This is me (left) with comedian, writer, podcaster and King of all Nerds, Chris Hardwick, at a reading and signing of “The Nerdist Way” at Powell’s Books in Portland, Oregon [Click to Enlarge]
My name is Matt Jacobs, but I go by AlloyMatt on the internets. I have been blogging and podcasting since 2009 and recently started delving into vlogging. I am a proud nerd that is happily married to a not as proud nerd. My beard is awesome! I am the Table Top Titan and Science Correspondent here at Nerd Titan! I will be bringing you weekly reviews of table top games and “Sci-Fri” (Science Friday; I know, #TitleWin!) posts.
Table Top Titan: I am a huge fan of table top games and prefer them over video games, although I LOVE the Portal series. I have a little group of friends that gets together every week to game and nerd out on stuff. I have a pretty decent collection of games, know several game developers and even have a game in development myself. I find out about a lot of stuff while it is still in the Kickstarter/IndieGoGo phase of development, which I love because I can get in on the ground floor of some amazing games. My top 10 table top games (in varying order) are:
Ticket to Ride- Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer
- Cards Against Humanity
- Munchkin
- Settelers of Catan
- Ruse
- Zombie Dice
- Elder Sign
- Kaiju City
- We Didn’t Playtest This
“Sci-Fri”; Science Friday: My sciencey type stuff tends to orbit around space related things (pun, unfortunately, intended) but I sometimes delve into other things that might be trending in pop culture and such, like zombies and doomsday theories. I am, by no means, a scientist. I am a science hobbyist, however, and a nerd to boot (surprise). What this means is that I will find out about a thing that interests me and research it exhaustively via the interweb. I comb through wiki, for a general idea of the thing and then spend hours fact checking that stuff. Believe it or not, not everything on Wikipedia is entirely accurate. #LeGasp! I then take that information and post it on my blog (or here) for other people to read and enjoy. To me, that sounds a lot like what people do in classes. I like to think of it as getting an internetucation. My first “Sci-Fri” post this coming Friday will be meant to show you some amazing podcasts and webshows that I subscribe to for some of the sciencey type stuff that I love.
Nerd Cred: I know that some nerds demand that other nerds prove their nerd credibility, so here you go.
I’m not sure if anyone but me knows of the existence of a part live action, part animated movie called ‘The Phantom Toll Booth”, but I believe that movie is the origin of my nerdiness. It came out in the 70′s and I first saw it when I was ~8 years-old. It taught me about the Fibonacci Series and I still use my memory of that movie to remind me the difference between “whether” and “weather”. I was heartbroken when I recently started searching for the movie and couldn’t find it on DVD or for download anywhere. I did manage to find it on YouTube, however, and was pumped! I have been a Star Trek: TNG fan since it was originally airing back in my youth. It started when I was ~9 years old and got the chicken pox. I stayed home from school for a week and watched ST:TNG episodes on TV and was hooked! When I was ~10 years-old, I found my dad’s stash of horror/suspense comic books and became enthralled by them. I still read comics today and still have many of those “Twilight Zone” and “Boris Karloff: Tales of Mystery” comics that belonged to my dad. These days, I am a huge fan of Doctor Who, Sherlock and pretty much anything Chris Hardwick does. I have an unhealthy obsession with Twitter, so that is where I spend a lot of time. I also happen to be an Apple fanboy, so feel free to hate me for that, should you choose. I have a regular game group and really love writing!
I will be backposting a bunch of stuff that I wrote for the “Legit Low-Tech’ segment of Nerd Titan’s previous incarnation, CoinOpKids, over the next week or so (it really is a lot), so stay tuned for that stuff coming in the near future. Once all of the stuff has been backposted, I will put up a post with links to all the table top related stuff, and a separate post for all the science related stuff. That will give those interested a place to start exploring our back log. I have some amazing stuff planned for the future and hope you enjoy it!
