Make it Fast
I gonna have to get on the road early...

For all intents and purposes, I'll be spending this Saturday at the San Diego Comic-Con. I'll have a little booth set up, and I'll be spending the whole time ignoring my hordes of fans. So look for complete non-coverage as well as a continued barrage of Spaghetti Westerns, Japanese Wackiness, and Whatever Early Sci-Fi Crap I just picked up.

Ok. So the middle two lines I'm kidding about.

What's funny is that you, the reader, assuming you know no more about me than what you've seen here, you probably assume that I'm some sorta hella-geek.

Granted, if you caught me running around in my Green Arrow T-shirt, I might have a tougher time defending myself. It's sort of a geek-ass billboard...sort of. Some guys can pull off super hero shirts...and some are dorks.

Well for one thing, I'm in relatively decent shape. For another, my skin has seen the sun over the last 10 or so years. I practice a goodly amount of personal hygiene. I have left my computer at home while away for a weekend. Oh...oh yeah, and I don't talk about this sh!t in public.

After all, I've got this thing to spout off about all this crap. Why would I need to bore the general public with this crap? I mean, I'll talk comics in the comic shop. Well, sort of. Again, I got my limits. I don't do any of that "what if the Hulk fought Superman?" crap. In fact, it's hard to get me to even talk about favorite moments or storylines...Well, look: If you don't think talking about this stuff outloud sounds goofy as hell, try tape recording yourself doing it.

Trust me you will/do sound like a jack@$$.

Actually, since the comic book store I frequent is down the street from one of the movie studios, we spend most of the time yakking about movie crap.

Speaking of which, it's effing new comics day. I think I got me a copy of Daredevil coming out.

You know what? I gots to give my comic reading brethren a break. I had to switch away from writing this thing for a moment, and on my way to switching back, I had something of a revelation.

--Anytime you talk about anything you care about to excess, you sound like a jack@$$--

This is especially true when talking to someone who doesn't care about whatever that thing is.

I mean comic book geeks and Star Trek/Wars fans are easy targets because they're the most obvious. Once upon a time you could've thrown Dungeons & Dragons players in that visual category as well. They're easily seen on TV and whatnot anytime there's any kind of big time geek shindig...but...

Have you ever had someone try to explain to you how cool some video game they're playing ? Unless you like it too or are really into gaming, I'll bet you it's gonna sound ten kinds of stupid. It goes all the way back too. Try explaining Pac-Man in a really serious and socially engaging way. I'm willing to bet you sound stupid.

Religion's another one. Why is it that no matter what religion someon chooses to tell you about, they always come off sounding like a member of the Supreme Being Special Education team? If you're already a member of whichever franchise you'll probably go "yeah, yeah," but to the unconverted you sound about as sane as the homeless guy talking to "Jesus" fifty feet away from where you are now. And hey, I believe....but I don't believe in crying Mary statues and a whole horde of other wacky crap.

Politics...that's pretty obvious too. I mean, if you could stay awake combing through the painful legal garbage that goes into the wording of most legislative issues, you'd realize how absolutely pointless the language really is. The more passionate someone is about it, at the very least you can't help thinking: "I don't care how fervent you are about this, you still only get one vote like everyone else."

It goes for all kinds of other stuff that at first doesn't necessarily come off as geeky...but more or less could/should be.

Cars and Sports would be hot contenders. Unless I design cars or repair them, I don't need to know absolutely every technical spec about them...and neither do you. And I've yet to see where knowing the batting average of the '72 Yankees is going to save my or anyone else's life.

Well, music & movies, I guess I should mention them as well. I know that Luther Vandross sang back-up vocals on David Bowie's Young Americans album, but you don't need to know that. Unless of course, you're working on your upcoming Vandross biography. Movie facts and trivia are endlessly...well, trivial.

Granted, only a scant few of these tend to be equally unisex, as in just as many male geeks as female geeks. In fact, it seems that guys are the proudly reigning kings of storing up useless facts, the girls (usually just among girls) have their fair share of useless stuff to yak about. You know, besides soaps and celebrity gossip (again...too obvious to be worth dwelling on).

I got nothing against hair, make-up and fashion within reason, but each and everyone can be taken too far.

My current favorite has to be when any girl tries to go into the science of what some skin/hair/other personal hygeine product does for your body. It sounds like the same nonsense you'd see in an ad, only they lack the actress's sense of conviction. In other words, words are streaming out, but they still sound like they have no idea what they are talking about. (The same goes for health/diet products.)

Listening to this particular brand of tripe makes me want to do one of two things: 1) start my own line of bogus products, or 2) bug the p!ss out of the FDA until they start debunking and cracking down on this crap.

In the end, I guess my point is: 1) know what you're talking about, 2) always consider your audience (specifically consider that they may not give a sh!t), and 3) try to keep you enthusiasm for any ridiculous or pointless topic on a real short leash.

Truth is, in this day and age, just about everyone is a dork of one kind or another.

Cheers.