The "Dork" Challenge!

[vin_petrol]

ellenscult tagged me.
List 5 reasons you are a dork. And make them good reasons. Justify them. Explain them. Be loud and proud of how big a dork you are! Then pick the 5 biggest dorks you know and have them do the meme.

I don't really want to use the word "dork". That has negative connotations. There's also some debate about the precise definitions of the works "nerd" and "geek", and how they're NOT interchangeable.

So, I'm going to run with a certain definition of "geek" and list the five things that make me a geek.

1) Perl
I love Perl. It's the greatest programming language ever. Larry Wall clearly had to shovel the same sort of shit that I did, and created Perl to make his life easier. This rather nicely lead onto making *my* life lots easier. I want to solve any problem with Perl. Head down, headphones on, hacking perl and I'm as happy as can be. I have a t-shirt with "#!/usr/local/bin/perl" across it.

2) My P800
My P800 is wonderful. Feel free to ask me for a demo! :-) I'm always fiddling with it, and installing new software, and working out how I can make it the centre of my life. I've externalised my memory to it. Hence, a conversation recently:
Trash: what are you doing Friday night?
Me: I dunno - I'll look in my phone.
I'm avidly awaiting Hermione - The "P1000" due out later this year: 3G, video camera, etc. It'll be wonderful.

3) Star Trek - The Original Series.
I've seriously gone off later variants of Star Trek, but I still have a soft spot for the original series. Not only that, but when I was a sprog I had the Concordance, which I read over and over. This has left me with a head completely full of original Trek trivia. I'm the kinda geek who, when watching the stills of the end credits, can name the episode each still came from. I laugh at Spock's Brain. I watch out for Lieutenant Leslie.

4) Comics ... er, graphic art.
I also still read comics. I have a subscription to 2000 AD. Alan Moore knows the score. I've recently been sorting out my Batmans and Detective Comics to see where the gaps are I need to fill. I'm a definite DC (Vertigo) reader, so I didn't go to see Daredevil/Spiderman/X-Men because they're Marvel.

5) Hard SF
I also love hard SF. None of your wimpy fantasy for me. Even hyperspace makes me nervous. I like my spaceships powering though space at sub-light velocity, with the crew frozen. Alastair Reynolds is my hero: mighty starships ply their way between exotic stars.


I'm certainly Proud to be a Geek!

I'll tag ... um, what, *just* five people from MY friends list? :-) OK then: road_runner, blue_condition, cyberspice, daeghnao and lproven.