Twenty-one days 'til Thirty...Also I'm a nerd...

So I'm a pretty unique individual when it comes to my "likes."  Music, Movies, Hobbies, TV Shows, Books, Video Games...I am a self-proclaimed nerd and proud of it!  Let's run down a few of my favorites:

TV SHOWS:

For as long as I can remember, I Love Lucy has been my all-time favorite television program.  I used to live for the "Nick-at-Nite Summer Block Party" where every Tuesday during the summer, they would have a mini-marathon of I Love Lucy episodes.  I used to buy blank tapes and record each episode (pausing the recording during the commercials of course).  I would then label the tapes with which episodes were on the tape with a RATING to tell me which episodes I liked more.  What twelve year old does that with a show from the early 1950's?  Me, that's who!  My obsession with I Love Lucy went well beyond that though...I've read biographies on the characters, own documentaries on the show, read all kinds of articles on the show, and own I Love Lucy stuffs.  So I know a lot about the show.  For example...did you know that I Love Lucy invented the re-run AND the studio audience?  They were the first show to ever use three cameras to shoot on video-tape.  Before that, shows were shot on kinescope, which deteriorates very quickly, so the use of the expensive video-tape gave us the ability to preserve and re-watch episodes.  The original studio was against the extra cost of video-tape so Lucy and Desi funded the extra cost out of their own pockets.  Eventually they just bought the studio so it didn't matter.  So yeah...I could keep going, but I won't. 

Favorite Episode:  Lucy Gets into Pictures (one of the Hollywood episodes)

Now I am very late to jump on the Doctor Who bandwagon, but as soon as I did, I watched every episode from 2005 until the present season in a few weeks.  I LOVE IT!  I don't know nearly enough about the background of the show to go into a lot of detail like I Love Lucy, but I've always been a Scifi nerd, so a nearly immortal time traveling alien who battles different aliens while saving the earth innumerable times and has been involved in almost every major event in history?  Sign me up!  The show has been on in the UK from 1969-1989 then relaunched in 2005-present.  It has extremely corny episodes, really sad episodes, and amazingly epic episodes as well.  It's just so good.

Favorite Doctor: Tenth Doctor...haters back off.
Favorite Episode:  Blink...duh.

Star Trek: The Next Generation.  This was always a favorite growing up.  I've actually read articles on which of the Star Trek iterations are generally thought to be the best...and this is not in the top.  I recently watched all of these episodes as well over many weeks, and it's still just as good.  The effects were well ahead of their time and the story lines were pretty good.  I think one of the other reasons I have such a soft spot for this show in my heart is that it was one of the things my father and I enjoyed together when I was younger and didn't have the best relationship with my dad.  We would sit down with our TV trays and watch a couple of episodes of TNG.  Good times.

Favorite Character: Doctor Crusher
Favorite Episode:  The Best of Both Worlds

Simply put...I will watch any documentary on anything.  I Tivo them.  I watch them on Netflix.  I will always stop on a documentary.  This is probably why I'm pretty good at trivia.


There are lots of other TV show that I love as well, but they are significantly less nerdy that the ones above:  30 Rock, Parks & Recreation, SNL, Walking Dead, Modern Family, The New Normal, Will & Grace, they're all great.

MOVIES:

I will likely forget about some of my favorites but...

The Lord of the Rings saga (LOTR for short) is hands down my all time favorite, no bones about it, best movie of all time favorite movie.  I'm a HUGE LOTR nerd.  I've read all of the books (which is really the only way to be a REAL fan -__-) and I've seen the movies more than I even know, including the hours of special features.  Extended edition of course.  Everything about the movies is great.  The book to movie translation was well done, the score is RIDICULOUS, the cinematography is gorgeous, the acting is great...it's just great.  Nerdgasm.  I kinda want to watch them right now.

Favorite Character:  Legolas (really all of the elves)
Favorite Movie:  Return of the King - Extended

Star Wars.  Yes.  I've been a Star Wars nerd since 4th grade.  Many of my Christmas presents growing up were centered around Star Wars.  I still own a lot of the action figures...in the packing still.  I've read some of the Star Wars Universe books, I've played so many of the video games.  Again...amazing score, story, special effects before their time.  Epic.  Now Disney owns it.  We'll see how that goes.  I don't really know what else to say about it, it's just awesome.  But I'll be honest...LOTR ranks higher these days than Star Wars on my list.

Favorite Character:  Han Solo
Favorite Movie:  The Empire Strikes Back

Yeah, I said it.  I will watch Titanic every time it is on.  And I can quote most of it.  This is another one where the score is great.  That's a big theme in the movies I like.  If the story, writing, acting, score, and visuals are all good...I'll love it.  In spite of some historical inaccuracies the historical side of it appeals to me.  As corny as it is, it's still a good flick...and I don't care what any of you say.

Favorite Character:  The Unsinkable Molly Brown


I also pretty much love any chick-flick:  Steel Magnolias, First Wives Club, Love Actually, The Holiday, The Family Stone, etc.  Also, any Super Hero movie is up there too.

Video Games:

While many people just put all video games in the nerdy category, here are some of my favorites:

I have played every iteration of the Legend of Zelda games that exist, minus the handheld versions.  Believe it or not, the game has a great score and a very elaborate story line.  It falls in line with my love of fantasy and the games are epic.  I own a book about the series and may or may not have some sheet music for it as well.  I have also been a Nintendo loyalist above all other platforms, although I do own one other, and it's an exclusive Nintendo game.  If you've never played one of the games, you're really missing out.

Favorite Game: It's a tie between A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time (SNES and N64 respectively)

While I love fantasy and RPG games, Final Fantasy X is the only one in the series that I have played.  Talk about an epic game with beautiful visuals, epic story, and a beautiful score...it's a great game.  And hours and hours (literally) of entertainment.  I also own some sheet music for this one as well...I should totally make a video game cover video...hmm.  I tried playing Final Fantasy X-2, but it was crap, so I stopped.  What were they thinking?

Favorite Character:  Lulu

For a good throw-back, here's one most people have probably never heard of, but it's probably the best RPG (although it was the first) that I ever played.  It's funny how the older games were so much more challenging than some of the newer ones.  You really had to problem solve and think and have some sort of "skill" to get from beginning to end.  There also weren't internet walk-throughs back then if you were stuck.  If you wanted to cheat, you had to go buy a book to do it.  Even this is only a 16-bit game...I loved the music as well as the story arc.  It's almost impossible to find these days.

To give you some perspective, the SNES processes at a rate of 2.66 MHz with 128 Kb of RAM...the iPhone 4s processes at a rate of 1 GHz with 512 Mb of RAM.  I'll do the math for you.  The iPhone 4s has 375 times more processing power than the SNES and about 4000 times as much memory.  Ah technology.

Those are probably the most nerdy things about me.  Some other things worth mentioning are the fact that I've read and enjoyed all of the Harry Potter Books, Twilight Books, Sookie Stackhouse Books, Hunger Games, and of course, as I mentioned before, the Lord of the Rings Books.  My music collection is eclectic to say the least.  I always describe putting my iPod on shuffle as a "journey into musical ADD."  I really love it all and have THE MOST RANDOM things in my collection.  But more on that later.

For now, I will leave you with the following awesome video from a fellow gaming-musical-YouTube nerd:

BYEEEEEE!