"Fake Nerd Girls"

This topic has been coming up a lot recently, so I figure I’d throw my two cents in about it. For those unfamiliar with the phenomenon named in the title, Geekdom has been beset by an insufferable scourge. Yes, dear reader. With the increased popularity of “geeky” cultural niches has come an increased attention from the outside world, and with it has come… the fake nerd girl.

The rant about Fake Geek Girls typically begins by complaining about “Con Girls”. Not girls trying to rob you of your life savings by investing in a Chia Pet ponzi scheme, but girls that attend conventions- typically, girls at conventions dressed up as some character or another. The refrain goes that these girls actually know nothing about whatever franchise they’ve dressed up as, and are only using the Con as a middle-of-the-year, Halloween-esque excuse to dress up in fanciful, yet always slutty, clothing. Why, you might ask?

For the attention, the geek would respond!

Because according to this particular part of the complaint, Con Girls aren’t actually hot enough to hack it as bona fide Hot Girls on the outside; they’re just banking on the stereotype of geeks being inept with women to buoy their attractiveness up a couple pegs by comparison to girls these guys would “typically” have a shot at. (This is known as being “Con Hot”, and it is not a compliment).

Now- I’ll ignore for a moment the fact that the dudes complaining about this probably have no idea how much of a “true fan” Girl X actually is or isn’t, whether or not she’s dressed up. Book, cover, yadda yadda. I want to take a look at where this argument comes from, and then expose it for what it really is.

So where does it come from? Different people might have different underlying reasons for their aversion to “fake nerd girls”, be they dressed up or not: some might believe girls are using their bodies just for personal attention (as mentioned above) or professional attention (to sell some product or other); some male geeks might believe that a more attractive girl couldn’t possibly be interested in something so traditionally anathema to sex appeal, and so any interaction with an attractive woman in the context of their niche is more an act of pity on her part (and “I don’t need your goddamned pity!”) than a true display of her interest in the subject material.

I could go on ad nauseum; the potential reasons behind the accusations of someone being a “fake” geek girl are legion, but they all boil down to the same thing. I’ll list three statements, each progressively closer to the root of the issue; keep score at home and see when you pick up on it.

1.  “These fake geek chicks are terrible! They’re not even into this stuff because they like it, they’re into it for attention. I liked this Con more before they started coming.”
2. “These people are terrible! They’re not even into this stuff. I liked this more before they started coming.” 
3. “Ugh, this is terrible. Those people aren’t even real fans. This was much cooler before it was popular.”

That’s right, my fellow geeks. If you’ve claimed that you liked being a geek before your niche of choice became as mainstream, then you’ve moved out of Geektown and into that one town that everyone in America names with equal venom- Hipsterville.

Ponder that for a moment. Roll that word around in your head. Turn thee, Geekvolio, and look upon thy Hipster-y death!

See, back in the “glory days” I think some of our brothers yearn for- the days of (and here’s my street cred) reading Unearthed Arcana around Gygax’s basement, postulating on what would one day become the THAC0 system or some shit- liking things like comics (sorry, graphic novels) or fantasy card games was decidedly unpopular. But geeks loved them anyway, and would wax poetic about their +3 Dirk of Attentionslaying to anyone with ears and a pulse. That’s what made geeks so geeky. There was no question that professing their love for their niche would get them a first class ticket to a swirly; they professed anyway. And they would try to turn you to the Geek Side too, even if your expression was something akin to a root canal patient’s without anesthesia. I should know. If I had a dollar for every time I used D&D lingo in a middle school English class, trying to sound cool? I could probably pay off my student loans.

Point is- that’s what a good geek is supposed to do. He or she is supposed to look at another person and go, “Ears? Check! Pulse? Check! HEY DO YOU HAVE A MOMENT to talk about our Shiny Lord and Savior, Malcolm Reynolds?”

(One hopes there’s at least some context to this conversation. Bringing it up as a non sequitur typically sounds about as irritating as someone who can’t stop talking about how much they bench pressed- society tends to call those people guidos, or in the root latin, goddamn fucking tools… but I digress). Point is, a good geek is supposed to be a good spokesperson for their niche, thereby increasing the number of people who dig what they dig, and bettering humanity as a whole.

These Anti-“Fake Geek Girl” dudes don’t do that. They don’t see Random Girl dressed as Tifa and think, “Y’know, I should go see if she’s played any of the other FF games”. They don’t see the shared interest as a conversation starter. They see her as a threat of some sort, as if there’s some planetary stockpile of Geekiness, and they have to hoard as much of it as they can to survive the coming football season. I suspect that some of it derives from “I liked this hobby as a form of relaxation, but now with hot girls around I can’t relax anymore, so I’ll be a twat and hope they leave.”

…This is almost always followed a few hours if not minutes later with, “God, girls always go for the assholes. Why won't one talk to me?"

And of course, some of the Anti-“Fake Geek Girl” Guys (Contest Time: Someone come up with a clever acronym for that) are just Hipsters, pure and simple.

But fuck them.

Because fuck Hipsters.

As a really quick aside- I firmly believe that anyone who’s super into something is a geek. Video games, cars, food, weight lifting, vintage issues of Cat Fancy- whatever. If you get real tooled up about something to the point where you have to bite your own tongue to keep yourself from gushing about it out of context again, welcome to Geektown, here’s your pocket protector. But nontraditional kinds of geeks- people into cars, sports, and so forth- they’ve had fangirls tag along to their various big-ticket events for decades! When was the last time you heard a car buff start bitching about all the scantily-clad women that Honda brought with them to the last bike show? Or, when was the last time you heard your local armchair quarterback complain that he doesn’t think the Cowboys cheerleaders don’t really appreciate the game?

I suppose this is all a ranty and fairly roundabout way of saying shut up and accept the company, man! Whether it’s girls, guys, whoever. The more the merrier. And if you disagree, then…

Well, I’ll say it again.

Fuck Hipsters.

The X-Box Story

So, in the words of Ron White, "I told you that story so I can tell you this story."
This, my friends, is "that story".

It was some months ago now that I was playing a hand of cards with my boys. One of them, a gentleman with an infamous reputation for being a terrible cards player for how often he becomes distracted, became (you guessed it!) distracted and immediately slams his cards on the table. His eyes bugging halfway out of his head, he leaned over the table and into my face.
"HEY!" He exclaimed, "Do you have an XBOX?"

I leaned back so as not to catch another whiff of what he'd had for lunch (meatloaf and green beans, as far as I could guess), and shot a look at the other two patients. They were putting their own cards in order and were paying Patient 1 no attention. I should have followed suit, but being the fool I am, I answered.
"Uh... yeah. Yeah, I have an XBox."
He leaned forward again. How you doin', greenbeans and- a hint of vanilla? "DO YOU PLAY IT?"

I leaned back again, inadvertently scootching my chair a ways. "...No. Nah, man I don't. I'm too busy."

That was a bald-faced lie; I was certainly not too busy to play my XBox, I was in fact quite busy saving the universe as Commander Sheppard. But this guy knows his movies and video games, so I didn't even want to risk the potential for a conversation about the finer points of taking a Reaper to the mattresses. (I was also worried that it might branch into a conversation about taking Miranda to the mattresses, know what I mean?)

Anyhow. Where was I? Oh yes. I'd just told him that I was too busy to play video games.
"I'm too busy," says I.
"CAN I HAVE IT?!"

I blinked. He... wanted my XBox? My unit is so restrictive they can't even have a calendar on their wall. Not even a poster. They don't even have their own clothes on my unit!
"Um... no. You can't. Play... play your hand."
"I can't have it?"
"No."
"Aw."

A moment passed, and for a brief, shining second, I thought I could go back to my favorite work pastime; ignoring this person. But alas.
"WHERE D'YOU LIVE?"

Before I could respond to this, Patient 2 decides to offer me some advice.
"Yoooouuuu bettah not tell him wheah you live," he said sagely, never taking his eyes up from his hand, "Or yooouu wake up one morn', thinkin' you got an Ecks-Bawks but you WONT HAVE SHEEEYIT."

My cards are now everywhere. I have spit onto the table and probably onto Patients 2 and 3- but if 3 gets hit by my spray, I don't see his reaction; if 2 has been hit, he doesn't care. He ignores my reaction completely.
"Yoooouuuu wake up one morn', thinkin' you got an Ecks-Bawks, but he be PLAYIN' yo' Ecks-Bawks at YO' MOMMA'S HOUSE."

Mechanical Horses!

So last night I tried to go and watch Skyfall. Unfortunately for my eyeballs, the movie was sold out and I didn't get to watch it. Fortunately for my eyeballs, on my way back to my car I stumbled across... this.

That's right, bicycle polo. Just a bunch of dudes, rollin' around a dry ice rink, playing a gentlemanly game of bike polo. Turns out there's a whole league of people that play this state-wide, and apparently a Lafayette team are the defending state champions! There wasn't a huge crowd, as you can see, and my video is only what my phone could take- but I wanted to share it, since it reinforces my belief that you find the coolest things when you're not actively looking for them.

That's all for today.

I Dream of Gringo

I have a confession to male.
It’s only three days since the election, and I’ve already engaged in my personal self-harming action of choice. No, dear reader, I am not a cutter; I do not binge and purge; I do not engage in fits of manic spending or sexual abandon (except in the case of your mom). No, my demon is a far darker creature, more apt to ignore the immediate gratification of self-mutilation and partake in the soul-crushing long game.

I’ve started reading about the 2016 election cycle.

“How can this be?!” You might ask, and you’d be justified in your confusion. After all, we just got done with the whole blasted mess, how can I be so full of hatred for my sanity that I’m already looking up information regarding an event that won’t take place until I’m 30?
Because, my friend, in four years we may have the chance to see a deathblow leveled against a major political party. I’ll do my best to prognosticate about this with as little bias as possible, even though the claim itself may appear biased to begin with. I’m simply exploring a possibility.

Obama killed it with non-whites. No reason trying to call this anything other than what it was; it was an absolute stomping. I could waste my time trying to explain why this took place, but rather than do that I’d like to extrapolate outwards. Let’s look at Latinos, for example. They’re the fastest-growing population in the country; according to Pew research they accounted for 46% of the nation’s growth between 2000 and 2010- this group jumped from contributing about 35,306,000 people to our population… to 50,478,000. That increase is enormous. Latinos increased their number by almost half over ten years, coming to ~16% of our entire population. By contrast? Us white boys only got together with enough white girls to bring the Gringo vote from 194.5 million to 196.8 million (that’s about half a percent increase). While that’s still a huge head start, the gap is closing by leaps and bounds.
Now consider this. Assuming similar rates of population growth over the next ten and twenty years, we could be looking at an American electorate with a Latino population of 112 million or so, compared to a White population only a few million higher than it currently is.

Why is this important?
In an electorate that decides its President by a margin of only a few million votes here or there, any one population that is growing faster that the others must be paid special attention to; pretending that the population growth of Latinos isn’t important is political suicide. Similarly equitable to electoral seppuku is taking a hard-right stance on immigration issues, as Mitt Romney did by supporting “self-deportation”, which is essentially hoping that illegal immigrants find the atmosphere of the country so unfavorable that they get up and leave on their own. Other conservative standpoints, such as building a wall on “every mile, on every yard, on every foot, on every inch of the southern border” do the Republican brand no favors with people of Latino heritage. (It’s also a completely untenable construction project, but that’s beside the point).

All of these issues for conservatives combine into a possibility that if, within the next four years, immigration reform can be attained? The credit could very easily go to President Obama and the Democrats. I’m not going to speculate about the staying power of the DREAM Act (or something like it) if its passed early in Obama’s second term; nor will I speculate about the number of Latinos (or voters in general) this could net the Democrats come 2016. What I can say is that any cursory inspection of the news will reveal how powerful an issue immigration reform is for the Latino community; a poll conducted by Latin Insights on behalf of Fox News in March of 2012 revealed 90% support for President Obama’s DREAM Act. Pew Research’s Hispanic Center found that 91% of Latinos supported DREAM; 84% supported giving in-state tuition to undocumented students.

TL;DR: This is a big fucking deal.

…Which brings me back to my original claim. I went out on a limb and said that we could witness a deathblow to a major American political party, and I stand by that possibility. Republicans currently stand almost entirely on the wrong side of this issue, politically speaking. Never mind who’s actually right or wrong; the fastest growing population in America says immigration reform is a huge deal, and the Republican party couldn’t trip over itself fast enough to tack further and further to the right on the issue. They very well could have saved their election efforts if they hadn’t have alienated this key demographic. If they continue to talk about border-length fences and self-deportation, or -as some have suggested- if they react to their recent loss by deciding they haven’t been conservative enough, I would think they can expect to continue losing seats in both houses. And that trend, combined with the losses experienced from most other minorities, could spell the deathknell of their party.

Or the Tea Party 2 could come along and prove me wrong. But only time will tell.

Things I Learned on Election Night

It's finally over.

Election Night has come and gone; the ceaseless campaign machine can grind to a halt and the talking heads can give their vocal chords a rest (aside from a few remaining blowhards). I won't try to hide my elation at the country's collective decisions- but I do want to take a brief moment and talk about what all just happened here.

1) President Obama, smug as ever, keeps his job.

I was clearly an Obama supporter. I think he's done a lot of good in the face of an unprecedented amount of conservative obstructionism. A Romney Presidency would have disappointed me, make no mistake. Now- I wasn't one of the "I'm moving to Canada!" liberals that were bemoaning our possible fate, but the worries I had were as follows: If Romney had won, I was afraid that liberals would have become embittered and taken up the mantle of obstructionism, and the whole damn process would have started all over again. With Obama retaining his job, and Democrats gaining ground in both the House and the Senate, I'm hoping that conservative stonewalling will have lost some of its steam. The same ideologues that said their top priority was to make Obama a one-term President will hopefully see how far that got them, and be more willing to come to the table and make realistic offers.

2) People set up a firewall vote about marriage equality and reproductive rights. 

Four out of four states (including my home state, Maryland! Woooo!) either supported marriage equality or rejected state constitutional amendments to define marriage as between a man and a woman. The reverses a trend of anti-equality ballots, and could send an interesting message. Also on the list of things that split heavily against Republicans were two big names who came out as being ignorant-at-best and anti-womens'-rights at worst, Todd Akin and Richard Murdock. They're the proud owners of the "legitimate rape" and "God intended rape-borne babies" statements, and voters turned out in droves to tell them where to stuff their opinions. These two factors taken together could signal a warning to surviving conservatives that running on social issues such as these is political suicide- and if that does end up being the takeaway from this election, that could have enormous ramifications in the culture wars.

3) Puerto Rico voted to become a state.

No, really. They've apparently voted this down two or three times before, but this time it passed with a 61% majority. I know nothing about the pros and cons of accepting another state into the union, but at the moment it's being drowned out by MSNBC's congratulatory orgy and FoxNews' sob-fest, so I figured it needed mentioning.

So what comes now?

Well, there's that whole automatic tax-increase and spending-cut thing that comes up this winter that needs dealing with; we've still got beef with Syria and we're still at or around 8% unemployment. There's no shortage of things that need work. But, what I plan to do personally is write to my state's national House and Senate members, be they Democrats or Republicans, and tell them to work together. I will tell them that I'm mailing their counterparts across the aisle, saying the same thing. Because now that this whole battle is over and done with, we have too much to do to keep saying "Well, he suggested it, so in the interest of increasing our potential wins in two or four years, I'm voting against it". The hyper-partisanship needs to cool.

"A 50/50 race, it doesn't get much closer than this."

No, Wolf Blitzer, it doesn't get ANY closer than that. 50/50 is as close as it gets.
Allow me to put aside my eye-rolling at Mr. Blitzer's filler speech and look at what he's talking about.

Predictably, he's talking about the Wisconsin Recall. For those of you who don't know, here's the long and short of it: The Governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, made waves by balancing the state budget at the cost of Union power. This angered many people, who organized and decided to try and recall him. That angered many other people, who organized and decided to try and save his job. Today was the recall election, and the polls just closed. Unsurprisingly, the exit polling stands at a dead heat.

The born-and-bred liberal in me wants to cheer for this attempt, especially after some sources say that Republicans have outspent Democrats 10:1.
(I'm too tired for citations tonight, so this whole post is hearsay and opinion.)
But the aspiring moderate in me says, this dude might have been able to bring his state out of the red. In an economic recovery as fragile as ours, isn't that an amazing thing?


Its a confusing back-and-forth, at best. Pros and Cons for simplicity.

Pro-Walker
On the one hand, dude looks like he managed to balance his state's budget. This is a great thing for a state to do, and it comes at a time when other states (and private households alike) should spend more time balancing their budgets. His state is now reported to enjoy a surplus, which means everyone that works for the government will get paid on time; public works projects can be funded, and taxes don't have to increase. That leaves more money in the hands of the workers, public or private. Further, Unions have gotten way out of hand with their rules on Tenure; if a Union worker sucks balls, but has Tenure, firing them is a legal nightmare. That wastes money and produces a lower-quality product.


Anti-Walker
 On the other hand, gutting the Unions could lead to weaker-paying jobs, since Unions help raise workers' salaries through the power of collective bargaining. Removing the Unions' ability to demand dues (Walker made such dues voluntary, rather than mandatory for Union membership like they have been historically) takes away the ability of these groups to remain operational on the scale that they have been. This reduces the odds they can rally their troops to get what they want; so, if a factory wants to lower wages to save money, there's less chance of a strike. Lower wages means less consumer spending, which kills industry in the long run. Also, without any serious challenge to big business, business-friendly (and consumer/environment-unfriendly) laws are more likely to be championed in the halls of legislature, lowering the quality of life.

And these are just the most simplistic arguments I could come up with off the top of my head.
Point being? Don't fall into the trap of "I'm a Liberal/Conservative, so I'm anti/pro-Walker". I promise you, with an issue this complex, dumbing it down to that sort of a party-line vote is exactly the sort of partisanship the nation doesn't need.

Rest is for the Dead: Atlantic City Edition

May 31, 2012
5:25- After a hard day of un-crazy-ing the crazies, I get into my car. I am heading back East for an extended weekend of family and friends; two nights in Philadelphia and Atlantic City, two days at home with my folks. As it has been six months since my last trip, I am feeling well overdue for such a vacation. So, with a smile on my face I start driving down to Indianapolis.

6:10- It has occurred to me that I might have fucked up my packing. Investigating my suitcase on the side of the road, I discover that I have packed two suits, but no dress shirt; a bathing suit, but no sandals; tee shirts, but no shorts or jeans. I have also forgotten my iPhone charger, and I have exactly zero condoms (Hey, it always pays to be prepared). This does not bode well.

6:41- I fly through security like I'm some kind of young white male or something, and I decide that I'm hungry enough for a burger. I grab a seat at Champps and order. Flight leaving at 7:10? No problem!

6:44- This might be a problem.

6:55- I have essentially swallowed my burger whole, but my waiter (who is now aware of just how strapped for time I am) is being intentionally slow bringing me my change. After the gate calls for "all passengers on the flight to Baltimore" a second time, I realize I cannot wait any longer, and I abandon my $20 on a $9 burger. I got to eat exactly two fries. If, by some unfathomable coincidence, you are reading this and you know the waiter I'm talking about, kick him in the goddamn balls.

7:23- No sooner are our wheels off the ground than the baby behind me begins screaming as if she'd just been forced to pay $20 on a $9 burger. But as eardrum-burstingly loud as she is, I can't decide if the more annoying sound is the baby herself, or her father talking to her in a baby voice. "Daaaaaaddy's patting!", he says in a coochy-coochy-coo falsetto, burping her as best he can, "Mooooommy's patting! But we neeeeeed moooooore power for BLAAAAAASTOOFFFFFFF!"


7:39- The baby has been knocked unconscious by her father's voice, some unknown medication, or possibly by my sheer force of will. Assuming it's the third, I begin writing out an appropriate cover letter to the Green Lantern Corps. Do you think you start such an application with "Dear Sirs" or "To Whom it May Concern?"

7:58- I find myself in an unenviable position. The speed at which I ate my burger, combined with the pressure changes at 30,000 feet, and the soda I just pounded have caused a chain reaction in my stomach similar to Mount Vesuvius. There is a belch bubbling up in me from the depths of my very soul... and I am sitting next to one of the most attractive women I've ever actually seen on a Southwest flight. I'm talking like, this burp could actually destabilize the fuselage of the airplane, and I have to hold it for another... half hour? Forty minutes? This is not good.

8:13- Nope, I am no longer able to hold back. This beast is making itself known to the world.

8:14- I let out a belch of such force that people in the back of the plane think we've been hit by a surface to air missile. This, in turn, wakes the baby- but this time, Daddy doesn't have any quiet words of comfort to reconcile what I just committed upon innocent bystanders.

9:30- I have, in fact, landed safely and made it home. Mom brings home dinner, but I take a moment to visit where they buried my cat about a month ago. She was very old, and fortunately didn't go through much pain, but I still feel guilty for not being there for her. So I take a knee and say my proper goodbyes.

9:40- The Rents and I spend some quality time ranting about politics and why Ron Paul is an idiot.

12:00- After determining that Ron Paul is, in fact, still an idiot, I retire. The real show begins tomorrow.