San Francisco’s Nerd Nite

San Francisco’s always been a city of character but especially good characters: interesting, cultured, artistic, educated, talented and plain old smart people.

Try one of these admittedly nerdy (we use that word lovingly at FunCheap)  events and you might run into some of these good people. Plus you won’t break the bank and you can definitely get a drink, a laugh and a good time. It’s academic fun.

Now, if you’re out drinking at one of these events, you have to ask yourself: can you kill brain cells with alcohol and replenish them with mental gymnastics at the same rate?

Nerd Nite SF Like the Discovery Channel… with beer
– Every 3rd Wednesday. Doors at 7:30 pm, Show at 8 pm.
–  $8 admission
– Rickshaw Stop: 155 Fell Street @ Van Ness Avenue.

This one’s spreading like a virus of infectious knowledge. Nerd Nite began is Boston as an “informal gathering at which nerds get together for nerdery of all sorts,” they explain. But there was beer too, so it was cool. Then, the bookworms wiggled their way to New York, Washington DC and Austin, across the sea to Germany and eventually San Francisco. There’s even a short documentary about it which you can find here.

It’s pretty straight forward: there a big room, a projector and nerds with mikes giving somewhat tongue-in-cheek presentations on three topics an evening. Last month, there was talk of “Penguins: The True Chicken of the Sea” and “The Perilous Infirmity of Burning: The History of Neisseria Gonorrhea” that wildly veered from cute to not-so-cute.

Dec 15: Learn to Hack Your Kinect for Xbox 360:
The December 15th event urges people (be it nerds or iPhone-absorbed fashionistas) to give their multi-tasking brains a break, already, and learn how to hack their barely-unwrapped Kinect for Xbox 360. [Facebook event page]

And there’s a ton of people at this thing. Add a full bar to loosen your tongue and you might find the nerd mate you’ve been pining for or make new nerd pals who can plan festivities for National Clean Up You Computer Month, right around the corner in January. Point is, it’s a good place to meet people with half a brain, which is not something you can say about most dive bars.

As they say: be there and be square.

– For more information: Nerd Nite San Francisco