Geek Submits Lame, Written Excuse

Phyllis makes history by submitting the first ever written excuse for a geek pizza meeting absence. In her plea of June 29, 2010, Phyllis's artful use of colored pens and playful stickers sets a high standard indeed for future written excuses. Ironically, the actual excuse--shoe shopping--may be the lamest one on record (except, of course, for that ridiculous story about the tree).

Please click on the image to read full text of Phyllis's note.

Geek Attendance Database Gets New URL

The online attendance database now sports a shiny new URL, along with the addition of an FAQ page and a few new geeks. Understandably, nobody gives a rat's patootie, but Dave B did at least notice and ask about the change of URL. Thanks, Dave. It's encouragement from people like you that inspires the will to carry on.

Geeks' Blood Glucose Levels Reach New Highs

Following the traditional pizza meal, Phyllis on June 22, 2010 astonished the group yet again by serving a delicious assortment of Dunkin' Donuts in celebration of Dave S's recent birthday. While Russ the Greater exhibited uncharacteristic poor judgement by purchasing and eating a second slice of pizza in lieu of one or more of the free donuts, most of the remaining geeks enjoyed the sugary treats while pondering whether or not they had ever before slaked a donut-induced thirst with high-fructose corn syrup.

A Geek by Any Other Name Would Smell As Sweet

A few weeks ago, Mark rendered (on a napkin) a very valuable and informative Venn diagram showing the relationship between geeks, nerds, dweebs, and dorks. The napkin has since been lost, but a Google search located a similar diagram on several sites. Son of a gun, now it's on one more:

This would seem to clear up a lot of confusion, were it not for the recent publication of a different diagram by the fine folks at xkcd.com:

Here we have a conflict. The first picture shows "geeks" and "nerds" as disjoint sets, but the second shows that they overlap. Moveover, the alt-text for the xkcd diagram

The definitions I grew up with were that a geek is someone unusually into something (so you could have computer geeks, baseball geeks, theater geeks, etc) and nerds are (often awkward) science, math, or computer geeks. But definitions vary.

conflicts with the diagram itself by stating that all nerds are geeks.

As usual, nothing's easy. Perhaps the best policy for the pizza geeks is to simply forget the words, strive to exhibit geekiness whenever possible, and let everyone else figure it out from there.

Geek Attendance Records Go Online

Following weeks of eager anticipation, the geek pizza attendance records went online on May 29, 2010.

Intended primarily as a tool for studying the geeks' chronically dismal female retention rate, the site provides multiple views into the attendance database that may fill other needs as well. For example, the discipline committee has already found the site useful for tracking absenteeism and identifying the habitually late.

We also look forward to providing alibis as needed for geeks who would otherwise find it difficult to prove their Tuesday whereabouts. (For a small fee, the database can be adjusted after the fact in order accommodate those with special needs in this regard.)

June, 2010 to Tie Centuries-Old Record

With one Tuesday already past and four more planned before the end of the month, June of 2010 is on track to tie the existing record for the most Tuesdays ever in a single month. The current record of five was set centuries ago, not long after the concepts of "Tuesday" and "month" were established. However, the significance of the record was not appreciated until much later, when people started eating pizza on Tuesdays and soon realized that, hey, more Tuesdays?  More pizza!

The current record for the fewest Tuesdays in a given month (three) was set in Italy in 1582 when Pope Gregory decreed that eleven days be dropped from October in order to synchronize the calendar with the tropical year. This record was subsequently tied in other countries as they adopted the Gregorian calendar. Fortunately for Tuesday pizza eaters everywhere, three-Tuesday months have not been seen in recent times.

Will we ever see a six-Tuesday month? Most experts agree that the outlook is dim. Fundamentalist Tuesday pizza-eating groups accept this as a given, and limit themselves to a maximum of five meetings per month. Other, more progressive Tuesday pizza eaters allow "supplemental" or "emergency" pizza to be eaten on certain non-Tuesdays when they find that once a week just isn't enough.

Barros' Geek Pizza "Club" - All Are Welcome

Geek Pizza! A hallowed tradition for years and years.