Outgeeked

Yesterday I was sitting at my laptop upstairs in my room playing World of Warcraft (yes, it works again) just hearing the word that my nephew and niece were going to stay over when I heard hurried footsteps storm up the stairs. An excited voice streamed its audio throughout the house as I geared up with my earplugs, bronze med helm, and -insert random WoW armor here- and waited for the creature that would bring doom to my eardrums. A vile beast it was, however it took the form as an innocent and young five-year old child. I turned to face my fate face-to-face. My ears started to bleed already from the banshee. I looked around my room for my dagger, but only spotted a wireless USB mouse, a random "Butt Ugly Martins" action figure from Burger King, and a broken ruler. Out of ammo and weaponry I was. The target found me.

My nephew was here, and with him in his hands the device that can turn all evil -- a sexy, sleek black Nintendo DS. I recently loaned him my Super Mario 64 DS game cartridge as my Nintendo DS hasn't been charged since 2004 or 2005 and I figured that I would give the game data some exercise by letting Zach borrow it. And boy, did he give the game some exercise. When I gave him the game, I only had about 116 stars on my one file. Stupid me, I thought there was only four left but recently did I find out that Super Mario 64 DS had 150 stars, not 120 like the original. I found that out when Zach stuck the DS in my face and the three different files danced across the screen. My old file with 116 now read 150. I looked at my nephew and said, "Holy shit." Actually I didn't really acknowledge his success at the time as I was in a life-or-death situation on WoW in some dangerous area in the Wetlands, but I did learn from that initial moment a life-changing experience has just occurred to me.

I just got 'pwned' by my nephew. Now, let's look at the statistics here.

• Zach -- nephew. Five years old, will turn six in September. Video game addict. Began playing games around one. Teacher: Buddy Foote. Owned the teacher n00b by getting 34 more stars in teacher's own game that teacher was unaware of. Other known victories: Wii Sports in general and mental math challenges.

• Steve a.k.a. Buddy Foote -- uncle. Sixteen-years old, will turn seventeen in October. No longer a video game addict; casual console gamer; MMORPG addict. Began playing games after the age of five or six. Teacher(s): Petey -- brother; also maybe Jenifer -- sister and fellow blog author. Was owned by the 1337 student multiple times in many ways. Known victories: tennis on Wii Sports.

As you can see, my nephew is eleven years younger than me and can probably kick my ass on any game that he's experienced at. Now if we went to an arcade and I randomly picked a game and we dueled it out, then maybe I would have a better chance at winning, but if he played that arcade game about ten times, he would win almost every time afterwards. Even on Wii Sports like I mentioned, he is very good at bowling, baseball, and getting decently better at golf. I may be a bit mad at it at first, but I'm coming to realize that my nephew will indeed 'outgeek' me before I know it. And that's coming from a future computer programmer. I may know computer languages like C++, Visual Basic, Java, etc. when I'm 25 and he'll know HTML, CSS, PHP, and Javascript when he's 14 and be the #1 player of Runescape 3, beating Zezima Jr. by three billion exp in the high scores. I'll be looking back at this entry the day that happens and I'll say, "Dammit, he did outgeek me."

The only negative part of this is that all Zach does is play games, and should I also add that all he does is talk. I swear, he did not stop talking once since I woke up today until he left around seven o' clock, and I was up early because my mother wanted to send me off to do some community service but I didn't feel too well as I was achy. And when he's talking, it's mostly about games. He's not asking why the sky is blue or how a TV works or something, but rather he's asking how to stop the snowball on Cold, Cold Mountain from falling off the side of a cliff. That worries me because I hope that he'll be able to put games aside when hardcore schooling starts for him and be able to concentrate on his education rather than thinking about how to beat some mini-game on Mario Party 12 for the Virtual Nintendo 3000. I mean, I wouldn't mind the continuing rambling if it wasn't for the fact that he talks so loud that he can make your ears bleed after a minute. And even when I tell him to tone it down, he still talks like I'm standing half a mile away. I just hope that these aspects of him are just from childhood and he'll evolve out of them around seven or eight. I mean, when I was smaller I didn't want a lot of attention or want somebody to constantly play with me. I was the type that was quiet, observed my surroundings, and played in the corner by himself with some Matchbox trucks. Of course, naturally in my beginning years I would have been loud, disruptive, and want attention and such, but I guess I grew into a somewhat permanent phase where I became shy and quiet. However, I'm known to not be shy and quiet around friends nowadays and can be hyper, but I do have those moments where I'll just sit there and stare at a wall and think to myself. I guess the combination of my nephew and two nieces and some of my bitter classmates turned me off over time from wanting to become a teacher as I have limited patience around children. And well, I'm not too good at public speaking, teaching in general, and I would want a better paying job, so I can't blame the children for making me change my mind. How did this rambling on cause me to discuss my future occupation...?

And if you never heard the phrase "to be outgeeked" before this entry, thank my favorite artist, Jonathan Coulton, for it. If you never heard any of his songs, then I would recommend clicking this link and listen to some as you can listen to his full songs free-of-charge. Songs that I recommend will be listed shortly. This guy is naturally a genius. He used to be a computer programmer and he quit his full-time job when he wanted to do music for a living. He writes some of the best songs I have ever heard, both lyrically and instrumentally, and he has one of the best voices too. And yes, he is a one-man band but he sometimes travels on tours with some back-up singers and other unprofessional artists, like Kristen Shirts who did a ukulele remix to Coulton's popular song "Code Monkey". I want to see this amazing man on July 27th in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, but it's down in the south by Philly and with the cost of gas nowadays (as well as probably a hotel room as the concert is in the evening), it may not be worth the trouble. But can you do me a favor? I mean, sure, it's one favor reading this random and long post and if you're still here with me then God bless you, but can you please click this link and share my demand with me so that "JoCo" may come to the Scranton Metro area. I don't care if you live in Alaska or England or wherever, just please click that link and demand that he comes. That would mean the world for me. Thank you.

List of recommended JoCo songs to listen to, by Buddy Foote:

Re: Your Brains, Skullcrusher Mountain, Code Monkey, Tom Cruise Crazy, Creepy Doll, Shop Vac, Big Bad World One, SkyMall, I Feel Fantastic, First Of May, Flickr, Curl, That Spells DNA, The Future Soon, Betty and Me, I Crush Everything, and Skullcrusher Mountain (demo) if you want the acoustic version. Enjoy!

Have a good one.