Hiding the Nerd at Christmas

So, every Christmas, people always ask you what you want as a gift. I have learned that it is a very good idea to have a short list of small items available in mind for this question, just waiting to be unleashed. Because if you don't, they will invariably fall back on their previous knowledge of things you have expressed a fondness for in the past. And before you know it your entire apartment will be filled with beavers in various shapes and forms, until they're the only thing you can see when you walk in.

And no one wants that.

But this year I don't know what has happened - every time I find something that I might want for Christmas, it is always almost too inherently geeky to even bring up in polite company. I don't think that I've gotten more nerd-like this year, it's just that my normal mainstream interests haven't come out with anything good lately.

So now I'm at a crossroads - do I hand over a list of completely off-the-wall things that I want, which will most certainly be doubly embarrassing (first, whenever the person doing the gifting has to buy it, and second whenever I get it and jump around like the gigantic nerd I am), or do I try to whittle down the list to the most mainstream of items and be less enthused with the resulting gifts that come across? Such is the burden of the mid-level-middle-class-20-something-nerd.

Anyways, this is all just a carefully crafted screen so's I can make a list of all the nerdy things that I've seen lately that I really want. Because lists are fun.

In order from least to most nerdy:

DVDs:
Wall-E - Because I am the biggest nerd for Pixar movies, just holding it in my hand will probably result in nerd drool. (Also a 2 out of 10 on the nerd/geek scale. It's a pretty popular movie, after all)

Bring it On - Because it's my favorite movie in the entire world, and I've lost my copy. I have the case, but no disc. It causes me near daily pain, but I can't bring myself to buy a new copy, since it must be here somewhere, right? (A 2.5 out of 10. Not a nerdy movie, but my level of devotion to such a bad movie is certain to release high levels of awkwardness)

Books:
Alastair Reynolds - House of Suns

Charles Stross - Halting State

Neal Stephenson - Anathem

(At least a 7 out of 10 across the board - all three are ranging sci-fi/fantasy. Although I think the Stephenson at least is pretty mainstream-ish. Still, books at the holidays - always geeky.)

Things That Are Like Books:
Cable and Deadpool - Comic Collections - So it's come to this, eh? Actually buying comics. I don't even know. But this series is great, and pretty hilarious, and I want a hard copy of it. What? Don't judge. (9 of 10 - to get this you almost are required to walk into a comic book store. We're reaching the upper levels of nerd here.)

Runaways - Dead End Kids - Because I cannot find a bookstore that stocks Runaways anymore, and I refuse on principle to go to the comic books store near my house, so I haven't been able to read the last 3 editions. (9.5 of 10 - because just like above, only add another 0.5 because Joss Whedon is involved.)

Other Things That are so Nerdy It's Hard to Categorize:
Brick Poster - I'd like to think that I'm starting to get old enough that I could move beyond movie posters. But no, not really. I badly want one of these cutout posters that they did for the release of Brick before they all disappear. I've linked the Brain one because he was my favorite, but there are like 5 different ones, and they're all pretty cool. (8 of 10. Cult movie + obscure fan item + level of dedication required to get it = more geeky than a sci-fi book, but less geeky than comic collections.)

Penny Arcade Print - I'm not going to try and defend this one, it may very well be the most geeky thing on the list. Buying a physical print of a webcomic strip, that's about being a geek?It's almost meta levels of nerd, going on. Also, in the interest of full disclosure, I've come incredibly close several times to just buying one for myself for no reason. And the only thing that's stopped me so far? Because I can't decide which one I would get. I need help. (For the record: it's between this one & this one right now.) (10 of 10, no question)

Allomantic Metal Decals - I don't think I can even explain this one. So, they're like stickers? Of mystical symbols? From an obscure fantasy series that I'm (more than) mildly obsessed with. I don't even know what I'd do with them, but man do I want them. (15 of 10. Is that enough?)

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Well it feels nice to finally get all that nerding off my chest. Now to track down some holiday cookies and find out where I stashed all my Christmas lights. This house is not gonna decorate itself.

Like Scrooge, in a Way

Why yes, Christmas was awesome, thanks for asking.

Took two days of the weekend to unwind, finish shopping, and clean my room (it was really messy) and then spent the next two at my parents' place mostly eating, although occasionally opening gifts, giving away gifts, and moving large appliances up flights of stairs.

Delightfully traditional. Sort of.

Had excellent reception for the gifts I gave (a rarity, so yay) and as per usual was loaded down with awesome things through the generosity of my family. But that is only tangentially related to my reason for posting.

See, I've become a crazy old man, virtually overnight. The night before I left for my parents', I received my electricity bill for the last month and almost had a heart attack. In the middle of winter, we managed to use 3 times the normal wattage that we expend in a month in the summer. No, really, truly, and literally, 3 times my August bill. I immediately declared that we would no longer be using the heater in any significant capacity, as apparently getting the apartment over 70 degrees requires enough power to run a normal city block for a week.

Suddenly Frank is in his room, huddled over his laptop for warmth, shivering. Meanwhile, I've taken to wearing a flannel robe over all my normal clothes while at home to retain as much warmth as possible. Seriously, it's like I've become crazy Scrooge over here with Frank as Cratchet. (With the exception that Frank does not go in for any type of maths, and so far as I know, has not fathered any crippled children.)

Also! As part of my extensive haul from this Christmas, I received the DS video game Geometry Wars, something I've been coveting since it came out earlier this month. It is a most excellent game, as I love things that are simplistic, yet colorful that let me blast things. It's the pure essence of what a video game should be.

Sadly, though, it was not made to originally played on a tiny portable system. In its native state, you control the game using two analogue joysticks on a single controller. In order to make it workable on the DS, they have changed the left joystick to a directional pad (up-down-left-right) and the right joystick to a tiny pencil which you use to draw your direction on the touch screen. It's not the most elegant solution, but it's surprisingly effective.

The issue is, for maximum effectiveness with this setup you must hold the system with one hand, scribble furiously with the other, and have a finger available on the holding hand to hit a button on the top of the system. The only way to accomplish such a maneuver is to bend your wrist at a 90 degree angle, brace the bottom of the system with your pinkie and ring finger, extend your middle finger across the length of the back of the system, use your index finger to trigger the upper button, and have your thumb act as a counter weight/directional button pushing device.

Okay, that probably sounds completely unintelligible. The upshot is: within 15 minutes of starting play, your hands will be cramped up into withered claws, from which there is no respite. It's like carpal tunnel within carpal tunnel.

If you try to outfox the game by laying the DS on a surface, there's no elegant way to reach the upper button, so you're left with limited playability. And if you use both hands to hold the system, you are severely limited in your scribbling ability. Neither of which is an acceptable solution to a proper gaming person.

The end result? Not only am I a crazy old man who wears a flannel robe at all times while yelling about wasted heat, my hands are set in arthritic claws whilst doing so.

Yeah, Merry Freezing Christmas, y'all.

(You have no idea how painful it was to type all that out.)

Pitfalls of Rationalization

Items I want to talk about but are too short for their own entry:

• My office building had to disable the thermostat in my office because it was sending faulty signals to the center of our floor, resulting in +80 degree temperatures in some other offices. So now everywhere else in the building the temperature is perfect, and it's about 60 degrees in my office. This is not my beautiful life.
• Am I the only person in world who finds that new T-Mobile commercial absolutely hilarious? The one where the guy keeps obsessively re-recording his voicemail to a girl he just met? Seriously, I crack up every time I see it. This is the second T-Mobile commercial I've loved. I think something is seriously wrong with me.
• My Christmas drive kicked in at least a week too early this year. I'm totally spent on Christmas, and we're still 12 days out. I blame my awesome Christmas Mix CD, which I busted out the day after Thanksgiving. I'm completely ruined for the holidays now. (I'm almost entirely finished with my shopping though. That's awesome at least.)
• Also, sweet unholy damn, I am in the best mood this week.

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So my computer monitor is in the final stage of its life, like a dying red giant star seconds before collapsing into supernova (Note: Please do not email me to correct my astronomy. I do not care that my science has failed me. Blame the public school system.).

It now takes well over 10 minutes to display anything after turning it on, and takes another 15 minutes after display for the picture to actually settle into a normal viewable image (as opposed to a shaky wavering mess).

Considering the little guy is now over 2 years old and was the cheapest LCD monitor on the planet when I bought him, I think I ended up getting my money's worth. And I mean that literally, it was the cheapest flat screen monitor I could find anywhere. I bet I got a better deal on that thing than I would have if I had bought something out of the back of a guy's van in the bad part of town.

But that's what happens when your brain works like mine: You have a predetermined budget for a new computer. If you get rid of a) a printer, b) a warranty, and c) a remotely decent monitor, you can get yourself a pretty nice actual computer. Granted it's surrounded by empty space and a piece of junk display, but oh the computer itself is fancy.

Anyways. So now I've got to get a new monitor. Which immediately (also only in my brain) means that I need to get a whole new computer. Because really they're a set, right? You can't get one without the other.

Actually, it turns out this is not true. You are able to purchase monitors independently of computers, particularly when your computer is actually still running very well. It just takes a lot of convincing inside my mind. Because seriously, new computers are so shiny nowadays. All dual cores and wild computing power and enough RAM to run every program on my current computer all at one time.

But considering my previous mandate to "never buy anything again" after I got the new car, along with the state of my work industry, which is bouncing back and forth daily between "Bad" and "Job-Threateningly Horrendous," I was able to talk myself down from a new computer purchase. The monitor, however, is a requirement.

The real news, though, is that it turns out that rationalizing myself all the way down from a huge new expensive computer to only buying a monitor allows my conscience to guilt-free upgrade to a decent monitor, AND a reasonable video card to go along with it. In my brain, the saving from not buying a whole new computer offset the upgrade costs.

I never even thought of that as a rationalization exercise. I fear for my wallet now with these new-found powers. But man, am I ever looking forward to my new swank 22" widescreen monitor. It's gonna be sweet.

Christmas Link o' the Day

God, what a day.

But in lieu of ranting, instead of getting mad we're going to get awesome instead. It's the Christmas Season, dammit.

In that spirit: FlakeOMatic, the easiest way to lose an hour of your life by reliving your gay childhood in arts and crafts.

Christmas Bird

I have had the same alarm clock radio since I was 13 year old. Which is a bit of a deceptive title: only the clock works, not the radio (or the tape deck). But the alarm is the most annoying and loud thing in the world so I've never had the need to look elsewhere for my waking up needs.

Until this morning, when it inexplicably decided not to work. Instead. I woke up on my own approximately 4 minutes before I was supposed to be in the office. Which is something of an issue, seeing as the office is 15 minutes away, and it takes me something in the area of 20 minutes to get ready in the morning. I require a shower, a shave if I don't want to look homeless and drug-addicted, and the process of clothes picking can take a good 5 minutes. Or more if I have to scrounge for socks.

In my bleary state, I decided to scrap all of that, forgo everything and just put on the first thing I grabbed out of the closet. I was out the door in about 5 minutes, no shower, no shave, a too-small striped shirt and yesterdays pants barely in place as I raced to the TOM.

I made it all the way to the highway before I realized that my left contact was in wrong. I had initially thought I was just squinting a lot because I was not prepared for the bright lights of the morning. Instead, it turned out that my contact was actually folded over and slightly jammed under my eyelid. Apparently rushing through the process of sticking things in your eyes is not the best course of action. Particularly when you are doing so on about 2.1 minutes of awakeness.

Somehow without crashing, I managed to remove the offending contact from my eye, at least getting the painful factor out of the way. Replacing the contact in my eye while driving down the highway would be more of an issue. When one regularly cannot nagivate his own living room without banging his knee into the coffee table, he should not be poking at his eye while driving at 60 miles per hour. So I sort of just held the contact on my finger for the remainder of the drive, down two highways and 3 side streets all the way to my office building, and just drove with one eye open.

It wasn't until I was making the final turn to my floor of the parking garage (and I passed by a nice woman who gave me the filthiest look ever) that I realized that I had just spent the last 20 minutes with my hand in the air holding my loose contact on my middle finger, so as not to get it snagged on anything. In other words, I spent my entire ride to work unintentionally flipping off every single person I passed by, all the while with one eye closed in a deranged wink.

So yeah, Merry Christmas to you too!

15 Lessons Learned from Gingerbread HouseParty 2006

In no particular order:

1. One should always go shopping for party supplies earlier than 57 minutes before the party is scheduled to start.
2. When constructing a from-the-box gingerbread house, if the instructions say 'wait 15 minutes for frosting to harden' you had damn well better wait the full 15 minutes. Those instructions were written by goddamn gingerbread house engineers, they know their shit.
3. In the interim drying period referenced above, it would be best to set up a specified area cordoned off by yellow police tape in which to hold the drying house, so as to keep it away from drunken partygoers, who by definition do not have frosting-drying patience.
4. Always plan for at least 10 extra guests than expected. Never underestimate the drawing power of edible houses and hot chocolate.
5. Buy more rum. Trust me.
6. Also, buy more pizza rolls. Can never have too many pizza rolls.
7. In a pinch, powdered apple cider from little one-serving-size packets is an acceptable substitute for the real stuff. Especially when trips to 4 different grocery stores fail to deliver the goods. Seriously, is there some sort of boycott on cider this year?
8. Rum filled cider? Delicious. Kahlua filled hot chocolate? The most delicious thing ever.
9. If house-building fails due to a lack of cordoned area and inebriated party guests, sugar cookie decorating is an acceptable substitute. Also, they are way more edible than the house, which may actually be made up of gingerbread cement rather than cookie.
10. "Everyone's a Little Bit Racist," is not just a song from Avenue Q. Refer back to #5, only add the words "a lot" somewhere in the instructions. Consume and repeat.
11. Always double-check to ensure that your blender is properly assembled and tightly screwed together before letting partygoers utilize it.
12. Failing #11, make sure you have plenty of OxyClean carpet cleaner available. Ain't nothing quite as awesome as OxyClean.
13. When someone turns on the TV and puts in your copy of a transexual rock musical, it is not necessarily a party-killer.
14. But when someone follows it up with an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer? Time for last call.
15. I know it's said every time there is a party, but for real this time: Clean up on the same night. I don't care if it's 3:00 am. You will thank me for it later. Or you'll be cleaning dried frosting out of the carpet 48 hours later and cursing my name. Either way.

Christmas Mix

Y'all, have I mentioned lately that I love Christmas?

'Cause yeah.

Tree is up, Gingerbread party is tonight, and it is nice and wicked cold outside. All is well.

In honor of my festive spirit, I present to you the most awesome Christmas Mix Tape in the history of time and space. Said mix tape will also be playing at the gingerbread party tonight, to keep the level of Christmas spirit as high as possible. And considering we have an actual house-making kit from a store ready to go tonight, I can't help but think that this will be our most successful outing ever.

Jason's Awesome (and Slightly Emo) Christmas Mix Tape 2006

1. Bright Eyes - Blue Christmas [The best Christmas song in the world. Sung a little off key to make it even more poignant.]
2. The Long Winters - Christmas With You Is the Best
3. Wham - Last Christmas [Ain't nobody messing with Wham. Also, you can substitute the Jimmy Eat World cover of the same song, if you have no soul.]
4. The Eels - Christmas is Going to the Dogs [I'm not sure about this song, but I include it for its sheer ridiculous factor.]
5. The Raveonettes - The Christmas Song [Awesome. Second best song on the mix.]
6. Mariah Carey - All I Want for Christmas [Just try and listen to this song and not rock out. Oh that's right, you can't!]
7. Melissa Ethridge - Christmas in America [I can't believe I just admitted to listening to this ridiculous leftist song. I am weak-willed in my old age. Give me a break, it's catchy.]
8. Ron Sexsmith - Maybe This Christmas [Otherwise known as The OC Christmas Anthem.]
9. Death Cab for Cutie - Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)
10. Christina Aguilera - Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas [Almost too much Aguilera-ization but still very good. Got to have the standards in here.]
11. Jars of Clay - Christmas for Cowboys [I sort of love this song, in a Brokeback kind of way.]
12. Eartha Kitt - Santa Baby [Very specific here, you need the live version of her singing it with her jazz orchestra. Every other version of this song that exists in the world sucks like a vacuum.]
13. Pilate - Fairytale of New York [As far as I know, the only Christmas song to contain the phrase "cheap lousy faggot" and still be pretty awesome.]
14. Ivy - Christmas Time is Here [To end of a really pretty and calming note.]

Keep an eye out over the weekend for the party recap.