Today, I am a Geek

It is a Wednesday afternoon - hot and unpleasant - here in Cleveland, Ohio. My office is a sauna, I have a mountain of work to do and I am, despite what I have to do, terribly bored. My friend and I have spent a good deal of the afternoon instant messaging each other links to webistes regarding Lord of the Rings. Stop here for a moment to assure yourselves that I am no L.O.T.R. fanatic - I read the evil books and I saw the very pleasant and engaging movies. My fascination comes from the crazy people out there who have dedicated their lives to Tolkien, hobbits and all the related nonsense. We today found a page of haikus dedicated to L.O.T.R. This got me thinking...... I am in constant search of more time in my life. More time for the things I love to do and, believe me, my list is long and varied. I really haven't the right to sit here and be sanctimonious about people who are so enthralled by Tolkien, etc. that they would create webpages such as: http://quizilla.com/users/Tinuviel/quizzes/LOTR%20-%20Which%20Helm's%20deep%20Soldier%20are%20you%3F/
http://www.jackflannel.org/lotr/

I get just as obsessed and into things and in some strange, strange way I almost admire them their dedication and conviction. So, rather than feeling catty and superior to them, I figured, let's give it a whirl. Here's my haiku: first light on fifth day Gandalf coming; fear no more Helm's deep safe again

Not too bad, huh?

I like geeks. I am, I think, proudly one of their numbers. We were talking about STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION today at lunch. Again, I need to unequivocally state, I am no Star Trek fan. I have friends who are enthralled by this program (not to mention a colleague of mine who had dedicated his entire office with T.N.G. ephemera....) and because I genuinely like to know what the hell people are talking about, I have seen many of the episodes. As much as I laughed about the devotees and their never ending fascinating with what, at best, is a badly acted and poorly produced science fiction series, I realized I am no different. I adore the Harry Potter series, both books and films. Although I find Tolkien as an author UNBEARABLE, the movies, as stated, were fun, engaging and worth the price of the ticket and I secretly enjoying talking to L.O.T.R. fanatics about the movies----and I like to listen to computer geeks wax poetic about hard drives and bytes and the like even though I have no idea what they are talking about. I work at a place that deals with a highly defined speciality and even though I don't share my colleagues passion or interest for the subject, I love to hear them talk about it because they are so incredibly into it.

This is my friend, Rachel, who has been Instant Messaging me. She'll back me up on my ultimate point which is...

Geeks are interesting people who really care about things.

So, today, let's hear it for the Geeks. Geeks of yesterday, today and tomorrow.