Definining geekitude

I’m in a rather odd position tonight. I don’t have to go to work tomorrow. This probably puts me in the same position as most people but honestly, this is the first time that I’ve gotten Martin Luther King day off from work or school since I was in high school. I’m not kidding, it’s taken me numerous employers and universities to finally have this day off. The weird thing is, I have no idea how to handle a three day weekend in January. I mean, should I go out on a Sunday night? Take the time to relax and regroup? I’m at a loss here.

(Oh, it also doesn’t help that it is sixty degrees out here right now. For those of you who question the existence of global warming, it is not supposed to be sixty degrees in the middle of January. Heck, it was nice weather for the Bears game, which completely ruined the Bears chances. The entire point of having the Bears host a playoff game in January is that there should be a below zero wind chill and only the Chicago players and fans are tough enough to survive it for four hours. It was a balmy forty degrees out there. Damn you greenhouse gases, you’re costing me a playoff victory.)

I’m a little light on ideas right now so I’ll share something that I emailed out to a few people already. The new season of Beauty and the Geek has started and I am once again amazed that I missed the casting call. (Side note: the headline to the Pitch this week is “Fear this Geek” and I swear that my first reaction was, “Finally my blog is getting some publicity.”) But looking at the profiles of the geeks I really feel that I have some of them beat in the geek department.

I mean, one of them is a neurobiologist. That just means that he went through a lot of schooling, it doesn’t make him a geek. The guy who listed his occupation as “Dungeon Master” now that guy fully qualifies on the geek scale. Any guy in his mid-twenties who still runs and organizes weekly games of Dungeons and Dragons is frightening. Even I didn’t do that (we at least decided to just play once a month). And there is one contestant who I can’t figure out if he is the King Geek or actually really, really cool.

See, for his job he is working on creating a laser tracking system able to locate and track a moving human target. Since it is expensive to hire people to run around for hours a day he has found a lower cost alternative. He tracks monkeys. Yes, his job is to track monkeys with laser beams. I have to say that my first reaction to that is, “Man, that is so awesome.” Come on, you’re tracking monkeys with friggin laser beams. That’s not being a geek, that is basing your life on the plot of Real Genius. And anyone who follows in the steps of Val Kilmer just has to be cool.

The five random CDs of the week
1) Carbon Leaf “Indian Summer”
2) Liz Phair “Whip-Smart”
3) Wilco “AM”
4) Cathy Richardson “Moon, Not Banana”
5) Various Artists “Celtic Twilight 2”