FAO Wil Wheaton

Wil's just written a blog post that I am somehow unable to comment on, so I'm writing my response here. I'll try to draw it to his attention - maybe wrap it around a bouncy ball and throw it down his chimney - but the likelihood is he won't read it. Never mind eh!

See, all this kerfuffle is about this video saying it's ok to be a geek. That you don't have to play D+D to be passionate about tech things. Wil feels that this casts 'traditional' geeks, like himself, in a derogatroy light.

Wil, I think I speak for all of me when I say: WAT.

I can't tell you anything about Slackware and Debian, am I not a geek? Or have I accrued enough Geek Points in other areas to be grudgingly permitted to associate with those like you?

"It's like a slap in the face to be associated with these people who claim to be like me." I know it's not what you intended, but that looks like dickery from here. It looks like an elitist jab at people who are trying to redefine what was once an insult. You've embraced the stereotype, they're challenging it. Does that make them wrong? Just how separatist do you have to get about a label that can't even be defined?

I agree with Wyldfire42. However much it might irk you to be lumped in with celebrities, geek isn't binary - it's a spectrum.

Smiths, Geeks and Furniture

Back home on the Isle of Wight, I knew a girl, D. Smith. Her mother's maiden name was Smith, and it amused me greatly that her parents could have hyphenated their surnames into Smith-Smith when they got married.

D got engaged to a young man by the name of T Smith, thus opening up the possibility of a Smith-Smith-Smith union... an opportunity passed up by D, but not by her brother, J. J married miss C Smith, so they could have been Mr J and Mrs C Smith-Smith-Smith. However, in the interest of minimising paperwork and avoiding ridicule, they all stuck as Smith. What a waste.

Back when I was doing my Theology course, the 2 hours of travel on a Monday morning left me with a lot of time to think. My friends and I once spent a happy hour working out who I'd have to marry and divorce in order to get the name Anna Rose-Smith-Smith-Rose. I will most likely never get that name, and this saddens me.

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I've recently been reading a lot by Wil Wheaton. Here's a sample of his style, as he recounts his take as an adult watching himself in Star Trek as a teenager.

Riker looks around the bridge, sees all the commissioned officers he has available to him, does a quick scan of the ship's manifest to see who's on duty . . . and decides to send Wesley Freakin' Crusher to "discreetly" sneak a peek at Data. Worf says, "Uh, excuse me, Commander, but since I'm kind of in the security department and all, and I'm a big old Klingon, shouldn't maybe I go check this out?"

Riker replies, "I'm not going to lie to you, Worf: we all know that if there's anything funky going on down there, you're just going to get your ass kicked. So I'm sending the Boy Wonder and his giant brain instead."

Wesley jumps up from his console and shouts, "Wheee! I'm in Starfleet!" as he skips to the turbolift.

Read more of his memories on the set of The Next Generation here, I thoroughly recommend it!

My recent journeys through his blog have convinced me that he's a remarkably intelligent, humble man with a keen sense of humour, so I've bought his book 'Just a Geek'. Expect a review on that soon, I'm certainly enjoying it so far!

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Today's interesting thing is WebUrbanist. I've been browsing for a bit being amazed at bookshelves - sounds dull, I know, but I'm very impressed with the originality and ingenuity of the designs. This one, for example, is built into a staircase:


There's plenty more on convertible furniture and recycled art, if you're into that sort of thing.

PS. I see from the poll that you guys are ALL ABOUT the button-clicking, so expect more polls whenever I can think of something!