It's Hip to be Square

Apparently I haven't been playing close enough attention. . .when exactly did it become cool to be nerdy? Admittedly, I've been out of highschool for almost ten years now, but I remember RPGs and most video games being the realm of the socially awkward and misunderstood (of which I was one). But it seems like some point along the way, someone in a corporation finally caught on that nerdiness was a multi-billion dollar industry, and BAM! Nerds became cool. Not all nerds, of course. There are still the socially awkward and misunderstood that no amount of corporate marketing will suddenly make cool. But working in a highschool, I overheard lots of conversation, and pretty, popular kids were talking about Pokemon the other day. Pokemon! From non-nerds! I suppose what really drove the sense home was this:

A little hard to see from the picture, but it's a Mana energy potion. Yes. An energy drink that's made to look like a mana potion from Diablo or one of any of the great classic fantasy RPGs. I have to say, though, I'm not a big energy drink person, but this was pretty good. I tried one out today at a local charity event, The Battle for the Shrine. Hopefully, I'll have some pics to post up this week, but it was a good time. The primary focus was an Apocalypse megabattle, where we had a good twenty or so participants broken up over three tables. I helped out running the thing, so I didn't throw down, but those that did seemed to have quite a bit of fun. It was a long day. . .I left around seven this morning and just got back around nine tonight, but it was worth it. Bonus, a single Mana potion and I was good to go all day! Now, I'm not pushing energy drinks. I'm kind of anti-energy drink. But if you were GOING to drink an energy drink, well, this one didn't make me anxious or jittery, and I didn't totally crash when it wore off.

Anyway, in short, I kind of wish I were ten years younger in a way. Apparently, I would have been cool for doing the things I did anyway. Ah well. I sure had me some good times.