Many of us have spent some time gathering patches. And selling cookies. And racing derby cars.

So why wouldn’t we (after our days as boys and girl scouts) try to gather another set of patches?

A few nerds over at NerdMeritBadges.com must have watched “Troop Beverly Hills” a few extra times in order to come to the following conclusion: Let’s make some patches to showcase your nerd-dom. Take for example “ Family Tech Support,” we’ve all been there. Basically, you buy patches as you “earn” them. But this time, they’re real. As in not digital. ($5.99 per patch)

What’s next? How about buying a velcro sash for your laptop and earning some real-life versions of the Foursquare badges you’ve been showing off online?

Follow these badgemakers on twitter @nerdmeritbadges.

If you caught the season opener of (my personal favorite show) Gossip Girl, then I’m assuming you’re just as obsessed with the clothes as I am. However, finding the clothes is a bit more challenging. Who says we can’t add a little gossip into our lives too?

Blair Waldorf on Gossip Girl

Thankfully, in my long-term Internet quest to find some answers, I came across Polyvore. It’s a site that allows us normal people to create “fashion mashups,” which link to where one can purchase items online. (I have no idea where the name came from).

According to Wired, the site’s creator, Pasha Sadri, was also the creator of Yahoo Pipes (an interactive feed aggregator and manipulator.)

The graphic to the left contains a few of the newest outfits from Gossip Girl, including blair’s marc jacobs white dress that seems to be sold out everywhere.Or her green Milly dress (really cute).

But don’t be fooled- the site is more scalable than just to provide an outlet for the fashion hungry (but not much, I just didn’t want to sound too shallow…)

It’s flexible enough to create interior design and home layouts too. For example, say you’re moving into a new dorm room or apartment and want to make a mock layout of what it might look like. Not a bad idea if you need to make a “proposal” to your parents for funding.

If you’re interested, don’t forget about Polyvore’s blog.

Too bad a pretty picture of fabulous outfits won’t get me a date with Gossip Girl’s Lord Marcus Beaton. sigh.