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?

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.

With the recent Release of Pixars UP on Blue-Ray, DVD, Digital Copy, Laser Disc, VHS, Betamax and Stone Tablet, Everybody who did not see it at the cinemas has now been exposed to it. This means that we are having a second wave of people confessing how emotional it made them. Just for the record, that film did make me ball my eyes out like a little girl, however was on a ferry going to England leaving my wife behind, so i have a good excuse. But after seeing it again, I realised that the film is not quiet on Par with Pixars usual work. Its just not perfect

However if this was made by dreamworks, I would be astounded and recommend this to everybody I meet in the street. As it is Pixar, yes it is amazing, But not a new chapter of life, like every film they have made so far. It would be like Jesus springing into existence and doing street magic, sawing people in half with out the use of a saw. Yeah its good compared to everybody else, but your old work was better. (PS The events depicted in that comparison are fictitious. Any similarity to Judeo-Christian Mythology is merely coincidental. )

I think the real reason is that it is 2 movies mashed together. The moment he lands The second film starts. Although the second film is good, its pulling the first down. The first film is a Journey Film about getting to the location he and his wife have dreamed about all their lives. Call it a Pixar road trip. The second is a An explorer in a strange land and a small child who tagged along by accident. Sound like a Pixar film?

Just imagine what the first film could have been. You’ve seen Zathura, You know a film based mainly inside a single house is more than possible. Imagine Pixar doing Zathura. Imagine Up where the house is slightly larger, traveling through the clouds and bumping into something like, a fleet of Zeppelins. A world of people living above us in the skies. Maybe between the world wars they realized another was coming took to the skies to abandon the rest of us.

Ok this is turning into a cross between Wall-e and Bioshock. But My point still stands, The journey should have been the film. Not the running around a forest with a house strapped to his waist.

PS i need to point out, This film is amazing, Just worried that one day Pixar will make a bad film. Cars scared the fuck out me by showing me Pixar was infact fallible. I just hoping they didn’t make Toy Story 3 because they were out of ideas.

I was having a chat with sombody at work (instead of working) and the subject
of time travel, in the conext of films, came up. Such films as back to the
future, terminator and Timecop were brought into the conversation. we noticed the differences in films as to how time travel worked, not the 88mph bit but the actions and consiquences bit. So I thought it was time to bring up a theory of mine about the two types of time travel in movies (and potentially reality). The types consist of Soild Time, Squishy Time and hammer time……..ok maybe not hammer time but even still.
(the hammer time joke was created by claudia evan, all rights reserved)

This theory needs to be exposed to the world so that future film makers don’t get mixed up between the two like some past fiom makers have. Its a relitivly simply theory that seems to have been overlooked, but even still i’ll try to keep it simple for the primative minded that may be reading this. Ok enough showboating, lets get to theroising.

SQUISHY TIME -
Its proberly best if I start with squishy to give Solid time some context to work with. In films with Squishy time, if you go back in time your actions with end up changing the future. The best examples of this are in “Back to the future” and “Timecop”. In “Back to the future” he eventually makes his parents more popular and confident and thus, when he returns to the future his family is acting differently due to there upbringing changing. i think this is the type of time travel we are all familuar with. The type where you can go back the jurrassic period and step on a bug and change the course of evolution. you know what i mean.

SOLID TIME
Now solid time, on the other hand is time that has already taken your actions into consideration before. For example, if you were to go back in time to stop sombody walking into the road and getting hit by a bus…..it was proberly you trying to get the guys attention and tell him not cross the road that made him step out. The best films to show this off is the “Terminator series”. If Skynet hadn’t sent back the terminator in the first film then Sarah conner wouldn’t have trained John to be the military leader he turned out to be, that eventually ended the war. so by sending the terminator back in time put it in the situation that it was currently in. Its the type of time travel that if you went back in time to the jurrassic period you would acidently sneeze on a T-rex and cause the exinction of the Dinosaurs.

So you can see my Theroy makes sense. but here is where the problem lies. some films have both types of time in them. These films have fucked up. The main Film Littered with both types is “Back to the Future” there are the very obvious twists in the story, such as he acidently stopping his parents from falling in love and then getting them back together. But there are loads of little references that fall under the catagory of Soild Time. They include Him putting the idea of being mayor in the waiters head…..thus meaning if he had’t gone back in time, the mayor he knew would not have became the mayor he knew. Not forgetting the fact that in the film it claims that chuck berry stole the song off marty (by hearing it over the phone) But marty marty stole of chuck berry by playing a cover of the song…………..so who wrote the song. the only reason the song exists is because marty went back in time.

Robert Zemeckis…..get your time travel sorted.