Jonathan "Tempest" Phillips

Many a person has called me a Geek. I take this label and wear it with pride. I am a Geek through and through. but if one were to call me a Nerd. Then you would be sorely mistaken. When I tell this to people they say, “Hey, Tempest, What do you mean, they are the same thing”. No friend, No they are not. They may seem the same on the surface, but they are far from it. Wars have been started between these 2 social rejected groups. Then you add in Dorks and Dweebs and you realise, this topic can get very messy. But don’t worry, I’m here to help. I’ll tell you all about the differences and see if you can fit yourself into one of these categories.

Geeks

Geeks are into the geeky culture and/or electronics. That includes your comic books and Sci-Fi, But also your Iphones and network cables. They are also generally gamers. Be it Table Top Roleplay, Card Gaming or your regular Video gaming. The major difference between A geek and a nerd is that a geek still retains social skills. A geek can talk to your everyday person about everyday things and not feel left out or socially awkward.

• Mating – Geeks would prefere to be with Geeks of the opposite gender, But are very happy to couple up with somebody who has no interest in the geek culture.
• Dress code – Ranging anywhere from Shirt and jeans to baggy pants and T-shirts. But all geeks own at least 1 T-shirt with a Comic Character or humorous quote on it.
• Interests – Comics, Games, None reality based fiction, Power cables, Open source software.
• Pros – Can enjoy being a Geek and live a normal life at the same time. Doesn’t feel the need to give up either
• Cons – Because of the wide interests, it can be hard to find a geek into the exact same stuff as you. Even 2 comic geeks might not get on because one is DC and the other is Marvel.
• Examples – Patton Oswalt, Roy (IT Crowd) and any character in hackers.

Nerds

Nerds too are into the geek culture, But less of the electronics. However, they throw themselves a lot deeper into the fictional universes, knowing all the minor charcters details and having technical information about items that has no basis in reality. Due to this extreme level of integration into fictional universes, Nerds tend to lack the social skills you and I have. They find it hard to converse with anybody who is not a geek, nerd or dork.

• Mating – Nerds don’t have much success with Women. When they do, it is usually with other socially awkward beings. They release all the built up social requirements and then hide themselves away from the world
• Dress code – Long sleeve t-shirt under a short sleeve shirt featuring a picture of there fav TV show
• Interests – Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, Fiction universes with large amount of content
• Pros – There is nobody in the world who can speak klingon like this guy.
• Cons – There is nobody in the world who can speak klingon like this guy.
• Examples – Windows (fanboys), Brandon (Galaxyquest)

Dorks

Dorks are very much more into The electronics, Physics and Mathematics. They are the tech support guy you see in the checked shirt and thick rimmed glasses. Think of every employee at Microsoft. They do have problems socially. Not that they can’t speak to people, its just that they don’t understand slang that doesn’t involve an internet meme/serial number.

• Mating – Won’t have the confidence to join in the chase. When in the presence of a woman, won’t read any of the signs and watch the opportunity pass him by.
• Dress code – Tucked in Checked Shirt, Thick glasses, Pocket protector, spotty.
• Interests – The 8bit M4 Serial Bus conductor.
• Pros – Will always have the latest Gadget and will never have technical problems.
• Cons – Will never set foot in a night club, even if they wanted to.
• Examples -Moss (IT Crowd)

Dweebs

A dweeb is a kinda summery of all of the above, they can be a Techi, a Trekie and a Comic Book geek. But what makes a dweeb a dweeb? well they pretend that they don’t like any of the above and try to be a “cool kid”. But its clear to everybody that he is not fooling anybody. dweeb do tend to grow out of it and swing all the way to the geek culture or all the way to normality. Dweebs tend to be rejected by both geeks and “Normies”

• Mating – They don’t. sooner or later they will give up the dweeb phase. until then, they will be flying solo.
• Dress code – casual smart clothing, but worn far to smart and not nearly casual enough.
• Interests – Anything outside of the social Norm, but if you ask them, nothing remotely geeky
• Pros – They are fun to laugh at
• Cons -They may try and be your friend.
• Examples – Sherminator (American Pie) and that twat from “fly for a white guy”

Now I’m not saying that everybody fits nicely into each of these categories. But you will find that 1 of these will be the prime focus of your way of thinking. If you feel you are not any of the above you are “Normal” But if your normal, why are you reading my blog?

I’ve been meaning to talk about Video game movies for a while, But i’ve got so much to say that I don’t think 1 post can contain it all. So welcome to the first a series of tempest ramblings about why video game movies are always on my mind. Seriously. They need to get out, They are taking up valuable creativity space.

In the movie industry, video game movies are seen as second class citizens. Nobody is really willing to put big name talent or even a regular budget into them. Every now and again they try and make a big film to kick start the video game movie trend…..but each time they keep the big guns back……just in case. This means the genre…if you want to call it that, is never going to progress. For the longest time, George Romero, The creator of every good Zombie film you’ve ever seen, was wanting and trying to make resident evil. In fact it was due to his persistence that the film got made. Now I’m not saying that the final film wasn’t good. it certainly was a lot better than the throw away sequels. But can you imagine what it would have been like if he had made it. Similar Plot, but with mountains of fear, Moralistic choices and a lot less show boating. For a start, I’m guessing it would not have taken half of the film to get to see a damn zombie.

That really is another of my issues with the way these films are produced. After watching them you feel they were designed to be made a cheaply as possible while giving the impression they pored time and money into it. SO many of these throw away films talk half of the damn screen time before the action starts. Not a bad thing. Gives you half of the film to learn and love the characters, right? Nope. Its far to time consuming a difficult to make the characters likeable, so they simply don’t. Even with characters that people know and love, hollywood, somehow makes you hate them.

They are seen as a bit of quick money. Not easy money….quick money. As such they will never put in any major time or effort into creating them right. We are not asking for our films to be 100% locked into the source material, Just an entertaining stand along film. I genuinely can’t understand how after finishing the Far Cry movie, Uwe Boll Looked at the final cut and said “Yep, thats it, Thats is the perfect Far Cry movie. there is nothing I can do to make this a better film” Thats because he didn’t. He said “Wow that was quick. This is going to make me a lot of money”.

Please hollywood, If your listening (which your not) Don’t treat Video games like this. At least put some effort into it. just a little.

For years Lucas arts have been giving us Star Wars games and we’ve eaten them up. But for a LONG time star wars games have simply felt like clones of exsisting franchices or have simply lacked any depth to keep us playing. to put into context, the last good orginal game design set in the star wars world was Tie fighter……can you even remember when that was released. but thanks to the wonders of Bioware, There is Hope

Seriously, Why doesn’t George just give his clone wars TV show to the cinematic team at bioware and tell them to do it. Barly any words were said in that 5 minute fight, yet so much story, charatcer and emotions came through. If the game works with as much passion as the cinematics, then maybe we may have ourselfs a good, new orginal star wars game again.

This article is in case I somehow reach a position of importance or wealth and foolishly die before creating a genuine will.

MY WILL, BY TEMPEST

In the event of my death, I wish to award the sum of £376 to the first person to reply to this blog post. The sum of my properties, empire and money (hereafter known as “The Prize”) will be up for grabs to the person who can complete (with proof) all of the following tasks.

1- Donate £500 towards a charity specialising in what ever killed me (even if it is the stop the buses from hitting people foundation)
2- Donate one of my coffee mugs to the church informing them it is the Holy Grail
3- Find a 3, 4 and 5 leave clover
4- Help an Elderly person across the road, but stop helping half way, leaving them stranded.
5- Show a normally clothed body part on a live TV broadcast
6- Punch Paris Hilton in the face. If she is dead at this point, find her grave, fall to your knees and beat the soil screaming “Don’t ever come back”
7- Go to the train station in silver city and open locker number 001. If it can not be opened (requirement of a key for example) break into the locker and steal the contents before anybody knows
8- Travel to an earthquake or disaster area that has been abandoned and clean up 5 square meters of space with a dustpan and brush
9- Plan an oceans 11 style bank heist in France with at least 5 members, where your role is to disable the security systems from a secure location. On the day of the heist, instead of disabling the security, move back home and send them a post card in prison saying “wish you were here”
10- Before I am buried / burnt or disposed of, die my hair Hex colour 05e3f7 and take a photo of me and you sitting on a park bench.

The Prize will be given to anybody able to complete all of these tasks and provide the necessary items of proof to show that they have been performed. 12 months after my death, if nobody has claimed The Prize, then it will be changed into 1 Million pound coins and placed in a duck tales style vault for friends and family to swim in.

Monkeys running a LAN. What are you? some kind of primate techie? Oh your not? Your actually a gaming group called Malevolent Monkees that do Lan parties every so often and invite people from the TF2 community. Oh well thats much better. Sure I’ll gladly come along to your LAN party.

This was a conversation I had several months ago. And boy am I glad I did. This led to me having one of the most enjoyable weekends of gaming I’ve had in a long time. I packed up my PC and all of its electronic counterparts, crammed them into my car along with a inflatable mattress, pillow and covers and headed to rugby. What was waiting there for me was a long list of people I have been in need of meeting for some time. Mogs, Alex, Flamecut, to name a few. Not to mention meeting up with Agro and Miss Meow again. yes thats right, it was a KK/VGN celebrity line up. Good times.

What I was expecting to be a simple sit down with your PC session turned out to be so much more. Firstly it was AMAZING weather and so we actually spent time outside. Yes that’s right, a bunch of gamers in the presence of the day star. Thank deity for BBQ’s a meat. I also got to play a bunch of really good games that would have flown straight pass me otherwise. Flatout 2 (I R Curling master), Attitude (SWEEET) and Grid. was great to pic up a game and have everybody suck at it and learn togeather. Really refreshing experience.

When the sign ups happen for MMLAN 12, My name will be down on that list, and so should yours.