Summer is a really boring time of the year. There just isn’t anything to do. (pause…) HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA! I just made myself laugh hehe. One would think getting a break from my sports teams, and lessons and what not that run through out the rest of the months would mean that once summer comes I would have loads of time. Yeah, not so much. Outside chores fit the holes all to well, and with all the rain this spring, the lawn needs to be trimmed what seems like daily (and we are not even going to mention the water in the basement). But now as I find myself sitting down to write this and I am staring out at a gorgeous summer day (finally), I have to wonder am I missing the point?

James Cameron’s Avatar, The New Green Lantern Movie, NBC’s Heroes, ABC’s Lost:  heard of them before, haven’t you? Just once or twice?
The fact is unless you are living under a rock, you have heard of them. (But if you do indeed live under a rock,that’s okay too!) All those shows are what I like to refer to as ‘Mainstream Geek’. Okay, you may be wondering “Am I a Geek?” Are there different types of Geeks? Well let’s refer to the gods of Wiki once more, shall we?

"The only things certain in life are death and taxes." – Benjamin Franklin

"Death and taxes may be certain, but we don't have to die every year." – Unknown

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So maybe it’s because tax season has just passed or maybe because I am just finishing what my family has dubbed ‘birthday season’ that I have been thinking a lot about money lately. Add in a couple of small trips, some sport membership dues and my annual renewal of my car plates and I can just hear my Visa card crying out in pain. Then there is my Geekdom. It must be said…it’s expensive to be a Geek.

Recently at a convention in Calgary, I was drawn to the gaming section. It was nice to see a healthy section of games going on, as well as hearing someone mention the gaming convention in Regina (Flatland Fantasy V1). However, I was quickly distracted by something else. There was even a well-timed ‘Holy Crap’ from one of my friends. Yes, we had discovered that there is something called ‘The Settlers of Catan 3D Limited Edition’.  It was a beautiful thing to behold, first all the pieces came in a treasure box. You could easily store it on a bookshelf without it looking tacky. Then there are the hexagons themselves… all carved to reflect the type of land they are. The ore is rocky and resembles are real mine, the wheat looks like any typical ‘Little House on the Prairie’ scene.  The pasture comes with carved sheep and the details on the ‘bricks’ hexagon is truly cool.  I love that the towns and cities really look like miniture towns and cities now and not some monopoly castaways. And the three robbers are very lovable, even when they get in your way. What is not loveable however is the price. The one I saw was listed as being $600. So I checked… I didn’t see any gold or silver embossing, nor did I see anything made out of pewter. It does make sense that this would be an expensive game; it was produced in limited production and the pieces are amazing, but is it worth $600 dollars of amazing,? I am not so sure. But as is the way of conventions, there are always some very cool and excellent things. I didn’t come home with a 3D Catan game, but I also didn’t come home with a Darth Maul lightsaber either. I guess some things are just too rich for this geek’s blood… no matter how cool they are.