Sunday, June 5, 2011

Getting the Nerdship off the Ground

So I'm not the first person in the world to start a nerd blog just like I wasn't the first person in the world to start a music blog. Why do I even bother? I dunno. If you're actually reading this and you're not me, you have doubled my anticipated readership. I guess that answers a few questions anyway.

So I'm a 30 something year-old guy who has been a nerd pretty much his entire life. I'm not an uber-nerd nor am I a poseur-nerd. I did not create this blog to tout my nerdly powers. I personally know many people more nerdy than me with much more nerdy knowledge and ability. I'm just finding that as I get older I care less and less about being cool and try to spend my time doing things that I enjoy. As I have followed my heart I have come to the undeniable conclusion that my heart is a big ol' nerd too. So this being the case, I decided I needed to start a nerd blog so I can have a place to talk about nerdy crap. I thought of a bunch of different names for this blog, all of which are taken. My frustration on this point is illustrated in the graph below:

Without fail if you choose to start a blog, the name you want is taken. This isn't a major problem in and of itself. There are smart people in the world who may have just beaten you to the punch. It doesn't hurt if the blog name you wanted is the name of a popular blog with hundreds of entries and hundreds of followers. It will drive you crazy, however, if the awesome name you wanted is taken by a blog with 1 or fewer entries. That's what I came up against. I would mention some of the offenders, but it would only serve to drive traffic to their non-blogs (that is, of course, assuming I ever get traffic on this blog).

So why the sudden interest in writing about nerdy things, you ask? Well, I started reading comic books two days ago. Why start reading comics at 30+ years old? It was just time. I have always been the guy who has enjoyed movies and tv shows about superheroes, but I have always kept myself apart from the comic book reading crowd. Something about those guys (many of whom were my friends growing up) who live and die with their monthly issue of whatever comic they collect just seemed a nerdly step too far for me. It's the same reason I didn't play D&D even though many of my friends did (I've been meaning to take up D&D). Anyway, I was watching Wolverine and the X-Men, a series I highly recommend, and when it was all done (Wolverine and the X-Men only ran for 26 episodes) I just wanted, nay needed more X-Men in my life. I took a look at the X-Men series that I loved as a kid, but when I was a kid I didn't realize how bad it sucked. All the girls looked and sounded like April O'Neil from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, way too many of the characters had mullets, and the points on Wolverine's mask were about two feet too tall. I couldn't enjoy it. So I found a way to acquire digital copies of the original run of X-Men comics (starting with issue #1 of the original Lee/Kirby series) and I started reading them and quickly found that I love them. So I guess I have another 400+ X-Men comics to read, after which I'll dive into Spiderman, Batman, and all the other things I should've been reading and loving all along. If you have any suggestions for my comic reading, feel free to let me know.

Anyway, I'd better quit writing. Game 3 of the NBA Finals is on and I don't want the Mavs to win (I guess I'm not a total nerd). Look for more entries to come. This won't be your one entry wonder when you're trying to make your own nerd blog.

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