Entering a New Dimension of Nerd

If this life is actually a metaphysical series of transformations from average joe to supreme nerd and there are certain checkpoints you have to reach along the way, I think I just reached one of the milestones.

For a while now I've been pretty far along on my way to nerdiness, although probably not quite at the halfway mark yet. I get nerd points for activities like regularly checking xkcd.com and reading the dictionary for fun, but I get points subtracted for buying new clothes at the mall and playing the guitar. I'll get there someday.

Anyway, I also recently became a member of YouTube and saw how easy it is for people to get famous these days simply by publicly showcasing a three-minute clip of their talent. Some of my favorites include a guy who simultaneously plays the Inspector Gadget theme song on his flute and beatboxes, and a high-quality animated short entitled Charlie the Unicorn. It got me scratching my head wondering if I have a talent I could get famous for on YouTube. What am I better at than everyone else? And then it hit me. I have the best Minesweeper scores of anyone I know. This skill has developed as my mouse inevitably drifts to the Minesweeper icon on my "games" menu every time I have writer's block. (Hey, don't knock it... J.K. Rowling does it too.)

Unfortunately, upon a quick perusal of minesweeper videos already posted, I found that I am not actually the best minesweeper-sweeper in the world (although my scores are not super far off, I'm proud to say.) However, I was excited to find this video by meganerd Mark Erickson on how to unlock a hidden Minesweeper mode. I tell you, he is a nerd master. It takes skill sometimes to distinguish between a true nerd and a pseudo-nerd but I was tipped off by several hate-comments under his video of people screaming "Nerd!" Hacks Microsoft games and is unpopular? A true nerd indeed.

So did watching this video result in several hours of renewed Minesweeper entertainment in Wraparound mode? Umm.... no. I'm ashamed to say that it didn't work on my computer, and I don't quite have the smarts to figure out why. Perhaps I was tricked into erasing all my high scores. But the point is that I actually tried to hack a computer game, which I'd never done before, unless you count using a cheat to get past a level in Donkey Kong Country. That makes me one step closer to master nerdiness, right?

Indubitably.