I'm a very big fan of Jack Vance's writing.
I not only have just about everything he's published, but I have multiple copies of some of my favorites- as backups in case something happens to the originals.

Fuck.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 6 Mar 2008, 21:22, Reply)

I refer to the Otters at the zoo as the 'otter people'
when I announce to my colleagues i'm off to visit them with Business and Development's rather woo top-end Canon camera

I am unsure whether the strange, awkward, smiles they give me back are a genuine hint of madness

or my utter inability to use this top-speck camera
( Jahled Three shades of black, Thu 6 Mar 2008, 21:21, Reply)

Its An Addiction.....
im fairly nerdy,never been too much of a problem for me,i get excited about sci-fi programs,computer games (resident evil being a major obsession),own some merchandise,nothing exceptionally nerdy but enough to make other nerds go "yeah,iv got one of those....."

and yeah i check certain websites every day

but my obsession is one website above all others (unfortunately not this one,though i do check it every day)

that website is

IMDB

i simply cannot get over how amazing this website is,i must visit it at least four or five times a day, if i watch a film (sometimes WHILE watching a film), the first thing i do is check it on imdb,the trivia,the memorable quotes the forums i need to know it ALL.

i even do it with films iv never seen or have any intention of seeing, i was flicking through the channels and noticed "chicago" was on.....iv never seen it yet almost in a trance i was typing it into the search before learning that John Travolta, Kevin Spacey, John Cusack and Hugh Jackman were all considered for the role of Billy Flynn.

i dont know who the hell billy flynn is

iv also got to wondering what i did when i vaguley recognised an actor and wondered what film its for, did i just wander around in a daze racking my brain, i honestly dont remember

the really sad thing is i know im addicted yet i dont care,long live IMDB
(rocknroll_pirate had a dream involving holly willoughby and custard, Thu 6 Mar 2008, 21:21, Reply)

Right...
* My motorbike is called Serenity, due to the ongoing problems I have with the primary buffer panel and compression coil.

* I have a tattoo of the power symbol on my right shoulder. It's a reference to the cover of a single released by Garbage.

* I find userfriendly.org extremely funny.

* I use "shiny" in regular conversation.

* I have London Underground socks. Socks, with the tube map on. There are at least 5 mistakes on them.

*...but I don't use them for route planning purposes, as I can picture the map pretty much in my head.

* This is useful for when I need to plan a route for a tube challenge, which involves visiting all the stations in a given target (e.g. zone 1, all the stations on the DLR) in as quick a time as possible.

* I know nearly every word to nearly every episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer (barring season six, which was crap).

* I have purchased four copies of Serenity. The region 2 DVD which I passed onto my girlfriend, the region 1 version with a bonus disc, the UMD release for watching on the move, and another region 2 copy to loan people.

I know the commentary for it word for word, let alone the main attraction.

* I swear in Chinese at work (working in a call centre this has it's advantages).

* I have a poster of Arnos Grove underground station on my wall above my monitor.

* I take pride in wearing my Green Lantern ring.

* I enjoy making connections between movies and TV shows based up on the actors within (e.g. Ellen Page and Michael Cera were in Juno. Ellen Page was also Shadowcat in X3 and copped off with a character played by Shawn Ashmore, whose twin brother was in the same episode of Veronica Mars as Michael Cera).

* The wallpaper in the PDA I got through work is as close as I can get to the cortex from Firefly.

I'll probably post more when I remember more.
(jamesthegill opens new tabs with his scroll wheel, Thu 6 Mar 2008, 21:20, 5 replies)

A bit
I was one of 8 girls in a class of 350 on my course - film studies, I collect samurai swords, I own the futurama box set and cry whenever I see the episode with Fry's dog, I have three tattoos, one of Marvin the martian, a lord of the rings one and a thundercats one. I have more online friends than real life ones and I'm happy keeping it that way.

Relationship status: Singleish
( fuck shit up the best you never had, Thu 6 Mar 2008, 21:19, 2 replies)

Recently I bought a bow.
It was unintended, really- my daughter and I were in a junk shop downtown and I found a really cool iron lantern for candles made in a lattice pattern, so I decided to buy it. As I approached the counter I noticed an odd looking thing leaning in a corner so I investigated, and found it to be an odd-looking bow. (No arrows, though.) Intrigued, I asked how much they wanted for it.

"Ummmm, I dunno... How about $7.50?"

So I bought it and the lantern, and my daughter and I left with my purchases.

As we walked along the busy street she commented on the very odd looks I was getting from people and I grinned at her. She decided she needed to go into a shop so I followed her in, and immediately found myself the subject of considerable interest from the girl behind the counter.

"I'm the anti-Diogenes," I informed her. "I'm seeking an honest man so I can shoot him."

The girl cracked up and my daughter hid.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 6 Mar 2008, 21:19, 1 reply)

I taught myself
to read and write in runes.

in the 70s.

The best part of that was when I went to a Renaissance Faire. Runes are a very popular decorating motif at those, and it amused me to decipher them- most of the time they were gibberish, but sometimes there would be meaning to them.

I went to one booth that sold rings with runes engraved in them, and studied them for a moment before concluding that they were a random jumble of characters. I moved on to inspect something else, and as I did so a pudgy, pasty ginger kid in his early twenties approached and said in a hushed voice to the woman behind the counter, "What do the runes say?"

"They say everything and nothing," the pretty little brunette replied. "They spell out no words known to man, yet each rune has its own meaning..." She continued on like this for a minute or two, with the kid hanging on her every word as though she were telling him the secret spell that would win him Deanna Troi's heart.

As she paused I sidled up next to the geek and said in a conspiratorial voice, "Don't believe her- they copied some graffitti off an old Irish boulder. It really says 'Sean smells of cheese'."

The woman burst out laughing and the kid looked at me like I had just pissed on Seven of Nine. When she could stop laughing she said, "You know, a lot of the time I'll tell people that they say 'You're about to be struck by lightning, so please hold my cheese sandwich.'"

Together we intoned, "Behold the power of cheese!"

I thought the kid was about to have a stroke...

EDIT: I almost forgot- not long ago I went to one of the trendy little dive restaurants down near the VCU campus where all the art students hang out. When I went to the bathroom I found that they had coated an entire wall in chalkboard spray and had provided sticks of chalk to write graffiti with. So I used it to put up a string of runes that read, "If you can read this, you are a geek." I think it's still there...
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 6 Mar 2008, 21:12, 2 replies)

Quite nerdy by everyday standards...
I use situations from The Simpsons to describe similar real-life situations, for example:

"You know when they went to New York and Marge was pointing out things like Governor's Island and 4th Avenue? That was a bit like your holiday to Egypt when you were little and your mum took you to all the random places and none of the famous ones."

I seem to be saying awesome-o-saurus a lot at the moment, which means I need to stop looking at weeblstuff for a bit. I also bought my gentleman friend a Magical Trevor t-shirt and a cuddly Kenya tiger. He's called Kenny (the tiger, not my boyfriend).

I cry every bloody time at the Futurama episode where Fry finds his fossilised dog and right at the end there's a montage where the dog's waiting for him to come back. It's a bloody cartoon!

I met Terry Pratchett at a book signing and got very very star-struck. I also started reading Discworld at the age of 11.

I did an animation degree and my other half is a microbiologist. We met online, on a dating site. Double doomed!

Looking across the room, I can see a Duckula video displayed prominently.

My handbag for work fell to pieces, so I am currently using my Domo one instead.

I prefer Macs to PCs.

The list goes on...
(claireyfairy There's a smell in here that will outlast religion, Thu 6 Mar 2008, 21:07, 10 replies)

Jet Set Willy
You needed to collect 82 'items' before the house keeper vanished and you could go to bed. (Once you touched the bed, JSW went over to the toilet, stuck his head down it and kicked his legs).

When I completed it, I hoped - against all hope - to be the person who won the competition to meet Matthew Smith and to go out in a helecopter.

I called the number on the inlay card (which kept safe that key-code thing) and was informed that 'the competition ended 4 years ago!'

How rubbish is that?

Oh - when i think about it.... 6031769 was the code you needed to type in to Manic Miner for the boot to appear, this additional icon allowed you to choose your location within the game. You had to have the number 6 as one of your simultaniously hit keys.

Sorry.

Mullered.
( JeffTheDogFucker Can you dig it?, Thu 6 Mar 2008, 21:07, Reply)

More of a question
Lots of posts about Fighting Fantasy, so a quick question: what do people think was the best one? Not counting Sorcery!, of course. For my money, it has to be Creature of Havoc (not sure about the spelling), which took the whole 'if you come to an entry ending in 7 then subtract 56 from it and continue' thing to a new level. And had a fucking secret code.

(I feel that posing the question also serves as a clear answer to the QOTW itself...)
( flatfrog Staring vacantly into space, Thu 6 Mar 2008, 21:03, 7 replies)

During a slighty kinky session with the misses
we could not find any string/rope etc, so had to use the ethernet cable
( wjh31, Thu 6 Mar 2008, 21:02, 10 replies)

I'm still proud that:
My first experience of the WWW was on a 486, via telnet, in 1994.

I completed Dune 1 within 100 game days, without bothering to explore the southern seitches.

I caned a mate at Red Altert, within five minutes of kicking off the game, by using Orcas*, then did exactly the same thing again.
[ninja edit - yip, helicopters - I was thinking of C&C]

I sometimes stay up to 4AM playing Team Fortress or browsing.

I have over 350 hours of music on my PC, which I built, like all but my first one.

I was deemed an "Uber-geek" by a book called "Are You a Nerd" or something of the like.

So yes - I'm a bit nerdy.
( Parmesan Quality b4 Quantity, Thu 6 Mar 2008, 20:48, 2 replies)

Nerds..
Currently my girlfriend and I are sitting on sofas about a metre apart. Both of us are intently typing away on our laptops, occasionally writing sweet nothings to each other on msn. That's surely pretty nerdy?
(Boar is dreaming of get rich quick schemes..., Thu 6 Mar 2008, 20:44, 4 replies)

For days after new year's eve
...whenever people asked me what my resolution was, I'd happily reply "1024 by 768".

I did wonder why so many people were asking about my pixels...
(jamesthegill opens new tabs with his scroll wheel, Thu 6 Mar 2008, 20:40, 2 replies)

I've got
all the episodes of original Star Trek on my chipped xBox.
( Mrs Entity is in hiding., Thu 6 Mar 2008, 20:39, Reply)

I told the whole class,
that I finished Phantom Hourglass on the DS over half term.



I'm the teacher.
( Mrs Entity is in hiding., Thu 6 Mar 2008, 20:36, 5 replies)

I like to think of myself as not particularly nerdy
despite the annoying glasses and "rubbish at sports" cliches I unfortunately fulfill. However, a friend of mine (we shall call him Alex), who also is not particularly nerdy, once said the worst, nerdiest and possibly stupidest thing ever to two popular, vain, gossipy girls (you know the kind).

This was 4 years ago...

During a science lesson we had recently been moved into a new seating plan with me and Alex next to the two girls. At one point, one of the girls made an unfriendly comment to Alex with which he responded:

"Yeah?! Well...your mouth is SO big it swallowed the entire universe and we had to go back in time to prevent it from happening!!!"

Needless to say, their face was a picture as they started crying "Geek and nerd!" at him. Funnily enough I don't remember ever sitting there afterwards...
( St. Defenestration The REAL one, Thu 6 Mar 2008, 20:33, Reply)

you tell me
i love star trek, star wars (not the prequels mind), star gate and other assorted sci-fi sometimes quoting them in conversation

my ring tone used to be the 2nd kroykah which you may remember from the star trek episode "amok time" (my housemate made me change it because it annoyed the hell out of him)

i practically get an erection every time nvidia release a new graphics card which i then drool/cry over because i want it but cant afford it

i own a "polar love" poster, a shirt with teh fear on it as well as a couple of shirts from webcomics

i read webcomics

on occasion i have said lol and rofl while talking to people face to face

i wanted a joypad for my pc, but didnt want to spend much money so i got an old xbox controller and soldered an old usb cable to it

i play a lot of fps and have played some games ot the point where i have dreampt i wqas either playing them or actually in them, i have 3 versions of unreal tournament installed on my pc (cant figure out why but i cant bear to uninstall any one of them) and i have come to the realization that i cant play rpgs because i just get obsessed with leveling up and getting the best equipment rather than following the story

when ever i sit down at a pc (it doent matter where) my left hand instinctively goes for wasd (with my little finger on left shift and my thumb on space)

i no longer watch tv, if there is a show on i want to watch i get it from bittorrent

i used to play warhammer 40k (one of my friends started a club for it at school) but i preferred painting the miniatures to playing the game and i hve been to the games workshop museum in nottingham several times

i used to race radio control kit cars at a club every weekend

for some reason i think things like environmental scanning electron microscopy and stable isotope mass spectrometry are cool (possibly the most worrying)

this list will probably get longer over the course of the week...
( Reme Philips laid an epic dump on, Thu 6 Mar 2008, 20:25, 1 reply)

RuneScape
I play RuneScape all day and sometimes all night. Not sure if this counts, but it's a good game and i don't care what you think. Haha, rofl, lol, etc etc.
( RiverBlues Hello, Thu 6 Mar 2008, 20:23, Reply)

Access
I would describe myself as only moderately nerdy: I loathe Star Trek Next Gen and Deep Space Nine. I did get quite into Championship Manager for a while until I decided I needed to get a life. I have friends (real ones) and have been in a number of long-term relationships (With girls!)

However, the spectre of Nerdyness does rear its bespectacled head from time to time (I am the son of an engineer after all). For example I was given a project at work once where I had to get details of all of the qualifications and work experience of my colleagues. I didn't need to do this but I built an Access databases to store it all in. Not a one tabler either a proper relational one with one-to-many relationships and everything. By the time I’d finished I new more sensitive and personal information stored about my workmates than MI5.

Yes, so I there you have it, I built my own database and the worst thing? I enjoyed it!
(Nitrous Nitrous, Thu 6 Mar 2008, 20:20, Reply)

Hardly nerdy at all
after reading some of these posts, but I am a little obsessed with ww2 and I make paper models

In a paper modelling forum theres a guy I know who eats M&Ms by crushing two between his finger and thumb, he eats the broken one, and challenges the next sweet to a battle. He wrote and sent the strongest on to the manufacturer asking if they would like it, to 'breed' from, thereby making a new superstrong set of M&M's
(lordy lordy, Thu 6 Mar 2008, 20:17, Reply)

It's minimal..
I have a Zelda tattoo on my forearm.

I'm constantly mocked for it, but I still love it like I'd love a child.
(Pixelpops, Thu 6 Mar 2008, 20:16, 2 replies)

Oh, dear.
I have one or two things...

First one is money. I love money. And not just in the way that most other people love money. I love the designs of notes and coins, I know every single person that has ever graced a Bank of England banknote, what they were famous for, when they were on the note, and in some (most) cases, I know their years of birth and death. I have a deep knowledge of all the security features on all British banknotes. I also keep all my banknotes in my wallet the same way, so that when I open my wallet, the Queen's face is facing me, and is upright. Notes go in order. This is very annoying at cash machines, when I get a load of notes spat at me, facing all directions, and I actually have to stand and make them all face the right way before they go into my wallet. One day, I'll get mugged, no doubt.

Coins, too. You know that pound coins have different images on the back? Sometimes it's a dragon, sometimes it's the Queen's crest, sometimes it's a Thistle inside a crown. And also the outer edge says things, too: Decus et Tutamen (Latin for "A decoration and a safeguard") for English-themed backs, Nemo me Impune Lacessit (Latin for "No-one provokes me with impunity") on Scottish-themed ones, and Pleidiol Wyf I'm Gwlad (Welsh for "True am I to my country", taken from the Welsh anthem) on Welsh-themed ones. I once rejected a pound coin at work, and then tried to explain to the moro customer that I couldn't take it, because the obverse featured a Welsh dragon, but the outer edge was inscribed with a Scottish motif, thereby confirming that the coin was fake, and had been made by someone who knows less about coins than I do.

Other than that, it's all pretty basic things. I'm a big Eurovision nerd, and a big Legend of Zelda one, too.
( Thinker, Thu 6 Mar 2008, 20:12, 3 replies)

Computer programmer extraordinaire
My first "proper" computer was an Amstrad PC1512 with - joy of joys - twin 5.25" floppy disk drives! It came with MS-DOS 3.2 and I learned how to program using DEBUG. Well, at least until my dad arrived home from work with a hooky copy of MASM and the instruction manuals, that is.

My first foray into programming was a saved game editor for Elite, so I could cheat and give myself a large cargo bay, docking computers, military lasers all round, ECM, and more. (Christ almighty, I can still remember the names of the components, 20 years later! Someone shoot me, please.) At least, that was my grand plan.

It ended up being a saved game viewer, because I became bored before writing the bit which would let me make changes to the file. I ended up not cheating and played the game properly.

One problem with the game was that, being released at a time when the PC was a proper "business" computer, and not seen as a games machine, Elite for the PC was made ridiculously easy so as not to hamper sales. I made it all the way to Elite with the original, unmodified ship with which I started the game. Could I have done that on the BBC Model B? Maybe, but not without a hell of a lot more practice.

My second foray into programming was a snub at Microsoft. At the time, it was "impossible" to move files between directories; one had to copy the file and then delete it from its original location. Thus spake Microsoft, and who were we mere peons to question Redmond's wisdom?

Well, with a measly 360KB per diskette, which I quickly filled, I got fed up with it and decided to do something about it. Every single "move" program I found on magazine cover diskettes didn't actually move files at all; they just did the same old copy/delete routine behind the scenes. Armed with a copy of this book I set out to prove them all wrong.

And I did.

I worked out how to edit the file system directly, so moving a file between directories was a simple matter of changing the pointer to the file, which meant that it would work on a completely full diskette. An unexpected side-effect of this was that one could rename directories, something else which was supposed to be "impossible" in the prehistoric days of MS-DOS 3.2. Hah! Fuck you, Bill! Phear my leet skillz!

My third and final attempt at programming was a piss-poor attempt to build a better mousetrap, actually a better diskette format program. Buoyed by my previous filesystem success, the murky depths of INT 13 held no fear for me. I would become the diskette format master.

Several nights of coding later, my masterpiece was ready to be tested. I fished out a diskette I'd volunteered for the sacrifice, and let my creation loose on it.

The diskette drive let out the most horrible grinding noise I'd ever heard, and then stopped dead. I nervously extracted the diskette and put it in the computer next to mine, and tried to use it.

No dice. The computer refused to recognise that it was a diskette, never mind a usable one. The next day I tried the diskette in two other computers, with the same result.

I had killed it. It was an ex-diskette. The drive survived, though.

I never programmed again.
( flake has nothing against your right leg, Thu 6 Mar 2008, 20:11, 4 replies)

Nerdy, a bit sad, but ultimately quite organised!
Thanks to my years working part time in a library, all my non-fiction books are classified according to the Dewey Decimal system!

Unfortunately I do still regale friends with my (useful) knowledge, Haynes Motorcycle Manuals 629.28775 anyone?!
(DangerFlange Chamone Mother Hubbard, Thu 6 Mar 2008, 20:08, Reply)

Btw folks.
What's warhammer.
( girlinthehole, Thu 6 Mar 2008, 20:04, 14 replies)

pretty nerdy really!
Lets get the obligatory Warhammer, Magic the gathering, around a thousand books (not as highbrow as some here, mostly moorcock, barker, pratchett, banks, gaiman, fighting fantasy and tons of sci-fi) Manga & graphic novels out of the way and settle down for some nerdiness of sad proportions

From the ages of 12 to 15 summer holidays were a tour de force of watching airplane & robocop, three day games of risk total domination, and 2 stratego boards knocked together for epic sessions.

A 24 hour warhammer game arranged at the local recreation ground was cancelled by the local vicar because of concerns over satanism!

My summer holiday every year since 1995 has been the Cambridge Real Ale festival (one week, one tent, over one hundred beers, winner!)

I do own Bizarre magazine 8 onwards, although its getting a bit same old same old lately, don't like the new layout either.

I spend a frankly anal amount of time playikng LMA manager on the playstation.

Im sure there is more, ill edit as i go i guess.

edit 1. Oh yes, i have said it before and i will say it again, I have worked with the European Dungeons and Dragons champion!

Edit 2. I have scored over 2billion points on an Indiani Jones pinball machine

Edit 3. I have worked in Cambridge University Library for a year, mainly for renting tons of books (its a copyright library so you get one of everything published, the porn mags were under lock and key but the erotic fiction lived in the towers and could be found easily)

edit 4. I joined myfootballclub and own a small piece of a football club, that is fucking geek.

sigh
(Halfy By light alone, Thu 6 Mar 2008, 19:58, 1 reply)