Never Playing it Cool

Firstly I will warn you, this is possibly going to be a blog of many tangents, or just the one large tangent. We'll see how it goes. I grew up playing board games with my family from a very young age. My earliest memory of playing was a game called "No Room At The Zoo" which, if memory serves me involved trying to off load animal tokens to the other players so as to not have an over populated Zoo. The mechanic must have been quite simple as I remember being a toddler when playing it, or at least I hope I was a toddler, that way my crying and bawling because my brother kept loading his animals onto my zoo doesn't seem so ridiculous. When friends would come over I insisted on playing a board game regardless of their protests, and despite their reluctancy they always ended up loving it as much as I did. You see as we all grew older the majority of my friends were going off and doing the cool teenager things. Hanging out with friends on street corners, football, girl...

This is a question I was genuinely asked once, not in a philosophical manner or anything like that. The question was posed by a gent of an older generation and was unfamiliar with the word that has suddenly become emblazoned across the t-shirts of many a student purchased from trendy hipster clothes shops. (These t-shirts piss me off by the way, but I won't go into a rant about that just yet.) As always when confronted with a question like this, my ability the produce an eloquent and well thought out answer on the spot was non existent. Instead I will have fumbled out an incoherent jabber of words that may have slightly resembled a sentence. It's much easier to answer these things when you have the privilege of hindsight, time and the backspace key. There is what I suppose is the accepted image of a geek/nerdy type. The word is synonymous with those who love science fiction & fantasy. Lonely greasy haired teenagers with acne who sit at computers gaming or having online ...

I came up with this years ago and still think it's an awesome idea and cannot believe it hasn't been used. So computer games tend to a have a selection of difficulties, the standard being Easy, Medium & Hard. I always thought a Star Wars game would be awesome if it's difficulties were "All to easy," "Impressive" & "Most Impressive." *Tumbleweed* Well I think it's an amazing idea...

Ok, so to start off here's the trailer for the new RoboCop movie. Firstly I'll admit it is a beautiful looking film, the styling and FX look stunning. However that does not detract from the fact it is completely and utterly unnecessary. The original RoboCop is a film I have loved for a long time and is perfect, why someone felt it necessary to remake it is beyond me. The special effects are dated but for me that's part of it's appeal (along with the OTT violence). I can't help but find this remake to be utterly redundant, pointless and other words to that effect. For me this RoboCop remake is the straw that broke the camels back as it were, I'm just getting sick of it. I will hold my hands up and say I did enjoy the new Total Recall but that was mainly as a great piece of science fiction, when I stopped looking at it as a Total Recall remake I was able to appreciate it for its other qualities. But why all these remakes? Where are the original sci-fi ...

This is one of my all time favourite photographs - I am not focusing on Harrison Ford here but what he is sitting by. A full size, fully constructed prop of an X-Wing fighter, the greatest of all star fighters. Not only that, it is a full size, fully constructed prop of an X-Wing fighter, the greatest of all star fighters in a full size fully constructed set of a hangar on the ice planet Hoth, filled with other full sized fully constructed props of other space ships including a full size fully constructed Millennium Falcon. Now I'll apologise for the repeating of the words full, size and constructed but that is what I am wanting to emphasise. These sets and props were all actually built with such painstaking detail, every scorch mark, every little component made to look like it served a very specific purpose in making those ships fly in space. This is for me, what gives films character and what I love about the original Star Wars films. And it's not just the se...

I was never a huge Doctor Who fan to be honest, it passed me by right up until Paul McGann's one off appearance as the 8th Doctor. Which was the first Doctor Who I ever watched in it's entirety and even then it was with an air of indifference. Don't get me wrong I enjoyed it and looking back I wish Paul McGann had had a much longer tenure as the time-lord. When the series was re-booted with Christopher Ecclestone in the lead role, I once again approached Doctor Who with the same level of indifference. I watched and enjoyed but never really became what I would consider a fan. But then came David Tenant who grabbed my attention immediately, it was then I became a lover of Doctor Who. I know there are those of you who would consider me a heathen considering the many great Doctors who came before, and I admit that if circumstances had brought Doctor Who to my attention much earlier I would no doubt be saying these same things about Tom Baker, who for me is the most icon...

"Voracious Wurm enters the battlefield with X +1/+1 counters on it, where X is the amount of life you've gained this turn." If the above makes any sense to you then you are probably already one of us, however I hadn't realised I  was one of us until I a few days ago when I found myself sat over this - I am of course referring to the leading trading card game Magic: The Gathering. A game that allows players to collect from a seemingly endless variety of cards and build their own custom deck and do battle with each other, attacking and defending with cards representing all manner of mythical & fantasy creatures and spells. It all sounds so simple doesn't it? Think again. I have now spent the better part of a week collecting cards and trying to build the most effective decks I can. You see it's not simply a case of picking the best looking, strongest and powerful cards and throwing them together into a deck, you have to pick a strategy and pl...

Ok, so I haven't really posted anything yet but I am working on a plan for my first spouting of geek based blogging. In the meantime, how awesome is my new bag!!?? Live long and prosper!

Having been inspired by my colleague and good friend Richard Baxter, who has recently started a blog on his love of children's books and bookselling which you can find here , I have decided to start my own similar blog. I have recently turned 30, and rather than letting that drive me to despair and eventual suicide I instead brought to mind a saying that I couldn't agree with more; "Growing old is compulsory, growing up is optional." I truly believe that it's only when you begin to think of yourself as old that you become old. I realised a long time ago I have spent a large chunk of my life concerning myself with what others may think of me, trying to impress, trying to be cool. What a waste. Life is too short to worry about such things, so I have embraced my geekdom and worn it proudly on my sleeve. I have no guilty pleasures, why should I be guilty about what I enjoy? I am going to be using this platform to express my love of all things geeky, I'll be tal...