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Waving My Geek Flag Madly
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Professor Askew
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 29, 2008 12:01 pm    Post subject: Waving My Geek Flag Madly Reply with quote

Never has my geek flag flown so high, so swiftly, nor so enthusiastically!!

The many universes I dwell in are coming together so nicely that I must share. I must. I believe it will be therapeutic for me so indulge. Laughing

I started writing this in the "Lost" obsession thread but realized it's really so much more. My whole life it seems is adding up to a love of big stories. Huge, in fact. I am so wrapped up in these epics that my participation in them is becoming a way of life. It's indulging both the way I approach fiction and my anal retentive nature to collect and organize things. It's sad, really, but I get a kick out of it.

Let's start with the aforementioned "Lost". The interesting thing about my obsession with this program is that I didn't even watch it when it first came on. I don't watch a lot of prime time television to begin with and when something gains enormous popularity I tend to shy away even more. But, shortly before the second season began I noticed a friend of mine had the season 1 DVD's. I decided to check it out. And I was hooked. Of course, it helps to be able to watch them back to back with no commercial interruptions. I have been a rabid fan ever since. Of course, the writers have dug themselves in pretty deep so I'm really looking forward to seeing if they can pull off an ending that satisfies everyone. So, now I have three seasons of DVDs, the novel "Bad Twin", and "Finding Lost' Vol 2 on the way. Other books and Todd McFarlane's action figures will not be far behind. And of course there's a plethora of stuff on the 'Net. Two ARGs, the Lostpedia, et al. It's all wonderfully obsessive!!

Now, if that isn't enough, there's Middle-earth, the landscape for the "Lord of the Rings". Now, I've been a fan of Middle-earth for approximately 32 years since I first read it during high school. I had just moved to a new town I didn't like and didn't know anyone and the trilogy was the perfect distraction. I read "The Hobbit" as well. When "The Silmarilion" was released I was as excited as anyone. But, alas, the book was too difficult and dry a read to engage me. I picked up future releases on occasion and they were even tougher to read. My Middle-earth fetish began to die down to a never-ending simmer. Then Peter Jackson's movies were made. I was greatly impressed with his adaptations, particularly the unedited versions on DVD which I absorbed into my museum with glee. But, once the rush of the movies died down, the simmer returned. That is until The Lord of the Rings Online debuted last spring. Incredible! I now had the opportunity to walk and ride the same paths of my Middle-earth heroes! Such a beautiful game, so immersive. Visually stunning, great music, and look! There's Gandalf! I could feel my geek flag fluttering in the wind of total abandon. One of the most interesting byproducts of the game was a rekindled interest in the history of Middle-earth. Back to the books I went and this time I was ready for them. No longer am I restricted to the Third Age of Middle-earth but, like a proper scholar, I am diving headlong into the ocean of Tolkien's complete mythos. My oh my it's fun. Now there are maps on my wall and of course a dozen or two Firefox Bookmarks keeping me up to date on all things ME.

And yet there's more! I make time for "Heroes", a wonderfully written show on NBC. I have the Season 1 DVD collection and I just ordered a work of fiction that tells one of the missing stories from the television show. And there's the graphic novel which collects the comics from NBC.com.

Big stories....other universes....such an attraction.

Stephen King's Dark Tower series. Man, I loved that stuff. And the story continues in a really well done Marvel comic that tells the story of Roland Deschain's early life.

Recently I had to cancel my DC Comics collecting for financial reasons. I did so right in the middle of an EPIC storyline that crossed over many books. When I canceled my subscription I was collecting around 40 books each and every month.

I can't wait to start up again.

And then there's the movies I'm keeping my eye on. First up is "Dark Knight". "Batman Begins" was a fantastic retelling of the Batman's beginnings and with the same group in place for the sequel, I have no doubts it will be equally awesome. Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker is already getting a huge buzz. That'll be July. In Christmas we get the new "Star Trek" movie from J.J. Abrams. I can't overstate my interest in this film. Not only because I've been a big fan for so long but I think it's a brilliant idea to sit back, take stock of what has come before, and re-envision our take on the future and making Star Trek real again. To walk away from some of the conventions that later series began to adopt. I think this movie is going to be huge. And finally, the movie I'm most looking forward to: "Watchmen". Simply one of the best comic series ever written. It's been at the starting gate for over a decade. Many big name Directors scooped it up only to toss it back for fear of inadequacy and/or daunted by the fans of the book. Zach Snyder decided to take the mantle up and from all accounts he's doing a fantastic job. He's the man who gave us "300" which was a visual feast. "Watchmen" will be much more challenging but he's letting the graphic novel do most of the talking which is probably a good idea. "Watchmen" is due out in March of 2009. I'm following all of these productions via several web sites.

And how could I leave out Star Wars? How? I took it upon myself a few years ago to read and watch the entire mythos of the Star Wars universe....in chronological order! This includes all novels, children's books, comic books, movies, animated programs, or whatever. Nothing is produced without the approval of George Lucas and Lucasfilm. So, virtually everything out there is canon. I have been going at a steady pace for a few years, as I said, and I still haven't reached the first of the six movies. I believe this is a task that I won't likely finish in my lifetime. But, as has been mentioned many places on this forum, it's the journey that matters.

The Myst/Uru universe will always play a part in all of this, of course. It's as big a story as any with half a dozen games, three novels, and a continuing online presence not to mention a myriad of web sites devoted to all things D'ni.

And I still participate in the real world. Can you believe it? My wife and I actually have a life together (she shares "Lost" with me but that's it), we travel and explore, dine out, meet with friends, and then there's my project....a universe of my very own.....heheheh

Thanks for letting me bask in geekery! It's a side of me that isn't really advertised in RL (nor hidden). But here in the virtual world, it's a moniker I wear proudly.
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janaba1
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 29, 2008 3:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

What a delightful excursion to your soul, throughout all of your vast
universes and galaxies, Prof Askew, thank you for sharing this with us... Very Happy

I am so glad to see you being so cheerful and upbeat and in such a
glowing enthusiasm, revealing the richness and beauty of your wonderful soul...

From the deepest of my heart and my soul I wish, that you may find,
what you're searching for so passionately... Thanks again for everything... Very Happy
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Professor Askew
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 29, 2008 6:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

janaba wrote:
From the deepest of my heart and my soul I wish, that you may find, what you're searching for so passionately...

That is the crux of the matter, isn't it? Thank you, janaba...
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Moiety Jean
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 3:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm one of those significant-story-loving types too.
I'm more of a lightweight fan of Star Trek and Star Wars (especially considering all the blundering fat-headedness of eps 1-3), but I definitely have some stories I'm passionate about, besides those of the Myst universe.

I think Zelda was my first story obsession, when I was probably 11 years old. It wasn't the first two games on the original Nintendo, but Zelda 3 that got me, because while my stepdad was sword-swishing his way through a world of cute Super NES graphics, I was reading the story in the manual. In it I found a series of small, but mesmerizing illustrations, and a mythos that has set my spine tingling to this day. (You can read it here.) It made me want to be a scholarly sage and transcribe histories onto scrolls with quill pens. Once I started playing the game for myself, I couldn't get to sleep at night for thinking about it. I was completely taken with the story and the world, and waited for another Zelda game as rich with somber purpose as this one had been. Ocarina of Time came out while I was on Christmas break from college and I spent the entire vacation playing it. I was in love with it from the moment I realized it was based on the legendary story written in the little manual. There have been a fair number of Zelda games, but the ones which stay true to that first story I read, and carry on the dark, dramatic feeling of the boy coming of age to be his world's hero, are the ones that keep me coming back.

Another one I love is also a video game -- go figure.. perhaps it's the ability of a video game to allow us to see and experience the story for ourselves..
Ico and Shadow of the Colossus created a story that was almost fairy-tale like in its ambiguity, but so very gripping; powerful in a sort of archetypal way. In Ico, a boy is born with horns once each generation. His village believes he is cursed, and at his proper year of age he is sent away as a sacrifice to a decaying, abandoned, fortress castle in the sea. Locked in a tomb and left to die, he is saved by chance when a crumbling stone gives way. But freedom from the castle will not come so easily. This boy will demonstrate reckless courage, desperate endurance, and a sheer force of determination to live. He finds a companion in the castle, an unearthly, pale girl who will become both his burden and his key to escape. Their innocence and bond of friendship stand in opposition to an aging evil that dwells there, to which the pale girl is mysteriously, perhaps inextricably, linked.
Shadow of the Colossus takes us back in time, gives us characters who are perhaps less oblivious to the powers of good and evil in their world. A young man named Wander has crossed lands unnumbered on his faithful horse to bring the dead body of a woman to an ancient temple. He wears a tabard much like Ico's, but he has no horns. Lovingly he places the woman's body on an altar, and beseeches an unseen deity to return her to life. He is scorned by its voices, until he holds aloft the sword he has brought with him. The deity knows this sword, though we do not, and makes an agreement with Wander. If he can find and slay the sixteen mighty Colossi that inhabit this land, her life might be restored, but at a great price. Wander and his horse venture to the far corners of the world to find them, giant beasts and birds and serpents of earth and stone, and destroy them one by one. Yet as he quests, a tribal priest in a strange mask is tracking Wander's path to the lands of the temple, riding with urgent haste, desperate to reach the temple and Wander before it is too late.

INTRIGUING, AIN'T IT? Very Happy

So yes, I've spent much time of my life immersing myself in the stories which inspire me so much when ordinary reality does not.

And you already know about my old Pony thing. Wink ::waves geekery flag::
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Professor Askew
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 10:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks for sharing, MJ! I have always wanted to try Shadow of the Colossus...ever since I first read about it in a gaming magazine way back when. I think I'll give it a search on my old friend ebay.

Immersion IS fun!
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BladeLakem
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 30, 2008 9:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I understand Zelda. I have a windbreaker that has the Zelda Twilight Princess logo on the back. It matches the one my 17 son has Wink
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Saxy
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 1:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote



.... including Professor Askew! Very Happy

My latest geek obsessions:

-Battlestar Galactica
-Lost
-Sudoku
-Uru (as always)
-Juno
-Johan de Meij's Lord of the Rings symphony (written 20 years before the movies, thankyouverymuch)
-And my guilty, sick pleasure... Nip/Tuck. I'm embarassed to even mention it. Embarassed
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janaba1
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 3:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wheeee!!!! Cuuuutie-pie!!!...

Ehem... back to the topic... geekery obsessions... hmmm, have to
think about it... Very Happy
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Moiety Jean
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 3:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

that's a great pic, Saxy! (Is that Beth next to you? Very Happy )
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Eleri
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 5:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

ElfQuest was my first foray into Geekitude. Most of my geekness beyond that is literary. I'm a Pern geek Smile Harry Potter, anything by Anne Bishop, Terre d'Ange.

I never did computer game geek much at all, or movies. Myst is about it for games. LOST is it for TV, although I used to watch ER religiously.
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Durin Mephit
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 6:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm sure there's more than that, Eleri.

Let's see. A quick review of my DVDs...

* All of Babylon 5. The only thing I don't have, I think, is the Crusade series, which as a spin-off doesn't technically count. I also have a large swath of the episodic soundtrack CDs.

* The three films for The Lord of The Rings. Extended editions, of course.

* Numerous Hayao Miyazaki DVDs, including Spirited Away, Castle in the Sky, Nausicaa, My Neighbor Totoro, and Kiki's Delivery Service.

* The Back to the Future trilogy. Stargate (Ultimate Edition). The Matrix (first one only; the other two movies disappointed me). Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai.

I'd better stop there. Am I geeky enough? Can I stay?
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Moiety Jean
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 6:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Eee, a fellow Miyazaki fan. I must admit, my first love there was really Princess Mononoke (I know, it's gorey... but so majestic!)

Loved the original Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Did you see Fearless?

Let us not forget Mystery Science Theater 3000! The ultimate in humorous geekery.
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Saxy
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PostPosted: Sun Feb 10, 2008 10:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

MST3K for the win!!! That show cracks me up to no end.

Moiety Jean wrote:
that's a great pic, Saxy! (Is that Beth next to you? Very Happy )

Thanks! Hehe, no. That was a few years before I met Beth. That girl's name is Kimi. I think that photo was taken back in 2003 during the Sakura Matsuri at the Seattle Center. A bunch of Sakura Con Message Board peeps went and a few of those girls made me that shirt to wear. XD Sadly, I lost touch with just about every one of those girls since then. Sad

Thanks Jana!!! You're so sweet, as always. :3
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dcos
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 12:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I too have much love for Miyazaki me and my sister make a point of seeing the Ghibli films as they are released in the cinema. I recently bought my neighbour Totoro but haven't got around to watching it yet unfortunatly. Maybe tonight.

I also love The Lord of The Rings films, but have never been able to get around to reading the books beyond the Hobbit (which I loved as a child). Maybe one day.

I love the first half of the Dune series (Dune -> God Emperor) and the first three books of the Foundation series.

One of my favourite authors of all time, if not THE favourite. Is Philip K. Dick. From being such a fan of his I've learned never to treat Book->Film adaptations as anything other than a new artistic entity. My favourite of his is The Man in The High Castle (I'm also partial to The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch although it tends to give me migranes after I've finished Razz )

Big fan of the Half Life series too Very Happy
and once upon a time I loved Final Fantasy

Firefly

This started off as quite a small post but like the Matrix films its got a bit bloated. The second half especially grew longer than I intended, so for those of you still concious after reading the preceeding: Welcome to the Dark side of the Geek. Subjects covered:

Myst
Star Wars (the prequels)
Star Trek (TNG, DS9)
The Matrix Triology

I find that for a lot of my geeky loves I have to defend myself from the scorn of other geeks as much as non-geeks. Myst as I’m sure many of you have found is generally looked down upon by most of the traditional gaming establishment. I remember being so mad when PC Gamer UK did their review of the first Uru. They picked the person on the staff who most hated Myst to review it and proceeded expecting the hatred of Myst to be universal.

I was just the right age for The Phantom Menace, so while I have fond memories of going with my dad to see the digitally remastered original trilogy a few years before, I was exactly the right age for TPM for when it came out. I loved it muchly! The release of the rest of the prequels also seemed to come at just the right moments in my life. Damn you Anakin! You broke my heart, just like I always knew you would.

I was also one of Picard’s children, which I suppose is quite mainstream Trekkie. But it was DS9 that really caught my imagination as a kid. I know some hard-core Trek-types believe that DS9 distorted ol’ Gene’s original vision but for me it made it more believable somehow. The multiculturalism so often touted previously became a reality and somehow working and living in a frontier port like DS9 seemed more exciting than flitting about the galaxy with a predominantly human crew. My now Firefly-ized view of the Star Trek aside (the federation as a borderline fascist military state) I still enjoy catching reruns of old episodes. Apart from the holodeck episodes, they only seemed to do those when they were having trouble coming up with ideas.

The Matrix was a revelation when it came out and like many I hold the first film up as one of modern cinema’s masterpieces. However I often find myself in the position of, if not defending then at least excusing, the two sequels.

While the original had a near perfect balance of decent sci fi story, amazing action sequences and grown up philosophical motifs and themes, the sequels suffered from trying to make it BIGGER and make BETTER. If taken separately the action sequences are quite interesting to watch, and some were definitely quite exciting and technically brilliant at points.

The mythos of the matrix universe was expanded greatly, my theory about the Oracle was almost proved right… sorta (I thought she was the product of the collective unconscious of the humans trapped. But I defiantly figured out she wasn’t human). We learned that there were all sorts of programs out there, not just the Agents, which made you question the reality of the Matrix even more and in new ways and raised all sorts of interesting questions. (I especially love the big three, the triumvirate of the matrix- The Architect [with his perfect understanding of how the world works] the oracle [and her ability to look at the current state of the world and predict forward] and the meriovingian [and his ability to consume data and produce an analysis of it]. An understanding of how the world is, how it will be and how it was.) I was also fascinated with the relationship between the Machine City, the matrix and Zion. How the programs who were exiled from the Machine City were in some ways similar to the humans being chucked out to Zion. Then you had underneath it all a full spectrum of interrelated and interesting philosophical problems expanding and adding to the philosophical discourse of the first movie.

And there is the problem. All three of the areas which gave the first film its success were expanded so much that they almost cancel each other out. The fight scenes seem extended and boring, the story seems full of exposition and unanswered questions only hintint at most of the interesting stuff. And the philosophical explorations just confuse and bore since you end up caring so little about what is happening. I love carrot cake and chocolate cake and cheesecake; I might stand to have a small slice of all three in one go. But to be force fed a full cake of all three (Matilda style) is not pleasant and only results in a bloated move (split in two) and vomit. Hmm that makes me sound like I don’t like it but I do! In the same way I can point to any number of problems with Uru but none of them really matter.

No doubt I've missed some, but there you go. I've flown my Geek flag and my other Geek flag, the one other Geeks often shoot at. Razz
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Durin Mephit
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 11, 2008 12:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Dan,

Maybe some evening we can discuss how the Matrix -should- have ended. (The second movie would have been OK, if the third movie had made up for it.)
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