My brother, Andrew, will be getting married in less than two weeks. In honor of this momentous occasion a band of geeks, roughly twenty in number, converged in celebration. They played computer games together over a LAN (Local Area Network). Jason termed this particular form of get-together the “BLAN” (Bachelor LAN) many years ago when one of the first BLANs was held for him.
I only dared enter the den of geeks, located in the basement of my sister’s house, momentarily during this event but in that brief time here is what I witnessed. Many tables were set up in a somewhat haphazard manner throughout the main basement area. The tables were occupied by a variety of geeks and their precious computers.
Masses of cords of all sizes and colors crisscrossed the floor in a hectic fashion and lay in piles here and there. Much sugar, caffeine, and grease had obviously been consumed. The air was rank with geek sweat, the soda cans were piled high, and the candy wrappers were proliferate. The lights in half the space were turned off leaving the glow of monitors the only light source in these areas. This gave the impression that one had stumbled across the cavernous dwelling of strange, tech-savvy, nocturnal creatures. This perception was furthered by the fact that many of the geeks appeared to have entered some sort of catatonic state. They were only aware of the screen in front of them and the sole indication that they were actually alive was the occasional twitching of their fingers. Other geeks were very animated. They uttered many obscenities in the heat of battle; during their infrequent periods of silence the faint whirl of CPU fans could be heard. While this was not the first time I had witnessed a BLAN firsthand, I still could not stomach it for more than a few minutes.
The geeks played until 2:30 AM or so. I suspect they would have played longer if Andrew had not poorly planned his transportation arrangements. He and Simone rode over together. She entertained herself elsewhere for quite a while, but in the end she still needed to drive him home. Common sense is not a Nelson trait, nor a geek one for that matter. But, despite the BLAN’s relatively early termination, the geeks seemed to have enjoyed themselves.
15 comments
That is about the cutest picture of me that has ever been taken 😛
I love the last picture! I think Greg and Jeremy are really going at it.
I started making a comment, then it just got longer and longer, so instead I’ll just provide a link to my comment. After all, doesn’t rowley hold the record for the longest comment ever? I’d hate to take that crown away from him.
And look at that, I totally forgot to leave the link. Grrr: http://headcoffin.com/17/blan-blog-or-anti-geekmatic-propaganda/
i have to say that I look pretty hot. But everybody knows that.
Ok, none of you look cute. It’s a BLAN. Pictures from a BLAN are never cute pretty, or sexy. EVER! EVER!! EVER!!! No exceptions.
Ever!!!!
all except for me, cause you know I was oh so cute in that picture, and look at adam and how Tom Cuisiesh he is, how can you deny that the final picture isn’t the cutest thing ever. Then we get to Greg, look at the pure ecstasy emanating from his entire being. Claiming that the final picture isn’t cute is purely ridiculous.
In response to the Authors comments over here: http://headcoffin.com/17/blan-blog-or-anti-geekmatic-propaganda/#comments
I have the following re-response.
“It seems like geeks just bring lots of useless cords to LAN parties to make themselves look geekier in front of their geeky buddies. The more worthless cords you have the higher your geek status I guess because I swear half the cords at a typical LAN aren’t really used for anything or plugged in.”
Thats just not true, not only do Blan Participants not bring extra cables, half of them don’t even bring the esentail amount of cables. Also, the amount of useless cablage brought to said lannage has little to do with Geek status. Instead, the biggest geek is determined much the same way as it ever is. Who can quote the most star wars/treck/LoTR, Who has the nerdiest job, Who likes to stare at code and thinks thats fun, etc.
But as a Geek hater I don’t expect you to understand.
“Besides, I said the basement smelled of geek sweat not geek BO. Geek BO is a million times worse! If it stunk of geek BO I probably would have succumbed to the geek reek death and never made it out of the basement alive!”
Now probably because I’m not a food scientest, I don’t understand the difference between the auroma of sweat and the stench of Body Odor. To me if you have one (that can be detected) you have the other. Just my thought on that comment
Der,
Your mom’s ridiculous!
(Sorry Mom, you’re not actually ridiculous. I just had to slam him with a “your mom” joke.)
Cody,
Bringing no cables and bringing useless cables are not the same thing. Clearly, many geeks do not bring the necessary cables to a LAN party. But most of them bring lots of cables non the less.
And no, sweat and BO do not smell the same. It doesn’t take someone with a genius brain (i.e. a food scientist such as myself) to know that. Sweat just smells salty, BO is what Norm smells like when he hasn’t showered for a week (or changed his clothes) because he has been too busy playing video games. There is a definite difference.
Sweat is the smell of the physically active; BO is the smell of the hygienically challenged geek.
I will say this much: at a LAN — of any variety — the male bond between you and the fellow sitting next to you isn’t just strong; at that moment, it’s all that exists.
So, yes, Jeremy and I were going *at* it. We discovered each other. It was beautiful — I went home and cried all night because Jeremy wasn’t there.
Really, though, I’m kidding. Jeremy just touched me a lot and it was akward. I reciprocated only out of fear 🙂
LIES, you loved it just as much as I greg.
You guys are both gross. You deserve each other.