The Most Shamefully Nerdy Thing You Own: And the Winners Are…

?I’ll be honest — I really did not expect as much shame as I got in this weekend’s contest. I suppose I was being naive by not knowing that pretty much every Topless Robot reader owns at least one hideously awful, stupid, and/or embarrassing item of nerdery that he/she can’t bear to get rid of.

Since this contest idea was suggested by MensheVixen, I thought I’d give the Honorable Mention of Honor by running the pic she submitted on the front page — that’s her, pictured with her nerdy item: the novelization of Steel, starring Shaquile O’Neal. Truly, I am impressed: impressed that it exists, impressed that MensheVixen owns it, and impressed that she’s willing to admit to it.

I’d also like to thank Ripple Junction for sponsoring this weekend’s contest! I’d appreciate you showing them some love by visiting their Facebook page, where there are more chances to win their fine shirts and vote on new designs, too. It’s win-win, except you’re doing both of the winning. Now, on with the parade of shame and wasted cash!

First the Honorable Mentions, even though their honor is highly suspect:

VindicaSean:

In my attic, stored away to hide the shame, I own framed (UNOFFICIAL!) posters of the following:
ALF, in a suit with the caption “I’ve never met a cat I didn’t like” and the Ghostbusters 2 logo.
Now these are shameful for obvious reasons, but I have extra shame:
I spent a horrendous amount of money on the New Jersey Shore Boardwalk at those spinning wheel games in order to WIN it. I wanted to be granted it as a PRIZE, like it was something to be cherished.
I spent exponentially more than either poster has EVER been worth, in order to have them bestowed upon me like some kind of spoil of war.

Googtoyou:

I own a Jar Jar Binks talking alarm clock doll. Purchased the December after Episode I was released to theaters for $5 at Toys R Us. It lives in my autistic son’s bedroom because he is rough on toys and doesn’t talk much so he can’t tell people that we have it.

Teeks:

This.
I…I wanted to have the full set.
I’m…I’m so sorry.

SaintKrispy:

I bought $500 worth of nerf guns two months ago with hopes of staging a massive nerf war in my back yard. My girlfriend discovered the unopened guns in my basement two weeks ago.

skrag2112:

I still have a picture of myself posing with two costume characters dressed as the Swat Kats from 1993. I keep it buried deep in my dresser drawer.

Wilxy-X:

There is but one item that springs to mind when I think about shamefull nerdy things. I have a My Little Pony scissor set I dare not show anybody I know, yet keep anyway.
It was given to me by one of my friends, who is clearly not a brony as he bought a set with ponies that don’t appear in FIM. I’m holding on to them, because It would seem ungrateful not to, but if he doesn’t visit, it’s well out of eyesight.

Chiroptera-Man:

I own a full body suit Batman costume that my fiance will not let me wear around the house anymore.

zlgames:

So, before I had actually seen it, Blockbuster was having a promotion where you rent so many movies, you’d get a free poster of a new summer movie. Well, with my love of Batman……I had to get the ‘Batman and Robin’ movie poster (I was 10). However that’s not the shameful part!

The shameful part is that my dad had the bright idea, of giving it a frame and NAILING IT TO THE WALL (so that if we un-nailed it, damage to the wall would incur). Displayed for all to see. When I realized how bad the movie actually was, I used every way I could to actually hide the fact I have a poster of the worst bat-film ever made hung in my room in plain sight. I’ve used chairs, bookcases piled to the brim with other nerd stuff…My latest method for hiding it is hanging a wall scroll of Vash the Stampede directly in front of the poster…and now no one knows it’s even there, unless I accidentally knock it down.

Jay Tarbell:

The X-Files Barbie & Ken as Scully & Mulder set.
Buyer’s remorse set in within an hour, but somehow I never mustered the gumption to return it.

Barbecue17:

I have a t-shirt which a friend made for me for my birthday a few years back that has my first ever Dungeons and Dragons character sheet on it. Yes, it is a blue t-shirt that has a transfer of the first page of my character sheet for my level 1 chaotic good half-elf rogue. Perhaps a Topless Robot t-shirt would be slightly less shameful.

Ryan Marsh:

D&D book of Erotic Fantasy. Because one day I hope to role play with a girl.

MuscaDomestica:

I loved raising animals from kits, Grow a Frog, Triops, and of course Sea Monkeys. I got a joke book about pop culture and the little fairy shrimp that I have kept around. Why is this geeky? The main reason why I kept it is the fact that the last fourth of the book is a Sea Monkey RPG that is surprisingly good. Second, it has water damage after I knocked a tank of my bowl full of happiness on the book.

Michael Nash:

I unfortunately own not one, but TWO original Shadow the Hedgehog action figures from Joyride, still boxed and in perfect condition. There was a time I was proud of this, but alas, the character kept getting lamer and lamer, and emo to the point where they both are buried deep in my drawer for no one to see.

Kyball:

I’m pretty sure the nerdiest thing I own is my guitar with the image of Michelangelo standing over the last of the dinosaurs claiming that he was the one who caused their extinction.
Here’s a picture of it. (the speech bubble says “yeah, it was totally me”)
Oh and did I mention I painted it myself?

Honky:

A Magic: The Gathering “Bone Flute” card….signed by Ron Jeremy…

Jessica Storton:

I have all my TMNT reference books from the canceled RPG game written in the early 90’s in the bottom drawer of my desk that doesn’t unlock, and thus have to remove a whole drawer to access them. Why? Because I need them as reference for my fan fics.

Queen Meleraldas:

I know I’m probably going to disqualify myself from this and perhaps all Topless Robot contests from now on with this one, but I own an E.T. collection. I have small figures, one large puppet, a small replica spaceship…I even have a Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine with it on the cover.
I don’t display it.
It’s sitting in my son’s closet.

Joseph Wojciechowski:

So, when I was in High School, I decided to have one of my final projects be a costume of Julius Belmont from Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow. As Julius is one of the famous vampire hunters in the game lore, I decided that to fully complete my costume, I needed to make some vampire hunting weapons to go along with it. My mother helped me with the costume itself while I handled Julius’s weapons.

According to Castlevania lore, the Belmont Clan vampire hunters wield the legendary whip, the Vampire Killer. When I made the costume, I decided to go for broke, and made his whip out of chain, a pipe and a wood ball. I still needed more weapons though. So I bought some wood and carved out a cross. I still needed more though. So I bought a couple of small flasks and then went to the Church to fill them up with holy water. That could not be enough though, I needed ALL of my weapons to be blessed.

I now have a handmade BLESSED BY PRIESTS metal whip and wooden cross sitting in my closet of other costume props. And two flasks of holy water.

Totallyarogue:

When I was a teenager I went through a period of extremely intense obsession over Neon Genesis Evangelion, which culminated in spending far too much of my mother’s money in the Otakon dealer’s room. I got a lot of cool stuff – articulated figures, art books, plushies. The worst of these purchases, yet the one I thought was just SO COOL that I HAD TO HAVE it?
A stick of Neon Genesis Evangelion branded glue paste.
I still have it around here somewhere,10 years later, and the glue paste is all dried up. Like a proper “collector’s item” it was never used.

Tredlow:

I have a copy of Star Ballz. It’s a hentai parody of Star Wars, with Sailor Moon as Leia and Goku as Han Solo from Dragon Ball, and for some reason it has Chewbacca fucking the volleyball from the movie Castaway. It is horribly animated, horribly written, and horribly voice acted, and nobody must know that I own a copy. I’d rather have people find out I have a closet full of Hentai than having ONE copy of Star Ballz

Wedgie Antilles:

Well the contest seems to have morphed into “Most Shameful Nerdy Item/Collection You Own” so here’s my entry:

During the height of the CCG craze, Pioneer marketed a CCG called “Ani-Mayhem”. I think the idea was to create a track for players to travel around and your opponent could stymie you by playing Disasters (Minor and Major). Some of the titles included Tenchi Muyo, Dominion (Tank Police), Ah! My Goddess!, Bubblegum Crisis, Project A-ko, El Hazard, and Armitage III. I’m sure there were other titles but those are the ones I remember best.

The shameful aspect is that a friend of mine and I bought BOXES AND BOXES of these cards, including the first (and only) expansion. I cracked enough packs to get one of every card made, including TWO copies of the chase/promo card you could only acquire from purchasing the Armitage III soundtrack. My set sits in a binder in front of all my unopened boxes. The kicker is that the game sucks so badly that the creators had to pack Errata Instructions with every expansion box just to make the game playable. My friend and I tried deciphering both the original instructions and the errata and just said “screw this — let’s just look at the colorful pictures instead”.

Rajamitsu:

Lots and lots of merchandise from Lost in Space. …the 1998 movie. Movie poster, “making of” book, almost a full set of trading cards, comic books (individual issues and the trade), I think all of the tie-in books, key chains, action figures, and even a little figurine of spider!Smith. The poster hung on my bedroom wall for years.

Samuraiter:

The insurance policy I have on my video game collection.
….
Pretty sure it’s worth more than most people take out on the average new car.

Scooter Atreides:

Okay, Shame:
A long time ago, in a now demolished mall in my hometown, there was a nifty little gift shop that sold, among other things, copies of black and white 8×10 stills from movies.They had box after box of these, most of which didn’t interest me in the slightest, but one day I was combing through one of said boxes, when lo and behold, I found THIS!
In black and white 8×10 print form.
Memorabilia from Dune is so hard to come by outside of actual comic book or specialty shops, and this was long before Ebay or anything like that. So I eagerly snatched this sucker up and paid 8 bucks for it.
I was about 17 at the time, chronically dateless, and now I had a print of a glistening, oiled-up Sting in a winged codpiece hanging openly in my bedroom.
How I ended up straight baffles me as much as anyone else, I assure you.

Artemis:

I have backup Puffalumps. Yes, plural. You see, my original Puffalump, a Baby Puffalump Bear in purple, was my treasured childhood possession. So in addition to that one, which is in perfectly respectable, if battered, condition, I have a Baby Puffalump Dog in blue, a Baby Puffalump Bear in yellow, and another Baby Puffalump Bear in purple. All of them were bought with the express purpose of replacing the original Puffalump, should the need arise.
Backups for a stuffed animal. I think it’s safe to say that’s pretty nerdy.

Felicia Divine:

The Hello Kitty costume I spent three weeks sewing by hand for Halloween, complete with ears, tail, bow, and a pink sparkly dress/outfit with a matching bow for my ears….that I, who am in my 20s, wore out in public…. because my boyfriend finds HK…….tantalizing…. oh god i sound like a fff in the making. Pass the bourbon now.

Joseph Bibbs:

The Hello Kitty collection that “My girlfriend and I” collect, Complete with a family poitrait all decked out for Halloween… Yeah, I pretty much just use her as an excuse to buy HK toys and accessories. And make her wear Hello Kitty panties… occasionally with little white ears… and rarely the tail and a collar as well… Perhaps that’s a bit of an overshare… You can’t judge me TR. lol

Avoidthetelephone:

I thinklove the key word in this contest is “shameful”. Quite a few of these submissions see down-right awesome. I on the other hand own all five Spice Girl “Spice World” dolls from 1997. NRFB, tucked secretly away in a tupperwear tub in my basement. Only my wife knows about them, which unfortunately she openly mocks me about whenever “geek collections” are brought up.

Batmanbirdboy:

This.
I bought this at a toy show with my girlfriend, who was excited that there was a crossover of two childhood things she loved, and it ended up staring at us from our Batman display shelf in our apartment.
After two days of staring at toddler dominatrix Catwoman and Gimp suit Bat-Tyke, we put it in a box in the closet, where it still resides to this day, haunting us…

Rat Pants:

Every darn episode of Stargate SG-1 on DVD… and the corresponding Excel file I made one summer. What’s in the Excel file? Why, a detailed analysis of how many times Teal’c says “indeed” each episode, with graphs showing frequency by episode (6 times is the single episode max), then a series long per season summary as well.
So how many times does Teal’c say “indeed” during the series run (not including Continuum and Ark of Truth)? 143. Interestingly, during the 200th episode special, Christopher Judge says that Teal’c (through season 9) had said “indeed” 27,896 times, which at the time would have been around 143 times per episode. Methinks the writers made the 143 total happen.

Turkeycreaux:

Official Entry: A custom made Matthew Broderick PEZ dispenser.

Batbecca:

My Batman love affair began in 1992. I was a freshman in college and discovered BTAS. It progressed from there to all things “Batman.” A few years later I was looking forward to “Batman and Robin.” But then, of course, it sucked. However, by that time I had been sporting my “Batman and Robin” baseball cap. I still have that hidden in the abyss of my closet. But my most shameful nerd possession is my “Batman and Robin” charm bracelet, that I orderd from QVC. It’s hideous. It has Mr. Freeze (the awful Schwartzenager rendition) and the fuckery that is Alicia Silverstone’s Batgirl. It hasn’t seen daylight in over a decade, but for some reason I won’t throw it away.

Miss Black:

A bottle of water from a stream and a rock.
From Edoras.
I went to where they filmed it this year on a trip to New Zealand and grabbed them while I was there. Still wondering if drinking the water will make me grow a long blonde beard…

Deckard:

My current collection of Battlefield Earth memorabilia:

The book. I got it secondhand, because I didn’t want my money going to Galaxy Press, AKA the “church” of Scientology.

Space Jazz, the soundtrack album to the book (written and mostly performed by the man himself, L. Ron Hubbard), on vinyl. Took me FOREVER to find that one, and it’s one of my most prized possessions.

The “Special Edition” DVD of the movie. My copy was previously part of a video rental store’s inventory; sitting on a sunlit shelf bleached the case blue, making it look just like the movie itself!

A Terl action figure from 2000. This one reveals a lot about me: I’m nerdy enough to get a Terl action figure, and nerdy enough to spring for one in its complete packaging, but not nerdy enough to keep it in its packaging. I am nerdy enough, however, to keep the packaging after I’ve removed it. Make of that what you will.

Currently, my sights are set on acquiring a poster of the movie (hopefully, one with the tagline “Prepare to go Psychlo!”, if I can find one) and a first-run copy of the book. I’m holding out for a Blu-Ray release as well – if Starcrash can get one, it’s only a matter of time for Battlefield Earth!

Picture, in case there are any skeptics.

Yes, the figure really did come with a pile of gold, a gold scanner, and… whatever that gun-like object that wasn’t in the book or the movie is supposed to be. Also, due to a combination of bad articulation and worse design, Terl is incapable of not holding the scanner like an effeminate wimp. On the plus side, though, the “Rat brain!” sample that plays when you push the buttons on his chest and pedestal is terrifically clear.

Ursa:

I hate that you make me choose my ONE nerdiest thing, because I own a lot of weird shit that could be classified as shamefully nerdy. However, if I had to chose, then the most shamefully nerdy thing I own is a piece of the front porch from Mikey and Brand’s house from ‘The Goonies.’ It’s just a moldy block of wood in plastic bag. It’s so embarrassing and stupid that I don’t even have it displayed with all my other movie paraphernalia. I met Corey Feldman once, and I didn’t even bring the piece of porch for him to sign (and I’m an autograph whore). That’s how embarrassed I am that I own this block of wood.

Neravin:

Back in senior year, I was a huge fan of Yahtzee’s Chzo Mythos games; so much so, that I went and bought what I thought was a perfect copy of the suit Trilby wore in 5 days a Stranger, complete with fedora.
For prom.
I am very thankful that I avoided camera people that night.
Needless to say, it rests in my closet now, never looked upon again without some level of shame.
Unfortunately, it’s also my only suit, meaning it’s the one I’m going to have to wear to my grandparents anniversary.
God, I just realized that the first and only time I’ve ever cosplayed has been on prom night. 

Please note: Although there are a lot of HMs, there probably would have been more if people hasn’t submitted so many items that were actually kind of awesome. This happens a lot whenever I do a “worst” contest, but it seemed to happen an extra lot this time. Oh well. Anyways, now for the two winners:

Dr.:

The nerdiest thing I own was not something I purchased for myself, but a “gift” from my mother. I make anime music videos (AMVs) and had a pretty successful one a few years ago which was shown around the country at various anime conventions, one of which I attended in person. My mother decided to show up to see my video and, unbeknownst to me, had commissioned two matching t-shirts to celebrate the occasion. They featured a very large, very obvious piece of artwork on the back advertising my AMV and, on the front, my AMV handle and (on her’s) a parody of my handle with the word “Mom” after it. Believe me, “Moooooommmm!!” was uttered profusely that day. I refused to wear mine for all kinds of justifiable reasons, but to this day she still has her shirt hanging proudly on display in the bedroom, right next to her matching con badge.
Note how vague I am being about the specifics. That’s the nerd shame talkin’.

There were several entries regarding apparel, but this one took the cake. A shirt based on your AMV handle is already so nerdy I can barely stand it, but a shirt based on your AMV handle MADE BY YOUR MOM — WHO ALSO MADE A MATCHING SHIRT FOR HERSELF — is phenomenal. It’s so shameful I’m ashamed to just be talking about it, and I haven’t even seen the damn thing. And there’s no way Dr. can possibly ever throw it away! Mom made it! Arrgh! Now winner #2!

Pterodactyl111:

When I was younger, me and my sister and cousins used to play in the woods all the time. More specifically, we would play “Middle-Earth.” Everybody got an elf name and the creek was the River Anduin and gross part of the creek was Mordor and the weird pine forest patch was Fangorn and the abandoned shack with a great big “No Trespassing” sign was Minas Tirith.

Anyway, the crowning jewel of our kingdom was this giant fallen elm tree that had beautiful smooth, grey bark that we called Lothl?rien. I loved that tree. It was perfect. It was the greatest place to play pretend EVER. And then one day, our neighbors decided to chop it up for firewood. I was devastated. I may have actually cried. I went out the wreckage of the Golden Wood and picked up a twig and brought it home with me and put it in an empty clamshell pen case along with a piece of paper that I wrote “Lothl?rien” and the date on in hand-drawn calligraphy. I put it in the drawer of my bedside table. I was 13 years old. I’m 21 now, and it’s still there. And that’s probably the nerdiest thing I own.

You may feel free to disagree with my choice here, but I posit a stick — a stick with no value whatever other than THE OWNER USED TO PRETEND IT WAS A MAGIC TREE FROM LORD OF THE RINGS — EIGHT GODDAMN YEARS AGO — is the silliest, most unexplainably embarrassing item of the whole contest. It’s a stick. A STICK, PEOPLE. Hell, at least that hunk of wood Ursa mentioned was actually in a movie. Goddamn.

And that, my friends, is that. Thanks to everyone who entered and again, much thanks to Ripple Junction for sponsoring the contest; please don’t forget about their Facebook page!

…

…

A GODDAMN STICK.