When worlds coll....er, stay at the same hotel.

This weekend is going to be most interesting. With WorldCon and The Sox important series with Texas at Fenway this weekend, the two loves of my life, other than my family, will be a mere 1/4 mile away from each other. As I will not be attending any games while I'm at the Hynes (I would if there were any tickets available), I'll try to catch the games when I can and see fans walk by the Hynes before and after the game. I'm gonna have a blast at Noreascon, seeing the fans walk to Fenway without me will be bittersweet to say the least.

Usually, the visiting players to Fenway stay at the Sheraton, the main hotel for the con. It would be an interesting thing to see Kenny Rogers or Alfonso Soriano watch people dressed as Klingons or Elves walk through the lobby.

Now as a fan of both sports and conventions and fandom, I always get a kick out of the general opinion of most that it's ok for sports fans to wear player jerseys, paint your face in team colors or make your naked beer belly into a billboard in 30 degree weather when they go to a sporting event, but if you are a Star Trek fan going to a convention dressed in a Starfleet uniform, you're a geek that lives in his/her parents basement.

Of course we all know that there are examples of extremes in both (unmarried sport fans living in basements and SF fans that are extremely well off and excel in everything they do), but I have always found that sports fans and science fiction fans have a whole lot in common, although alot of them won't admit it...especially the sports fans.

Both collect memorabilia. Both attend conventions to meet famous people and get autographs, (most of the time actually paying for that privilege), buy memorabilia and meet people that share the same interest. But somehow being a sports fan is way cooler than being a SF fan, so one can have a signed baseball or even a Pedro Martinez action figure on your desk at work, hang a WEEI "K" card on the wall of your cubicle, but bring in any a Captain Kirk action figure and put up a "Frodo Lives" poster, you're labeled a geek and sometimes thought of as "peculiar". Sports fans can get a DVDs like Three Games to Glory where fans are shown as devoted, sincere people while SF fans get Trekkies and Trekkies 2, where fans are shown in a more, um, humorous light.

All people have an inner jock and an inner geek, but let's face it.....most people are willing to show their inner jock. How else can you explain why people pay extreme amounts of money for sporting events and replica jerseys. While there are people out there that blow alot of money on conventions and memorabilia, but last time I checked the NFL and Mitchell & Ness bring in a lot more money than Creation and The Danbury Mint.

That being said, alot of people do show there inner geek in other ways. Science Fiction and Fantasy are still the most popular movies out there. 3 of the 5 Hugo nominees this year each made more than $300 million at the box office and one of them is the largest selling DVD of all time. 3 times more people went to see Spiderman 2 on the 4th of July than either going to a baseball game or watching one on TV combined. They might not be buying the toys, but they are buying the tickets.

But again people will show the jock over the geek. That's just the way things are. On my desk at The Gulag I have the foul ball I caught at fenway years ago right next to my SpongeBob Squarepants Burger King toys. (They look at the toys a little funny, but sometime they play with them, too.)

But at least I don't go overboard like some people do here.......like the person with the 5 foot Tom Brady poster or the guy with a toy Stanley Cup on his desk.

Geez, guys, get a life.