Nerdy And Proud Of It

I love living in this technology age. I started my nerd journey on an Apple II+ my dad bought us in 1980, and never looked back. That machine had some of the most fun games I've ever played, that I still love today. Lode Runner (the ORIGINAL), People Pong (little naked Amazonian women you had to keep bouncing up from the floor of spikes with a Pong paddle.. if you missed they got impaled and blood trickled down from them. Mom got PISSED when she found out we were playing it. NAKED WOMEN. Mom, chillax, this is Apple II+ graphics.. they're barely discernible as PEOPLE), and Choplifter (a side-scroller where you were supposed to shoot open buildings in a war-torn landscape and rescue the soldiers. Or, do what I did and squash them with your helicopter. They made the most satisfying BLEEP! sound as you landed on them. I never seemed to win that game.)

As I've gotten older, technology of course has evolved in leaps and bounds, and I've followed eagerly after it. Now we have so many different types of social media: Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram, Google Plus and more. I can't even keep up with them all. I've been able to regain contact with old high school friends, far away relatives, and even play D&D with people around the world via webchat. I LOVE this time period. I love all the new gadgets and technology and evolution of video games, and just EVERYTHING. I am completely and unashamedly hooked on the Internet. When I was in high school, I used to go in the library on breaks and just sit and read the encyclopedias. I've always had a hunger for information, trivia, the minutiae of life. Now, the Internet has made so much available, I'll never get bored, or run out of stuff to read or look at. Sometimes I spend hours just following one link, to that story, then the link in that story to another story, and so on. Down the rabbit hole I go and you never know where it will lead you. Sometimes my friends and I try to outdo each other with the most shocking, bizarre, gross things we can find on the Internet. I almost always win. That's me, Queen of the Internet! My kids have all been raised with access to technology. I know some parents minimize the time they allow their children to watch TV, or use a computer, or play video games, and that is of course their prerogative. When my kids grow up to be business executives, programmers, perhaps next Bill Gates they'll need wholesome non-technical people to do the menial stuff.  ;)