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for the last few months, I've managed to keep my interest in Starcraft 2 pretty casual. I have a few friends who are still refusing to buy it because they "can't trust themselves with that game in the house." these are, of course, non-trivial concerns; a number of us went through some epic binges with the original Starcraft during college. nevertheless, that was college; I figured I'd be older and wiser now*... or at the very least, too busy to indulge in a horrendous, life-ruining video game binge. I've been pretty actively resisting taking the game too seriously. I was nonchalant about losing matches and refused to look into build orders or other "vetted" strategies of any kind. I didn't even play every night; sometimes I would even a whole week or more off (*gasp*) to do things like go outside and hang out with people in the real world.

all in all, I gloated about the fact that I was a fairly terrible player.

I should've known that it wouldn't last. this is something that began to nag at me-- being terrible. with some activities, I can handle not being awesome and I can definitely be fine with average. being bottom-rung terrible and watching peers put time in and get better and better; it would gnaw at my sense of nerdity. monday mornings, I began to whine to obsessed co-workers about a bad run of matches-- my casual weekend gaming was becoming less entertaining and more frustrating as I seemed to lose match after match. repeatedly they offered to examine my style of play, my strategies, etc. and repeatedly I rebuffed attempts to "formalize" my play and get better. a few more weeks, my frustration grew steadily, but so did my resistance to formally researching and memorizing build orders and other aspects of the game. my co-workers (perhaps out of being tired of hearing the same complaint week after week) suggested that I "casually check out" a blog by a high-level player. this sounded suspiciously like research to me, but on a slow facebook news day, I watched a few episodes.

my casual attitude is currently in serious jeopardy.

let me take a small digression. I love watching people geek out about things. making things and getting better strategically at games, writing, programming or even just hashing out great ideas. I love all of it. I especially love when the geeking involves a non-traditionally nerdy realm; cars, sports strategy, ufc, law / politics, cooking or formulating some complex theory of human behavior. I'm fascinated by the energy of creation. I'm particularly fascinated when the act of creation itself goes through a thorough refinement process. I may not always understand the details, but I love the sentiment. people who freak out about some incremental increase in status ("omg, I acquired a new [xyz]") is not particularly interesting, but whatever process or minutiae that makes you better at doing something or improves your understanding-- "optimization of complexity comprehension"-- I dig it tons. h summed it up when she called me "basically a strategy nerd."

sean "day [9]" plott warms my nerdy little heart.

day[9] is a top-ranked player and 11+ year veteran of Starcraft. his vblog / show, "the Day[9] Daily," offers commentary, strategy and bouts of hilarious, face-palming geekery. people who view themselves as "normal" tend to get dismissive if you use the words "strategy," "vblog" and "Starcraft" in too close of proximity to each other, but what day[9] does is truly fantastic. he is a surprisingly inspiring example of a nerd's pure love of an activity. more about this later.

this is a short piece I wrote for the ADHS website in 2005 regarding events of December 2003. the non-profit I was working for at the time was contracted by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix to give "Safe Environment" and sexual assault / abuse prevention workshops to all Catholic schools in the area. given that the POWER program was delivered to 7th through 12th graders, the junior high and elementary schools would often invite parents to an "information session" about a week before we would present to each school. through some fluke of scheduling, I was sent to this parent night pretty much by myself before I had ever delivered or even seen the entire program. (the other presenter mentioned is not Tom, but someone who presented another program and couldn't help answer any questions about mine.)

This "baptism by fire" will be funny in hindsight, I tell myself.

I barely stifle a smirk. I doubt that the men and women glaring at me would share my amusement. Surprisingly enough, even the nicest of people completely lose their sense of humor when perceiving a threat to their children. There is a moment of silence as I look down at the wilting piece of notebook paper my mentor had scrawled a very rough outline on. The answer isn't there, but even if it was, I wouldn't realize it because in this magical moment, I manage to forget what was asked of me.

Welcome to my first parent night ever.

for speaking at a conference, I received a gift bag that included a matching "padfolio" and lunch cooler. I felt my bpa-free stainless steel adult thermos filled with red kool-aid would go well with my adult trapper keeper* and my adult lunch box. despite having all this neat stuff, however, I'm still not (yet) invited to eat at the cool kids' table in the cafeteria. perhaps I should find an adult equivalent to the slap bracelet.

*as if I needed further verification that I'm getting old, I asked a student worker if she knew what a trapper keeper was and she said, "isn't it just a folder?" is it possible to explain how many nascent nerds felt that their entire social status hinged on acquiring one of these "just a folders?"

I once had to put up with this tool who couldn't string together coherent sentences because he didn't have coherent thoughts. instead, he spoke in sentiments suggesting depth and followed a schema of behavior that he must've modeled after that creepy kid in American Beauty. (you know, the "everything is so goddamn beautiful I just can't take it I'm gonna vomit everywhere unless you take off all your clothes so we make the nookie" kid.) this particular smacktard wrote awful poetry that suggested deeper melancholy, hunched over his guitar while listlessly strumming it and engaged awestruck women hunting for passion in conversations about "the nature of... things."

the worst were his quotes. I like quotes and aphorisms as much as the next guy and I don't mind when people whip some juicy ones out as appropriate. this assclown kept a little book of quotes with him at all times, but the quotes were all sort that uncreative people used to start or end shitty speeches and shitty essays. you know, quotes by kennedy, gandhi, lincoln, martin luther king and dr. fucking seuss. I may just be speculating, but it seemed to me that he'd memorize a few the night before just to throw them down in the middle of conversations about passion, connectedness / brotherhood or social change. the funny thing is that it's possible to maneuver just about any conversation to revolve around one of these subjects. the sad thing is that none of his quotes ever came close to fitting.

examples:
"if you really work hard, you could achieve your dreams."
"yeah and martin luther king once said, 'I have a dream.'"

or "shit! something's in my eye!"
"gandhi once said, 'an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.'"

don't get me wrong, I actually have little problem with plain stupidity. I am not the quickest of cats and I appreciate the consideration of those more brilliant than I, so I do my best not to be too much of a bastard to those less fortunate. I could understand if he was just learning to play guitar and played it shittily every chance he got in order to improve. I could accept that he might not have read as much on the philosophy of mind or obscure topics in psychology. unlike some nerds, I understand that to be a nerd is a choice and other people might choose to spend their time around real people.

the bottom line is I can accept earnest naivete and obliviousness. this isn't a matter of intellectual elitism though. there was something else going on. call it the difference between being multi-faceted and being a chameleon.

most of us have a tendency to embellish our stories a little. we pretend to be a little smarter, a little tougher, a little more unfazed, a little more knowledgeable than we actually are. we highlight and exaggerate and minimize for dramatic effect. I can accept harmless story manipulation even to the point of blatant white lies. still, there was something insidious about this particular guy. something about him gave those in the know the distinct feeling that things would be bad if someone fell for his ruse.