Geek Culture
Dallas website Reservoir Geeks keeps things uniquely nerdy
If you're shopping at Ross, you're probably paying more attention to bargains than the background soundtrack. But there's a nerdy website in Dallas that has actually documented the discount chain's top 10 catchiest tunes. (No. 1: Ace of Base's "All That She Wants.")
Called Reservoir Geeks, it's a passion project from founders Andy Carl Valentin and Chris Durbin, who head up a stable of six writers. All have day jobs and contribute to the site in their spare time.
Content-wise, it's a free-for-all and a work in progress, Valentin says.
"We're still getting our footing and figuring out topics to cover," he says. "But we believe that if it's interesting to us, it's interesting to other people."
While the dominant topic is film, posts have ranged from a reverie over the obsolete Apple Newton PDA device to a photo essay of beautiful beaches to a list of the "6 worst people to take to the movies."
They initially launched Reservoir Geeks in 2009, but shelved it in 2010 as they took a break to work on other projects, including an early dabble in the world of podcasts.
"I’d just gotten divorced and Chris just got a house in Burleson," Valentin says. "We were bored so we started a podcast. It was before podcasts really blew up and it was tough to explain to everyone what it was."
If it's not evident by the name of their website, which references the Quentin Tarantino film Reservoir Dogs, the duo has a strong interest in film, which led to their masterminding a fund-raiser in 2011 to help save a Texas landmark.
"We did an event at the motel in Hillsboro used in Wes Anderson's movie Bottle Rocket," Valentin says. "It ended up being really big and we got a lot of notoriety for it. We did the event seven times before deciding to move it to every five years."
In February, the two plan to helm two new podcasts, one focused on pitching ideas for movie remakes. Future hopes and dreams include daily posts and the addition of YouTube videos. The sky's the limit.
