Wishing for a Geek Index

Today is Newsletter Day, which is the crap-crap-crappiest time of the month for me. I get to stitch together our organization's newsletter from about 50 submissions. It'd be dull, dreary work if everyone bothered to follow the formatting rules for submissions (ten point Default Sans font, single-spaced, blah blah blah). Unfortunately, this being the real world, nobody reads the directions and I have to spend hours (literally hours) formatting this junk for the people that send it. I could just throw up my hands and not worry about the formatting, but I'm the kind of guy who notices if there's slightly more space above one line than another, and cares about it on some fundamental level. This makes me both uniquely suited to doing my job, and uniquely suited to being driven crazy by my job. Kinda like how if you want the best, most crazily competitive alpha males flying fighter jets, you can't be too surprised when they buzz the tower.

Yes, I just compared editing my corporate newsletter to flying a $30 million aircraft. It's my blog, and if I want to strain a comparison that much, I can damn well do it.

Anyhow, there are two guarantees on Newsletter Day: one, that I will curse at my computer because, once again, people have failed to follow basic directions. And two, I will spend as much time as possible doing things besides creating the newsletter, only to stay up really late so I can get it done on time. Today's procrastination activities include blogging (hello!) and geeking out over BioShock. Yeah, that's right, I play video games. Not in my mother's basement, thank you very much. I have my own basement.

I wish there was some kind of scale so that I can grade myself on how big of a dork I am. For instance, I have the following geek habits:

• I spend between five and ten hours a week playing video games. I've never played World of Warcraft or any of those, and I've never played online with someone I haven't met in person.


• In that same vein, I read gaming websites and preorder an occasional game. I have never waited in line overnight to buy anything, though.


• I'm obsessive about spelling and grammar to the point where I proofread casual emails to friends.


• I play fantasy football. However, I'm the guy who downs several beers during the draft and makes fun of people who pay money for their fancy charts, as opposed to the guy who spends the whole draft icily silent, plotting his next moves.


• I read a wide range of books including nonfiction, historical fiction and sports memoirs, but I think I might have a nervous breakdown if George RR Martin doesn't finish "A Dance With Dragons" soon.


• I used to be a software engineer, and occasionally (very occasionally) miss writing C++ code.


• I have a blog.

In the interest of a fair and balanced story, the following are also true:

• I'm happily married. Though my wife does occasionally call me a geek.


• I play one sport at a fairly competitive level, and am in pretty good shape.

So, taking all that into account, how big of a dork am I on a scale of one (John Wayne) to ten (Trekkie who loves World of Warcraft)? I'm giving myself a solid seven, and leaving open the possibility that I'll create a full grading system next month on Newsletter Day.

It was as if everyone had swelled

Attended my ten-year high school reunion over the weekend. I have to admit that I was really looking forward to it for very morbid reasons. Namely, I wanted to see all the popular kids lugging enormous beer bellies and screaming kids around. High school was a hard time for me; I grew about two years later than everyone else and was hey-come-over-and-count-my-ribs skinny. I compensated for my puny size by being one of those really arrogant, obnoxious smart kids who tells everyone about their SAT scores. Since graduation, I've grown four inches and filled out fairly well, and matured into one of those really arrogant, obnoxious smart kids who makes fun of people who can't spell. How's that for personal growth? (Fortunately, I'll never get to be arrogant about my looks, since I can best be described as Lyle Lovett with shorter hair and a bigger, more misshapen head.)

Anyhow, I think the popular kids who actually did get fat got wind of my plan to laugh at them, because they all stayed home. The ones who did show were, for the most part, friendly, balanced, well-adjusted and successful. Most of them even looked just like they did when we graduated. I've long since stopped being bitter at these people for not liking me (I WAS obnoxious), but it was mildly disappointing that none of them had really failed at life in the last ten years. At least some of them had a hard time recognizing me until they read my nametag. I also got roaring drunk with the two people from high school I still keep in touch with, so I'm calling the evening a success.

If I were good at transitions, I would put one here.

My boss has actually managed to cure my insomnia by piling so much work on me that I have to stay up until three in the morning to get it all done. Which is what I get for complaining the last few weeks about being bored. But I love my job, because I get to work from home full-time. This has many obvious benefits (no morning routine, no commute, no dress code, no interruptions from noisy coworkers), but the one that's rapidly becoming my favorite is the freedom to curse as loud as I want when I get frustrated. I got an email this morning that sent me stomping around the living room flinging f-bombs at the top of my lungs with occasional pauses so I could give my laptop the finger. It was quite cathartic, and would have been completely impossible if I had still been in a cubicle setting. I propose that all companies build soundproof, windowless rooms for their office-dwelling employees so that everyone can experience this joy. It'd prevent so many aneurysms, heart attacks and beat-downs that the companies would even save money in the long run.

In blog-related news (which I know is a fascinating subject for everybody), Sophistacat left me my first comment, firing a Greek philosophy reference right over my enormous, misshapen head. Diogenes? Ah, sure. I had to look it up, which helped puncture the Arrogant Smart Kid facade I've been talking about. However, I immediately got the "sophist" reference in the blog title, so I went right back to being obnoxious. Getting my first comment has me all giddy. I'm going to see if I can stop blushing long enough to get some lunch.