10101001 10101001's Journal: Useless toys

At the moment, the useless toy I most desire is a nice looking famiclone. If there were superfamiclones or genesis clones (beyond the little, non-cartridge supporting kind), I'd probably want one of those instead. Don't take this to mean I want to get a famiclone with pirated games. Nothing is farther from the truth.

The reality is, I like the idea of having my own, odd little bit of nostalgia. While currently my family as a whole owns a working original NES, there's something sort of geeky about having perfectly legal, but never the less dubious looking, electronics equipment from another country. It's probably this reason more than any that I bought a Gamepark 32.

Part of celebrating nerdiness/geekiness, to me, is being different in things that others wouldn't even understand how it's being different. I've no doubt that's part of the reason I like Earthbound over Final Fantasy (the other reason being that Final Fantasy doesn't seem to be intentionally corny; there's that whole intentionally B-movie factor that helps it out; of course, a lot of movies try that and somehow fail because they lack the chemistry to be incredibly corny while still endearing).

In that regard, I sometimes notice that I seem to disagree just to disagree, and I'm a bit shaken with the prospect that I'm unwilling to agree with the mainstream. It's not that I think that the mainstream is always right, but I'm equally sure that the mainstream isn't always wrong. It is just incredibly difficult for me, at times, to draw that line where I feel confident I'm making a decision impartial to what group it would place me in.

So should I relish being a geek or just accept that it's merely the label that various others are likely to attribute to me through no intentional action of my own to be labelled a geek. There's nothing wrong with being a geek. But, I'm not so sure that it's okay to take steps to be a geek so you can feel like you fit in. Uniqueness can be an uncomfortable ground to stand on. Siding with a group or broadly rejecting opinions--which are immaterial to anything of consequence--might in the long run be a more uncomfortable ground to deal with.