Where are your games? Displayed?

ubarose wrote:

Shellhead wrote: Is your home decorated in a way that expresses your interests and personality? How so?
Should people be ashamed of nerd culture? Why? Is mainstream culture better? In what ways?

Decorating your house with your "interests," whether mainstream or nerdy, is just weird. It is just creepy to be sitting in someone's living room surrounded by "I love dogs" crap, and paintings of their dog, and little dog figurines and throw pillows with needle point dogs on them. Whether it's "nerd culture," or dog, or ballet, or motorcycle, or sports team stuff, it's weird.

Whatever makes people happy, blah, blah, blah. But if your living room looks like 7 year old's bedroom, I will judge you.

Once again, you say what I meant much more succinctly. I should just start posting "Take it away, Uba"

My spouse is really into the super minimalist and restrained look in the common areas. Zero clutter or stuff anywhere. I'm cool with that kind of stillness. I grew up in the total opposite. My parents' home remains a madhouse of clutter and noise to this day. When I'm there I need to practise meditation in the moment and cultivate an internal sense of stillness in the midst of chaos...

A bunch of my friends are lefties, and some of them have framed political posters up on the wall. I like that because they tell a story and connect me to some lived history. Some poster art is really neat. However, one or two people I know have kitchy portraits of Mao, Marx or Lenin on the wall. I have mixed feelings about those portraits. On the one hand I know people invest a lot of meaning in their political heroes and so they feel inspired in life when they look at them, but I myself don't feel that and instead it reminds me too much of Che Guevara meme art and so has a cultish vibe that I think is a bit silly.

Hatchling wrote: However, one or two people I know have kitchy portraits of Mao, Marx or Lenin on the wall.

If you have friends with a picture of Mao on the wall, you should unfriend them immediately. A man responsible for the death of 40-70 million of its own people is not to be admired in any way, shape or form. Only an uninformed cunt would hang such a thing. What's next? A Stalin poster, or would a Khmer Rouge poster be more appropriate.

/end tangential rant

I'm curious where one obtains an inflatable sarcophagus. I tried google but didn't see anything resembling what I envision you having.

I look back at the stuff I had hanging on my walls when I was in my twenties and all I can think is 'Tacky tacky tacky...'. The only thing that has survived the years is a block-mounted poster of The Blues Brothers (one of my top three movies and possibly number one) and even then this hangs in the garage/man cave - I would never have it in the house again.

I leave the decoration of the rest of the house proper to my wife who has better taste than me. She has also recently embraced minimalism and is reducing any remaining clutter daily. I like this. We have a lot of the children's 'art' on the walls these days. It makes the house feel like a home and more importantly, makes the children feel like it's their home.

Shellhead wrote: Is your home decorated in a way that expresses your interests and personality? How so?

Yeah, sort of. We've only been in our house just shy of a year. Most of the stuff on the walls are paintings and drawings my wife did. Some of them are pretty random. I think she paints & draws very well and like to support it. Most of our pictures around the house are of us; mostly wedding and honeymoon stuff because that's mostly when we've had a camera with. I'm in my living room right now and there are seven pictures of us in various places. I'd be happy if there were zero but she likes 'em and that's good enough reason to have them out. I did put a limit on it though. Seven is already a lot.

When we moved in we had all these great furniture ideas and then we found out how much that stuff costs. So we've mostly got IKEA stuff that isn't super tacky. It's primarily functional without looking spartan.

Shellhead wrote: Should people be ashamed of nerd culture? Why? Is mainstream culture better? In what ways?

No to all questions here. But people should decide if they're enthusiastic about whatever culture their into, enthusiastic about being into a culture, or a walking advertisement. I fall into the first category. I don't have a single "culture"-related thing hanging in our house, and most of my shirts are random things I got for cheap. I grew up in a small farming & football town; I don't really have any connection to comics or Dr Who or any of that stuff. I like the LoTR movies, some fantasy books, and board games, but I got into most of that stuff recently enough that I don't identify myself with it.

I don't push my interests on to people if they don't see to already be interested and receptive. I equate doing that to being that one guy that won't shut up about some college lacrosse team I don't care about. No amount of evangelism is going to make me start caring.

Shellhead wrote: Has nerd culture become more mainstream in the last 20 years? To what degree?

To an extremely high degree, at least for me. When I grew up I knew maybe five other kids that had a video game system. Now I can't name five that don't. Twenty years ago A Game of Thrones would have been a low-budget PBS show or straight to VHS release.

Shellhead wrote: What kind of people do you welcome into your home on a regular basis? Extended family, most likely, but what about friends? Friends that share your interests? Friends that don't share your interests? Neighbors? Co-workers? More to the point, to what degree do you feel the need to conceal your interests from the people that you invite into your home? Why?

We have all kinds of friends and family. Got some buddies that I used to room and/or be in a band with, and we mostly drink & tell stories. Got other friends that are into games and we mostly game. Got some buddies that are a mix of the two. Different sides of the family are into games more than others, too. My wife gives everybody a tour because she's still excited that we have a house, so nothing's hidden. I'll talk about guitars or video games or board games if asked, but that's about as far as it needs to go.

At least until I get way too drunk and then WE ARE GOING TO PUT THE WHO LIVE AT THE ISLE OF WIGHT IN THE DVD PLAYER. THIS IS HAPPENING.

JonJacob wrote: I still have some nerd shirts. An old Star Trek one, Green Lantern... maybe a Batman one kicking around. But that isn't really me... it's just a costume, hell, I don't even read Green Lantern, I just liked the logo on this one shirt.

Damn straight.

Addendum: although today's youth seem to think the Green Lantern logo has more to do with Sheldon Cooper rather than the Corps. That's cool though. If Sheldon can bring more obscure heroes into the light I say go for it. I'm even thinking of picking up an Aquaman t-shirt or two, especially since the Geoff John's books were fun to read and Aquaman kicks ass in Injustice: Gods Among Us.

*sorry for interrupting this discussion with over caffeinated rambling*

Space Ghost wrote: I'm curious where one obtains an inflatable sarcophagus. I tried google but didn't see anything resembling what I envision you having.

At Bed, Bath, and Beyond, I reckon.