Someone rang the doorbell. I looked out the window and saw a very tall teenage girl standing there. I opened the door and saw she was a political campaigner.

She wore a blue t-shirt with “DNC” on it, and she held a clipboard and pen. She was thin and had to be over six feet tall, but the thing that stood out to me was her huge sunglasses. She was a pretty girl, and she had a nice smile, but those sunglasses were off-putting because I couldn’t see her eyes — I couldn’t see anything above her cheeks or below her mid-forehead.

She started her spiel, talking about the exciting primary season, and how “we” would like to continue the “grassroots movement”. She was several sentences into her speech before she mentioned Obama by name.

Generally, I don’t want anyone bringing politics to my door, unsolicited, but this seemed like an interesting situation that might make good blog fodder — and look what I’m doing with it.

She apparently noticed me smiling to myself, and she asked, “What is it?”

“Hmm?” I said and shook my head.

“Oh, I thought you were looking at me odd.”

I almost commented that I couldn’t see her eyes as she spoke to me, but I paused, and she went back into her speech. She offered to let me see the form for making a donation on her clipboard, and I took it to see what it looked like. There were no other names on the sheet, but I don’t know if that was because no one else was donating or if she keeps a “clean” sheet on top to protect the privacy of the donors in the neighborhood.

I handed the clipboard back and said, “No, I don’t want to make a donation.” I almost said, “Doesn’t Obama have more money than Congress already?”, but I let the urge pass because the girl was being very nice and polite — except for those damn sunglasses.

She turned and walked down our front steps and I closed the door.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

I’m a self-admitted geek. I have deep interest in things normally considered outside the mainstream: super heroes, science fiction and fantasy, games, etc. A geek is not a freak, we don’t usually impose our interests on other people, and we aren’t always socially awkward.

It’s quite possible for a D&D geek to carry on a conversation about the local sports team. A Star Wars geek can teach a college-level History class. A Lord of the Rings geek can discuss the best weight of motor oil for your truck. A comic book geek might even perform your marriage ceremony. I have met these geeks.

Nowadays, you can use the term “geek” to identify anyone with a deep interest in anything, not just things non-mainstream — an interest deeper than can be expressed in simple small talk. For instance, there are car geeks, geography geeks, baseball geeks, needlepoint geeks, etc. (Cowgrit is becoming quite the Disney World geek :-) As a basic identification, if you regularly go to any Internet site to read or write about a subject, you’re a geek on that subject. (This includes brogrit, who is a rock geek — admit it.)

There should be no stigma to being a geek about something. Geeks can be likable people even if you don’t share their interest. In fact, I’d posit that most people of the world are geeks, in at least one subject. Only very boring people have no deep interest in anything.

A nerd, though, is a geek who is at least a little socially awkward. You can probably identify a nerd by sight, whereas a geek can be incognito until you get to know them or happen to hit on their particular geek subject. Nerds can also be likable once you get past their social ineptitude.

A dork, sadly, is the guy or gal that nerds and geeks avoid just as much as anyone else. Dorks will drive away a geek even if he or she is knowledgeable of the geek’s obsession. A nerd probably lacks the social skill to get away from a dork, but will want to escape just as desperately. Whereas a nerd probably is aware of his or her social shortcomings, a dork is probably oblivious to his or her annoying personality.

I am definitely a geek. I have been a nerd at times, especially in my early teen years. But I dearly hope I’ve never really been a dork.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

I had seen the New Avengers comic title on the rack at a couple stores over the past couple of years, and the line up intrigued me: Captain America, Wolverine, Spider-Man, Luke Cage, Spider-Woman, and Iron Man. I never really could get into the old Avengers stories because the range of power levels — from Thor, a god, to Wasp, a miniature with stinging zaps — just made no sense to be on a team together. But this new line up seemed better balanced.

While browsing at a big book store, I found the first compilation of the New Avengers, Breakout: issues #1 through #6. I picked this book up and read it that night. I loved the writing, I loved the dialog, the characterization, the personality interactions, the action, and the story.

The only real problem I had with this story was how Spider-Man continued to fight and web-swing with a broken arm for two days.

So I bought a new compilation of this title each week: The Sentry (issues #7-10), Secrets & Lies (#11-15), The Collective (#16-20), and just this week, Civil War (#21-25).

I was surprised to like and enjoy The Sentry character and story. I really don’t care much for supreme-power-level characters, like Superman in DC comics. But The Sentry’s personality problem and back story (or lack thereof) are very interesting — a cool twist on how to bring in a new super hero to a fictional world with an already crowded and chronicled history.

With The Collective storyline, though, the New Avengers story started down a path that’s come to annoy me over the years — the in-depth crossover. Where the previous New Avengers books followed each after the previous, The Collective takes up the New Avengers story after a long and complicated story in other books: The House of M. Fortunately, though, the story in these issues #16-20 is relatively self contained, starting and ending with distinct points that don’t require knowledge of the other story.

But then the New Avengers Civil War story takes the crossover problem to the next level and starts the story already in the deep end. In media res is a legitimate storytelling method, but the author(s) should go back at some point and show what’s going on. This book doesn’t really do that. There’s an introductory text telling the reader what has happened before the first page, but this is a comic book — I want to see what happens, not be told what happened.

From the introductory text, it seems that some very strong characterization happened in the part of the story not covered in these books. And to make it worse, this book doesn’t tell the reader (me) where to find the part of the story I want to see. What title(s) is the story in? Dammit, it’s frustrating.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com

One of my high school best friends spent a week in my hometown hospital a year or so after I did. Our group of friends went to visit him every couple days or so, and we had some fun times in the hospital. Near the end of his stay, we would all go gallivanting about the hospital on various adventures. Our favorite toys were the wheelchairs.

There was one floor of the hospital (of a total of five floors) that was closed at the time for some reason. We’d take a couple of wheelchairs up to that floor and have our races. Two of us would sit in the chairs, and another pair would push. The halls were plenty long for getting some fun speeds, and since there were no other people on the floor, we only had to worry about running into walls and doors (which we did on occasion — sorry Mom).

Sometimes one or two of us would wheel ourselves around the hospital in a chair. In hindsight, it was kind of a jackass thing to do, as polite people would often go out of their ways to open a door or otherwise help us in our struggles to get around.

But hey, we were teenagers, everything existed for our amusement, and the hospital is an unusual environment — we had to fully explore it while we had the chance.

Bullgrit
bullgrit@totalbullgrit.com