My life is an episode of "The Big Bang Theory"

I've known this for a while now. Since moving to Redmond, my life has officially become an episode of the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory. This is most probably related to the people I associate with (mostly people from Microsoft), and their very peculiar quirky personalities.

I don't consider myself a nerd or a geek or whatever. My friends from college don't consider me that either (which might explain our own common level of geekness). It seems however that Microsoft is a geek magnet - at least in my experience.

I had the following conversation with a coworker over IM:
Me: <url to something funny about topic X in which both my coworker and I are involved>
Coworker: Hi - whats that?
Me: hi - it's an xkcd strip about <X>
Coworker: ok...and this is regarding?
Me: I thought you would find it amusing
Coworker: Sorry but I am not getting the context
you wanted to chat with me or some one else?

Morale of the story: Comfortable social interactions are a highly treasured and rare commodity in my world.

Growing up, I played a couple of video games from the Final Fantasy franchise, namely FF4 and FF Mystic Quest (which I did enjoy quite a lot, despite the general consensus being that was pretty much the worst game ever). I used to play for hours uncountable. When some of my new friends told me that there was going to be a Final Fantasy concert in town, I just stood there with a blank stare. I did not get it. Final Fantasy is a series of video games. Now, these games might have had some great soundtracks, I frankly don't have any recollection of them whatsoever. In any event, the following ideas just didn't make sense in my mind:

• People care about a video game this much


• People care enough that the production company hires a full symphonic orchestra to play this game's music


• That they expect enough people to fill up Benaroya Hall


• That the Benaroya Hall actually was filled with FF music fans

I don't know if it's how my brain is wired or what. This just doesn't make sense to me. Soundtracks are kind of a watered-down version of "the real thing". They are supposed to help carry a story forward, but somehow are not "worthy" to stand in their own right as independent works of art. Well, it seems these people think they can and do.