Geek Cred

Every once in a while it comes up in casual conversation that I am a big dork.

Most of the time, my dorky-geeky-nerdiness is kind of simmering under the surface, noticeable if you are looking, but not necessarily obvious to someone I don't know. 

I think, "I've got my geekiness under control.  I am not a nerd, I am cool.  See this?  I am one of the cool kids."

And then someone makes a offhand comment about Lord of the Rings, and my nerdiness explodes like Mt. St. Helens and flattens 230 square miles in minutes.

So this is confession time.

1. Starting around my 12th birthday, I reread the entire Lord of the Rings Trilogy and the Hobbit at least once a year, every year. This didn't stop until around the time the movies came out, and I reread the books so many times during that period that the last time I got to The Return of the King, I had stopped enjoying it, and thought it boring.  It's been a few years, though, and I have been thinking about buying the series for my Kindle.
   
   
2. I watched Star Trek the Next Generation religiously, and saw all the movies in the theater.
   
   
3. I played role playing games for fun in high school and college.  Dungeons and Dragons.  I thought that somehow I was cooler for playing a cool character all the time.  I also (briefly) played Vampire, the Masquerade, the live action role playing game which took being a dork to new levels.
   
   
4. At one point in my life, I owned every Dragonlance book ever written.
   
   
5. I still think being an Evil Wizard when I grow up would be the COOLEST job ever.  But I would totally have to be Neutral Evil, because Chaotic Evil ends up crazy and Lawful Evil is totally boring.

Something that I have come to realize, though, is that there are a LOT of geeks out in the world today.  We might not have tape in the middle of our glasses (we wear contacts or got Lasik), or wear our pants hiked up to our armpits (unless we are being hipster/ironic), and we hardly ever have a buck-toothed (orthodontics) guffaw that clears a room anymore.  But deep down, we're still nerds.

Are you a nerd?  A geek?  A dork?  Find out with my "Geek Cred Test" (listed below).  Each "Yes" answer is 1 point.

1. Have you ever used any of the following pickup lines (and expected them to work)?
   "I have a 20 charisma, baby!"
   "I am reaching into my bag of holding and pulling out CHARM!"
   "I tried a saving throw, but you've bewitched me!"
   "Is that 1d20 in your pocket, or are you happy to see me?" (Variations on the dice also count!)
   
   
2. Have you ever dressed up as a cast member of Star Trek and gone out in public on any day other than Halloween?
   
   
3. Have you ever gotten into an argument about whether the Millennium Falcon or the Starship Enterprise would win in a fight?
   
   
4. Do you know what the SCA is?  (Bonus point:  Have you ever considered joining the SCA, been involved in a Renaissance fair as a goat boy, chess monk, dunking wench, etc, or own clothing that would pass at an SCA meeting or Ren Fair?)
   
   
5. Do you still watch Anime?
   
   
6. Have you ever tried, whether successfully or not, to learn a made up language (such as Klingon or Esperanto)?  Being able to write in the phonetic rune alphabet as seen in Tolkien's books counts.
   
   
7. Do you know the answer to life, the universe, and everything?
   
   
8. Does most of your knowledge about Greek, Roman, and Norse mythology come from comic books?
   
   
9. Do you now, or have you ever owned dice to play any game other than Yahtzee?  Bonus point:  Have you ever owned a 20 sided die?
   
   
10. Are vampires in your world evil, mindless, blood sucking fiends that burst into flames in the sun (as opposed to sparkling)?

Write down your total in the comments below.  I promise not to judge you.  Much.

Scoring:  1-3: Mildly Dorky, 4-6: Repressed Geek, 7-9: Total Nerd, 10: SUPERNERD, Over 10: Wanna come over to my house and watch Akria while we play Cyberpunk?