Make a Nerd: And the Winners Are…

?Jay said:

You see, when a daddy nerd and a mommy nerd love each other more then their Playstation 3’s, they head to the bedroom… oh, wait, my bad.

And thus began another TR contest full of heartwarming tales of attempted nerdery. I’m repeating myself again, but if you have the time, just read all the entries — I think most of ’em will bring a smile to your face as parents and siblings and cousins began sharing their nerdy loves with children and brothers and sisters and so forth, and thus swelled the nerd ranks. No one was forced to be a nerd against their will, although certainly some nerds created nerds that were more powerful than they were. It’s just delightful. As is often the case, the Honorable Mentions are the stories with the best soundbites — I highly recommend you read ’em all.

? Bartok, for “How about THESE Magic Missiles, BITCH?”
? 1ProudData, for “Hulk push Juggernaut. Juggernaut fell down.”
? gnawingtreebark, for catching his mom with a bunch of printed out gameFAQs
? DCD, for “She also told me that if I died too young she would make my epitaph be “He kicked a dinosaur in the face.””
? Jess, for “We broke the Cool Guy.”
? Scotch Watch, for making Alan Moore
? Grins, for Trixie the Gnome Slut
? Leonilla, for “over the years I’ve turned several innocent young minds into hopeless nerds. First, there was the six year old next door…”
? Beretta Paige, for “You do what my parents did. You name your children Tycho Jupiter J., Rigel Booker Maxwell J., and Zephyr Zenith Newton J. There is no way in the seven hells my siblings or I ever had a chance to be anything but nerds.”
? Carl, for “as an evil uncle, occassionally, he would turn to me and ask, “Hey, Unca Carl, why do I like Star Wars and Star Trek?” And I would wrap a coat hanger in a towel and beat him until he cried out his undying love for all things wonderful in the fandom world.”
? The Last Scotsman, for “When I convinced my athlete friend that Topless Robot wasn’t a weird robot porn site.”
? Immortal Wombat, for “You are the horrifically murdered parents to my Batman. And when I collaborate with my first masked vigilante to bring down a sociopathic megalomaniac, I’ll arrange a meet-and-greet for you, hero to hero.”

The winner is on the next page.

So remember how I told you that Friday’s contest idea was suggested by LJSLarsson? Well, I thought he was just being helpful, but it turns out he totally had a ringer of a story waiting for the contest:

I transformed my wife in one harsh stroke on a fateful night.
She was suffering from diarrhea and had been sitting on the bathroom for an hour. I asked her how she felt and if she needed anything – the only thing she wanted was something to read. I went away, comeback with a bag filled with tiny books and sent it through the bathroom door.
“What’s this darling?”
“It’s my complete Dragonball collection. I think you will like it.”
“Dragon’s balls? What? I will not read this. Go and get my Jane Eyre.”
“I will not get you anything else. You’ll have to read them.”
“Okay, I look… it’s about a pervert monkey boy! Give me something else!”
“Never!” I screamed as I ran away, ignoring the shouts and swearing she threw after me.
I sat down to play some video games (Metal Slug, to be precise). Time flied by, and I was shocked to see that four hours had passed since I started playing. My wife still hadn’t left the bathroom. I went to the door again, worried something had happened.
“Darling, are you okay?”
“… yes, I’m fine.”
“Still problems with the diarrhea?”
“… no.”
“But why havn’t you come out?”
“…”
“Darling?”
“… Freeza is about to enter his ultimate form.”
Since then, things have been going smoothly. She has read and enoyed Watchmen, learned the difference between Keaton Batman, Nolan Batman, West Batman, Miller Batman and Normal Batman and created several characters for a GURPS-campaign.

Holy shit! Semi-literally! How could I not give a TR shirt to someone who forced his wife into becoming a manga fan while she was trapped on the toilet? Obviously, I couldn’t. But since I can’t help feeling that LJSLarsson duped me into staging a contest he was certain to win, I figured there should be another winner, too. Tupper, take it away!

Folks, I’d like to share with you a tale. No, not the tale of how I got a hot party girl to dive heavily into comic books (because it’s kind of boring and not the same without photos – I assure you she is hot). This is the tale of how making a nerd actually resulted in divorce…mine.
It all started back in 2003. I was a newlywed (1 year) who was just getting back into comic books and toy collecting. My wife, who was more than willing to share my enjoyment of things, took up some light comic reading mostly to appease me and follow my train of thought when I went on one of my many Batman rants. What really piqued her interest was my love of the classic 80’s animated series Robotech. Having it finally out on DVD allowed me to watch it without commercials and appreciate the 85 episodes over and over. She really seemed to like the thematic elements and the complex storyline. She helped me collect all the DVDs, got me the extended remastered editions, purchased newer action figures, collected all the wildstorm comics…she went all out.
This was just the beginning. Soon she was downloading other anime like Samurai Champloo (I think that’s the name), Ghost in the Shell and InuYasha, which really deepened her obsession. I was supportive of all this, of course, not just because she liked it but because it allowed my geekiness to go unchecked.
About a year after I had helped her start the anime obsession, my ex went back to school. She had to take a language and chose Japanese, given her love of their cartoons. She excelled in the course and as a result was invited to do a cultural exchange in the land of the rising sun. Expensive as it was, I knew it’d be an amazing opportunity. Off she went for 2 months while I held down the fort here in North America. When she came back, arms loaded with a plethora of InuYasha, Macross, and Ghost in the Shell merchandise, the first thing she said to me wasn’t “I’ve missed you so much.” or “I love you.”, but “I want to go back”. Needless to say, the next year wasn’t really filled with joy and happiness, as my ex spent the entire time trying to work out how to get back to Japan, at the unfortunate expense of our marriage.
She managed to arrainge another trip to Japan, this time for a year. A month before she left, we sat down and discussed how we were going in different directions and should probably end the relationship. Soon she was back in Japan and we were separated. That was 3 years ago.
Now, of course there were other reasons why we parted ways (which I won’t go into here – sorry gossip hounds), but there were definitely days just a few months after the split where I wondered…how would things have gone if I’d never introduced her to Rick Hunter and Roy Fokker.
P.S. I am much happier now than I was with the ex. The new girlfriend appreciates and supports the geek lifestyle, but has her own interests (which I also share). In the end, the ex got a new husband and a baby, and I got an x-box, a nice TV and a better girlfriend. That’s a win in my column I think.

Tupper, sir, you have my deepest empathies. I once lost a woman to Japan, so I been there — the fact that you’re the one who got her into anime must have been rough until you found your new and improved nerd girl. For that, you’ve more than earned a shirt. Congrats to both winners, all the Honorable Mentions, and my thanks to everyone who entered.