Most cultural classification systems to which I’ve been privy would probably qualify me as a member of the nerd family.

For a living, I program computers. I use a dozen or so made-up, unspeakable (well, except for Ruby) languages to write stories that tell electricity how to flow across networks, through processors and from one magnetic point to another. Because I work in advertising, the last page of each of these fairy tales is (hopefully) a swarm of consumers choosing one breakfast cereal or male body spray over another.

I also dress poorly, by most non-nerd standards. No, I’m not fat. Nor am I especially thin. My clothes aren’t dirty. But aside from those clichés, I have an Aspbergers-like lack of comprehension of fashion. My ideal outfit is a plain black t-shirt, slim jeans, and the least-memorable sneakers available. On its own, my fashion sense doesn’t make me sound especially nerdy – just boring. It’s more than the choices, though – it’s the driver behind them. I dress myself by way of negation. I imagine everyone I see in a typical day, and I reduce and reduce by eliminating anything that stands out from one person to the next. Dressing seems to be, for me, a passive act of nihilism.

In fact, I am downright angered by the ironic trendwhores and hypebeasts and whatever other terms you want to use for idiots who spend good money on overpriced haircuts and clothing in order to eschew sincerity. It drives me wild. And yes, somehow I still manage to live in Greenpoint. But I digress…

What else makes me a nerd? Hrm. We have computers, we have lack of fashion passion.

Growing up, I was in gifted classes from second grade on. I competed in Olympics of the Mind (later Odyssey of the Mind due to a litigious IOC) and usually won on the conceptual events and never on the performance-based events. Yeah, that’s right: I was the kid with stage fright AT THE NERD OLYMPICS.

Other nerdlies:

• One of my better friends releases software under the name Bytes of Spring and I will never, ever stop chuckling proudly about that fact.

• I have a brass bell on my bike. Ding-a-ling.

• I have Robert Frost poetry tattooed on my arms.

• I’ve never danced, and, in fact, can’t watch people dance without burying my head in a pillow for shame.

Pretty nerdy stuff.

Non-Nerd by Omission

The subject of this post, really, is about the things that make me a bad nerd. The truth is, I have very few items on any of the requisite cultural consumption lists: the nerd list, the indy list, the political conscience list. In my younger days, I might have obscured this fact in order to seem cooler. You know – the way you grimace dismissively when someone mentions a band you don’t know, implying something along the lines of, “Meh.” but really meaning, “Meh. I don’t even know what that is, but all ‘Mehs’ are the same to you, ya idiot.”

Well, I’m gonna fess up. Slightly. It would take forever to list the consumables I’ve not yet consumed. The meat is here. The exposed truth of the matter. The details are unimportant.

So let’s have a list, yeah?

Missing from the Geek Checklist

• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• Gremlins
• ET before the re-release in 2002(ish)
• Anything Star Trek
• Any Star Wars OTHER than Episode 1, which I saw in a theater a few years ago
• Most every video game ever made. I love games, but am non-committal. I own last-gen systems and like one game for each.
• Commodore 64 and other classic computer systems. I began “doing computers” in like 1997. What can I say? I was a poor kid growing up…
• Thinking 9/11 was a government conspiracy
• Like the item above, visiting digg.com
• Using Quicksilver for the Mac
• Ever liking They Might Be Giants
• Buying stuff from ThinkGeek
• Being a fanboy of any type
• Going to a LAN party
• Reading a graphic novel
• Collecting anything at all
• Playing any MMORPG, any RPG, or Zelda
• Reading Douglas Adams, Tolkien, Vonnegut, or Heinlein
• Ever seeing an episode of Dr. Who
• Being able to quote any Monty Python (movie, show, book, actor)
• Ever seeing an episode of Freaks and Geeks
• So very, very, very many more.

The Road to Recovery

I received Freaks and Geeks, Season 1, disc 1 in the mail recently from Netflix. I can’t stop reliving every moment of all three of the episodes I’ve seen thus far. I can’t believe how awesomely funny and perfectly tuned that show was. Freaks and Geeks has joined The Wire and Dexter in my Best Stuff Ever on TV list.

I’m inspired, folks.

I’m gonna watch the rest of Freaks and Geeks. When I’m done I’m gonna start exploring some of the other omissions. Maybe I’ve found the tip of an iceberg here.

This must be what it feels like to get sucked into a cult, like Scientology or Reagan Republicanism.

It feels mighty fine.