The Geek Must Speak!

Let's spice things up a bit for this Fact, shall we? How about we get a little bit more intimate this time around. I would like to talk to you about a Fact that is more personal, yet strangely entertaining: My Geek Self.

I can already hear your goosebumps tingling with excitement! I know mine are.

For the vast, VAST, majority of my life I have been a geek. Not a full fledged homogenized geek to where I sleep with a lightsaber at night, but a well maintained and balanced geek. A rare breed that is able to sustain a semi-normal life, yet embrace the utter joy and bliss that is the world of the geek without being utterly consumed by it.

Contradictory? Perhaps. Is it? No.

I consider myself to having the staple geek credentials/material objects, like having an UNGODLY amount of books, films, comics, video games and the strangest collection of...paraphernalia adorning my basement, all related to various subjects in the geek realm. I enjoy, dabble, play and roll around in all of my geek things regularly, and enjoy in doing so. It's great stuff.

Being a well-balanced geek isn't easy though. There are temptations, shiny objects, that beckon your name. they call to you and beg you to become part of their brood and become one with them. I have dabbled in some of these temptations, and found that they became more like habits. Some of my geek habits have included:

• Role Playing Games - The bug hit me in Junior High. I hardly played them, but I had a shitload of them.
• Hacking - I used to be an avid to poor computer hacker and spent the majority of my life on my computer learning how not to be a hacker.
• Magic the Gathering, et al - Oh Jesus. I spent hardly any money on it, hardly played it, but somehow I had an assload of these fricking cards. UNFORTUNATELY, there was a crapload of other crappy ass card games coming out at the same that this game came out that I got into for about the length of a week. On a side note I wish this game would just die.
• Tabletop Gaming - You know those tiny little metal figurines of Orcs carrying machine guns that are painted with amazing detail? Well I gave my hand at that and couldn't cut it, as in I couldn't paint.
• Tabletop Gaming Pt. II - They were called heroclix. They were fun. They were addictive. They were expensive.
• Star Trek - I still love Star Trek, but I used to be obsessed with it. A long time ago I went through the methadone clinic for Trekkies and now I can just enjoy Star Trek when I feel like it.
• Star Wars - The less said the better.

To those of you who have never dipped their fingers in the world of geekdom I'm sure this all seems bizarre, fascinating and stupid. But to those of us you who are geeks this doesn't seem like a big deal at all, and you're saying to yourself "What's the big effing deal Bob? Who hasn't painted a miniature future Orc, and cursed George Lucas' name at the same time? I Pwn ur G3k Crdntl5!"

Fair enough, but please allow me to explain further.

The above list are all geek habits that I consider to be ones that push you over the edge. Once you embrace them to the fullest, start to kneel down and worship them and offer sacrificial ken dolls to you can rarely ever recover from their effects. I on the other hand have been very lucky to have dabbled in all of the above deadly addictions, taste their sweet nectar, and then leave them behind like Spock on the Genesis Planet.

As mentioned earlier I consider myself a geek, but a geek that is well balanced and is able to maintain a semi-normal life. I have been able to walk that fine line to where I can keep my geek credentials, yet not fall into that dismal abyss of geekdom that would require me to dress up like Prince Colwyn from Krull on a daily basis, or do something even more drastic like speak Klingon and use it to order six Jr. Bacon Cheeseburgers from Wendy's for my daily life sustaining binge.

So why not give up being a geek completely, curb the habit all the way? Quite simply because I love being a geek! I love all of the crap I have, all of the useless geek knowledge I've acquired and being able to have conversations about what you would do if you had the Infinity Gauntlet. If I got rid of my geek self I would be forced to do things with my spare time like watch college football, or worry about constantly 'pimping my ride'.

No thanks, I'll stick with my useless TRON knowledge. Which is totally applicable to the real world.

So it's a Fact: If I were to give up being a geek in any way, shape or form, my life would be filled with abnormal normality. And we can't have that.

Bonus Fact: I don't speak Klingon.