Sunday, September 1, 2013

League of Exrordinary Bloggers: Hello, My name is...


So with being back in the saddle it's time to jump back into the league, and with out much time to spare this week's Subject is in short- Who am I?

I'm Batman!

Just kidding I had to say it, of course no one has ever seen me in the same room as batman so...

Seriously though, I'm Jamie Herbert, I was born in Odessa Texas in  May of 1972, to Jerry and Linda Herbert. The younger of 2 boys, my father was in the oil business as a roughneck and thus we moved all over the world, From Thailand, to Norway, to Iran, To Spain, to Scotland, and most alien of all Louisiana.




In fact, we left Iran right before all the revolutions happened, I still remember the Shah's face adorning huge paintings in local shops, and on the test pattern of our TV, where my brother would anxiously wait for his portrait to fade so we could watch Tom and Jerry!

When We left we came home to New London Iowa (where My Grandpa and Grandma lives, and more or less the placed lived when in the USA. also where I started going to school. after coming back from Iran, we saw a movie in the drive in that many think of as the touchstone of our generation,
I hated it. Hey, I was 5 years old and jet lagged, i fell asleep through most of it. The second time I watched it however I was hooked. It was awesome, I was obsessed and it was my life, as my other obsessions, The Bionic Man, Megos, Star Trek and of course Superheroes...

I really learned to lessons from moving and being the perennial new kid, First is that everyone is different. For example, when we lived in Scotland I watched plenty of british TV, and not just the classic like Monty Python, but stuff like Blue Peter, The Goodies, Educating Marmalade, and Black Adder. I still recall watching the Doctor Who Episode series "The Five Doctors" When it originally aired and also became a who fan a certain Galifreyan traveler. You know, you never do forget your first doctor. Beyond that I realized that people hate things they don't understand I took flack in iowa for calling teachers Ma'am or Sir, but in Louisiana you did this or got hit, it becomes habbit. When I loved in Scotland we learned about factor trees. and on a math test i took the month after in Louisiana, I got shit for cheating on a quiz where I was showing my work. My brother coped by trying harder to fit in, but not me. I prettymuch became increasingly of the opinion that if you think I am weird or not cool for not following the herd, then screw you, I'm fine with being an iconoclast. This is also probably the reason I hate it when something I love becomes main stream enough that the kind of people who ridiculed me for liking it are now somehow claiming to be the biggest fans of this!

One other thing that i picked up in the UK was Dungeons and Dragons. it was big in the American School in Aberdeen where I went, and My brother had some interest after we had watched Pat Robertson declare it satanic on the 700 club when we were leaving for Scotland the 2nd time.  While my brother was the more interested into getting into it originally, I became the one who fell way deeper for it. The same thing happened with Legos, my mom bought them for Lonnie originally but he showed very little interest, and me, I became a guy who still plays with legos as an adult. Same goes for gaming. He bought the starting games but then When I played, I never looked back I went from D&D to Gamma World, Top Secret, Traveller, Champions, and eventually into miniatures wargaming. Starting with Warhammer, I still get a kick out of building, painting modelling and of course playing, among my current favorites are Bolt Action, Maurice, Infinity, and Kings of War.

Once puberty set in I was like any other male, obsessed with the opposite gender, funny enough, despite the Sterotype of Star Trek fans being all virgins with no chance of getting laid in a women's prison, I actually owe quite a bit of my Sex life to Star Trek. I met my first serious girlfriend at a costume party where I went in a full TNG science officer uniform, I lost my virginity explaining the TNG episode "the Inner Light" and my future wife and mother of my children I had met when I made up the excuse that I was asked to look at the Star Trek Pinball machine at the arcade I worked at to get a glimpse of the new girl. She was pretty hot, and while she seemed uninterested that day the next we had to work together and it was a different story, we have been together ever since, and have our first daughter (Arya Lucia Herbert), and we have as a family been to trekfest, as Captain Kirk's birthplace is about an hour south of us.

So that's me a geek, an Iconoclast, a gamer (actual gamer, not "I play xbox so I am such the gamer" Gamer but real, spent weeks working on modules, painting armies kind, and a husband and parent. and when I am not doing that I Nerd Rage, but you guys already know about that...

So let's look at a few more. SECRET ORIGINS OF THE LEAGUE OF EXTRODINARY BLOGGERS!!!

Monster Cafe
Jathniel
The Goodwill Geek
Geekshow Ink
the Holidaze
Erik Johnson
Pop Rewind
The Trashman




8 comments:

  1. With the shade in that photo you look more like Sinestro-Batman. Which gives me chills of awesome just saying it.

    What a coincidence, "The Five Doctors" was my first exposure to "Doctor Who" as well. I remember my Dad, who have had grown up with Tom Baker's Doctor on PBS, begged a neighbor who was taking a trip to the UK to bring back some episodes on tape so that my brother and I could be properly educated about this sci-fi staple.

    You've got my sympathy for the taunting you received for addressing adults as "Sir" and "Ma'am". I had a similar upbringing (probably a side effect of my mother being a teacher) but I took flack for it even in college were I got asked why I "talked so different". It also didn't help that there was one professor who wanted us to call him by his name, but I just couldn't break the habit until years after graduating when he friended me on Facebook. I guess I could be casual when I didn't have to look him in the eye.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. BTW kind of off this subject, but I would love your input on this- http://nrmachine.blogspot.com/2013/09/my-comic-book-dream.html

      Delete
  2. Thanks Erik, I can understand I stopped doing the Sir/Ma'am in middle school thankfully but still it was a hard habit to break, especially when it was beat into you. This is one of the many reasons I refuse to set foot back in Louisiana.

    ReplyDelete
  3. As an army brat I moved around a bunch as a kid and honestly think that's the best sort of upbringing a child can have. You get exposed to so many different cultures and people, it tends to make you more interesting and tolerant of others. Great writeup!

    ReplyDelete
  4. You make me wish I was a Trekkie, sir. Excellent post! Great to hear your story.

    ReplyDelete
  5. My first stop here on your blog, great posts! Congrats on the new kiddo, my first is on his way as well.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for the kind words Cody, and congrats on your first kid, tehy really do change your life. (Not always for the better, but mostly)

      Delete