Nerdversation

Has this ever happened to you? You are in the middle of a conversation with several people and you begin talking with one person in particular about a TV show, or movie or a series of movies or board games or comics or whatever and then suddenly realize that a bunch of people around you are 1) no longer talking 2)staring at you with a mixed expression of so-bored-they-could-kill-themselves and total awe that you actually know that much about something so nerdy.

I have a buddy who I talk comics with and this happens between he and I whenever we get together. We will be talking, our wives will be there and everything will be fine and inevitably he and I get talking about storylines we like don't like and then slowly the conversation degrades into the minutae that only true comic geeks would know. It goes something like this.

"Hey did you ever read the Phalanx saga in X-men?

Yeah, that was a terrible storyline, wait when did that happen? Was it before or after Wolverine lost his adamantium?

Umm.... I think it was after that, because he lost that when Magneto pull it out through his pores and then Xavier wiped Magneto's mind and I think that was issue 75 of X-men. Phalanx happened after that....

Did Douglock die in that series?

Who's that? Oh that guy that was in New Mutants who used to be Doug Ramsey and Warlock but then merged into Douglock? I'm not sure.

He talked really weird, I remember that..."

Are your eyes glazing over yet? That is just a short sampling of the tirades we go on in which we voice appreciation and distaste for our favorite characters and stories. The crazy thing is that what I wrote above is all reference to actual comic book events. Why does anyone need to know that? We know everything there is to know and some stuff no person should remember. We know why Claremont was awesome before and why he sucks now, come to think of it we know who Claremont is and what book he was writing (He wrote some of the quintessential X-Men stories, recently came back to them and has hacked his way through several terrible....glaze...) See? It is just that easy. I think the sad thing is there are several topics I could do that with. Movies, music, TV, action figures and there is a part of me that is proud of that and a part of me that is so very very sad because it makes me such a huge geek.

And then there are the questions, the questions that only one geek could ever ask another geek. Questions that sound like complete gibberish, or at the very least like the most inane question ever.

Do you think movie Spiderman could beat up comic Spidey?
Correct answer: Ultimate Spidey or Regular Spidey

What is the worst card in Chez Geek?
Correct answer: Including the expansion packs? Harold the Humpty Car

Have you ever seen the part in Untouchables when Sean Connery's collar comes undone and the in done up again as the scene cuts back to him?
Correct answer: Man, he was the best Bond.

What? No he wasn't George Lazenby was.

How can you say that? He was only in one movie!!!

Yeah, but can you imagine what he would have done with more?

Next you'll be telling me Oddjob was the best Bond thug.

Umm... hello? Jaws would smoke Oddjob in a second!

Oh yeah, I forgot about Jaws.... those metal teeth were great.

Hey who do you think would win a fight between Bond Jaws and Shark Jaws?

Depends, are we talking Roy Scheider Jaws or Jaws: The Revenge Jaws.

Still with me? OK, unglaze for a second. The thing is though I think there are a great many people who have these little nerdversations from time to time and I think we get all excited about it because there is actually someone else who shares the same obsessive enthusiasm for something when we thought we were the only ones.

So, when two people you are hanging with suddenly break into what sounds to you like the weirdest conversation you have ever heard about Van Halen or Van Hagar, who was the best starship captain, what the best Saturday morning cartoon of the 80's was, or which hockey team is the best of all time, just try to tune in and see if you can figure out why they love it so much. If you do you may finally figure out why the Enterpise D was the best Star Trek ship of all time (and so it begins. :))