Confession

Geeks turn me on. And I'm not talking about Tri-geeks, although they have their own special charm.

I'm talking about glasses wearing, mom's basement living, MIT going uber-geeks. The kind of guys whose only form of social interaction is online video games. The kind of guys who could resolve the national debt if they sold their comic book collections. The kind of guys who, at some point in their lives, probably attempted to build a robot. Geeks with a capital "G."

Because of this, I myself have, by association, become a teeny, tiny bit geeked out about some seriously geeky stuff. For instance, last night sitting around a bonfire with friends, just for a moment I got sucked into a lengthy discussion about which actors played Batman in each of the four Batman movies. Before Batman Begins, that is, which (god help me) I believe is the fifth. But I caught myself after suggesting a single name and then returned to what I should have been doing all along - rolling my eyes and giggling with my girlfriend.

But I have to admit, I have, in my past, engaged in impassioned oratory about Tolkien's brilliance with the use old English etymology in the naming conventions of Rohan.

You get the picture.

But I was never interested in tech stuff. Until now. It was a gradual transition, and even I am still surprised when I hear something majorly geeky and actually understand it. I'm not over the top, mind you, not even close to as bad as my husband, who saves stray bits of wire and old computer parts "just in case" and not only dreams of building his next computer, has already started sourcing the parts... but bad enough that I've become a geek genre video podcast junkie.

I go nuts for DL.TV. I knew I had a problem when I started asking on a daily basis if there was a new episode posted yet. (My husband made me learn the schedule - which I didn't want to know because only Geeks know the show schedule - so I'd shut up about it.) I've got a little crush on Robert Herron, which is probably why I am now the proud owner of information I used to find unbearably irrelevant to my life, like what it means when a TV is 720P or 1080i and the various software applications suspicious Geeks install to catch their unfaithful girlfriends. (Seriously, don't cheat on a Geek.)

I loooove me some Diggnation. Those guys are freakin' hilarious. (And I might have a massive crush on Alex Albrecht.) Tiki Bar TV fans should check out Episode 45, filmed at E3. It was a very special treat for geeks like me, with a cameo by Dr. Tiki himself.

While comics are definitely not my thing and I couldn't care less about what Hollywood is up to... I braved immersion in even that sub-basement of geekdom to catch the Geekdrome episode where they interviewed Kevin Smith.

I even watched an episode of Hak 5. Dude. That shit is seriously over my head. And quite possibly, not entirely legal. My husband digs it, but it's so crazy even he admits he doesn't get it all. Or even most of it.

Ctrl-Alt-Chicken burst onto the scene in recent weeks to feed both my Alex Albrecht obsession and give my inner Martha a coronary. If you haven't yet seen this, stop what you're doing now and check it out. Few things have made me laugh harder. It's Geeks... doing a cooking show. With drinking, of course, a la Diggnation. Now before you think, "hey, Geeks are smart people, surely they can follow a recipe so how bad, really, can it be?"

Oh, seriously you must watch this show. For instance, in the third episode, Heather demonstrates that she is not entirely capable of buttering bread.

I have to physically restrain myself from dashing off helpful e-mails, explaining things like the necessity of bringing egg whites up to room temperature before making meringue. Because while it pains my inner Martha, the rest of me gets that if we tell them how to cook the show won't be funny any more.

So next time you're not sure what TV to buy or how a particular model of flash memory mp3 player stacks up, or you just want to see some attractive, intelligent twenty-somethings made inedible food, check out some of the techno geek video podcasts. These guys come out of their moms' basements to share their knowledge with us so we never have to research an electronic product again.