So, Janet’s thrown down the gauntlet, noting that “the time has come to see just how high those geek flags fly.” She’s already collected a bunch of them here, so for my own, I’ll submit a few anecdotes. First, admittedly, I know jack shit about computers, so I absolutely lose in that category. But, I’ve already taught both of my kids how to swab their cheek cells and gram stain the collected bacteria, along with a bunch of other nerdy experiments I mentioned here.

Additionally, PZ added a second layer of competition–the nerd photo pic. He thinks this one (at the bottom) takes the cake. I scoff and remind readers of this pic (I’ll repost it after the fold here as well, along with a few more anecdotes). Self-cut hair, giant glasses, rash, missing teeth and pajamas trumps 70s porn star moustache anyday as far as nerd pictures go.

(The worst part is that I think my high school glasses looked rather similar to those…)

So, additional data in support of my case:

-I find these kinds of things entertaining.

-As a kid, one reason my grandma liked to babysit me was because I’d hole up in a bedroom with a pile of books for the weekend; she hardly knew I was there.

-Those books included encyclopedias when I ran out of other stuff.

-Topics of papers for my English courses in high school included quack medicine, genetic engineering, and Ebola.

-I beat out all the older kids in a science competition as a 5th grader (against the 6th, 7th, and 8th graders) because I already knew random trivia, such as the names of Jupiter’s larger moons, the distance from the earth to the sun and our moon, and could correctly label the organs of our digestive system. See point about encyclopedia reading above.

-I remember many of the questions from a science competition that was held around 20 years ago.

Oh yeah, baby. Where do I go to collect my prize?