Monday, March 14, 2011

Somewhat good news out of Boston...

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Well, for the second year in a row, my #2 son has finished in 2nd Place at the Eastern United States Nerd Convention!


Yep, he and two friends traveled once again to Boston to compete against other nerds for the Nerd Champeenship last weekend.  


PAX drew over 69,000 visitors to the Boston Convention Center.
(That's a lot of nerd under one roof)


Yep, last year Ross got screwed out of the title of Top Nerd by an equipment malfunction.  Seriously, that ain't no lie.  I saw the video...he was miles ahead in the final round of competition when a power outage halted play.  According to nerd rules, the final round had to be restarted, and he froze up...I guess his pitchin' fingers were wore slap out.


I haven't gotten the story yet about yesterday's final...just a text from one of his buddies saying, "Ross made the finals, but lost.  Again."


The Boston Globe had a nerd photo gallery of the event.  I had to laugh!  The two young men on the left in this photo are his buddies (the one on the far left is the young man that has been living with us for several years).


Nick, and Matt...y'all are famous!

I pick at #2 son about his "gaming," but I guess it's as harmless a hobby as any.  And, he's beginning to make a name for himself in that world.  Maybe it'll turn into a career or something.  Though it's not my cup of tea, millions are in to it.


Dunno.


Regardless, congrats Boy!


Daddy's proud...

11 comments:

  1. Andy, you have to support the home team. Good on you!

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  2. When GBN1 calls, she has to tell me how she did on Super Mario Brothers. My eyes glaze over and roll back in my head. But her daddy is a nerd, what can I say?

    Congrats to #2 son!

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  3. I'm amazed when I watch my grandchildren on these things. They all have multiple systems from the Wii to Xbox to PS3 or whatever it is to the little DS handheld things.
    We all have our own talents - bet they couldn't hitch a mule to the plow if they had to. . .

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  4. Well, I'm just proud 'n' humble to know ya! Grats to SN2... bein' Numbah One is NOT out o' reach!

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  5. Gamers get busted on for being big nerds but at least it's comforting to know that a part of humanity treasures an active imagination ;-)

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  6. One of the things that drives me nuts is the complete disregard for the enormous difference between a "nerd" and a "geek."

    Here's the bottom line.

    Geeks are technical, they write programs or build robots or hack iPhones.

    Nerds are just people who like to pretend they are geeks. Most of them work at McDonalds.

    I've been a geek my whole life. I still play video games, although I have gotten bored with World of Warcraft lately.

    Some of what you see in those photos is called "Cosplay" short for "Costume Play" and it involves dressing up as your favorite characters from literature, games or role playing. My daughter has been doing that since before it was called CosPlay, the Cosmic Wife and I helped her make a Sailor Moon costume a dozen years ago.

    Cosplay provides some very interesting photo opportunities since most females in video games or in anime films wear very little actual clothing, and the serious Cosplay practitioners do their best to get it right...

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  7. Thanks for the congrats, which I will pass along to #2 son.

    Cosmic, thanks for the education. I know you are a geek...and a darn good one, too.

    I didn't know the term for CosPlay, but I've seen examples of it before. Learn something new every day.

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  8. You know, the winner probably has a lot of annoying responsibilities, speaking engagements, Oprah, the works. Heck, what if he gets stuck with a White House visit? Second place, on the other hand, gets a little glory, plus the peace and quiet to game away on his own terms. I'd say 2nd place is the real winner here. Congrats!

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  9. Yeah, what Andy said.

    And it drives me nuts to have to watch the grandsons play games. More boring tha a paint-drying festival.

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  10. Andy, Congrats to your son!! And to you and the Mrs. too. And thanks to Cosmic Conservative for explaining that important distinction. My son was a suppressed geek all through college (at least partially because we kept telling him to do something practical). So, he got a teaching degree (which made us proud) and struggled along on what teachers make for a few years. Then he got wise and did what he always wanted to do. That would be learning several programming languages, getting an MBA, and getting an IT black belt, etc. He's doing well thank you and he and his family are very happy. All his chillun' are geeks too, and having learned our lesson, we tell 'em to max out their geekiness.

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  11. And to think I was so close to a chip off the old Andy block... Not that you could have paid me enough to go to ANY convention.... There's PEOPLE there. LOT'S of people. I'm good with two of three visitors for tea... or even lunch, but thousands? The only way you would ever find me at a convention is if someone dragged my cold, dead corpse to one. Just sayin'

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Don't cuss nobody out, okay?