You’re talking about a guy, having scholarships to Harvard and Yale but his family couldn’t afford the train tickets, he went to a closer local college, denied from the only fraternity, and in true Revenge of the Nerds fashion, rallied the outcasts, started his own, and shortly became student body president.

Also, how about Kevin Smith?

“There’s that news van again…”

Paul.

Paul, I just know that you were wildly excited as a child if you saw the Action News van driving around. I bet even today you still get a tiny repressed thrill if you see one.

(One of these days we’ll have to talk about other Philly celebs of our childhood like Dr. Shock and Captain Noah. Let me know when you’re ready to do a cover of “Send Your Pictures”.)

Madeline Kahn unfortunately is no longer with us. Though I would vote for her.

Sarah Vowell is a good historian. I have read her Assassination Vacation and The Wordy Shipmates about the Puritans. She can replace Doris Kearns Goodwin as Presidential Historian

Since then she earned a degree in math from UCLA(graduated with honors). Then she wrote several books to encourage girls to get into math.

I think she exemplifies your descriptions. She’s a math geek, has enough social skills to survive in Hollywood, is a real person, and I have it on good athority (my husband) she’s still HOT.

P.S. Tonight’s show in Boston was a blast. Thanks Paul and Storm!

Yes, I know Wil played Wesley. I have forgiven, but not forgotten.

And the Department of Nerds should call on all nerds to ask what they can do for their country.

I think they decided it wasn’t awesome because I also sent a photo in which Paul and Storm were my minions.

Ann: Jan 2nd. So anywhere between 2 and 8 weeks from now! I’m getting *very* uncomfy now!

Anyway, I just popped by to mention that a friend bought ‘cookies’ to lunch today, and they turned out to be things surprisingly similar to Jaffa Cakes. They’re called Soft Cakes, and I can’t remember the brand but they’re available in Migros. (But then, so are Pim’s, which redirect to Jaffa Cakes in wikipedia, so it’s not as if we were short of Jaffa Cakes alternatives.) Also, they are actually orange flavoured and not apricot, which fits better with the NZ-English perception of the word ‘Jaffa’,

(By the way, Percephene, I’m right before your proto-mini-minion in the gallery, and feeling especially dejected because Storm never emailed me to say how awesome it was.)

Like a non-British Jonathan Creek. If you haven’t heard of it, look it up! Best show ever! Beats all the CSIs, SVUs, NCISs of the world hands down.

Hell yes! I second this nomination. We need to get him in charge of these STAT!

But while we’re on the Star Trek train, I would have to say that Wesley Crusher was not nearly so hardcore as Lt. Cmdr. Data. The cool factor of being an android did obscure his geekiness a tad, but I maintain that beneath his cold metal exterior beat the heart of a total nerd..

Re: software: my co-worker (who does more of the video editing than I do) suggests Final Cut Express, says it’s pretty comparable to FCP especially for what you are describing.

Also, the Rescue Rangers/Tail Spin/Darkwing Duck triumvirate was the holy grail of all afternoon cartoons.

Fictional geek nominees for cabinet posts (both real and made-up):

Agatha Heterodyne of Girl Genius for Ubersecretary of Mad Science. Or maybe she’ll just take over the world, while she’s at it.

Tom Servo, Gypsy, and Crow T. Robot for Joint Chiefs of Space Operations.

Encyclopedia Brown for head of CIA and FBI, of course.

Col. Samantha Carter for Director of NASA and the Secretary of Incredible Brainiacs.

Napoleon Dynamite: Secretary of Agriculture.

Jeeves for Chief of Protocol.

(I also submitted this via Twitter!!)

I think you answered your question with this week’s post-show song. John Flansburgh and John Linnell would make great joint Secretaries of Geek Affairs.

I could have voted for two people? I didn’t realize that! Choosing between Coulton, Hodgman, and Ze Frank is still too difficult.

Extreme: Pee Wee Herman

Non extreme: Jonah Hill and Micheal Cera’s characters from Superbad

Not only is he a geek in his own right, he played one of the ultimate Geeks on tv: Wesley Crusher.

OK, that’s it, the rest of the applicants can go home now.

Can’t help but also concur on Alton Brown as well…

If you’re going to choose someone from Firefly why didn’t you choose Wash?! Surely he would reign with Supreme geek power! Love that guy

Well… well, okay, the podcast’s been working right the past few weeks. Kinda forgot to mention that. Oops. Was that my whining you meant?

In the “Fictional (or possibly “Get A Life”) category, I give you Ponder Stibbons…go read Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series to find out more about this Rocket Wizard. Fictional female would be Gilly the Perky Goth from “Dork Tower.”

Also, Paul, go watch Rescue Rangers. Seriously. Like, right now.

My vote is for a bracketed tournament of weekly showdowns leading up to inauguration week (a la Jordan Jesse, Go! from http://www.maximumfun.org, though I don’t really have a good specific URL for the showdowns that they used to do to find out the best zoo animal, but that’s beside the point). I bet a 16 person bracket can be set up, with 8 fictional geeks and 8 real geeks, and it would be a great topic of debate lasting until inauguration week, and ending with the indisputable best choice for secretary of geek affairs. (In terms of logistics, the first two weeks could each have the 4 first round showdowns of fictional and non-fictional seeds respectively, followed by one showdown each subsequent week).

So… there’s my opinion