Code, nerd culture and humor from Greg Knauss.

So I'm getting ready for work and I'm listening to KROQ and a segment comes on called "What's Your Deal?" in which average slobs call up and bitch at the morning DJs -- Kevin and Bean -- about anything they want.

Now, two day before, Kevin and Bean had made their intern, Lightning, drive two hours out to Barstow to get them ice cream from the Dairy Queen. He had gotten back about fifteen minutes after the show had ended, so yesterday they made him do it again. And made fun of him when the orders were wrong.

They pick on Lightning a lot.

So I phone the 800 number and they put me on the air.

"Hey."

"Hi, there."

"What's your deal?"

"You guys are just way too mean to Lightning."

In the background you can hear: "Yeah!"

"Oh, you don't know the half of it," says Kevin or Bean -- I can't tell them apart. "He's constantly screwing up."

"Everybody screws up."

"But not nearly this much. Where do you work?"

"At CaseWare in Irvine. Computer programmer."

"Do you crash the mainframe?"

Mainframe? Non-computer people. Sheesh. "Every day."

"No."

"Yes. Constantly. I'm colossally inept."

"You can't be."

"I am."

"No."

"Yes. And one day, the Lightning's of this world will rise up and slaughter their slack-jawed, ice-cream suckin' oppressors, and I'll be there with them!"

There's a very, very slight pause.

"Ice cream suckin' oppressors?" says one.

"The problem with that," says the other, "is that you'd never manage to all start the revolution at the same time."

Then they hang up the phone and start making fun of me on the air. Something about losers defending losers.

Oh, we'll start the revolution all right. At around five-ish, some time in October. Or February.

Hi there! My name's GREG KNAUSS and I like to make things.

Some of those things are software (like Romantimatic), Web sites (like the Webby-nominated Metababy and The American People) and stories (for Web sites like Suck and Fray, print magazines like Worth and Macworld, and books like "Things I Learned About My Dad" and "Rainy Day Fun and Games for Toddler and Total Bastard").

My e-mail address is greg@eod.com. I'd love to hear from you!

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