COLUMN: Geeks also attend the Howl
More people than a Harry Potter release. More costumes than a Star Trek convention. More cleavage than a rock show (ask a geology major, they think I’m clever right now). This can only be one event:
The Howl.
This Saturday, I, as a junior, went to my very first Howl. I would like to say that I didn’t know what to expect, but thanks to the massive amounts of rumors flying around campus as to the nature of the Howl, I thought I had a pretty good idea what would happen.
But the Howl wasn’t everything I had heard it was. It wasn’t an episode of “Utah Girls Gone Wild.” It wasn’t a drunken debacle with security guards breaking up fight after fight. It wasn’t even a showcase for countless awesome costumes.
I’ll back to the costume thing later.
Before I get any farther into this column, I feel I need to “come out of the closet,” as it were. I have a secret that I need to share with you. Something a lot of people don’t know about me. But you’ve read the first four paragraphs of this column, so I feel like we have a bit of a bond between us so, here it goes –
I’m a geek.
Keep in mind I don’t mean an occasionally-watch-Star Wars kind of geek, I’m talking a real raging geek here. My first-born son will probably be named Luke.
There, I said it, and I feel so much better.
I bring this shocking bit of truth into the light for a reason. As a geek, I had a very different take on the Howl. After a long week in the lab, slaving over a keyboard I was really looking for an opportunity to get my geek on.
But walking around the Howl, I must admit I was a little disappointed with the level of costumes people were able to come up with. You have to keep in mind that to geeks, costumes are a way of life – we dress up to watch movies.
Basically, putting on a pillowcase and saying you’re the “missing sock” is not going to impress me. The same goes wearing a really short sleeved shirt and saying you’re Tony Danza.
That’s not to say there were no good costumes. There were definitely some people who deserve recognition for originality on a college student’s budget. There was “Team Tetris,” who were a bunch of guys dressed as cardboard versions of the various Tetris pieces. This was by far the most distracting costume because I spent most of the night trying to figure out how I would line them up for maximum points.
Other honorable mentions were the girl dressed as a bottle of A-1 steak sauce – “most saliva-inducing,” the giant whoopee cushion and the human rubix cube.
The real problem with the costumes was the lack of attention to detail. It’s the subtle things that will make or break you. For example, if all you have time to do is put on a suit and say you’re a mob hit man, don’t spray fake blood on your shirt. That just looks tacky. Rather, sprinkle spaghetti sauce all over it and say you just finished an authentic Italian dinner.
At first I was a little disappointed by the lack of geeks in attendance, but later on – around 10:30 (after the computer labs had closed) – they started to come out in full-force.
I saw four guys dressed as Spiderman, three incredible Hulks, two Obi-wan-Kenobis and a guy who I was pretty sure was Bilbo Baggins, although he may have just been a short guy in a vest.
Fortunately there was more to do than wander around wondering how many of the cowboys were really just wearing their street clothes. There was a rather funny stand up comedian, several live bands for the music geeks, and a hypnotist show.
There was also a lot of dancing. Not really being much of a dancer (I can only do the engineer’s victory dance, and nobody wants to see that), I mostly just stood back and watched. It was fun to watch though. I even saw a ninja dance with a pirate. I figure if the spirit of the Howl can convince the ninjas and pirates to forget their long history of hatred toward each other, than maybe there’s some hope for the rest of us too.
Another aspect of the Howl I was not especially impressed with, is how hard it was to find people in your group. In normal life if you ask people “hey, did you see my friend walk by here? He was dressed as a pimp,” They can usually point you in the right direction. At the Howl you need to be more specific.
All-in-all though, I was pretty impressed with the Howl. Good times were had, memories were made and experience points were gained. For one night people were able to put the real world behind them just for the sake of having fun.
Geek on!
Oh, and remember, on Election Tuesday, write-in Professor Xavier for President.
Steve Shinney is a junior majoring in computer science. Comments can be sent to steveshinney@cc.usu.edu