that zombies were more than just pure entertainment or a commentary on our mindless sheep-like consumerist society.  Zombies had a purpose.

Watching zombie movies with my husband’s housemates, before my husband and I were dating, I found myself surrounded my zombie enthusiasts discussing things that I had never thought about before.  Was this room defendable? Yes and no-the house my husband lived in back in those days, while it had its charms, should have been properly condemned for poor upkeep and housecleaning. The zombies, if they had any good sense (which typically zombies lack), would have avoided it like the plague (pun totally intended) but it had large windows….and was missing a window pane for a large period of time.....and probably would have collapsed should a zombie hoard try to lean on the house too hard. 

Should zombies have attacked, what was the best available weapon?  While the sword to person ratio in that household was unnaturally high, I knew perfectly well that unless I wanted to become the screaming defenseless  girl in the movie, I’d need to wield something a bit lighter. And while at one point we did find some unspent amo rounds, there was a serious lack of guns. (I should put a disclaimer in here for my husband should he read this that NO, you still can’t store your hunting rifles in our apartment…not that you have any yet….and not that you’d do so before we got proper gun storage-I know how prudent you are with all of that…..) Even still, I knew that should zombies start walking the streets, this would be the house I would want to be in.  The sheer amount of zombie knowledge and the amount of time these guys (and girls) had spent mentally preparing for this occurrence was amazing. No matter what they were faced with-typical slow movie zombies, the more terrifying running zombies, zombies brought about by aliens, disease, radiation-these guys would know how to handle things.

You see, zombies seemed to provide a bonding experience for these guys.  Thinking about them, studying them and planning for them was a common ground for these geeks of different varieties.  The gamer geek, the D&D geek, the movie geek and the comic book geek could all relate to zombies because they existed in each of their favoured mediums. In a zombie apocalypse, just like in a D&D game, these average geeks could become heroes among men even though both scenarios were entirely fictional. 

Lately though zombies have taken on yet another purpose in my life.  When my husband has a bad day at work or if he’s just not feeling like his usual self, zombies have become an outlet for him.  All he has to do is turn on his Xbox and there he is, in the zombie apocalypse.  Here, he is able to take out his frustrations by using an entire armoury of weapons from shot guns to machine guns to pipe bombs to destroy the enemy-an enemy we can all get behind killing because despite some recent defense for zombies, we all know that if someone who looked like a walking corpse came at you, moaning for your brains, you’d go for the head shot. Somehow, after this mindless killing spree, my husband can put a smile back on his face and life goes back to normal.  I can get behind almost anything that makes him so happy.

Thank goodness for zombies. 

‘I can’t get enough of your love babe”

I’m a geek’s wife but sometimes I’m just a regular wife-today is one of those days.  This isn’t to say that my husband is any less geeky today as he was yesterday, it’s just that right now he’s sick and when you’re sick these things tend to be put momentarily aside. After days of coughing and hacking I convinced my invincible husband to take a sick day and recover.  This isn’t actually what I wanted him to do.

I’ve been trying to get him to go see a doctor for a few days now with little luck.  I think he sounds a lot like he’s got bronchitis-mostly because the last time he had bronchitis he started to sound a lot like Barry White and when I woke up this morning I thought I was in bed with another man.  To prove my point even further, he tried singing a Barry White song and his singing voice was actually good.  This is a sure sign that something is not right with him. Normally his singing voice is enough to make our dog run for cover-ok maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration but……let’s just say he didn’t win me over with his singing….or dancing for that matter but that’s another story for another time.

The funny thing is, when I’m sick my husband will be the first to say that I need to go to a doctor.  He has a very healthy relationship with doctors, having needed to see lots of them for various reasons through his life.  I on the other hand don’t like doctors very much.  Not having a family doctor nearby for a long period of time might have had something to do with it.

I “fondly” remember going to the ER on a few occasions only to have things be made worse.  The first time was during exam period in my first year of university when I was so sick with the flu that my Don called a cab for me and sent me to the hospital. Here they continued to make me wait for a million hours, conducted a flu test on me and sent me home. If you have never had a flu test and you’d like to experience it for yourself let me describe the process. Take a really long cotton swab, shove it up your nose and into the back of your throat.  Now if that doesn’t make you feel better when you already feel like dying I don’t know what will.  They also proceeded to track me down two weeks later to tell me that I did indeed have the flu-in case I didn’t know already. The second experience happened in the same ER where a doctor basically accused me of faking my symptoms.  I’m not sure why he thought I might do this because antibiotics really don’t have the same effects or street value that some other things I might try to get would.  Not only that but who doesn’t love sitting around in the waiting room just for fun?

So after telling my husband on multiple occasions that he should go to the doctor I went in for the jugular-I called his mom.  Of course he neglected to tell her that he’d been hacking for days and that he was so exhausted he nearly fell asleep standing at the bathroom sink.  And even though his mom recommended going to the doctor (after I had filled her in on the information her son had felt wasn’t relevant) he still refused to go.

So I’ll take my mini victory in his sick day.  Hopefully I’m wrong and tomorrow he’ll wake up refreshed and feeling fine and he’ll go back to work.  If not, he’s going to the doctor.

 

“Roll the dice to see if I’m getting drunk”

This Thursday D&D night at our place has been cancelled….. *gasp*….. in lieu of celebrating everyone’s favourite March holiday, St. Patrick’s Day.  While I’m not a fan of beer personally, especially when it’s been turned the colour of Slimer the friendly ghost, and I haven’t an ounce of Irish blood in my body, I will probably tag along to whatever beer serving venue is chosen by the brave adventurers that normally come over to our place to share the merriment-if only to be the DD. (Note geeks I said DD not D&D-just to clarify) 

Drinking, or pretending to drink at least, has deep roots in the geek culture so I’ve discovered. This isn’t to say all geeks are hard core drinkers or that they drink at all for that matter but  as often as not, new D&D games tend to begin in a tavern or sorts in some unknown town where the characters all happen to be enjoying a pint of their favourite goblin ale. That is until some sort of mayhem happens to break out causing them to meet and join up on their other-worldly adventure. There is even an entire geek board game called The Red Dragon Inn where D&D type characters spend their time trying to out-gamble and drink one another. Might I add that no actual drinking is involved with this-although I suppose the game could be adapted into a more traditional drinking game although, probably with some not-so-good results.

Although sometimes in D&D I’ve seen things take an entirely different stance with regards to imbibing. After one particularly “spirited” gaming session my husband was DMing (Dungeon Mastering-AKA-running the game) he imposed a strict drink limit on his fellow gamers to make sure the game ran smoother in the future.  D&D requires one to be fully aware of what is going on and it requires some basic math skills, at least the ability to add the dice up, add and subtract etc.  I assume, having never really played, that being tipsy does not aid in this-especially when one is a math-a-phobe like me.

But drinking or “drinking” isn’t the only thing geeks and St. Patrick’s Day has in common. Where else but in a game of D&D can one actually find a leprechaun? (Aside from Ireland and bad horror movies from the 80’s of course…) For those looking to find a leprechaun this week, my husband’s monster manual states that you should look in temperate forests and plains unlike the end of the rainbow myth we’ve all been clearly mislead by. They also tend to flee rather than seek combat and are unlikely to give up their gold.  That’s too bad because I’m sure that would help with the bar tab Thursday night.

Have a very safe and geeky St. Patrick’s Day everyone-whether you DD or D&D .

Geek Chic

Before my husband and I ever started dating I used to think that for a guy in university-he dressed pretty well.  Any time he had to dress up, he always seemed very put together and even though his day to day uniform consisted of jeans, a t-shirt and a hoody, they always fit him well and seemed relatively coordinated. 

It wasn’t until we were dating that I found out he just happened to have a very fashionable uncle who just happened to be the exact same size as he was who just happened to tire of his clothes and hand them down to his nephew. The other factor that helped with the coordination was the fact that my husband rarely ventured outside of a few main colours-black, blue, green and grey-something I never really noticed until I went through his closet. 

It seems that in the Geek world, fashion isn’t really something they think about too often from what I’ve seen.  This isn’t to say that I’m a slave to it either-I’m not.  I take pride in what I wear and like many girls, I love clothing but the only name brands in my closet are there because they were extremely discounted. But if you look at Geek fashion on its own terms, there really is a whole new world to explore.

The penultimate item in Geek fashion really is the Geek shirt.  There are hundreds of forms depending on the type of Geek that the person is.  You have your classic Star Wars shirts, your computer geek shirts, your video game shirts and your D&D type shirts just to name a few-all of which I believe are in my husband’s t-shirt drawer. 

Many of these shirts are almost as elitist and strange as some people find high fashion to be, in that only true geeks will understand what in the world they mean. If you are lacking a basic knowledge of binary or chemistry or video game history you will end up standing around looking confused if you happen to read these shirts as they pass you by in the street while sending geeks into a fit of laughter.  Thankfully, if you were to ask a geek what their shirt meant they would most likely be only too happy to tell you, in detail, with examples….and references.   

There’s also a whole range of geeky accessories should a geek wish to venture outside of the geek shirt.  You can get D20 jewelry, ties with your favourite video game characters (or ties that look like they were “programmed” into a 32 bit system when your favourite video game characters were introduced) and really the list is endless.

Another form of geek fashion stems from dressing up as a favourite character from TV or movies. (For the extremists there are entire conventions devoted to creating exact replica costumes of characters and celebrating all things geeky-something they call cos-play-something I know very little about and frankly, frightens me a little.) My husband, having loved the Indiana Jones movies for years has a complete Indiana Jones outfit, which thankfully he generally saves for a last minute Halloween costume if needed.  He was actually known around our university for wearing the hat around-although being 6’4” certainly helped with that easy recognition as well.  My husband also has a collection of Hawaiian shirts which contrasts with his usual base colours to the extreme.  I’m fairly certain he wears because he likes them but I’m sure that it doesn’t hurt that one of his favourite characters off the regrettably cancelled show Firefly (which now has an entire geek cult following) also was seen in nothing but. Imitation after all is the sincerest form of flattery isn’t it?

I’m not saying all geeks adhere to these fashions, but there seems to be an awful lot of geeky shirts to back up my claims and I’ve known a few self proclaimed geeks in my day.  Of course there’s a whole new “geek chic” trend, rocked most notably by Justin Timberlake that I’ve never really seen “true” geeks wear-at least in the circles I run in. My husband would never rock a sweater vest and thick black rimmed glasses, even if Captain Picard himself asked him to.  (Yes, I’m aware that Captain Picard is a fictional character. It just adds to the point that this would NEVER happen.) I’m not quite sure what I think of this look to be entirely honest anyway. Is it a compliment to all the geeks out there that those normally deemed very fashionable are pulling from the classic geek clothing stereotype or is it just that they think they’re so cool that they can make even that look cool?  I’m probably over-thinking this way too much.  My husband must be rubbing off on me.

 To close I have to tell you that I’ve been known to throw on one of my husband’s geek shirts from time to time-around our apartment anyway…when I’m pretty sure nobody will be seeing me.  I think he enjoys seeing his wife geek it up a little now and then. Besides, they’re really comfortable! On the flip side, I recently bought my husband a bright red sweater which while he keeps saying it’s really bright (although not half as much so as his Hawaiian shirts) he does wear it….probably mostly because I lay out his clothes in the morning though.          

Décor wars

I have a skeleton in my closet….ok actually it’s more of a monster…. It’s an approximately 10” high replica of Gollum from Lord of the Rings.  We also have some Star Wars movie posters, a collection of Star Wars Pez dispensers and a framed map of middle Earth to name a few things anyway.

When my geek and I moved in together I was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of geekery that surrounded me.  It seemed that everywhere I turned there was a Sith to face down or a dragon lurking above me.  I’m not talking about a few items here and there-I’m talking excessive stuff-it was a fanboy’s dream. It seems that along with being a geek there comes a lot of “stuff” to show off just how much of a geek one is.  The more geek interests one has, the more stuff there seems to be.

I must admit that at one time, I too contributed to the geek “stuff” around his apartment.  When I got him a plush Darth Vader doll he was elated.  This of course stopped when we started co-habitating.  I vowed to myself that the geeky décor would have to come to an end-at least in part.

I started off slowly, removing smaller items off of the cluttered shelves.  Of course I did this with his permission-mostly.  I reasoned with myself that I was a grown woman and frankly it was all a little much.  There comes a time right? I promised that when we bought a house someday that if space allowed, the items, well, some of them anyway, could re-emerge in a games room…

Before you throw me to the lions...er I mean rancor, I didn’t make him put all of it away.  The large wooden D20 that he built with his grandfather a few years before his grandfather passed is nice looking and I know it has a lot of sentimental value for him so it sits on prominent display on our shelves in the living room.  While I did move the D&D dragons, I gave up some of my storage shelves so he could organize his dice, magic cards, minis and other gaming items all in one place. His suit of armor, even though it has caused countless people to have near heart attacks, is in our spare bedroom; a symbol of his bravery at beating cancer when he was in his teens. At Christmas we even have a variety of Star Wars ornaments that grace our tree-including a Yoda which, while green, does not spread Christmas cheer with the constipated look on his face.

Now that all being said, I know this is a two way street.  I have vowed never to make him curl up at night under an overly floral or excessively girly duvet cover.  He will never have to look at pictures of babies dressed up in cute costumes on the wall unless they’re our own some day and while I love to read and write I promise not to make a secret shrine to my favourite authors without his expressed written consent. I want our home to be a combination of both of our interests and our shared tastes.

Last night he lamented that I wouldn’t let him get this gaming table he’s been drooling over.  I told him once again it would have to wait for his games room.  Gollum on the other hand I’m afraid will have a permanent place in the closet even if he does get his wish someday.  It’s not that I don’t like the Lord of the Rings-he’s just creepy.

A case for video games….or stubborn....

I have to say something that I don’t often say.  I was wrong.  Unfortunately this is now in written form and my husband will be able to point to it any time he wants to.  While I know I’m not ALWAYS right, I pride myself in being MOSTLY right when it comes to disagreements/differences with my husband. This time though I will eat my proverbial hat-I underestimated his abilities and for that I am sorry.

This all started with my noticing the fact that my father-in-law’s birthday was coming up and as usual I had no idea what to get him-father type figures are SO hard to buy for.  So after talking with my husband we decided that we would make a sign for the cottage that his parents had recently bought. 

Well this required a trip to visit my father out of town because my father would be what some might consider a wood working geek if this was considered something geeky of course.  My father has the most extensive wood working shop that I’ve ever been in, and a seemingly limitless supply of wood to boot.

Sitting over breakfast Saturday morning my husband described how he wanted to build a moose shaped sign and router in the lettering himself.  My father raised his eyebrows at this.  This wasn’t something my father had ever done himself in his almost 60 years.  He told my husband that perhaps we should build the sign base and purchase the letters separately which was exactly what he had done recently when he wanted to make a sign himself.  I concurred whole heartedly.  My husband took this as a challenge of course because, really, how else would he take it?  He stated that all of his years of gaming had made his hands extremely steady and that he could do it.  I had some serious doubts-not about his gaming experience-THAT I could attest to easily.  But seriously, how steady could shooting zombies and aliens make your hands?

Well after breakfast my husband and my father disappeared into the basement and shortly there-after my husband emerged holding his test piece, which was done almost perfectly.  He smiled a triumphant smile and I had to admit defeat-and I was really impressed. 

If this was where the story ended however, I might have to hang my head for a few days.  But my husband could not remain on top for long.  I decided to go down to the basement myself to help out where I could as my husband continued onto the actual sign.  Suddenly the sound of the router got very silent and my husband stood there over the sign looking dismayed.  I walked over to see what was wrong and tried to stifle my laughter unsuccessfully.  He was concentrating so hard on making sure his steady gamer hands didn’t disappoint him that he had misspelled his own last name. 

So I will concede that video games may give you steady hands-but they might still rot your brain!