30 Day Geek Out Challenge – Day 31: A Retrospective

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30 Day Geek Out Challenge, Blog Life, Fandom

The marathon has ended!  I know yesterday’s post was the finish line, but it didn’t feel right to move on without some sort of recap.  I’ll start out by thanking Megan over at A Geeky Gal for the last month of geeky fun! I highly recommend that anyone who found my posts interesting give this challenge a try.  You can find the full list of topics here.

Looking back, I had a lot of fun with this challenge.  I came across it when I was on the verge of falling into a blogging rut and having something fresh to think and post about really helped me find the inspiration I needed to get through it.  It wasn’t always easy, indeed I needed to take a short break to keep up with my personal schedule and not all the prompts touched on topics I was interested in, but on the whole I thought this was a very rewarding process.  I found myself enjoying not only thinking about the content of my posts but also simply the challenge of coming up with something every day. Regarding that second point I dare say I may have even learned some valuable lessons about managing my blogging time and streamlining my posting process.  I definitely made adjustments as the days progressed and now feel much better prepared should I do one of these again.

I think that if/when I do take on another challenge (I am certainly open to it), I might go for one that is a bit shorter in duration.  Keeping it up for a whole month was sometimes a bit tough between work, travelling, and child care and I also missed the chance to share of my regular content with you all.  (Don’t worry, the backlog is coming!). That said, I had a ton of fun with this and hope that you the follower did as well. At this point, though, I think I need to take a day off and go grab a much deserved beer!

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30 Day Geek Out Challenge – Day 30: Most obsessed-over fandom?

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30 Day Geek Out Challenge, Baseball, Blog Life, Cosmere, Star Wars

Here we are at Day 30 of the 30 Day Geek Out Challenge!  It’s been quite the ride and for my final prompt I will be discussing my most obsessed over fandom.

This post, perhaps appropriately for the grand finale, had me do a great deal of soul searching.  My initial thought was to think of “obsessed” fandom as a total immersion in the subject matter that requires a level of time, money, storage space, and energy that I simply don’t have anymore.  Coming at the question from that perspective I honestly don’t think I have the proper mindset or interest in anything to quite achieve that level of commitment.

Taking a longer view of this question, I would say that Star Wars was probably biggest fandom obsession and that peaked some twenty or so years ago (my god, I feel old typing that).  I had movies, toys, books, shirts, and even more stuff I’m not thinking of right now. I’ve actually gotten rid of most of it over the years save for a few items of sentimental value and don’t really regret any of it, except maybe the VHS release of the original trilogy before the “special edition” retouches.  As much as I love and have loved the franchise, I moved on. Looking back, I think this happened around the release of the prequels. I didn’t quite realize it at the time, but in retrospect I think that is around the time the franchise started passing me by and targeting a different audience. As of this post I’d say it’s even full on lapped me since I am way out of the loop on the new shows and the Expanded Universe timeline I spent so much time reading is no longer considered canon.  And you know what? I’m perfectly fine with that. I like (mostly) and appreciate the new movies for what they are and am happy the story exists for younger folks. It’s likely my three year old son may end up loving Star Wars as much as I did but for completely different reasons and I actually kind of like that.

Well then.  I didn’t quite intend to go off on that tangent, but there you have it.  To end this from yet another perspective, I’d say that currently Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere is my top “geeky” obsession and the New York Yankees are my longest running one.  For the Cosmere, I think that the thousands of pages I’ve read, the numerous book reviews, and time spent reading up on fan theories and message boards makes that an easy choice.  As for the Yankees, well, they’ve been my team for life despite growing up in the Boston area. It sure didn’t make me popular, but I regret nothing!  

See you all tomorrow for a wrap up.

30 Day Geek Out Challenge – Day 29 – You’re an anime/cartoon character now! What outfit are you always wearing?

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30 Day Geek Out Challenge, Blog Life

Nothing.

30 Day Geek Out Challenge – Day 28: Favorite movie soundtrack?

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30 Day Geek Out Challenge, Mortal Kombat, Music, Pulp Fiction

Day 28 calls me out on a topic I have unknowingly alluded to in some of my previous posts: my favorite soundtrack!  Thank you again to the YouTube folks to whom I link!

Despite my previous assertions, this post is another toss up since the movie qualification excluded Cowboy Bebop from my considerations.  Yes I know that had a movie to go with it, but most of my favorite songs came from the show and I chose to stick with American theatrical releases for this.  That said my choices are:

Pulp Fiction (1994): Track for track this is probably my top choice.  This is one of my top three favorite films and the soundtrack played such an integral role in setting the mood that I can’t help but love it.  Mixing in iconic clips from the movie with rock and roll, soul, and surf rock hits of the early sixties it is super chill and an excellent companion to the film.  Favorite tracks include:

 

 

Mortal Kombat (1995) and Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997): I nominate these albums since they arguably played a much larger role in the music I ultimately gravitated towards.  Unlike my previous nominee, these movies were most definitely not good. They came out right as CG started becoming a thing, but before it became a thing people could consistently do well.  The soundtracks, however, were a different story and look to be well received to this day. Their mix of hard rock, metal, and electronic tracks provide a ton of energy that really spoke to the angry youth in me.  It was also my first exposure to groups like KMFDM, Type O Negative, Napalm Death, Juno Reactor, and Sepultura.  Current favorite track from each album:

30 Day Geek Out Challenge – Day 27: Favorite superhero?

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30 Day Geek Out Challenge, Batman, Blog Life

Day 27 presents another eternal geekdom debate: Who is your favorite superhero?

My no doubt, no second guessing myself answer to this question is Batman.  I think what appeals to me so much about him is that he does his thing without any type of superpower.  All he has are his gadgets, detective skills, and his physical training. His vast wealth and corporate empire come in handy too I suppose, but when I think of Batman I don’t tend to gravitate towards that aspect of him.

Source: https://preview.tinyurl.com/y3jyb8n4

How did I come to like Batman so much despite not reading comics you ask?  Well, my love of the character comes from seeing him on the screen. I was a bit too young to really appreciate the Tim Burton’s films of the early 90s at the time, so my first real  exposure was probably from Batman: The Animated Series which aired on Fox Kids between 1992 and 1995.  It offered plenty of amazing dark fun and is especially notable for its long lasting contributions to the franchise, in particular the introduction of Harley Quinn, and its voice acting which included Mark Hammill in a much celebrated performance as the Joker, as well as other highly recognizable names like Ron Pearlman, Kate (Captain Janeway) Mulgrew, and Richard Moll (perhaps best known as Bull on Night Court).  That series piqued my interest in the character enough to make it through the pretty rough films that came out in the mid to late 90s.

More recently, I thoroughly enjoyed the Christopher Nolan film trilogy as well as the Arkham Asylum and Arkham CityPlayStation games.  So really, Batman just checks all the right boxes for me: cool character, great movies/shows, and fun video game tie-ins.

30 Day Geek Out Challenge – Day 25: Favorite geeky YouTuber?

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30 Day Geek Out Challenge, Blog Life, History, YouTube

30 Day Geek Out Challenge – Day 25: Favorite geeky YouTuber

We’re coming into the home stretch of the 30 Day Geek Out Challenge!  Today on Day 25 I’m prompted to write about my favorite geeky YouTuber.

I, um, don’t have one.  I’m really not that into YouTube beyond looking up random clips or music.  I did, however, go on a slight kick a few years back where I was into watching some gaming history/entertainment folks but honestly it was more a passing fancy.  By the time I had caught up on their archives, it seemed like the peak of that sort of thing had gone by and they were working to reinvent themselves a bit as a result.  I’m going to leave it at that and move along.

PS – If you’re into history a love a good podcast, check out Hardcore History from Dan Carlin.  I know he’s not a YouTuber, but each episode if full of fascinating material.

30 Day Geek Out Challenge – Day 24: Something you want to improve about the geek community?

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30 Day Geek Out Challenge, Blog Life, Fandom, Rants

The flip side of yesterday’s prompt, here on Day 24 of the 30 Day Geek Out Challenge I’ll be sharing my thoughts on things that I wish could be improved about the geek community (and try not to go too far off the rails into rant territory). Honestly, I wanted to spend a ton more time writing with some eloquence about this topic, but I just didn’t have it this month. I still apologize for nothing.
My choice here was obvious to me even before I realized that just about everyone else I saw doing the challenge expressed similar sentiments. In my opinion the no doubt, number one thing that needs to be improved about the geek community is the toxicity and ugly sense of entitlement and elitism some fans espouse. I know these issues are by no means contained to the geek community, but my goodness do they come out here. Between “fans” harassing actors and actresses on social media or starting petitions because someone doesn’t look the “right” way or a storyline didn’t go *gasp* they way they wanted it, getting up in arms over a genre taking steps to welcome diversity and shed association with some of its past undesirables, and hating on things just to seem edgy or post click bait, there too often just seems to be way too much negativity and manufactured drama surrounding things that are supposed to bring fun and entertainment. I like to hope the folks I describe above are only a small minority using the megaphone of social media to seem relevant, but sometimes it just brings me down to know that people like this exist and (at least in theory) enjoy some of the same things that I do. Ugh…time to move on to more positive stuff.

30 Day Geek Out Challenge – Day 26: Favorite Disney movie?

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30 Day Geek Out Challenge, Blog Life, Disney

Coming into the home stretch! It is now Day 26 for me which means I’ll be talking about my favorite Disney movie.

Time for the return of a potentially controversial opinion: The Empire Strikes Back. I jest (mostly), but this does technically count now, right?

Seriously though, I get the feeling this isn’t quite what the prompt was really getting at, so let’s take this in a different direction. Honestly I’m just not that big a Disney fan. Don’t get me wrong I like their older films just fine (well at least up through and including The Lion King). I also really enjoyed Frozen and a lot of the Pixar stuff I’ve seen more recently. I just don’t love it the way some people do. What brings me the most joy from the company these days is actually seeing my three year old son enjoy their films. He’s been demanding Aladdin on repeat for the last few weeks and went through a serious Cars phase as well.

30 Day Geek Out Challenge – Day 23: Something you love about the geek community?

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30 Day Geek Out Challenge, Blog Life, Fandom

As the title says, for Day 23 of the 30 Day Geek Out Challenge I am going to be sharing some of the things I love about the geek community.

This was a fun one to think about.  I am going to necessarily leave what, exactly, the “geek community” encompasses undefined for this post and come at the question taking a very generalized approach.  And the thing that I love most about this nebulous and diverse group is all the crazy creative energy that seems to flow from it. No matter what your particular fandom might be, it seems like there’s always people out there having fun with it and expressing that enjoyment in any number of imaginative, funny, inspiring, cool, and/or kooky ways!

30 Day Geek Out Challenge – Day 22: Favorite fandom quote

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30 Day Geek Out Challenge, Blog Life, Hunter S. Thompson

The prompt for Day 22 of the 30 Day Geek Out Challenge is to pick our favorite fandom quote.  There were a lot ways I could have gone with one, but ultimately I decided to go with what just felt right to me:

Buy the ticket, take the ride…and if it occasionally gets a little heavier than what you had in mind, well…maybe chalk it up to forced consciousness expansion… – Hunter S. Thompson, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Ok, I suppose this is kind of a strange quote to use since it’s not really from or about fandom necessarily (or at least any I plan on discussing here), but the more I think about it, the more true it seems to be.  People tend to go all in on their fandoms (whatever they may be) and I feel like this sentiment really gets to the heart of that. Whether you’re literally buying tickets to that hot show or convention, realizing you’ve binged watched the night away, or finding out that after rapidly consuming 5,000+ pages you now have to wait many long months before you get to see what happens next our fandoms often take us on some wild and magical rides.  I included the second part of the quote as well, because, well, sometimes even the best of things can go off the rails eventually.