Geek Gods and a Terminally Ill Camera

I wasn’t going to post anything today because… I don’t know, I thought maybe… you all needed a break?

But then, we went shopping yesterday. Recently, I have been wasting hours and hours trying to rescue Amelia’s baby videos which we captured on 8mm tapes despite the fact that it had digital capabilty. Now, a brief history of a long running…conversation… between Alan and me:

‘Hey, Al, I think this thing takes digital video.’

‘No, sorry Babe, it doesn’t.’

‘But… it says digital right here on the side, see? “Digital8 USB streaming”.’

‘I know, but that is not what it means.’

‘Yeah… but it has a place for a memory stick right here, see.’

‘Yeah, I see, but that is just to take still images and we have a camera for that.’

‘Okay… but…’

So the first four years of her life are recorded on 8mm tapes (until I went and bought a memory stick, secretly). They are terrible quality and the video camera is making threats that it will die at any moment. You know, moaning when you turn it on and acting confused when you ask it to play… SO, I am terrified that we will be unable to make digital copies of them and all my attempts to do so have failed. (Except briefly last year where I had successfully captured several hours’ worth but can’t remember how I did it!)

So we go shopping.

We try the usual retail store where Amelia is amused because she can play on all the gaming consoles and Macs. But the very cool salesman at that store says he can’t help us. Taking pity on us, he pulls us aside to a quiet corner and discloses the location of a super-secret geek agora where you can ask questions and buy obscure items.

So of course, we make the pilgrimage to this store. Amelia, who thought we were headed home, looks up from her portable DVD player to find we are at yet another store. To which she lets us know calmly and without screaming that we are torturing her.

‘Is there anything in there that I can play with?’ She implores, to which my husband replies,

‘No, this isn’t like the other stores. This place is SERIOUS.’

 I mock him mercilessly, first of all, for assuming he knows what is in this tech Parthenon and because a little bit of his geek starts showing.

So we enter. I am pretty sure a choir sings a sustained multilayered harmony of the high C. Alan lets a little more of his inner geek out and strolls up to the counter to ask for what we need. Of course he can’t remember. So he has to awkwardly fish out of his pocket the card given to us by our informant. To show the man, who doesn’t speak English, the list of what we need. This guy looks at us with such pity and just the perfect amount of disdain that we wander off into the rows of geek treasures with our heads low and sufficiently reprimanded. Alan takes the opportunity to whisper in my ear,

‘See, I told you this place was serious!’ I nod but keep my head down.

Despite the fact we have failed our initiation to the geek temple,  we think that if we wander around the magical shiny store long enough, the equipment we need will eventually walk up to us and introduce itself.

However, when you walk around a geek agora the geeks will spot you, like your immune system spotting a virus. We make our way through several of these geeks who all confirm we are doomed to fail. But WE WILL NOT SURRENDER!

SO we wander a bit further until we meet him… You know… Him. We found him. The geek guru. We knew we found him because he towered above the rest of the geek gods by an additional five feet (and he looked a little like a young Santa!). As we approach, he spreads his arms wide and give us a welcoming, confident, “I can fix anything” smile. We regal him with my tale of woe but as we speak his face falls. We show him our ancient video camera and he almost falls to his knees.

‘I don’t know what to tell you.’ He says, his face ashen. We hang our heads in defeat and thank him anyway and begin to walk away. But he says ‘NO! You can’t leave! I can’t let you leave without helping you.’  We pause mid step, hopeful but slightly afraid we will never be allowed to leave.

He takes us to a large towering shelf where he searches for a solution to our problem. A customer is already there inspecting the merchandise. (A real geek customer not like us… he knows he should be there.) The Geek God tells our tale of woe to the REAL customer who clucks his tongue and says,

‘Well, there is a museum down the road. You could try there next.’

To which I reply, ‘HEY!’

And the Geek God says, ‘Thanks for saying that because I’m not allowed to say things like that…’

To which I say ‘h…h…hey.’ but quietly so as not to offend the god.

He tries valiantly. But in the end he fails and says there is no hope… ‘because Microsoft and Sony don’t care about you! And why should they? What would happen to capitalism if they did?’ He seems upset so we begin backing towards the door. (Don’t turn your back on geek gods when they are explaining the pros and cons of capitalism.) As we near the door the proper geek customer asks us how we faired. We hang our heads and tell him our pilgrimage has failed and now we must return home to our melting video tapes and terminally ill camera.

He says ‘Let me see that.’ We offer him our relic. He inspects it, asks a few questions and THEN he says ‘All you need to do is use a pjdjflu and a hfdbb. Connect it up and install the kdfhknh software. But make sure you go online and get the upgrade ‘cause the jdhfyrnr is crap.’ I nod excited. He rolls his eyes because he knows I don’t understand and says, ‘the thing that he [the Geek God] was showing you, the “hopage”.

‘The hapage??’ I say walking back to the shelves.

‘Ho-pp-age!!’ He yells. To which I nod enthusiastically because I can’t bear to tell the nice man I still have NO idea what he is saying. We head back to the magical shelf and look at a few of the things the Geek God showed us. And then I see it, in all its sparkling glory. It is a cord made by a company called Hauppauge! I had found it! I passed the first of the geek god’s tests!

We take our treasure up to the counter where the man is still making his purchase. He praises us for our cleverness and then says 'Now all you need to do is jdmnhd the sflshd and then flfdflb the ndzxn and you are on your way! Good luck!’  And then he disappeared! Perhaps this was the true Geek God and the other guy was his double. You know to protect him from an assassination. They didn’t look alike but maybe that doesn’t matter…

We did eventually figure out what jdmnhd and sflshd was and I am rescuing the tapes as I write this very moment! Thank you Geek Gods!!

Just when we though the day couldn't get any weirder, on the way home... to be continued.