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The Geek Bag
Mar. 22nd, 2004 11:50 pmYesterday, the sun came out for a while in Boston. In the name of exercise, I decided to go out for a long walk - from my home to Davis Square. Just put on my shoes, slung my satchel over my shoulder, and started hiking.
The stroll up over the hill and down to the square normally takes 20 to 30 minutes, and I was in no hurry. Before noon on a Sunday, no stores of interest are open in the Square. Even with my lazy pace, I got there too early, and had to cool my heels a bit and wait for proprietors to get their last doses of morning coffee before they began business.
The Square has a Goodwill store, which I hit looking for anything that might be of future use as a costume bit, but came up empty handed. The used bookstore there has a piddly sci-fi/fantasy section, but a great mass of other interesting books. I managed to browse there for nearly 45 minutes. I'd hit the used CD store a few days earlier, so I didn't stop in. I noted that the Somerville Theatre was finally running "Return of the King", and head Eddie from Ohio playing soon...
That left the Friendly Local Gaming Store. I discovered it a bit down the block from where I expected to find it. It's old building was boarded up for some reason. Perhaps a Magic: the Gathering tournament had gotten severely out of hand?
Whatever the reason,the new store has an upper level dedicated to collectible card games and miniatures wargames, of which I play little these days. All the RPG stuff was downstairs. Since I'm in the process of collecting thoughts on a new campaign world to offer up, I figured I'd go down and peruse some tomes, hoping to scare up a few ideas.
On the way down, I see a big sign, "No bags downstairs, unless you are willing to let us look through them when you come back up." I paused to consider what was in my bag...
- miscellaneous pens and pencils
- my sunglasses
- a small bottle of Motrin, pack of tissues
- a clipboard with notes. A mixture of high-energy quantum mechanics equations, scraps of algorithms, and C code for work, and a few notes on the RPG world I'm putting together.
- a PDA (notable applications include a pretty nice die-roller, a database of my sci-fi library, and the Palm OS version of the Particle Data Book).
- a copy of George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones
- a copy of Kip Thorne's Black Holes and Time Warps
- a tin of Altoids
- a 20 oz bottle of Cherry Coke
I am not sure if I could have packed it up with a geekier collection if I had tried. Most geek bags hold at least a useful tool, or an item of interest to non-geeks - a Cheapass Game, or at least a bus schedule. If I'd passed through an airport security checkpoint with this bag, they'd let me pass on the basis that no terrorist worth the name would want to die with folks thinking he was this much of a nerd.
I chose to carry the bag down with me. My excuse was that I didn't feel like leaving the PDA up there unguarded. However, I think it was more that I half wanted the guy at the counter to ask to check through my bag - a sort of passive aggressive attempt to flex my geek muscles. I'm pretty sure that makes me a pretty sad excuse for... well, just about anything.
The stroll up over the hill and down to the square normally takes 20 to 30 minutes, and I was in no hurry. Before noon on a Sunday, no stores of interest are open in the Square. Even with my lazy pace, I got there too early, and had to cool my heels a bit and wait for proprietors to get their last doses of morning coffee before they began business.
The Square has a Goodwill store, which I hit looking for anything that might be of future use as a costume bit, but came up empty handed. The used bookstore there has a piddly sci-fi/fantasy section, but a great mass of other interesting books. I managed to browse there for nearly 45 minutes. I'd hit the used CD store a few days earlier, so I didn't stop in. I noted that the Somerville Theatre was finally running "Return of the King", and head Eddie from Ohio playing soon...
That left the Friendly Local Gaming Store. I discovered it a bit down the block from where I expected to find it. It's old building was boarded up for some reason. Perhaps a Magic: the Gathering tournament had gotten severely out of hand?
Whatever the reason,the new store has an upper level dedicated to collectible card games and miniatures wargames, of which I play little these days. All the RPG stuff was downstairs. Since I'm in the process of collecting thoughts on a new campaign world to offer up, I figured I'd go down and peruse some tomes, hoping to scare up a few ideas.
On the way down, I see a big sign, "No bags downstairs, unless you are willing to let us look through them when you come back up." I paused to consider what was in my bag...
- miscellaneous pens and pencils
- my sunglasses
- a small bottle of Motrin, pack of tissues
- a clipboard with notes. A mixture of high-energy quantum mechanics equations, scraps of algorithms, and C code for work, and a few notes on the RPG world I'm putting together.
- a PDA (notable applications include a pretty nice die-roller, a database of my sci-fi library, and the Palm OS version of the Particle Data Book).
- a copy of George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones
- a copy of Kip Thorne's Black Holes and Time Warps
- a tin of Altoids
- a 20 oz bottle of Cherry Coke
I am not sure if I could have packed it up with a geekier collection if I had tried. Most geek bags hold at least a useful tool, or an item of interest to non-geeks - a Cheapass Game, or at least a bus schedule. If I'd passed through an airport security checkpoint with this bag, they'd let me pass on the basis that no terrorist worth the name would want to die with folks thinking he was this much of a nerd.
I chose to carry the bag down with me. My excuse was that I didn't feel like leaving the PDA up there unguarded. However, I think it was more that I half wanted the guy at the counter to ask to check through my bag - a sort of passive aggressive attempt to flex my geek muscles. I'm pretty sure that makes me a pretty sad excuse for... well, just about anything.
