Dating A Geek

School started, and as part of the incentive for coming to this school, we all received “free” Macbooks.

I’ve been playing around with mine, and although I like it better than my Dell Pc, there are a few flaws:

First, the Mac will not eject a CD if you are playing it…yet it automatically starts playing the CD when I tell it to import it to my computer. That wouldn’t be such a big deal, save the fact that while on a PC, there are little pop-ups that tell ignorant people like myself what to do. Apple just leaves you guessing…and it took my roomate and me forty five minutes to guess that we had to stop the CD from playing before it would eject.

Secondly, when you do insert a CD into the slot, two icons come up. Both are for the same CD. When you click on one, and tell it to eject, it says that it is ejecting two CD’s. Um….to my knowledge there is only one CD in there…

Thirdly, why isn’t there a right click or something similiar? I guess clicking control and then hitting the mouse button wouldn’t be such a pain if I hadn’t grown up on a PC.

There really aren’t that many problems… AlI in all do like it better than a PC. The response time for nearly everything is better…internet loading is slightly longer, but the way Safari runs their internet is worth it! I like it sooo much better than IE and Mozilla. GarageBand is so cool, and I pretty much love Dashboard.

I guess to get the perfect world one would have to install Windows on a Mac…then we would have the best of both worlds…and no complaints

I have fallen in love with the site digg.com. It is full of helpful information, funny articles, and, something I love the most, sarcasm. I recommend that you visit the site. It’s so cool!

www.digg.com

Right now my geek is at school, about 500 miles away from me. I miss him a lot. Phone calls and letters (yes, we do this old fashioned thing called writing love letters) don’t replace actually having him with me.

Plus, when he’s gone, I don’t have anyone to play Super Monkey Ball with. It’s just not quite the same with anybody else.

I have been absent this summer, but now I am settled in and ready for the new college year. I plan to be more regular in updating…this summer has just been so busy and I really haven’t been commited to this.

I’ve been thinking about the difference between Rock Band and Guitar Hero, and trying to decide which one I like better. I can play hard really well in Rock Band, but it’s a little more difficult to keep up with the pace of the hard setting on Guitar Hero.

After doing some “research”, aka  talking to my geek, I discovered that while Guitar Hero is  actually more difficult than Rock Band, depending on the setting you can play,  Rock Band was created by actual musicians. Therefore the music in Rock Band is  closer to the actual music you would be playing, while
Guitar Hero is difficult for the sake of being difficult.

I guess if you’re looking for a bit more of a challenge than Guitar Hero may be your preference, however, being a musician myself, I prefer Rock Band.

I have the best boyfriend. Geeks are awesome.

My computer isn’t working for me. My geek is going to fix it when I see him.

I love it.

Yet another reason to date a geek.

I really should update more.

Anyway, I played THE stupidest game ever 2 days ago. I don’t remember what it was called, but it was in Wii play, and all you had to do was blow up some tiny tanks before they killed you. Then you proceeded to the next level.

It was pretty dumb.

It’s games like that that make me shake my head and wonder what it is that is so intriging about them.

Oh well, at least it secured me a couple of hours of Gilmore Girls time with my geek.

There’s a group I’m part of on Facebook called “10+ Reasons to Date a Geek”. It’s actually a pretty funny group, and I’ve decided to post the 10 reasons the administrator of the group came up with.

“1) We’re very smart.

2) It’s hip to be geek. Everyone is familiar with the stereotype of thick glasses, a pocket protector, an obsession with star trek, and social skills akin to a sack of potatoes. Times have changed: geeks are often fashionable, hip individuals who are very aligned with the trends of their own generation.

3) They geek out on more than just their computer. Ever seen the movie collection of a film geek? Ever had an automotive geek work on your car? Ever seen the body of a fitness geek? The tenacity of someone like us, when applied to hobbies outside computers and the like, can yield impressive results.

4) Geek humor is the best humor. This is perhaps a biased opinion, but I’ve never laughed as hard as I have while reading some of the random, funny things that came out of geek culture.

5) You listen to good music. Geeks have access to tools that allow us to hear music that extends well beyond top 40 radio. Want the entire discography of Aphex Twin by tomorrow afternoon? Ask a geek. Not only do we listen to good music, they can find just about anything you’re looking for in a heartbeat.

6) We make good money. If there’s one stereotype about geeks that usually rings true, it’s that we rarely have trouble earning a decent income.

7) We fix stuff. Everyone loves a handyman, especially one that can fix one of the most frustrating devices ever conceived: a personal computer.

We’ve got your own stuff going on. You’ll never meet a geek who runs out of things to do, we’ve got lots of hobbies and interests and are more than happy to dive head first into one of those when they’ve got some spare time. In other words: they won’t rely on you to give them a life.

9) We’re very articulate. Compulsively reading a few hundred RSS feeds a day yields a vocabulary that could put most college English majors to shame.

10) We’re passionate. When a geek becomes interested in something, we tend to immerse themselves in it entirely. They’ll strip a new gadget down to nuts and bolts and re-build it with an xhtml compliant grappling gun. This intense passion can extend to many areas of a geek’s life, not just computers and hobbies.”

Of course, there are many more reasons listed in the group, but these are the best.

They’re also very, very true.

I finally heard about something that I think is cool!

This actually interested me…on the first try even.

My geek has been looking forward to something called E3 for awhile now (also knows as Electronic Entertainment Exposition). He didn’t talk about it much because he knew I really. wouldn’t. care…but he did tell me this today:

I guess Xbox 360 owners are now going to be able to download Netflix movies onto the console without any additional software or hardware…

Excited much? I am! My favorite thing to do is to watch movies with my geek, that way I have his (mostly) undivided attention for an hour or so. We often watch them in his room, on his monitor. So now we can watch more!

Yeah, Microsoft thinks this will be good for the xbox, bringing added incentives to buy it, and all that technical stuff, and without a doubt it will be good for Netflix but you all know that I don’t care about THAT…

I only care about spending some alone time with my geek.

Oh, and guess what show is going to be available through this…

The Office.

I already checked.

Well…I got out of Zelda…only to be introduced to another game.

My geek ordered a game called Boom Blox from gamefly.com. He gets to keep it for a certain number of days (I forgot how many) before returning it. Being my normal self, I loved the idea of that, because it meant I had a higher chance of not being dragged into trying it.

I did try it a couple days ago…I’m beginning to understand his obsession with some of his games…it’s difficult to write this post because every 15 seconds it’s my turn to throw my ball at the blox.

This game is so much fun!

Here’s how it works:

The screen shows a pile of blox looking quite like a Jenga tower, then, using the tool provided, you either lob a ball, slide the blox out (much as you would with a Jenga tower), or blast the blox away. In competitive mode, the player with the most points wins, in cooperative mode, up to four players can work together to rack up points.

It sounds so simple, but it is so engaging, and can be so challenging, that it grabs your attention for hours. I have become semi-obsessed with reaching the gold level in this game…but the tower we’re working on at this moment is a little bit difficult, so I might settle for silver.

I love it.

I love it.

I love it.

I need to go finish Boom Blox all the way through, then my geek must return it to gamely.com.

*sigh*

I promised to play Zelda.

*sigh*

It’s fun when he’s sitting next to me, teasing me and making jabs at my terrible inability to play the game, making me blush and laugh along.

He gave me the game to take to my place, and so far it has moved from my passenger seat, to the back seat, to my trunk. I still haven’t taken it inside…last night I gave him the excuse that my TV is broken, (that’s slightly true, a broken volume knob counts…) then complained some more until we agreed that I would play again next time I came to his house.

I have about 4 more days to create new excuses.

Think I’ll be able to get out of it again?

When we first started dating, controllers scared me. Seriously. I would never play games with him because I couldn’t understand how to use them! There are so many functions on those things…and it was too much for my brain to handle. Especially when I had an excited guy sitting next to me saying “push down here and he’ll fire a grenade, but if you do this instead you’ll get hurt, and then press A to do such and such, but press B to do this and that, but Jessi! You have to be faster! Run! That button!”

AAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then the Wii came out. I was pretty pumped…but who knew you could play more than Wii Sports on it? In my mind, that’s all it was needed for. Pretty expensive for just that, but hey, I was playing a game! I was so proud of myself for months. The controllers were so easy, (just make sure you put the string around your wrist or you may chuck the controller at your screen), and it was honestly fun. My geek didn’t tell me there was lots more to do…I think he knew that I was warming up to the games. Truthfully, playing Wii Sports felt like a stepping stone to any other things he had in mind,  and because of that, it is MUCH easier to get me to try other games than it was 6 months ago.

I don’t know whether to be proud or ashamed of myself, but I tried Halo, and I got through about half an hour of it…

I think it’s an accomplishment.