The Geek Story

As promised, I have a geeky story. But first, to gear you up for the geekery to follow, I have some geek toy recommendations. First, you have to check these out. They are the niftiest keychains around - you can plug into your tv from them and play old Atari games. From thinkgeek.com, of course.

And this t-shirt, also from thinkgeek. Just because I love it. Poor Pluto. We'll miss you, eccentrically orbiting little buddy.

The story really begins last November, when my brother Scott told me about a concert in Toronto that he and a friend were planning on seeing. It was cancelled, and he was devastated. Last weekend, the concert came back to Toronto, but my brother's friend couldn't make it. Still owing a birthday present (from February - yes, I suck) I bought two tickets and agree to go. The concert?

Video Games Live.


It's a show with a live orchestra playing music composed for video games. I've never seen so many geeks all in one place at one time. They filled the halls, the stairways, and the sidewalks, in their cryptic t-shirts and comfortable pants, and filled the air with geekspeak. And of all these geeks, my brother and I had the best seats in the house. And I have to admit that I had a pretty good time. A lot of the music for video games is very complex and dramatic, and the orchestra played it very well.

But my favourite stuff was the fun stuff. The show started off with Pong, leading into a medley of classic 8-bit game music.

They had a guy come up and pretend to be the shooting ship from Space Invaders. They had this guy, who apparently is an internet celebrity, who played piano faster than I would have said was humanly possible. Yes - he's blindfolded here.

And the very best part was the Frogger game. I did take video, but so did someone else - you can see their video below.

There has never been such an exciting game of Frogger -this is the way you've always wanted to play - with an entire audience cheering you on - applauding when you get him onto that difficult far left lilypad, and crying out in dismay when your timing is off just a little bit and you get creamed by a semi. And, of course, winning fabulous prizes for the high score.

Aside from the concert, it was a nice weekend with the family. Cards, Trivial Pursuit, the market, and lots of cheese made for a good visit.