How nerdy are you?This week Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons, died. A whole generation of pasty dice-obsessed nerds owes him big time. Me included.
So, in his honour, how nerdy were you? Are you still sunlight-averse? What are the sad little things you do that nobody else understands?
As an example, a B3ta regular who shall remain nameless told us, "I spent an entire school summer holiday getting my BBC Model B computer to produce filthy stories from an extensive database of names, nouns, adjectives, stock phrases and deviant sexual practices. It revolutionised the porn magazine dirty letter writing industry for ever.
Revel in your own nerdiness.
(
chthonic, Thu 6 Mar 2008, 10:32)
« Go Back
PianoMy grandad, bless him, gave me and my sister a Yamaha keyboard thing to play with when we were about 13 years old. Thing is, it was probably from the 70s, very old and tacky, but it still had a few instrument noises in it, with a few terrible MIDI drum beats for the budding musicians. Naturally, the old school keyboard intruiged me (I still had my Amiga 500 set up in my room so I could play Q-Bic for hours at a time).
Anyways, my sister and I used to argue a lot over the PC, desperate to chat to our online friends as some sort of social verification that we actually meant something in the world. My sister had just taken over the "shift" for the evening, my parents were out and I had nothing to do. So I fetch this old keyboard downstairs and start to prick about on it. Short on space, I had to play it from the floor, and it was most comfortable to play lay down. Before long, I'm familiar with all the tempo buttons, all the different instruments and drum beats and can basically operate it to a decent level. Five minutes later and I'm confident enough to play in front of a camera.
I started with an up tempo "jam" as it were, bashing keys to a backdrop of tinny steel drums and maracas. If you heard it now, you'd probably mistake it for windnoise, but it increased my confidence no end. I took my shirt off, ever the showman, and put a hat over my head...that's right, I was going to play blindfolded.
I was loving it, playing "chords" and what not, speeding up and slowing down, changing volume and that, really in my element. All the little buttons did something different and I was in a veritable wet dream of awful home brewed music. I continued for at least 15 minutes, before removing the hat and speaking to the camera in my prone state. I begin to discuss my influences and how I really secretly liked the Spice Girls. My love for Star Wars came up and after ranting for 4 or 5 minutes about the genius of my music I say in my clearest voice. "Music...is....POWER!!!" and drift into an impromptu vocal rendition of an explosion and the superman theme, pretending to fly through the air, riding the wave of confidence I had just bodged together.
My sister, pissed off that I'd ruined the last 20 minutes of her internet time by pricking about in the corner, got her revenge and emailed the video to my friends, with several commenting on my love of girl power and Princess fucking Leia.
Worst part is that we got the keyboard when we were thirteen, my sister didn't email the damn thing til I was 20.
(, Thu 13 Mar 2008, 1:08, 3 replies)
revenge is sometimes a beautiful momentat least for your sister it was.
(
flirting with badgers What? It sounded good at the time., Thu 13 Mar 2008, 1:25,
closed)
YoutubeNow you've revealed this on B3ta, we shall not sit in judgment. But we really do all wanna see that legend of a video on Youtube? Pretty please with sugar on top?
(, Thu 13 Mar 2008, 1:47, closed)
« Go Back