And the loser is... me. WAH, Wah, wah.

So even though I was the one to post the quiz, I have to say you guys really taught me something... like taught me I'm a bigger nerd than I had perviously entertained. And here I was worried everyone would get all the answers correct because the questions were too easy.  I may have to buy a leather jacket or learn to pilot a Cessna stat to keep myself from spiraling into an identity crisis. (Hint: I consider these activities cool. The fact that I even feel the need to explain that now...)

Oh well. Here are the answers:

1. 'Za' is the only two letter word acceptable in Scrabble play that contains the letter 'Z'. It's short for 'pizza'.

2. Stan Shunpike is the conductor of the Knight Bus in "Harry Potter".

3. Eight states in the US start with an 'N': Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, and North Dakota. (There are also 8 states that begin with 'M', by the way.)

4. Before Bess and George, Nancy Drew sleuthed with Helen Corning. But then she got married and was otherwise occupied baking Cornish Game Hens in fashionable pumps and party dresses, I suppose.

5. In "Pride and Prejudice", Elizabeth tells Lady Catherine De Bourgh that she is "not one and twenty"- so she's 20, unless she's lying, which seems unlikely. (Prejudice is her flaw, not dissemblance.)

And the winner is... Britt! With a total of one questions (yes) right! But it was almost two, so that's not too shabby. Thanks all for playing and for being my friend even though I appear to have way too much time on my hands.

Britt, you'll be getting your gross sodas and terrible flick in the mail very soon.

(I put "sad nerd girl" into Google Image Search, and this is what came up.)

Quiz/Prize Time!

As the five plus or minus three devoted visitors to this blog may recall, my first post told of the Doris Day drinking game we play in my home, in which we watch an old D.D. film and force ourselves to drink shots of the most evil sodas we can find when certain classic D.D. moments inevitably and unendingly occur. Well, over Labor Day, my lovely lovely friend, Erin, made my whole month by visiting us! She is the type of person who will go to Hooters with you when you have been dared to do something spontaneous and decides it was completely worth it because the wings were pretty good; ergo, we had a blast. Of course, when Sunday came around, we pulled out the shot glasses and the soda (Watermelon Cream sweetened with agave... if you're thinking this actually sounds like it could be good, you should know you would be right only if you et garbage for the entirety of your life). But what movie? Well, my mom had bought me a previously viewed Blockbuster clearance sale VHS copy of "Young at Heart" in 2002. I had never seen it before. Why not that?

Friends, this was a mistake. I take full responsibility. My mother, my sweet, perfect mother who would never hurt anyone, is notorious for picking movies that are real stinkers, and even though she had never even heard of this particular movie before, I should have known the fact that it's path and hers crossed was an ominous sign. 

Basically, it was the absolute worst Doris Day movie I have ever seen! We soldiered through, but I doubt any of us will ever be the same. I, for example, cannot look at windshield wipers without feeling slightly nauseated.

Following the ordeal, in an effort to banish the trance that mediocrity and loathing had cast on our brains, we embarked on a cathartic exercise: Brainstorming ways to destroy the "Young at Heart" VHS. Unfortunately, every idea we came up with seemed to threaten bodily harm, and most, to be honest, also included arrestable offenses. So, I have decided to give it away to one of you. I propose this, 1; so I can have someone else to commiserate with, and 2; so the burden of destroying it can be passed to another. Just think of yourself as Frodo and "Young at Heart" is the one ring that can enslave the whole earth.

So, lock your thinking hats in place, and check out the quiz:

1. What is the only two letter word acceptable in Scrabble play that contains the letter 'z'?

2. What is the name of the conductor of the Knight Bus in "Harry Potter"?

3. How many states in the US start with an 'N'?

4. Before solving mysteries with Bess and George, who did Nancy Drew chum around with on her cases?

5. How old is Elizabeth in "Pride and Prejudice"?

The person who answers the most questions correctly will "win" said VHS, an assortment of ewww sodas, and I'll even throw in a few novelty shot glasses.

Please don't let me down. I really need to get it out of my house.  

 

Nertz Retreat 2009: The Las Vegas Experience

Back when I was single, I had two most fine roommates with whom I shared many loves. Cafe Rio, for example. Fry sauce is another (so gross and yet somehow yum). Sara McLachlan, virgin margaritas, toy men, snow globes (sort of), dance parties in the kitchen, and much more... but nothing more than games.... or to be more specific, one game played lots and lots of times.

Nertz is a most excellent way to spend your life. I would highly recommend it. As you can see, it is elegant in its simplicity and appears to have been designed specifically for awesome chicks looking for a great way to ruin their posture and get their hands scratched up by their friends.

We would play for hours. We created several variations of the game that make no sense to anyone but us. We would turn down "dates" to play. We had a whole college bound notebook dedicated to keeping track of our scores. (Once, circa 2003, I quickly jotted down a phone number in this divine register, and I have had my loyalty called into question ever since.) We would go on retreats for the sole purpose of playing this game unceasingly for obscene amounts of time in exotic places. Like Salt Lake City. That was the site of the first retreat, but since we have descended with our decks on several different locales. Most recently, we met up in Las Vegas for Nertz Retreat 2009. 

Yes. That is us in Saint Mark's square in the Venetian where we had just finished a hurried game on the marble floor. I don't think anyone else in Vegas that weekend had a better time than us... but then, there was no gamble to it with this crowd.

It was just the best. I challenge you to think of an awesomer way to spend a weekend with great friends. Actually, I challenge you to a game! (I need to practice for next year.)

Eight Kinds of Clue and Desserts

So, do you like board games? We like board games. A lot. In fact, we have recently had to curb our ecstatic, unfettered purchase of them because the games we already own are taking over all the closet space in the house. I have no place to put towels anymore. It's both frustrating and beautiful. 

Anyways, my childhood favorite was Clue. (Sweet piece of trivia here: The closest I ever got to killing my older brother was during a game of Clue, in 1987. He "forgot" to show me he had the candlestick in his hand. Yeah right, cheater.) I now own many versions, including:

"Clue, Master Detective"

"Cluedo" (in spanish)

"Clue, Discover the Secrets"

"Clue FX"

"DVD Clue" (which my husband cites as responsible for the 4 most torturous hours of his life)

"Clue, The Card Game"

... and so on. So in June to celebrate my birthday, I decided I wanted to play eight different kinds of Clue in alternation with eight different deserts of my choice. THAT'S SIXTEEN GOOD THINGS! And since it was to commemorate my birthday, there were no naysayers offering such insipid advice as, "Well, it is possible to have too much of a good thing." As if.

We started at noon, played until eleven at night, and only got through five. But it was awesome, and Chris' tira misu and my English trifle were decadent highlights I am probably still running off at the gym. And the bonus was that during the following week, whenever Chris or Brian wanted to "unlock" another dessert we didn't eat on Clue Day, they had to play another game with me. I have to tell you, the power was a little intoxicating. 

So thanks to those of you who were able to come celebrate and solve crimes with me. But don't worry. Next time we'll do something totally different. 

Maybe something along the lines of cookies and Scrabble.

"My Pokemon bring all the nerds to the yard, and they're like, 'You wanna trade cards?' Darn right, I wanna trade cards." -author unknown

So an absent-minded moment this week caught me admitting to someone what I do when I can't fall asleep. Not count sheep. That's lame. I count as many different Pokemon as I can think of- or at least I used to back in the 90s when there were only 100 of them. (Here's Mew, i.e. the one who ruined it all.)

Nowadays I list the states in alphabetical order and then backwards. Why would I admit this to a stranger? Not everyone is as kind to the nerds of the world as you, gentle readers. The unfettered revelation didn't provoke any noticeable response, though, which might mean the person I was talking to was a bigger nerd than me. This got me wondering what people are nerdy about. Quick! Five things! 

1. Mexican telenovelas. (In particular, "La Fea Mas Bella".) 

2. How awesome my new professional-grade toothbrush is.

3. Nertz. (It's a card game. I have retreats with friends.)

4. Musicals!

5. Thinking up "Lost" theories every Thursday.

It's surprising how many things someone can be nerdy about and never even realize it. Not that there's anything wrong with being a nerd. If there's one thing being married has taught me, it's- well, it's that pure love makes everything cinchy. But if there are two things marriage has taught me, the other one would be to embrace the nerd within. Otherwise only your husband will love your inner nerd, and marriage isn't about one-way relationships. This makes sense to me.

(This photo was taken in Minneapolis in 2007, moments before Chris and I played "Dungeons and Dragons" for the first and last time. We decided to dress up for the occasion. It was almost like LARPing, except for the whole sitting around a table for six hours wishing we were dead.)

Now you. Five things! Go! Five, four, three, two, one! Do it! Do it! (That's from "The Office". If you already knew that, then I am really excited to see what you come up with!)

Note: I will not accept any sort of clothes or shoe "fetish" as a nerdism. Unless they all have cartoon characters on them or something.

Nancy Drew Times Two

Did you know there are two versions of each Nancy Drew book up to volume 34? Well, it's true. Apparently, the publishers wanted rewrites to make the books more modern and to eliminate racial stereotypes. I only recently learned this. At first I assumed I would have only read the revised versions when I was growing up, but it seems my local public library had quite a mix in their collection. (Good rule of thumb, if the volume you're reading has 25 chapters, it's an original. If it has 20, it's revised.) Naturally, I became curious as to how an original text would stack up to a revised one. So I did a comparative study. Here's what I found:

In "The Mystery at the Moss-Covered Mansion" (volume 18), written in 1941, Nancy is sixteen years old and blonde. That's right! Blonde. She investigates a number of mysteries that surprisingly all turn out to be part of the same mystery- involving a moss-covered mansion. Nancy is daring and clever, her friends are useless, as usual, her housekeeper is treated as a servant, and the bad guy is really "swarthy" and creepy. They refer to the black characters in the story as "colored" and their accents are written into the text (i.e. "Yo' is wanted on de phone, Mis' Lee"). I hate this. Nobody else's accent was written into the text, even though a couple characters were described as being from the old south. But otherwise, I thought the book was exciting and had some lovely writing.

In "The Mystery of the Moss Covered Mansion" 

(volume 18), revised in 1969, Nancy is 18, titian haired ("just a fancy way of saying red"- but you all know this), and pretty boring. Her friends were about as helpful as usual, Hannah Gruen was treated more as a mother figure, which I preferred, but the bad guys had no teeth. Not literally. Well- maybe. There was so little character development and so few descriptions of people and places, it's hard to know what anyone was like. There were a few spots where the text became painfully pedantic, like listing the five types of satellites that orbit the planet. (This had nothing to do with the story-line, by the way.) I know Nancy Drew books have been praised by parents for being educational, but this was a bit ridiculous. All in all, I would say the plot is weird/lame (here's a hint: exploding oranges), the moss-covered mansion barely figures into it, and it was a snooze-fest. There was, however, this gem: Revealing the big bad guy's motivation for his dastardly plans, Caroline Keane writes, "He had become imbued with the ideology of  foreign power and was now using an assumed name."

I was surprised to find the original Nancy so much more personable and exciting than her revised persona. To quote someone on wikipedia, "She learns to hold her tongue; she doesn't sass the dumb cops like she used to." What little girl.... or me... wants to read about that character?

Now in related Nancy Drew stuff I want to talk about, here is a list of my favorite Nancy Drew PC games. (Chris gave me one as a joke three years ago but it turned out we actually loved it and now are the pre-order king and queen of all the upcoming titles. Brian plays with us now, too.)

1. Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon

2. Legend of the Crystal Skull

3. The Haunting of Castle Malloy 

4. The Phantom of Venice

5. Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake

Number five would be "The Curse of Blackmoor Manor", but the final puzzle wasn't well programed and thus took us forever. The next game comes out in July and is called "The Ransom of the Seven Ships". Yes!

One final Nancy Drew thing. Last year, Chris and I heard there was a yearly Nancy Drew Convention. So obviously, we flew to Bird in Hand, Pennsylvania in October to attend. It is sponsored by a group called The Nancy Drew Sleuths, and it was themed after book 33, "The Witch Tree Symbol" (that's why the convention was in PA). Consequently, we did stuff Nancy did in the book. (Ate foods from the book, toured Amish country in a buggy, took a candlelit tour of an Amish farmhouse, had a barn dance, and even searched for and found hex symbols on old barns.) It was awesome hilarious. I felt a little like a poser, though, because those are some serious Nancy Drew fans. These ladies were my favorite, but I'm ashamed to admit I couldn't figure out who they were dressed as... I was too embarrassed to actually ask them.

I made Liam a special onesie for the occasion.

So I guess this just shows the nerdyness sharing/contamination flows in both directions in my marital relationship. It's a good thing, too, because I wouldn't be able to get past some of the puzzles in the Nancy Drew computer games without Chris.

Until next time, girl detectives!

Who Would Win?

So I was writing an email a little bit ago when I heard a voice from my past. Who was it? It was Anne (i.e. of Green Gables)! Apparently she is now the mother of a kidnapped child in t.v.'s "Lie to Me".  She's come so far from Avonlea. Remember when she went to Boston and it was a big deal? Anyhow, this got Chris wondering. Here's what happened:

C: Who would win in a fight, Anne of Green Gables or Sarah Plain and Tall?

L: Anne of Green Gables, because she's small and wiry. 

C: Who would win, Seven Brides or Seven Brothers?

L: Seven brides, because they're clever... although, six of them were kidnapped and trapped in a mountain cabin for six months by the seven brothers... but I think they learned their lesson.

C: Who would win, Jane of "Pride and Prejudice" or Emma of "Emma"?

L: Definitely Emma. Nobody would ever argue otherwise.

C: Who would win, Mister Darcy or Mister Collins?

L: Are you kidding me?

C: Okay, okay. Who would win, Mister Darcy or Edmond Dantes?

L: Well, Edmond Dantes. He has all that vengeance in his soul.

C: Who would win, Edmond Dantes or Sir Percy Blakeney?

L: Ooh. Now that's a good one. I guess it would depend on the motive for the fight. If it were revenge, then the Count of Monte Cristo would win. If it were noble, the Scarlet Pimpernel would win.

C: Interesting. So who would win, The Scarlet Pimpernel or Godzilla- in a sword fight?

I suppose he added "in a sword fight" because he thought it would sound silly otherwise. I say that was misguided.  Anyways, it went on from there but I think you can imagine in what direction it was tending. But all this reflecting on favorite books and films from my childhood and young adulthood got me thinking...

Who would win, 2009 Laura or 1999 Laura? (Not in a sword fight.) It's an interesting question, but I can't answer it because I can't think of a reason I would literally fight myself. 

What about you?