come over to the dork side

i was a bad kid in school. not "mischievious but makes up for it by doing well academically", because that makes you popular. i was plain-bad. mediocre as far as grades went, and not particularly liked by either the other kids, or by teachers. although i played a lot (basketball and athletics) and hung out with some of the sporty sorts, it was a tenuous affiliation at best, because i never really identified with them. to tell the truth, i was a dork.

there are no real dorks in indian schools, the kind you find in schools in America. social awkwardness and a discomfort with all things non-geek are essential requirements for being a dork. in india, kids who put up science projects in school exhibitions and memorize the capitals of the world by heart are much more likely to be academically superb teacher's pets, those supremely confident literary types who win debates and elocutions and such-like, and in the process, score all the school awards. they are overachieving freaks, not dorks. real dorks are not popular.

i loved reading science fiction. i had read almost all of Asimov by the time i was 12, i knew my sagans from my arthur c clarkes. Later i consumed the dune series, star wars, all of david eddings and terry pratchett and robert jordan. the latest on this list is the stargate series, for which i have developed a newfound addiction.

To add to my dorky kid cred, i was terrified of public speaking. The mother tried to convince to enter into some elocution shit as a kid, and i froze so badly on stage that someone had to come and physically remove me. i was also very, *very* awkward with girls. (S, the class goddess and now a friends wife, once had to tell me she was not going to eat me up. she'd asked me for the time, and i got so nervous i couldn't read my watch right.)

You can be a dork too. Social awkwardness is essential, but it can easily be faked. A liking for sci-fi cannot be faked, although it will take you a long way in becoming a dork. But *knowledge* of sci-fi can be faked. Go through this list and see how you measure up. Answers in a few days. if you care, you can drop me a mail at geek.fin@gmail.com with your answers.

1. Where do the terms goa'uld and tok'ra come from? Props if you know the difference between the two.

2. Complete these lines:

The stars, like dust, encircle me
And bathe me, with their light
As though all space and time i see,
In one __ __ __ ___

3. House Atriedes is building an army using a secret technique unknown to us, a technique involving ______.

4. I am Queen Amidala, of the _____. (easy one)

5. Who wrote the play "lairënde lómëva lórë"? (this one is easy to reverse engineer)

6. "The wheel weaves as the wheel ____"

7. Who said, "Was there ever a trap to match the trap of love?"

8. When someone succumbs to groupthink, he's been "assimilated by the ____"

9. Connect symphonic rock, stephen king and "the good, the bad, and the ugly".

10. Who says "beam me up, scotty"? (think carefully)

Bonus non-sci-fi yet dorky question:
Who was the drummer for Rush? Dream Theater?? (KM: *Don't* judge me)