Infectious Geekery

Not long ago my friend Martin discovered (to his glee) that a Battlestar Galactica board game existed. He emailed a few friends, asking if they'd be interested in playing. I was one of those friends, we all agreed to do so. To be fair though, we're all physicists, as a collective being geeky is one of our favourite pass-times.

Last Saturday they played the first two rounds. I did not partake, not because it was a Saturday night and I'm too cool, but because I was at a friend's engagement party (being told that as a physicist I was unemployable. Go figure). An engagement party is something I didn't feel that I could miss, but I was slightly jealous about not playing.

Last night Martin sent me a text, asking if I was free to play. He said he was going to invite the same crowd as previously. I accepted - but I was the only one. With only me, Martin and his flat mate Steve, there would not be enough of us. Who else could we possibly ask?

My flat mates. Obviously.

Gav is a massive BSG fan, he discovered the series well before I did, but I'd like to think that he's been getting increasingly geeky in the time we've known each other.

Harry is a moderate BSG fan, and was a closet geek. He's now out in the open, revelling in the statistics class he's been taking this year (probably the first maths he's done since 2006), playing video games, watching sci-fi, etc, etc.

Archie... Well, Archie was out at the cinema with friends. He's not quite the anti-geek, but compared with the crowd we're talking about here, he may as well be. I guess he sometimes watches Dr Who.

So, we trotted off, beers in hand, to play the nerdiest board game I have ever seen. We were well behaved, and quit at midnight. All agreed it was a good game, none ruled out the possibility of playing again.

For physicists this is normal. Gavin is a film student. Harry does medicine. They should, if playing to their stereotypes, both be out getting wasted every night. I probably can't claim the credit for them not being dreadful individuals, but I would like to consider the possibility that geekiness is infectious.

Hell, Archie's managed to catch almost everything else - maybe he'll catch this too eventually.