The Fifth Nerdiest Club at School and Styrofoam Apples

I don't want to say that Academic Team is the nerdiest club at school, because then again there are clubs like the Computer Club and Math Team, and we're not that low down.

Academic Team has been stellar. I've been able to answer more answers lately, especially because at today's meeting there was a series of questions about comedies from the 80's, Ghostbusters and Caddyshack being two examples. I nailed those questions like disturbed six-year-old's nail their stuffed animals to the wall.

You can also tell what huge nerds Academic Team members are by what they talk about in their free time. At one point at practice on Monday the sponsor said, "I need to go get something upstairs. I'll be back in two minutes." She closed the door behind her, there was that typical two second silence in the room during which everyone was making sure the teacher was gone, and then someone faced the rest of the team and said, "Who all is going to the Dragon Con. this weekend?"

A dozen excited hands pumped immediately into the air and I had to suppress laughter. They went on to talk about all of the other Nerd Conventions in Atlanta, including a Magic role-playing convention some time in the next month.

Then again, I can't be the dumbest kid on the team, because last Monday I won the President Contest, (I worked so hard to memorize them--my brother says I still murmur them softly in my sleep), and somebody asked how I did it. I told them that my trick that if you take the first letter from the last name of all 44 presidents, it spells out the first few words of the Declaration of Independence. They thanked me for the tip and went off to class.

The good news is that they think the files on my laptop are recoverable. I don't want to bore you with details I don't even understand, but just cross your fingers for me. Preferably your pinky and ring finger if you can manage that. That'd be cool.

Homecoming is coming up this next month or so. I'm trying to decide which female rejections would earn the least attention from the rest of my year. I wish there was no such thing as school dances. They're so complicated. I'd rather just go with the typical,

"Hey."

"Hey."

"So...."

"Yeah."

"Wanna go out this weekend?"

"Sure."

So much simpler and less stupid details like which group of friends to go with and which afterparty to go to and blah blah blah. Why are there such things as afterparties anyway? Isn't one social event bad enough?!

Most importantly, check this out: Rocky Raccoon, by the Beatles. It's a music video for the Beatles song "Rocky Raccoon" WITH BABIES!!! How cool is that? (A: Pretty darn.) This is my favorite song from the Beatles this week right after "Piggies."

See you later, fellas. Take it easy.

Worst 14 hours of 2010? Maybe

Hello, all. "All," in the case of The Nerd Archives, referring to me and the three obese, middle-aged men who still read this blog because they can't get over their bad childhoods.

This second week of school was a pretty decent one for me. Not rejected by girls quite as often as is typical for me. I've, more or less, figured out the locker situation so that I don't have a nervous breakdown every time I unload my books into my locker. I even joined the Academic Team, which is tons of fun, even though I don't contribute very much.

And then yesterday was Friday. I was psyched for the weekend, (yes I just used that word--you're not imagining things), and I still had tiny little nerd butterflies in my stomach after one of the hottest girls in my year said hello to me. Was she taking pity on me? Almost definitely. Did I care? Not at all.

I came home, finished most of my homework, went roller-blading for the first time in ages, and even watched a re-run of Psych. James Roday is getting fat, but the show is just as lovable.

It was at about 10:30 that I turned on my computer, only to find that it had "automatically reset" itself so that a new computer account had been created, and my old account had been erased. I lost all of my files and all of my software. The only data I still have from my old account is from four dusty back-up disks I used practically half a year ago.

Everything I've written on my computer since then is lost, including about 50 pages of the novel I've been working on for about a year now.

I went to bed depressed and hopeless, and woke up in the same manner. To cap it all of, my mom made bran muffins for breakfast this morning. That may not seem tragic to you, but you haven't been forced at gunpoint to eat one.

Am I being melodramatic? Yes. As a teenager, though, I claim that right--and I refuse to be reasonable or calm in this situation.

Good. Day.

Salvador Dali and a Crippled Ken Doll

Back at school. Hurrah, hurray. I've made the socially-suicidal decision to join the Academic Team. That's beyond low--it can't even be neutralized by joining the track team. But it'll be fun. All the people there are really nice. One girl there is really hot even though she's an Anime fanatic--(I have to make the best of my options, people.) In addition to this, I'm doing the Art Club and Buddhist Philosophy Club. What a combination. This makes me an artsy, nerdy Buddhist.

I had a decent weekend too. I went to the Salvador Dali exhibit at the High Museum with a friend. I enjoyed the exhibit, even though I was constantly being verbally assaulted by the person I went with. The first thing she tells me is that I smell bad, and she also tells me which of my jokes aren't funny. Flattery, yeah? I was also chasing her the whole time. Don't ask me why....

I nearly got a Dali mustache at the gift shop, but I ended up with the practical option--a print of the painting Clocks, which will last longer at the very least.

Also went to the Folk Art Festival the same day. Very fun, weird art. And, yes, it's folk. Who imagined that all of the artists at any given art festival would be wearing overalls or Sci-Fi t-shirts.

And yesterday, I was assigned to make a diorama for English. It was depicting the theme of persevering through given obstacles in Garth Stein's novel The Art of Racing in the Rain. I left it way too late, but at one point I got to saw the legs off of my sister's old Ken Doll. Surprisingly, there was little to no moral conflict. It was like I was Anna Wilkes and it was Paul Sheldon.

Guys, where have you all gone? 30 followers and not one has commented for the last several weeks.

Refusal to Return a Head Nod

First week of school is almost over. It's been hectic, just like high school ought to be. My grade got a new set of lockers this year, but they're in rows and they're all really close together. So close together, in fact, that it's next to impossible to get in and out. I'm serious--it's a huge issue. It's like the army...or the Holocaust. I had to wait ten minutes yesterday to get from my locker to the outside of the locker complex.


Those lockers could lure out the claustrophobia in anyone--even Houdini, I imagine. Today I had a nervous breakdown at the lockers. I just threw down my books and shouted, "That's it! I've had it! I'm never coming back here again! That's right--I'm leaving. You can say your goodbye's now." Of course, nobody said goodbye, and it wasn't a very dramatic exit because...I couldn't leave.


On a different note, any of you read Be More Chill by Ned Vizzini? The main character, Jeremy, kept record of all of the bad things that happened to him socially at school. He had a chart with sections like "Snotty Comment" or "Snicker" or "People whispering behind my back." One of these such sections was dedicated to "Refusal to Return a Head Nod." This is the one I'm concerned with. Today that happened nearly ten times. At the end of the day, when I finally got to see some of my better friends, the first thing I asked them was, "You can see me, right?" I had to make sure I wasn't experiencing the same thing as Nick Powell in The Invisible.

Worse, I'm never just nod my head. I'm not subtle with those things. I'm the type of guys to wave my hand frantically in the air at someone I know and to nearly shout, "Hey, dude brother!" How can you not respond to that?

Enough of my social plots. Today we discussed summer reading books in small groups. One of the books I read was The Art of Racing in the Rain. Brilliant book, I definitely suggest it. There is this one part where a stuffed animal zebra rapes a teddy bear, but that's another story.

Thanks for reading, but where'd you all go? Everyone who used to read is gone!

First Day of School and Half-Hearted Followers

A small observation: I feel a guilty mixture of amusement and horror every time I see how the seniors treat the freshmen at my school. They refuse to move slightly to the right or left in the instance that a freshman is walking directly toward them--the freshman always has to move.

Today at lunch I was eating at the lounge...and I saw a senior walk up to a table of freshmen. He says, "Where'd ya get those sandwiches?" One freshman piped up nervously, "Over there, at that bar." The senior says, "I don't want to walk that far. I think I'll have yours." The freshman, looking pitiful, offers up his sandwich in surrender.

High school is a brutal place, especially for us nerds.

Onto my next topic, guys what happened to my readers?! Yeah, I know I've had a mite of trouble updating this blog every other day, but I try my best! Where's your effort? So far my comments pretty much come from Muse and that's it. (By the way, an enthusiastic pat on the back for you, Muse.) I'm disappointed. I miss you all--where'd you go all of a sudden?

...I need you.

My Alarming and Secretive Relationship with Harry Potter

This post has been long-await, although only by me. (I very much doubt that any of you have left at the edge of your seats in anticipation of this post.) At multiple points during the lifetime of this modest blog, I have made confessions that I am not a fan of Star Trek, I am not a fan of Star Wars. I don't read comics and I don't watch Anime. I'm not very fond of 3-D movies and cannot even be credited as a half-hearted Sci-Fi enthusiast. Hearing of superheroes, spies, and aliens tire me; and I have never played a role-playing game of Magic while dressed in a star-spangled wizard's cape from Party City. What then, you might ask, makes me a nerd aside from lack of social skills? I will tell you...

HARRY POTTER



No, I did not link to a Wikipedia page explaining the background of Harry Potter or something of that sort. I fairly assumed that any reader of The Nerd Archives is also a fan of Harry Potter. If you have watched the movies but failed to read the books, I have no further interest in you. Go run off and make some friends or go outside. If you have not read the books, seen the movies, or heard of Harry Potter...you, sir, are unfit to lick the mud off the Chosen One's British tennis shoes.

I will start my story from the beginning.

'Twas a long time ago in the town of Beaumont, Texas. I was a young lad who still believed that the stork brought babies and that God cared about me...and one day my mother brought me on a trip to the movies theaters. I was delighted, even though she made me use the women's restroom instead the men's. I was delighted, you see, because the first Harry Potter film. Had just come out. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

I am one to believe in fate, because if my mom had not allowed me to see that movie that certain day, I might not be the obsessive and delusional Harry Potter fanatic that I am today. The movie was rated PG, and my mother--being both a mother and a priestess--was reluctant to let me see it. I threw a perfect little tantrum, though, banging my tiny fists on the ground and whatnot. Maybe it was that, or maybe it was the persuasive hand of destiny, that softened her heart and let me see the movie.

I was young then. I was naive, short, and it was hard to understand me when I talked. But that day my empty head was filled with stories of witches and wizards and magic and good and evil and British accents. I left the movie theater with a grin on my face and a buzzing in my head--and I was smiling for six weeks after watching that movie.

I saw Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets after that and found it just as delightful. It was after the viewing of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban that I felt inclined to read the books that inspired these magical films. So I read them.

The books were to me like artificial pacemakers are to victims of heart disease--I depended on them. I devoured their words thirstily, bordering on obsession. I read all the way up to the sixth book in the span of a few weeks. After that, I waited a terribly long year, and read them again. After that, I read them again.

Finally, the seventh book was going to be released. All I could think about was attending that midnight party at Barnes and Noble. I heard stories that there would be the most hallucinatory and unhealthy Harry Potter fanatics in Atlanta. I heard of costumes that would stray from the typical Harry, Ron, and Hermione...and venture to Hagrid and Dumbledore and the Womping Willow. I was ecstatic.

My parents were staying in Maine for two weeks, and unfortunately my conservative aunt had been staying with us for the past week. She thought Harry Potter was about as holy under God's eyes as Catholicism, (which she considered a cult.) My parents had given her explicit orders to let us attend the midnight Harry Potter worship session, but she refused. It was until the next day, at the outrageous time of 9:43 AM, that she drove us to Barnes and Noble to purchase a copy of the book. She waited an extra day so she could be there for the CD signing with Taylor Hicks.

I was devastated. You see, I'm a fan of incomprehensible Harry Potter knowledge. I'm a legend on online Harry Potter quizzes. I've memorized all there is to memorize. I know spells and curses better than any wizard in the book does. I thought I would get a letter accepting me into Hogwarts for three years of my life. But I can never claim to have ever been to a Harry Potter party.

This is what makes me a nerd--Harry Potter. I cringe every time my mother or sister mix up their Harry Potter facts, and I clench my fists every time I hear that someone has seen the movies but not read the books. I am unstoppable.

Since then, I have come to despise the movies. I would tell you why, but I couldn't stop myself if I started. I have read the Harry Potter series five times in all, and have a shrine for him in my closet.

Thank you for reading.

A Strange Thought: The First Kiss

Just a little thought: I think the image of the first kiss is overrated. People put too much value into it. The first kiss is totally meaningless. First kisses, if we're excluding those given by relatives, are often unremarkable and forgettable.

If you need an example, my first kiss was in kindergarden with a girl who I had punched earlier in the day. I was heading off to carpool, minding my own business--probably wearing some Power Ranger backpack with a teddy bear poking its head out. And there she was--about three and a half feet tall. She landed one on me with her lips puckered, and swiveled around to grab her mom's hand and walk away. How memorable is that?

My second kiss was pretty much the same. My third kiss was in the middle of a Boy Scouts meeting, in maybe third grade or so. (You can see where this is going. Are there any girls at Boy Scout meetings?) I was listening attentively to the leader run on about building tents or some of that helpful nonsense, when I felt wee little dry lips on the side of my mouth. I nearly fell out of my seat as I jerked backward to see what pathetic boy had just tried to kiss me.

And there he was, with an innocent expression on his face, like "Yeah, something wrong?" He stared at the disgusted expression on my face for a bit, then wiped his mouth. I didn't even answer, I just relocated to the other end of the room.

So the first few kisses are meaningless. They really are. The concept of the first kiss has become somewhat of an icon. We need to change that. Let's make it the Fourth or So Kiss that people write teen novels and magazine essays about.

Thanks for reading. Good day. Wonderful day.

Fact: Nerds Scare Small Children

I've been counseling at a kids' day camp for the past week. I bring home $1.00 an hour and a throbbing headache.

I don't get along well with the wee ones, which is especially painful because my father is notorious for being loved by younger kids. I'm not sure if I frighten them, disgust them, or if I'm just uninteresting to them--about as worthy of their curiosity as the lady bug that had just landed on my knee.

For every 20 kids there who dislike me, there's just one that's totally obsessed with me...which is sad, because there are only like 45 kids at the camp. Worst of all, we're graded by the head counselors at the end of the week. I try. I really do. But it's hard to ignore the terrified looks on the kids' faces after I ask them about their day.

That's enough about that. It really is. I'm throttling my self-esteem just thinking about it.

Please, please, please, please, PLEASE, PLEASE check out the post before this one about Sarah Silverman. She, like Jerry Seinfeld, is a comedy machine. She is consistently funny and exhales quality jokes like they're air. Silverman is brilliant.

Also--can't resist this one--here's my favorite clip from the movie Juno. I also love what Su-Chin is chanting. "All babies want to get borned. All babies want to get borned."

On yet another totally unrelated note, I just finished the movie 500 Days of Summer for my second time in two days. I'm not even going to begin to talk about how much I loved that movie, because I really know I wouldn't be able to stop.

But still, if you haven't seen the movie, SEE THE MOVIE. It's easily the best romantic comedies I've ever seen, and arguably one of my favorite movies of all time. I loved it, despite the fact that it is a romantic comedy.

Plus, Zooey Deschanel! HOT! She's up there on the list with Amy Adams and Keira Knightley.

Better go now. Thanks for reading!