For the Love of Geeks

OK. So something else you should know about me is that I am an avid reader, and love to just sit back with a good book and let time slip by for hours.

Currently I am reading Stephen Mitchell’s New English Version of Gilgamesh.

Gilgamesh is one of histories oldest stories, and whether the accounts are mythological, or exaggerated from real events doesn’t really matter. The story is great.

Gilgamesh was king of Uruk (in the Mesopotamian valley) in or around 2750 B.C.E. and the story that unfolds between him and his greatest friend Enkidu is exciting, touching, enraging and heartbreaking.

I really recommend Mitchell’s version, as other versions i have read have been very hard to follow and since I am not sure there are too many of us who can read ancient Samarian, you sort of have to use a translation. Maybe that would be a good goal for this year… to learn ancient Samarian…

It’s the first day of this site, and as of right now (january 30.2008 3:46:00 pm pst) the domain name hasn’t even propagated yet, but I already have 2 posts on the site and a comment.. LOL

I wanted to address why this site is here, what you should expect, what you shouldn’t expect, and just ramble on about a few things…

First, this site was conceived of today while I was driving to work and I was on a conference call with a client. No, I wasn’t coming up with the site while he was talking, we were waiting for something else to happen, so it was quiet … ANYWAY.. I was next to this fairly attractive woman on the road and my mind wandered through a whole series of things ending on “I wonder if she could love a geek”. For the record, I am happily married, and I had / have / will have no interest in this woman, but that is just how my brain works.

After having this thought, it occurred to me that I haven’t blogged in a long time. I have two other blogs [ The Lone Coder ] and [ Our Adoption Blog ]. The Lone Coder, is my “company” website. I put company in quotes because it just me, hence the name. The adoption blog should be pretty self-explanatory, but for the less observant, my wife and I are adopting a baby from China, and we put the blog up to keep people informed of our progress, or lack thereof.. The problem though is that a lot of things I would like to blog about are neither appropriate or relevant to either of those blogs, and since at this point in my brain wandering, I am still staring at this woman next to me on the road (effectively creeping her out ) it occurred to me that I needed a new personal blog, and what better name then “For the Love of Geeks”.

Now, what should and shouldn’t you expect from this blog ? You should expect everything, and you shouldn’t expect anything. A paradox? Hardly. It means I will blog about anything and everything I deem worthy, whether it be tech, sci-fi, a pissy rant about the barista at my local coffee shop, or the fact that people in SoCal can’t drive properly to save their lives. You shouldn’t expect anything because this is a free site and you get what you pay for…

This blog is “about” geeks because it is about me, and “I am a geek, and I’m OK!” (Monty Python for those of you still not paying attention).

And now for  something completely different…

I have recently been getting more and more into music. I have always been a phile for music but I am really boosting the collection lately. I will listen to anything, with the exception of Country. It really makes me physically ill… My music collection currently sits at just under 100 gig. All legal, proud to say. I run the gambit from Ambient/Electronica music (Moby, Mogwai, Godspeed You! Black Emperor) , Rock Music ( RUSH, Linkin Park, AFI ), 80’s ( The Cure, The Cult, Erasure, Depeche Mode ), all the way to Indie… I LOVE indy music.

Today’s technology has allowed just about anyone to play, record, and produce music and put it up on the internet for all to find. This is a GREAT thing… yes there is a lot of crap out there, but there is also a TON of great music just waiting to be discovered. I am a fan of these kids : [ Band Kids Unite ]

Primarily because I used to host the first incarnation of their little group called Nuclear Gopher Productions. They make some great music. The Akai (Hiromi and Robbie) are an amazing husband / wife duo that just put together some beautiful stuff. Eric Skogen has a great, albiet semi-private, collection of beats and grooves that help me get through the worst of my work days, and lest I forget Reed… The young man that taught me that pop music can have meaning and still be fun to listen to.

I have a tendency, when I find a song I really like, to listen to it over and over again. Currently that song is “This Time Imperfect” by AFI. I will thank them in advance for not suing me for posting the lyrics :

I cannot leave here, I cannot stay,
Forever haunted, more than afraid,
Asphyxiate on words I would say,
I’m drawn to a blackened sky as I turn blue,

There are no flowers, no not this time,
There’ll be no angels gracing the lines,
Just these stark words, I find,
I’d show a smile, but I’m too weak,
I’d share with you could I only speak,
Just how much this, hurts me,

I cannot stay here, I cannot leave,
Just like all I loved, I’m make-believe,
Imagined heart, I disappear,
Seems…no one will appear here and make me real,

There are no flowers, no, not this time,
There will be no angels gracing the lines,
Just these stark words I find,
I’d show a smile, but I’m too weak,
I’d share with you could I only speak,
Just how much this hurts me,

I’d tell you how it haunts me,
I’d tell you how it haunts me,
(cuts through my day, and sinks into my dreams)
I’d tell you that it haunts me,
(cuts through my day, and sinks into my dreams)
You don’t care that it haunts me,

Oh!
There are no flowers, no, not this time,
There will be no angels gracing the lines,
Just these stark words I find,
I’d show a smile, but I’m too weak,
I’d share with you could I only speak,
Just how much this hurts me,
Just how much this hurts me,
Just how much you…

The reason’s why this song in particular is so a part of my life right now are personal, but suffice it to say I think that this is a great song that really affects me.. Give it a listen here : [ AFI on YouTube ]

Well, that is all for now..

I recently attended MacWorld in San Francisco.  When people would ask me what that was, I would stare at them blankly, and just shake my head… Thanks to the iMac, iPod, and now the iPhone, I get a lot fewer of those types of questions then I did in years past when I attended.

MacWorld is Disneyland for geeks… or at least it always has been.  This year was little disappointing.   Don’t get me wrong, I had a blast, met some cool new vendors and got to play with the new MacBook Air.  However. You knew there was a however coming.  This year, they should have renamed the show “iPhoneWorld”.  Now, bear in mind that I am a proud iPhone owner, and my friends are endlessly annoyed by how I can take any topic and swing it around to talking about how great my iPhone is.  The show, though, is supposed to be about MACs.. all macs, not just the iPhone.  I swear there were probably about 70 vendors doing nothing but showcasing iPhone accessories.  Now at first I thought this was great, since I wanted to get a few accessories for my iPhone (have I mentioned how great it is?).  This brings me to my next problem with the show.  No one was selling anything… NO ONE.  On the last day a new booth magically appeared and they were selling a smattering of supplies, but for the majority of the show, no one was selling, only showing.  Everyone of them told me that I could purchase online.  ONLINE!?!?! REALLY?!?!? I am standing 2 feet from the product and you want me to go online, and pay for shipping … WOW!..  it was really really frustrating.

Also odd to me, was the lack of love for the iMac.  In every show I have attended, since the iMac was released, there have always been an area where they showed off the iMac…  not this year..  Other then the iMacs in use by the vendors, there were none to be found.

Now, the MacBook Air is very cool… Let me state that up front.  It feels great, and has a geek cool factor that tops the charts… BUT!! You knew there was a but coming…

$1799.00 for the low end.. are you kidding me ?  There is no optical drive, no expansion whatsoever, no access to the RAM, and the battery is safely locked away from access as well.  HMMM… Mr. Jobs, while I realize you believe that you can ween us off the Optical drives, a concept I am not on board with, you can not possibly imagine that people are going to want to spend as much on a sub-notebook computer as  they will on the MacBook Pro..

This really should have been a computer to compete with the lower priced PC’s on the market.

Anyway, Steve Jobs does not care what I think… Heck, you probably don’t care what I think, but there it is … what I think for all to see.

The last complaint I have is why was the show so small ?  Where have all the vendors gone? COME BACK!  and next year, sell me something.. I bring a WAD of cash with me to MacWorld, and my wife doesn’t come.. you do the math..

A few months or so ago, I decided to completely re-embrace my geekness.. I have spent awhile hiding it in the shadows, forcing back shouts of glee when a really cool sci-fi show was advertised, or when a really sexy looking computer was in use at a coffee shop, but those days have come to a close.

I sit here now, with a geek card in my wallet (even though it is not laminated… ), a “work shirt” that has a patch on it that reads geek, and license plates that say ‘geek 2 u’ on them… Overkill, maybe, but I have a lot of geek love to make up for.

What is geek love you ask? Well, if you’re asking, I am not sure why or how you found this site, but in the interest of spreading the news I will explain. A geek, in the past, was considered a person who is odd or peculiar, and especially one who is perceived to be overly intellectual. Technically I would say that this is still true. Most geeks I knew are odd, but in a good way, and society is finally beginning to see that. Not that societies opinion is important, or even relevant for that matter, but is nice to know that we are not subjugated to the computer lab and forever deemed unlovable by the opposite sex anymore.

As a whole, no matter how hard I tried to hide it, most of my friends saw and referred to me as a geek. I am on the speed dial anytime their computer does anything they don’t like, I am the one who knows the date and time when they can watch some particular sci-fi show, and if you need someone who can name the title and season for any Star Trek episode (any spin-off), then yep, I am the one you call.

Now, I can almost hear some of you out there saying… “How did I get on this dorks website?” Well, remember its geek to you… You should also remember that times are a changing… Geeks are the new jocks… women love us.. men want to be us .. and don’t even pretend your not jealous when I am sitting in the coffee bar next to you writing a new blog entry on my decked out MacBook Pro, listening to my 80 Gig iPod, and taking calls on my iPhone…

As proof of this change, I refer you to wiki :

The definition of geek has changed considerably over time, and there is no longer a definitive modern meaning. Here are some of the many definitions:

• A person who is interested in technology, especially computing and new media. Most geeks are adept with computers, and treat the term hacker as a term of respect, but not all are hackers themselves.
• A person who relates academic subjects to the real world outside of academic studies; for example, using multivariate calculus to determine how they should correctly optimize the dimensions of a pan to bake a cake.
• A person who has chosen concentration rather than conformity; one who pursues skill (especially technical skill) and imagination, not mainstream social acceptance.
• A person with a devotion to something in a way that places him or her outside the mainstream. This could be due to the intensity, depth, or subject of their interest. This definition is very broad but because many of these interests have mainstream endorsement and acceptance, the inclusion of some genres as “geeky” is heavily debated. Persons have been labelled as or chosen to identify as mathematics geeks, engineering geeks, sci-fi geeks, computer geeks, various science geeks, movie and film geeks (cinephile), comic book geeks, theatre geeks, history geeks, gamer geeks, music geeks, art geeks, philosophy geeks, and literature/rp geeks

Personally, I lump all us geeks together for the most part… except you band geeks… you have, over time become dweebs, and well, none of us want dweebs around.

Realize that for the most part, I’m being a bit tongue in cheek, but the point is made.

Geeks are here, Geeks are cool, and Geeks aren’t going anywhere… (although we will be unavailable during episodes of Battlestar Galactica, new season starting in March )

So, knowing all of this, start showing your geek love !