Oh, I Know This...

Damnit I knew this answer, but all I could hear was Zuko
saying just, "Uncle," in his whiny nasal voice.

What do Uncle Iroh, the Helmet of Nabu, and Lyanna Stark have in common? Only that I got them all wrong. Also apparently Piotr (Colossus) Nikolaievitch Rasputin enjoys art in his spare time, which I didn't know either. Damn you brain for failing me...

All of this stems from, True Nerd Trivia, an event I attended the other night in Manhattan. Back in January one of my 13 resolutions was to expand my nerd circle, and this seemed like a good place to start. On average, I spend way too much of my day doing normal things like having a respectable job, cleaning my apartment, filing my taxes, and quite frankly that's all boring as hell. Living in the New York metropolitan area affords me so many opportunities to attend some wonderful geeky events, that, really, I have no excuse not to. So following my resolution to meet new nerds and have new geeky experiences, I started my journey at a dive bar called Bar 82 in the Village on the lower east side.

In the backroom I found a place filled with tables and nerds of all different shapes, sizes, and specialties. There were horror nerds, comic nerds, sci-fi nerds, fantasy nerds, gamer nerds, and everything in between. I was paired with a group of four other people to form the "Useless Majors Anonymous," which was perfect since I have a Masters degree in Comparative Literature, (huge job market for that, by the way.) With our powers combined we weren't quite able to manifest Captain Planet, but we were able to not come in last, (and really that's what it's all about.) Unfortunately, that also means we didn't come in first and win the delicious chocolate cream pie that was given away to winning team.

Droopy demon from Buffy who like cats (like to eat,)?
It was Clement. (We missed that one too.)

The night itself was filled with triumphs, frustrations, and that wonderful feeling of panic and anger that you get when you know that you know something but can't think of the answer because it's right at the tip of your tongue, and you're staring down the barrel of limited time to answer the question, and the rest of the team is depending on you, and you know that when you finally hear the answer you're going to want to yell out in frustration and kamehameha your fist through the wall, but you can't because your in a public place, and why was my second Blue Moon two dollars more expensive than my first one... but its not my fault because I knew this yesterday... what the hell was his name?... Bard, it was Bard who killed Smaug... Frak...

All in all, I had a really good time meeting new people and reminding myself that I am a nerd who can still name the first three Robins, the race of Dargo's people from Farscape, and at least 80% of the other geeky minutia that was asked of us, and that ain't bad. I also learned about NerdNYC, a veritable home base for nerdy events ranging from trivia to board games to RPG's. They offer some great opportunities for a guy like me to break out of my normy shell every once in a while and go full on geek. So if you live in the New York area, or just visiting, I would definitely recommend checking out their site and coming down to an event. Maybe, I'll see you there.