Geocaching…if you’ve never heard of it, don’t worry, you are undoubtedly in the majority. It is a great treasure hunt activity using portable handheld gps units to find the “treasure” or cache. There are close to 900,000 hidden worldwide, so it is an activity that could potentially take up a good amount of time. I am relatively new to the geocaching scene, so cannot effectively communicate the big picture, but here is a short summary of how things seem to work.

First, and most importantly, you must have a portable gps device, my blackberry does the trick. I downloaded the Blackstar application from the Blackberry app store (for free), and it worked right away and without any problems. Secondly, you must have an account at Geocaching.com (also free). Once you have an account, you can search by zip code and it will list for you the caches in the area. At this point, all you need to do is put the gps coordinates into your gps device and enjoy the hunt! Typically, the gps will get you within ten feet or so of the cache, and the rest is up to your “caching instincts.” The individual caches vary in size and difficulty. This information is available to you on the website when you view the cache and the coordinates. Once you find the cache, just log your find back on the website, and it keeps track of all of your finds for you.

Another fun thing about geocaching is that you can hide your own caches and log them on the website for everyone else to find. If you have a great hiding spot that is close to home, or that you travel past frequently, hide a cache there for everyone to enjoy! Make sure it is somewhere you can visit frequently in case there is a need for maintenance.

One of the best things about geocaching for me is that you go places that you never would have before. I haven’t found many yet, only 14, but I have seen things I never would have seen if it weren’t for geocaching. For example, a great organ donor monument and small park in Columbus. There are also trackable items that you can place in the caches (assuming they are large enough to hold them). By entering the code that is on the trackable item, you can see where it has been, and where it wants to go…hopefully you have the ability to help it along its journey.

My experiences geocaching have been few, but always fun. I am officially “hooked.” Join and add me as a friend, I’d be glad to compare notes.

If you aren’t in the Dr. Horrible’s Sing-A-Long Blog group on Facebook (woe unto ye), you might not have seen the teaser trailer! Get to it at doctorhorrible.net/doctor-horrible-teaser-video/80/. As anticipated, it looks like Joss Whedon continues to be awesome, Nathan Fillion continues to be one of history’s greatest Canadians (how do I say that and make it sound like the compliment it should be?), and Neil Patrick Harris continues to be all kinds of funny.

Have we mentioned the latest rendition of Mario Kart? It’s a reason to own a Wii, and a reason to buy a bunch of little plastic steering wheels like a goober. Far be it from me to complain about graphics, but the graphics turn downright N64-ish in four player split screen… you won’t much mind. You will mind the AI, which Nintendo has again programmed out of the purest hate, and which is another good reason to play games with humans.

And while I’m on the topic of games: Spore. Yes, that superhyped hype machine that Will Wright’s been working on is coming up fast, and the recently released Spore Creature Creator has done something I thought impossible: it made be care about Spore. If the whole huge game is as fun as the creature creator, aeons of the collective time of Earth’s nerd population will be lost to it. Try the Creature Creator free at the EA site I linked above – if you buy the full Creature Creator at Target it comes with a coupon for $5 off Spore itself, which is $5 you’re basically throwing away if you pay the same elsewhere.

Good evening. Welcome to the first edition of an enlightening and likely short-lived feature.

It is vital, dear reader, that you visit http://raptorsafari.com/. Off-Road Velociraptor Safari is a free web-based game that was released today by the folks at Flashbang Studios. The object, as you’ve guessed from the name (if you’re a crazy person), is to speed around in a Jeep, committing vehicular homicide against velociraptors and then hauling their feathered carcasses to extraction points. The story, if we must assume there is one, seems to involve time travel and cannibalism – raptors are described as food, although the driver of your Jeep is himself a velociraptor. Wearing a monocle.

And if you’re not playing by now, I don’t know what else to say. Should you desire to track your progress towards better well-roundedness in relation to my own, aim for my high score of 931,250. And from there, the stars! Eventually Off-Road Velociraptor Safari will be released on Xbox LIVE Arcade, which could be fairly amazing when and if they add multiplayer.

Source: The forums at Penny Arcade, by way of my roommate.

It’s been long enough, I think, since I canceled my World of Warcraft account that I can mock the game without being knocked from my chair by Hypocrisy in some corporeal form.

By any estimation, there are way too many people – somewhere around 9 million active accounts, last I heard – paying monthly subscriptions to play Warcraft for the game to be just a trend. In my case, several friends started playing while we were still in school, and I was glad to join in as soon as I had a job and a broadband connection. The prospect of running around a huge virtual world with the guys, beating the virtual tar out of virtual enemies controlled by lesser nerds the world over, made several months of catch-up seem worthwhile.

And, for a good long time, it was. There’s a lot to Nerdcraft, and we had hours of fun completing quests and picking fights. We’d stumble upon a group of morons tormenting new players, and kick them around until they ran away. We developed quite the skillset for finding the lamest, dirtiest players around, then smashing their faces until they cried and logged off.

The problem came from our lack of virtual dedication: the better your pretend armor and weapons, the tougher your character gets, and when the annoying losers playing the game (it’s a game that attracts more than a few) spend 4-6 hours every day grinding for better gear… most fights are determined by mathematics alone. Um, sure, I’d love to sit at my desk for 30 hours a week clicking 2 buttons a hundred billion times so I could be that awesome. Thing is, I already have a job, so I’ll pass.

I never wanted to play World of Fight This Monster Four Times A Week Until Your Armor All Matches, but unfortunately that’s what the Warcraft developers had in mind for anybody who hangs around more than a few months. I should add that for every complaint my friends and I have about Warcraft it sounds like Warhammer (“Nerdhammer,” to keep the theme consistent?) poses a solution. Until then, if you see one of the Warcraft commercials on TV and think “Wow, that must be the dorkiest thing ever,” ..you’re right!