Geek Chic

By Noa Glouberman

      Who doesn't know and love a geek? Personally, I don't know anyone without a geek in his or her life. You know, the person you phone when your computer crashes or there's a reference in Star Wars you don't understand. We all love our geeks and, naturally, want to show them we care, especially around Christmastime or on their birthday. What kind of gift do you buy a geek? Geeks are hard to buy for when you aren't one; if you got a geek a computer program or game, for example, they'd probably say something like, "Oh, gee – um, thanks… It's, uh, great, really. Too bad it's last year's version." If you really want to impress your loveable, dependable geek with the perfect present, anytime of year, here are a few suggestions that will make them so happy, their glasses will steam up and the scotch tape holding them together will melt.

When you think geeks, think t-shirts. Geeky guys and girls go gaga over gag t-shirts. The best place to buy such shirts is ThinkGeek.com. There's a virtual pile of geek t-shirts available on this Web site, from "Practice Safe Hex" (I know you don't fully get it but, trust me, a true geek will LOL) to "You Are Here" Hitchhiker's Guide-related shirts.

The bottom line is, geeks love wearing shirts that make non-geeks scratch their heads in confusion and wonder what it's all about. The epitome of that idea is represented in the "You are dumb" shirt, which spells out the phrase in binary (so, when someone asks what your shirt says, you can honestly tell them, "You are dumb" – I never said geeks had a great sense of humor).

If your geek happens to be a coder, you'll be relieved to know coders get their own set of t-shirts on the site (lumped in with the hackers). One of the most popular t-shirts among programmers is the "Kung Foo" shirt – available in a variety of colors, it simply reads "Kung Foo" on the front and has the Chinese characters for "skillful coder" on the back. Another popular one is the "Go away or I will replace you with a very small shell script" t-shirt. Some of the newer shirts offered at ThinkGeek include "There are only 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary and those who don't" and "There's no place like 127.0.0.1." And, the gamers out there can't seriously consider themselves über-gamers unless they understand the shirt bearing the infamous "All your base are belong to us" slogan.

Girl geeks will salivate over ThinkGeek's baby-doll tees! Much of the normal geek-wear on the site is also available in baby-doll versions.

Finally, if you know two geeks who've procreated and produced little geek-lets, check out the byte-sized t-shirts available in the Kid's section of the Web site. What doting geek mom or dad wouldn't love their precious offspring to sport a "Geek in Training," "Input/Output" or "Version 2.0" t-shirt? All make great geeky baby-shower gifts.

For more information, visit www.thinkgeek.com

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