Who is the geekiest of them all?
BM calls yesternight to have a chat.
BM: So how's married life treating you?
Me: Nothing's changed.
BM: People are asking me whats news from the married woman. What am I supposed to say?
Me: I don't know. That I am 3 months pregnant?
BM: Oh shut up. You must be doing something different, something interesting.
Me: Nothing different. I am doing a lot of interesting stuff though. But that I always did na.
BM: Okay dudette, its high time we had a chat about the stuff you do or rather, the stuff you put up on blog.
Me: What?
BM: Remember this. I said nothing when you were killing hamsters for a living and working on Matrix-type Excel workbooks.
Me: I did NOT kill hamsters for a living. I was forecasting sales for a life-saving drug.
BM: Same thing. Isn't the drug made from hamsters? Anyways, thats besides the point.
Me: So what is the point?
BM: And remember this too. I kept quiet throughout your Tolkien phase.
Me: My what phase?
BM: Tolkien phase. Maybe you forgot the time in college when you used to talk to everyone in the language that Tolkien invented. Some of us still remember.
Me: Okay, whatever.
BM: But atleast you didn't write in that language and put it on your blog.
Me: So what did I do now?
BM: Indian Railways. You did a post on Indian Railways!
Me: So?
BM: Don't you get it? There are only two kinds of people who write about Indian Railways!
Me: Please do enlighten me on these two types of people.
BM: Type A - the retired government servant who sits in the verandah of his house doing Hindu crosswords and keeps writing letters to the Editor. If he had a blog, he would write about Indian Railways.
Me: Thats not bad actually. I could sit in the verandah and solve Hindu crosswords for the rest of my life. It sounds pretty cool dudette.
BM: But you, my dear, are not a retired government servant. So that leaves Type B.
Me: Which is?
BM: Do I have to say it? The only other people I know who read Indian Railways timetables are my Dad and Bill.
Me: So?
BM: Don't you see? My Dad and Bill!
Me: What about them?
BM: They are both certified Geeks. That's what's common. You know what people call them? Geek Gods!
Me: Mmm. Now if only Bill was a Greek God, I would be happier. But then, only Linus has the distinction of being both a Geek God and a Greek God.
BM: See, see, you come up with absolutely useless trivia. Who cares if there's a Greek God called Linus?
Me: Dudette, what's your point?
BM: Here, let me spell it out. You are a G-E-E-K. End of story.
Me: Balderdash. Scores of people write about Indian Railways. Thay are not geeks.
BM: Oh yeah? Show me one.
Me: There's this Ludwig guy for one.
BM: Yeah? And how exactly do you know he is not a geek?
Me: Maybe I don't. But that's besides the point. All I know is I am not a geek. I don't know anything about gadgets. So there.
BM: There are different kinds of geeks, you know.
Me: Oh yeah? Are you doing a PhD on the types of geeks or what?
BM: No dudette. I just want to help you here. And tell you that even if you like reading railway timetables, it might be better not to put it on your blog.
Me: No one thinks I am geek because of this post okay?
BM: Oh really?
Me: Yeah and I think now I have figured this out. This is not about me, its about you. You are the geek and you are trying to convince yourself that you are not. So you are making me a geek.
BM: What?
Me: Yeah, you are the uncool one. The geeky one. I don't worship the land Linus walks on. Neither do I spend my mornings reading everything on Slashdot.
BM: Yeah right. So you are all this cool, non-geek now.
Me: Ofcourse I am.
And so it went. And what did you think night time minutes were for?
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7 comments:
:O Ludovicious is a geek? Sachem say, "BM speak with forked tongue." [Ludwig say to Sachem, "Well BM is a black mamba, y'know...". Sachem buries hatchet. In Ludwig's neck.]
Nevertheless, BM may be right. Does Veena know what each of the letters that you see on IR engines (WAG, WDM, WAM, WAP, YDM etc.) stand for? Ludwig thinks not. Yet, Ludwig does. Ludwig = Geek.
quite easily done
Veena: Tch, tch, such denial. Be not afraid of your geekiness, but rather embrace it (in a blatant act of self-promotion, let me point you to http://2x3x7.blogspot.com/2005/07/geek-pride.html, where I address a similar attempt by a mutual friend to pretend that she's not a geek)
BM: And there isn't one language that Tolkien invented, there are several. Presumably you speak of Quenya, that noblest of tongues, language of the Deep Elves, the Noldor. Lacho calad! Drego morn!
Ludwig: Hmm..Ludwig knows what WAG, WDM, WAM, WAP, YDM stand for. So Ludwig = transportation engineer? Maybe. Not sure if you can make a Ludwig = Geek conclusion from that.
Not that you need to prove your geekiness around here!
Falstaff: Geek pride! Since VIBGYOR is taken what flag shall we have? You know what? Don't bother to answer that - I will be sorry I asked. :)
Three things.
a. As an innocent soul, who is surrounded by geeks 24x7 [1], I try my best to keep my associations in the outside world, as non-geeky, as possible. Is that too much to ask? Why do you have move to the dark side, too?
b. Speaking of Tolkien, I think he is a pretty cool chap. But the fans, they are a breed apart.
I have colleagues who got pirated chinese versions of the LoTR on they machines approximately a month before the movie was out in the theatres.
They reread the books (yes, including -The Hobbit) a week before the whole s/w dept was taken on a group "outting" to watch the movie [2]! And we are talking of, outwardly normal looking people with a significant other, 2.5 kids, a dog and a picket fence (around their million dollar home).
And after all this, they watched the extended versions for all three movies, back-to-back, the IMAX versions at the Metreon!
c. I have been surrounded by geeks, since I was born. Being surrounded by a thousand geeks, all day long. It has left me scarred for life. I had such a deprived childhood, I thought the coolest people in the world were cosmonauts, and a close second were architects.
Just when I was beginning to believe, I had left that all behind... you turn geeky - Et tu, Veena? Isn't it enough, that I find myself, on sleepless nights, wondering, why I am attracted to Feynman and Torvalds, rather than, Ayrton Senna. Do I need to be tortured more?
[1] Ah! falstaffian numbered footnotes, that too, in a comment. ;)
But, I digress.
I live in the silicon valley. A place, where a conversation with X who asked you to dance, would go,
X: "hi, what do you do?"
BM: "hmm,.. I am a programmer.."
X: "me too! application/systems?"
BM: "I write drivers..."
(did I come here for this... atleast he is a good dancer...)
X: "cool, which OS? Symbian? You know I spent the whole day debugging this problem
where this LED would never go off. Finally, I had to traced the whole thing back
to the bug in the microcode....yada yada..."
BM: (aaargh... save me, dear god...save me...wish this was Jerusalem, I could have alteast hoped for a suicide bomber...hope)
[2] Can you believe, I work at a place, where they actually encourage such behaviour. The other movie they "took" us to, was AVP. For the non-geeky readers (which I presume, there is atleast one) - AVP stands for Alien vs. Predator...cringe..
and veena, just so you know. I don't read /. anymore. why, you ask? That is material for a post. ;)
BM: But you don't spend sleepless nights thinking abt why you are attracted to Feynman and Torvalds rather than lets say, Gael Garcia Bernal. Because you are indeed very much attracted to Mr Bernal! See you still have some non-geekiness left in you.
Aryton Senna? Did you say Aryton Senna? You had to think that far back kya?
> So Ludwig = transportation engineer?
Gott in Himmel!! You've actually gotten my M.S. specialization right, y'know?
[leaves, shaking head in disbelief]
why am I the only one here who doesn't get what the whole post was about but still finds it funny enough.
[1] So funny in fact, i chrtled and choked on my own laughter
[2] colleagues here, though used to my manic laughter, suddenly look at me with fear and morbid curiosity. My laughter rocks.
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