Am I too big of a geek...?

So, I ran out today and bought the big-big Millennium Falcon at Toys R Us since it was 50% off.  I showed my wife and she rolled her eyes and told me my mother would be giving it to me for Christmas.

Am I on the wrong side of "cool geek" here, or am I doing okay?

xhonzi said:

So, I ran out today and bought the big-big Millennium Falcon at Toys R Us since it was 50% off.  I showed my wife and she rolled her eyes and told me my mother would be giving it to me for Christmas.

Am I on the wrong side of "cool geek" here, or am I doing okay?

One to open and display and one to keep in the box.  I don't what kind of geek that makes you, but it makes you awesome to me!

Don't feel bad the Falcon is one of the coolest things star wars.  I wanted to buy the lego falcon to give to my nephew then realized the price was so steep, like 300 bucks on amazon.lol, man that plastic must be made out of gold.

Hey at least did not bring home a life size Jar Jar standee or something, though a life size jar jar in carbonite would be cool.

I used to collect star wars books, kind of gave that up a while ago other than a couple paperbacks here and there and the occational hardback.  I used to collect all the comics that featured the original trio of luke, leia and han, and novels set after the return of the jedi.

Now i try to keep only stuff that really is close in feel and spirit to the oot.

I Don't collect clone wars, prequel crap.  And i resented the prequels invading the EU eras of the oot and post jedi, when you want to go back to  good old fashioned star wars you want to escape that revisionist crap but it  is everywhere.

Too bad the prequels could not have been written as novels in the spirit of the original Zahn trilogy, fans would not have their vision of star wars being muddied by absolute shit that was as far removed from the original star wars trilogy as possible.  On a superficial level it was the same universe and you had characters with the same names, but it was like lucas was writing for a totally different sci fi universe, one that was uninteresting, generic and like every other throw away hollywood piece of trash.

If/when you have kids it's great.  You pretend you're getting it for them: "Boy, i bet the kids would really enjoy this Biggs Darklighter figure.  Afterall, we... er... they don't have one yet."

That's what i used to do to justify the impulse buys.  Fortunately for the family my impulses were very small in scale.  I say "used to" because the kids aren't into the Star Wars stuff like they once were.  They inherited all my original toys, and we certainly had great times playing "Star Wars".  But, they are girls and are growing up and have found other things to occupy their time and interests.  They still LOVE the original films, though. :D

I'm not sure where the confusion is coming from, but I did only buy one.  At least I think I did. 

Ah, now I get it.  No, my mother will be giving me the one I bought.

"I showed my wife and she rolled her eyes and told me my mother would be giving it to me for Christmas."

I think the idea was that when Jonzy's wife delivered that line, she was insinuating that he was being childish by having spent money on a large useless hunk of plastic; rather than her rolling her eyes as if to say, "Oh shoot! Your mother already got you one of those and was going to give it to you for Christmas"  as you seem to have understood it, canofhumdingers. (EDIT: I began this post before the OP's latest post, seems my assumption was also incorrect.)

You know, the nice thing about being a geek is that you like what you like, rather than feeling the need to like what others like you to like/expect you to like. I absolute hate watching televised sports, don't care about them one bit. When people ask me what team I like, and and reply with, "Actually, I don't watch sports", they often look at me as if I have just told them I ran over their grandmother with a lawn mower. Sometimes they actually seem offended. I am often given grief for my lack of interest in sports, I have been made fun of rather harshly in the past for not liking them. But I really don't care, because I really don't care for them and can't be bothered to waste my time conforming to what is "normal" (and not liking sports, I have been told, is extremely "abnormal", seemingly to the point that it merits the need for psychological help according to some). I have other friends who don't like sports who actually go out of their way to pretend to like them just to fit in. That saddens me.

...

All that to say, "cool geek" doesn't matter. Cool is not what being a geek is about. Unfortunately, in the last several years it has become increasingly cool to be geeky, which seems to have resulted in bringing all the baggage of the cool crowd into the geeky crowd. Now suddenly some geeky things are cool, and other geeky things are not cool. Forget about cool or uncool. If you like littering your living space with dust collecting items that serve no purpose other than to remind you of the things you love and how cool they are in your mind regardless of their popularity in the minds of others, I'd say you have a much healthier state of mind than that of your average individual who is constantly getting hung up on worrying if something is cool or not before he decides to form an opinion of it. 

Be proud of your geekiness! If the Neanderthalish sports fan can be overly proud of his obsession with watching groups of people knock balls around for hours at a time again and again, then surely you can be proud of your obsessions too!

C3PX, have you met my wife?

G E Predator said:

What's so bad about having two sets?  You got one to keep in the box and sell as a collectible, and the other is yours to play with or display on a shelf in your room.  I'd say it's a win-win thing.

Heh, looks like someone opted not to read beyond the first post.

xhonzi said:

C3PX, have you met my wife?

Hehe, no, but all women are the same to some degree or another. For some reason they never understand why things like a plush head crab, a Mr. Potato Head who dresses like Darth Vader, or an unnecessarily massive Millenium Falcon are absolute necessities.

I guess I've got to watch my phraseology.

canofhumdingers said:

Here's some clickable thumbnails of my room for those interested.

[PICTURES]

Awesome!  I started a thread for sharing our collections, but it fell away:

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Little-Men-Little-Wars-Share-Your-Star-Wars-Collection/topic/10196/

I dunno man, 40 pages back give you an excuse; only two posts back on the other hand...

;)

V, try not to read so much into things. I was just making a joke with Xhonzi. Most married guys will have gotten my joke.

Done and done.

C3PX said:

You know, the nice thing about being a geek is that you like what you like, rather than feeling the need to like what others like you to like/expect you to like. I absolute hate watching televised sports, don't care about them one bit. When people ask me what team I like, and and reply with, "Actually, I don't watch sports", they often look at me as if I have just told them I ran over their grandmother with a lawn mower. Sometimes they actually seem offended. I am often given grief for my lack of interest in sports, I have been made fun of rather harshly in the past for not liking them. But I really don't care, because I really don't care for them and can't be bothered to waste my time conforming to what is "normal" (and not liking sports, I have been told, is extremely "abnormal", seemingly to the point that it merits the need for psychological help according to some). I have other friends who don't like sports who actually go out of their way to pretend to like them just to fit in. That saddens me. 

C3PX, thanks for writing this. I have never been a fan of sports. It's nice to know other fellow geeks face this too.

I constantly have this issue with in-laws and co-workers. When I mention to someone that I'm not into sports, I'm usually faced with a mix of annoyance and condescension - like I'm a foreigner who doesn't speak their language. Suddenly, it's like they have no desire to talk to me. It's actually pretty disheartening.

On time I heard my mother-in-law ask my wife, in a very serious tone, "Why doesn't Erik like sports?" Like I have terminable cancer or something. But I've learned to accept my nerd-dom, even if others can't.

And BTW, I have that big Millennium Falcon. Paid full price for it too (it was worth it). It's sitting on a table in the kids' playroom, along with the "playable" portion of my Star Wars collection. The "non-playable" portion of my collection is displayed on high shelves in my office. And all the things I collect are opened. I've never had the money or space for 2 of everything.