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I have an announcement to make. This is the end of an era. I’m turning my back on the last 12 years of my life. I’m abandoning a sinking ship. By the time this article reaches print, I will no longer be a dork.
I’m turning in my D20′s and my hardcover copy of “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.” I’m recycling my back issues of Inquest. I vow never to utter the word “mana” again. I shall never download another Red Dwarf episode off Direct Connect. I can’t do it anymore. You, dear reader, may wonder why I’m doing such a thing.
It’s because I’ve seen one too many Trendy McWhores walking around with “dork” neatly labeled somewhere on their ensemble.
Dork used to be a hateful term branded into our flesh by the traditionally evil football team. But now this campus is infested with hipster kids walking around with trendy trucker hats with our word on them. They only delve into the oxymoronically popular aspects of dork. You can ask them anything about Sonic Youth, but they don’t know that the “TIE” in “TIE fighter” stands for Twin Ion Engine. I doubt they’ve ever even heard of a Paladin, let alone nurture one up to level 20.
Dork is our word. We earned it. Sure, you can slip on the Buddy Holly glasses, but if you’ve never been stuffed into a gym locker then I don’t want to stand in line for Star Wars III with you. I was there when we had THACO, before third edition came along and Dungeons and Dragons lost the “Advanced” prefix. I was playing Magic: The Gathering before Mirage came out and started the trend of releasing a new pricey set every four months. To quote a T-shirt I saw at the mall, “I was uncool long before being uncool was cool.”
Now when I see so-called dorks, I can feel no connection to them. I feel like a second edition magic user in a third edition world. There’s nowhere for me to turn. I love the nerds. They’re great and all, but I don’t fit in. I’ll play a few hours of Halo with them, but when it’s time to go and they ask me for my IP address I get very quiet.
The geeks have their moments, don’t get me wrong, I just don’t have the patience for HTML code and Matrix references. Besides, I hate anim�.
The Dweebs are the lowest rung on the loser ladder. They’re the pallid-skinned pariahs who only hazard natural sun light when Battlenet is down. As a general rule I shun anyone, male or female, with facial hair longer then an inch. I wouldn’t join them even if they shed 24-karat gold dandruff.
I don’t know what I’m going to be now. I probably won’t be anything recognizable. I’m not smart enough to be a nerd, and I’m far too cool to be a dweeb. I’ve never run a Web site, so geekdom is out for me.
I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to go about my life. I wonder if I should have a transformation ceremony, kind of the opposite of when Ogre joined Lambda Lambda Lambda. I’m sure I could start watching sports and banging broads, but it’s going to feel really hollow for the first few months.
Mike Hartwell knows that AT-AT stands for All Terrain Armored Transport.
