Monday, March 10, 2008

My Journey into Nerderdom

This past Saturday night, I went to the midnight release of Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Wii, which, in short, is every nerd's dream come true. The game consists all of the famous Nintendo characters (Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Donkey Kong, Yoshi, Link, Zelda, Samus, Kirby, Pikachu, and Wario-to name only a few of the 35 characters from all of Nintendo lore) fight each other. So, naturally, being a video-game afficiando and a Nintendo fan-boy, I was very excited to play the game. So much so, that I decided to attend the midnight release of the game at my neighborhood Gamestop. Now I was fully aware of the absolute nerdiness that was going to descend and engulf the Gamestop long before I even got there. I was mentally preparing myself all day for this. However, I had been to a midnight release for a video game before, (a game called Mass Effect which though less known, was a much nerdier game) and that wasn't so bad. It was just a bunch of people hanging out, talking about video games. So I didn't think it was going to be that bad. I was wrong. My wife and a friend of mine went with me, which made me feel better (especially cuz my friend promised that if he heard the word PWNed (a very stupid nerd term in nerd language) he was going to burn down the building. I realize this was going a bit overboard but I thought it would be interesting to see if, when the building was lit on fire, if the nerds would save themselves or the video games. We got there and I almost immediately realized this wasn't going to be a regular midnight release. Half the people were kids, under 14 years old. On top of this, there was a tournament for the game going on, and a whole host of nerds had gravitated towards it and were cheering for people they hardly knew. After a little while, I realized that they were, most of the time, rooting for the characters rather than who was playing. And the smell. We all know stereotypes are wrong but we never said they weren't true and the stereotype that nerds don't shower is absolutely true. My friend made the comment that he felt like Ethan Hawke around all these terribly ugly people. My wife said if he was Ethan Hawke, then she was Heidi Klum. It was finally time to line up for the game. There was an older man in front of me and a horribly smelly guy behind me. While I was trying really hard to not breathe so I didn't have to smell, I was very interested at how everyone was feeling, particularly the older man in front of me. Most people, like me, just wanted to get the game and get the hell out of there. Some were looking around and talking loud and basically trying to act like they were cooler than everyone else (which they weren't). When it hit midnight (no countdown! thank the Lord), the nerds took their games and would cheer when they got the game. Naturally, this was highly annoying to me. But the older man in front of me was enjoying it. He was there with his son, who looked about 12, and he looked like he was having the time of his life. I wondered if maybe I was just being hard on all of these nerds, and I started to feel bad. But when I got a whiff of the guy behind me again, I realized that they deserved every bit of the crap they got from the rest of humanity. I took my game and resolved to never attend a midnight release for a video game ever again. But knowing myself, I probably still will. I'll just sit in my car till midnight next time.

3 comments:

Stacy said...

Although you (and I) didn't enjoy the midnight release, it still makes for a good story!

Amber said...

LOL yeah that was hilarious - what is it about people not showering, we have one of those smelly guys at work too, maybe it's not the showering maybe they just don't use deodorant. LOL sorry it was so lame!

KWCooley said...

Pwnt

Nerd B.O. 1 - Bullet for Babs 0

Nerds judging nerds is always amusing.