1) Thou must experience as many nerdy properties as possible throughout your youth (nerdy parents must assist with this). By the age of 20, you must have chosen at least two sides of the following: Star Wars or Star Trek, Kirk or Picard, Marvel or DC, Mac or PC, Trukk or Munkey, Baker or Tennant, and Joel or Mike. If these topics come up, you must argue your choice past all reasonableness.

Without offering any explanation, I’ll go with: Star Wars, Picard, Marvel, PC, Trukk, Tennant, aaaaaaand Mike. If you would like to argue past all reasonableness, please by all means comment below. If you’d like to submit a guest post on the topic, let me know.

3) Thou must revere the Nerd Girl, because she is as rare as the diamond and just as valuable. Thou shouldst not stark her just because she’s the only girl in your nerd circle, and if/when she turns down your advances, you will not spurn her because that’s just shitty. And Nerd Girls, thou must be careful, for thy power is great — and can be used for both good and ill.

Mostly well played, although it would be much better if we could move past the concept of a “Nerd Girl” as an oddity and make gender obsolete in terms of nerdity.

4) Thou must try to convince your significant other to name the child after a character of nerdy importance. If thou are cut from the cloth of the nerd tribe and have managed to breed, and bringeth into the world the Lando’s, the Anakin’s, the Kal-Els.

I have tried to convince relatives to name their unborn spawn “Thor.” No takers so far.

7) Thou shalt acknowledge that Batman beats everyone, ever, anywhere at fighting. That’s right, he beats everybody. Even Optimus Prime. Even Darth Vader. Even Chuck Norris. He’d find a way. He’s the goddamn Batman.

I call BS. I processed battle scenarios for these matchups 1,254,374,598 times each. The results:

• Batman vs. Optimus Prime: Optimus Prime steps on Batman. The end.
• Batman vs. Darth Vader: Vader chokes Batman from 100 feet away. The end.
• Batman vs. Chuck Norris: After a long, brutal fight, the two declare a draw and embrace as brothers, joining forces to rule the world.

12) When searching for something to watch on television you must watch the geek movie you come across, even if you have said movie in your collection. If anyone asks, “Why don’t you just watch the one you own?” stare at them like an idiot and explain, “That is not the point.”

Disagree. I hate commercials with a raging passion, especially commercials featuring herbal male enhancement, which air more heavily on cable networks where geek movies would be likely to find. Plus why the hell would I watch downgraded quality on TV when I can enjoy the better-than-real image and thumping pulse of surround sound allowed by Blu-Ray?

14) Thy first crush must be upon an cartoon character.

Does David Bowie’s character from Labyrinth count?