I'm not a geek...I'm a dork.

My friend gave me a FotR calendar for Christmas...and isn't Borders the greatest store on earth? I could seriously live there...if it had food...and a place to sleep...

Writer's block?
i never get it. partially because i never write anything other than english essays and they're really easy...
i think i will redecorate my room.. get a new bed and paint the walls bright pink and yellow.
mum will have a fit! tee hee..

who da hells Mr. Blobby and i don't know that joke.
argh, ok, perhaps pink and yellow was a little too far. how about sky-blue or dusty pink?

i have a reproduction of Starry Night. maybe i'll get it framed and stick it up. it's my favourite painting, ever! but the reproduction hasn't quite got all the right colours. could look really cheap. hm..

*stupid
My walls are covered in posters, and it looks really great, even if I have to say it myself! You can't even see the wallpaper anymore! Great, believe me! Whenever you wake up and look around, there's always sth new to discover!

My brother got me a LOTR poster!! (I have a great brother!) Must make some room to put it up!

Actually, Ted Naismith puts out a LOTR calendar each year. If you like his artwork, which I do, it is worth the $20C. The problem is they get picked up so fast you don't dare wait for the Boxing Day sale. Borders bookstores are located all over the US. They have a website and from there you can locate the store nearest you.

Geekiness is a good thing in my estimation. It means you are not a follower of trends and you are true to yourself. Wear your geekdom as a badge of honor!

He still has Golly, read the page, go on, read it.

Duh!

They are pretty cool, aren't they? But not really worth the trouble of fighting off those pesky Nazgul...

Talking about geeks: did you check out the article about Lego Legolas? Now that's geeky! However cool it is...

I wanted to comment. How?

Hmm. I'll try that, thanks Golly!

My prize possessions are the MERP manuals that I managed to collect over the years. I have about thirty of them, and the colour maps in them are beautiful. They are really detailed so that the mountains and trees etc are all profiled, and even the lesser used paths and villages are on them.

My quest was to get coverage of the whole of Middle Earth, but unfortunately they were produced with a few gaps in them. Nevertheless I have most of Northern Eriador covered from the Blue Mountains, across Arthedain and Cardolan, down to Tharbad, and through Rhudaur and Dunland to the Misty Mountains. In this area I am missing Harlindon and Minhiriath.

From there, I have from Mt Gundabad, south down the length of the Misty Mountains and across to Helm's Deep. This series also covers Fangorn and an entire module for Moria, although I am missing Lothlorien.

Going east I have from Gundabad, across the Grey Mountains and the Withered Heath and as far east as the Iron Hills. Coming south from there, I have the whole of Mirkwood and most of the Anduin Vale, the Wold and the Brown Lands, the Dead Marshes and the Nindalf. Further to the East I have the River Running, Dorwinrim and the Sea of Rhun.

I am a bit lacking in Gondor, but I have Belfalas and that section of the White Mountains, Ithilien and across into Mordor, and a whole module dedicated to Minas Ithil. Far to the south I also have maps of Far Harad.

At one time I had them on my wall, with homemade maps filling the gaps, and they managed to fill a section over eight feet wide. Lost in the midst of this great expanse used to be a small piece of blue tack. This used to represent the characters, and on a good night's gaming they'd probably manage to move two or three inches. What level are you looking at? The highest my players ever reached was 22-26.

I would love to live in the Shire too, Glorfinel. So where do you live, I love to meet new people. If you live near one another, we could meet. But you probably live in England, and that won't happen, for a bit. I can't there from here, until I save a bit more money up.

I guess I am a Tolkien Geek too. I have so much material scatterd over almost room in my house. I have stuff for family trees that I am making, and maps everywhere, even on the walls in my hallway. Books, I have no idea how many of those that I have. Just entirely tooo many.

Hmmm, So Val! I think we need to come up with a Tolkien Geek Rating System. The TGRS. Points based. Based off of ratio of space in home to Tolkien based stuff. I live in a room of about 300sqfeet or 2250 feet3ed by volume.

I have 4 full sized Tolkien posters on my wall:
Movie -Legolas, ME Map
Hildebrandt art: Smaug's treasure horde, FOTR

Also on walls:
A Map to Bilbo's quest, a calender with Boromir presently on it, and fully functional, fullsized movie Glamdring and Sting replicas

Toys:
Gandalf, with light up staff action
Lord of the Nazgul, with stabbiddy-Frodo-with-Morgul-Blade action
Lord of the Nazgul (from a pre-movie set) He's got a red gem in his head so his eyes can glow red it you put light over it.

Rings:
The One Ring
Elrond's Ring - Vilya
Ring of the Nazgul
The Ring of Barahir

Books on CD
Hobbit BBC (only OK, the gandalf voice was horrible)
LOTR BBC (Freakin' Fantastic, Every voice was perfect.)
Tolkien reading selections from Hobbit, LOTR and Christopher reading the Silli Marilli... Or was that Milli Vanilli...

Books... a lot. 38 total... Sorry I just can't list'em all. I really should be doing homework... Anyway... If we did this, I'd list'em then.

Also there could be a test! Like the Trivia quizz that you made! But a new one. What can you answer from head honor system. I mean I did get 78 of them with out cracking a book... (sorry, I'm just really proud of that. Heh!) We could seek out Ultra-Geeks!

What do you think? What is our geek rating?

I see what you mean. I used to find that the bigger the party became, the harder it became to control them. Until I got used to handling 6-8 players, at times I used to struggle, everyone calling out their own ideas and actions, interrupting etc. I found two things really helped, and once I adopted them, I noticed instant improvements.

Firstly, I made a rule that anyone calling out was doing it in the game as well. Doesn't go down well if they are trying to be stealthy. I implimented a rule that if they shouted out an action out of turn, their character would then perform that action hastily, and therefore at a penalty.

At the same time as the above I also implimented an initative system whereby the players decided their character's actions, each of them telling me in turn. I'd write down all their actions, having already sorted out what the bad guys were going to be doing, and then calculated which segment of a round each action would take place in. We'd then play out the scene in that order, although to keep the atmosphere the players never knew which segment they would get their go.

This latter rule was one of the best ones I used in my opinion because it kept everything orderly, and once the actions were decided, things flowed really smoothly. Also, because it was possible for someone using a big unwieldy weapon, or casting a difficult spell, to be knocked unconcious or killed before they got to have their go, it encouraged players to select lighter weapons sometimes rather than the biggest thing they could wield, because these generally take less initive points, and thus come earlier in the round.

And if you want to panic them, throw some undead at them, particularly something like a wraith that can drain them of levels. They hate nothing more than losing a level that has taken them weeks of hard gaming to gain (just don't do it too often otherwise they get fed up and go home).

Do you play MERP or Rolemaster at all. Both, but particularly the latter, have brilliant scope for character advancement. There are so many (at least a hundred) skills that can be learned by any of the scores of character classes. Any class can learn any skill, but some skills are cheaper for some classes to learn than others, and things that really clash, although they can be learned, the cost is almost prohibitive. The system makes AD&D appear very linear and rigid. No two Rolemaster characters are ever alike.

Anyway, that's enough because I'll be boring the none-gamers to death (even though this is a geek section)

I had a friend that tried and tried to get me to join his role playing group. I kept promising that I would but, as I had never role played before, I wasn't sure what to expect, so I kept procrastinating (my forte) and never did try it. He even offered to let me simply spectate so I could get an idea of what role playing was all about, but I chickened out, mainly because I didn't know any of the people there besides my friend and I used to have a thing about being in large groups of strange people. ( now I take meds that help me deal with my phobia... but I digress )

I'll admit that the whole concept is very appealing to me. I've been told it's like writing a novel from the inside out. It's just, I don't know any role players! And, as everyone knows, it's no fun to roleplay with yourself...

Wow, Val... I have just started writing in almost the same manner. I am taking a creative writing course at my school. At the first oppurtunity that came, I decided to write the first chapter of a book about the adventures my most favorite Shadowrun character and his companions. His name is Silvershade AKA Gildallan Starsilver and he is an elf of Tir Na Nog. A lot of terrible stuff befalls him but it leads to some awesome mythic happenings and a story of redemption. So far the first chapter has been received really well. I have a few friends that keep asking me to get the next chapter out, but school has had other plans. Only for one more week, though.

Some other stuff that I've written included a heavily mythological short about Hades (Greek God of the Underworld) getting dragged to a multi pantheon party held in the Norse Realm of Valhahlla. And some horror/sci fi based off of modern style Call of Cthulhu.

I'v also written a fair bit of poetry that's pretty good. I definitly stick to rhyming poetry of the epic style. And, being a singer, I write a lot of music.

I must admit that Role playing, RPG GameMastering, writing and acting are all fluidly connected in my eyes. I want to make films, too. GMing is a lot like the basic creative beginnings of film making. I was hoping to be the one to bring LOTR to the screen, but I do not begrudge PJ for doing it as it is such a fine effort. I just wish that he incuded more of the poetry and song. Of course I could sit through each movie adaption if they were 5 hours long, if they were done well. I think my goal now is to make a Shadowrun based film. Shadowrun being a blend of Fantasy and sci fi, sort of like a mix of LOTR, the Matrix and the Six Million Dollar Man. I think that it could be ultra cool.

I'd love to write a futuristic view of ME were elves, dwarves and hobbits return and a new age begins... actually, that is incredibly close to what happens in the future history of Shadowrun...

[bThe Geek shall inherit the earth!

I'm a geek, tolkien calendars, maps, Books strewn accross the floor, the old collectors item games workshop fellowship of the ring set(now about 15 years old), role-playing, wargaming (both minatures and airguns), computer games, graphic design, Star wars(boo down with the trekies) and the occasional pair of socks with characters on them.

I`d like to know that to. Could you tell us?

What defines a geek? Is it their need to possess anything remotely connected with their chosen Geekgod or is it attitude?

I suspect it is mainly the latter but coupled with a sprinkling of the former.

I am not a geek. I lack the attitude. I did, however,buy the model of Minis Tirith from a charity shop while I was in Bristol the other weekend being mostly ungeeklike. It only cost me a few quid and now I keep my dragon jewellery in it. I didn't know it was a secret pot thingy... cute.

I've got two LotR calendars this year - Forces of Light and Forces of Dark.

Noooooooooooo! I can't be!

Woah Laurel.... wait up there..... Could you say 'I like you very much' instead? (I"m immature. Can you tell?)

Don't be silly, everyone. WE're all geeks. And dorks. And weirdos. And freaks. And the bell rang. Just handle it. It's okay... find your happy place.. go there.... be happy... envision yourself connedting with the environment....