You're already a Nerd - You Might as Well have a Cute Prompt

The above is the first three lines of my autoexec.bat. One of my buddies is a really smart person. You have friends that are really smart people. You probably are a really smart person. But this person is a really really smart person. He has patents and stuff. He never has to write down phone numbers. There's a NASA shuttle that, if it ever goes up, will have an experiment on it that he designed while he was still in college. But the thing he knows most about is computer science. He doesn't even touch a PC, he writes his lecture notes on a Cray. He can spell check the Mahabarata in a minute and a half with his own software.

He was over my apartment and had to use my computer to call his office. He looked at the prompt on my machine: -

(C:\)
S'up?

"Oh, you have a cute prompt. That's a really nerd thing to do." Now, this is being said to me by a man wearing a button down shirt and a Dustin Hoffman haircut. Now, granted he didn't have a pocket protector and I have seen him with dates who seemed to be enjoying his company. I'll give you that he knows movies (he was wrong about Jesus of Montreal and Darkman but we pretty much agree) and music (Elvis Costello and the Buzzcocks especially). But none of this matters. If he gets more tatoos than Axle Rose and starts doing "Club MTV" dancers two at a time - he's still a nerd. He just is.

Another good friend is at the MIT Media Lab. He works in the "Snake Pit" with virtual reality. Whenever I introduce him to someone he points to his watch, "It's analog not digital. I'm not a nerd." Is there a human being that uses the word "analog" that's not a nerd? If there is, I'll never meet him. It seems I only know nerds.

I know nerds that claim not to be nerds because they SCUBA dive. And they'll let you know that right away. Well yeah, SCUBA is a sport but it's a sport with lots dials and math. It's a nerd sport. It's starting to seem like one of the things that makes someone a nerd is having a list at one's fingertips of the reasons one is not a nerd. I'm sure some have lists in SideKick notefiles of reasons they're not nerds - c:\side\nerd-me.no!. Methinks they doth protest too much. If you asked Billy Idol, "Are you a nerd?" You wouldn't get an instant response. Mr Idol would have to think about it and I bet when Billy thinks about anything it takes a little while.

You realize by now that this is the pot rejoicing in the blackness of all stove top utensils. I'm a nerd. When I was asked to write articles for PC Computing - I jumped at it. QED.

And you, I don't care where you're reading this magazine. I don't care if you're sitting backstage at the "Cat Club" with a cigarette hanging out of your mouth or in the sleeper compartment of a Peterbilt listening to Eddie Rabbit - you're a nerd. And what the hell is wrong with that. If Hitler hadn't gotten the nerds fighting mad - we might all be celebrating the reunification of Cleveland this year.

So, here's my point - Bikers do biker things. Metalers do metal things, and Penthouse Pets do Penthouse Pet things (but not with us). We're all nerds and we do nerd things. So, go ahead, change your prompt, right now, and make it something that you think is really hip and not nerdish at all . . . Prove you're a nerd.