If you’re like me, all your friends are geeks. But like most things today, the range of the geek spectrum is so wide that the whole insult can be broken down into hundreds of niche (is it neech or nish?) categories. You’ve got your classic stand-by, the comic book geek who can tell you the backstories of all the characters (extras included) you see in the Xavier Mansion in X2. There’s the sci-fi geek who’s read every Robert Heinlein book, can summarize the plotlines of both new and old series of Battlestar Galactica, and can give you a rundown of the military classes of the Galactic Empire from the Emperor’s Royal Guard (red guys) down to the camouflaged peons patrolling the forest moon of Endor. Then you’ve got your techno-geeks; the kind of people that hang on every loaded word uttered by Michael Arrington, have 3 cell phones all with different service providers, and who jail-broke their iPhones on the 1.1.2 software release. These people thrive on a superiority complex. They are who my friends are of course, certainly not me in any capacity.
But regardless of your class of geek, there is one all encompassing tell that will always reveal a geek’s true colors: intricate knowledge about the movie scenes (aptly called Stingers) that take place after the credits have rolled. For your consideration, one of the classic Stingers from last summer:
Until recently these scenes were only made apparent by word of mouth and internet forum arguments. A great new site called MovieStinger, introduced to me by one of my geek friends Kyle, does all the work for you, giving you a list of every movie (past and present) that features some kind of post-credits Easter egg and letting you rate how important the scene actually is.
Needless to say, in the geek culture that my social circle inhabits this is one site that could become very useful. Nightly debates about the IMDb credits of an actor in the background of a bad 90’s movie inevitably turn to some pretty serious one-upping contests. With MovieStinger I need only surf in to see what movies I need to stay longer at, without the risk of waiting for nothing (see: Star Trek). I’ll be able to calmly and cooly lean down the line of my geek friends at our screening of Up this weekend and say, “Hey guys, make sure you stay ’til the credits are done on this one” [simultaneous eye-brow raise and head nod]. When you hang out with a bunch of geeks, there’s no limit to how geek you can go. At least with MovieStinger I won’t have to troll Ain’t It Cool forums to stay up on it all this summer movie season. Thanks, MovieStinger!
Lifting Fog 
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