Dorks are greatly under-appreciated in society

Matthew Trail Columnist

Volume 88 Number 51 Monday, November 05, 2001

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I know this might come as a shock to many of you, but I am not quite the pinnacle of coolness that you might have thought. The truth is that I know what a plus four sword of dancing does, I know the call letters for every ship to bear the name Enterprise, I know what a twin ion engine does and who uses them, and I know the difference between a orc and a goblin. Yes, people I am a dork. I was inspired to write about my dorkdom after attending a Bruce Campbell book signing the other day. For those of you who do not know, Bruce Campbell is the actor that stared in the Evil Dead movies. That probably still does not help you, but bear with me for a little while.

Anyway, I was watching the fans at the book signing and it frightened me to know that I was still one of them. You know the type, an awkward high school student with strange sunglasses and a black T-shirt with a comic book character on it or an overweight middle-aged guy who resembles the comic store character on the Simpsons. With few exceptions, these are not people that are getting laid very often. (Unfortunately, few women ever get turned on by an in depth conversation about red dragons. I know, I have tried). Years ago at a fencing club practice (a stronghold of dorkdom if ever one existed), several of the fencers and I got into an argument over which side would win if the Empire from Star Wars would fight the Federation from Star Trek. I am telling you this story because I believe it represents the ultimate expression in dorkdom. We actually argued about which imaginary ship could beat the other imaginary ship for almost an hour (the correct answer is the Federation).

I finally stopped the argument for fear that none of us would ever see a naked woman again if we continued. You see at the time, none of us realized that we were dorks. To keep that sort of thing from happening again, I have developed a twelve-part test to determine your level of dorkness.

1) Do you know what a magic missile is? Do you know how much damage it does?

2) Do you know what position Chekov held after leaving the Enterprise?

3) Do you know what a Sith lord is and do you know what planet they came from?

4) Would you know what to do if the red crystal in your hand started blinking on your 30th birthday?

5) Do you have an opinion as to which Starfleet captain is the best?

6) Do you know the difference between a Gangrel and a Tremere?

7) Do you have any action figures displayed in your home?

8) Do you know the superpower and origin of all the original X-Men?

9) Do you know what the term "mech" refers to?

10) Do you know what type of ship the Millennium Falcon was?

11) Do you know what a decker is?

12) Do you know where Cthulhu lies dreaming?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, then the odds are that you are a dork, or at the very least, dating a dork. If you knew the answer to more than five then you are a full-fledged dork master. If you knew the answer to all of the questions, then I wish you luck in your life of celibacy. It really is a shame that most women do not appreciate the value of dork knowledge. Most dorks are much nicer than other guys and besides, someday when the world is overrun with magical creatures, knowing the weakness of an iron golem might be pretty useful.

Now I know most of you have not understood a single sentence of this column and I applaud you for that because dorkness is addictive. You think you will be able to stop with liking Star Wars, but then you happen to watch Babylon 5 one night and later you pick up a William Shatner novel at the used bookstore. Pretty soon you are setting in a room with five other guys who are all pretending to be elves, rolling twenty-sided dice, screaming for a 20, so you can get the critical hit damage you need to defeat the shadow dragon, who is guarding the Scepter of Power that you need to defeat the undead army of Lord Bane. Yeah, I know it is pretty sad.

- Matthew Trail is a first year law student. He can be reached at Godzilla@elvis.com and he apologizes to those of you who did not get this column and promises next week to write about something that everyone loves: porn.

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