It’s been really hot all over the country and southern California is no exception. Here in the Golden State we’ve had 10 straight days of triple-digit temperatures. While that’s nothing compared to places like Texas, it has been really hot. There should be some relief coming in the next few days but, until then, here are some nerdy ways to keep cool.
Hoth Fan Fiction
What better way to stay cool than to transport yourself to another place, especially when that other place is an ice planet? Our brains are extremely powerful and while we can’t lower the temperature of our bodies with our thoughts, we can take our minds off the heat by focusing on something else. The only problem with writing fan fiction about Hoth is that there wasn’t a lot going on. Before the Rebellion made it their home, there were just some wampa running around hunting and eating whatever they could find. I always assumed that the wampa naturally hunted tauntauns but maybe tauntauns weren’t indigenous to Hoth (I just checked Wookiepedia and tauntauns were indigenous to Hoth). Either way, a story about a wild animal hunting another wild animal wouldn’t be that exciting or sexy, two seemingly necessary aspects to successful fan fiction.
Video Game Store
I spent a year and a half working at Eb Games before Gamestop bought them out. It wasn’t a terrible job and I got to talk about video games a lot. Whenever the heat would rise, though, our store traffic would rise as well. People were more than happy to come into our store, play the demo systems and enjoy the free air conditioning. We saw a lot of nerds come through the store and a lot of them were socially awkward and not much for conversation. Some of our customers were great, though, and we enjoyed having conversations with them about games and other nerdclinations. So as long as you’re not awkward and only want to talk about your clan’s plans for WOW, go strike up a conversation in your local video game store and enjoy the wonder of central air.
Pool
One of the best ways to cool down is by taking a dip in the local pool. For some nerds this can be done in the safety of their own backyards but, for others nerds, this must be done in a community pool. And since they spend most of their time playing video games and reading comics, most nerds’ bodies aren’t pool ready. Instead of the ripped characters in their video games and comics, most nerds look like Jack Skellington or a smaller, less slimy Jabba the Hutt. I am and was no different so swimming in public always involved a t-shirt to go along with my swimming trunks. Thankfully I’ve grown beyond that, though, as every nerd should. Who cares if we don’t have the chiseled abs of Cyclops or the rippling muscles of Zangief? It’s hot and even pasty, husky nerds need to cool down.
In church this weekend our worship pastor said that God is good even when it’s blisteringly hot outside. I firmly believe God is good in 105-degree weather but he might be a little bit better in 80-degree weather. And until God is a little bit better, we need to beat this heat any way we can.
How do you keep cool?
I got a/c!