21 guilty pleasures for geeks

11. Dangling a Bluetooth headset from your ear and pretending you're Buck Rogers
People called you an idiot when you wore one in the street, so you don't do that any more. But stealthily hidden away in your car - or better yet, at home - you stand puff-chested and proud of the little black thing with the blue flashing light. I am important, it says, RESPECT ME. We do.

12. Waving your iPhone around like it's a lightsabre
Thanks to the Lightsaber Unleashed you can finally live out your Jedi fantasies par excellence. With the phone in your hand you twist, twirl, perform a 360-degree mid-air leap (OK, you're still working on that one) and marvel as your PhoneSaber crackles, cracks, slashes and vuuuummms. You have the cloak and beard to go with it and everything. Truly, the Force is with you. Just don't do it in public, OK?

13. Getting a Zune tattoo
Actually make that any geek tattoo, since the man who originally got the Zune one flashed it around the web, became a laughing stock, and then shamefacedly had it removed. The best policy is to keep that Penguin on your pecs covered up, keep that Red Ring Of Death hidden where the sun don't shine and never, ever shave a bitten Apple into your hair. You know where your loyalties lie. Best not reveal them to the enemy.

14. Rescuing a damsel from her IT distress
You might not be able to cut it on Muscle Beach, but you know how to rescue Amy from Accounts from certain Doom. Actually, not Doom, she might think fragging is too suggestive. Instead settle for undeleting her lost spreadsheet, tracking down that urgent email from the MD, and offering to set up the hi-fi she's just installed at home. She'll be so grateful she'll see past the 'I Fidget With My Widget' tee and maybe ask you for a drink. Well you can live in hope, can't you?

15. Deliberately trying to confuse your sat nav
You've plotted the fastest route from here to Maplin, only now you're just going to take a teensy detour. "Perform a legal U-turn", TessTess says politely. "Perform a legal U-turn", she says again, tension rising slightly. "I SAID, PERFORM A LEGAL U-TURN! What's the matter, can't you tell your left from right or something?" TessTess, of course, has failed to spot that you're driving a DeLorean. And this is now 1955.

16. Revelling in that new gadget smell
You love the smell of petro-chemicals in the morning. In the afternoon, and in the evening too if you can manage it. Forget all that unboxing malarkey, sometimes you just open the box, stick your nose in the SuperXBlaster Pro Extreme II Special Edition's plastic bag and breathe deeply in. Heady, isn't it? You even love that slightly worrying burning smell gadgets give off when you first plug them into the mains for the first time. It's all that rubberised plastic - gets you every time.

17. Getting loudspeakers placed just so
So the girl from Accounts did finally invite you back to her place, so you can help her install her new stereo. Obviously you've rubbed the mains plug pins with wire wool, festooned her exquisitely wallpapered walls with old egg cartons and put a brick on top of her CD player. But now it's time for the best part. Put one speaker there (spikes on, natch), the other one there. Then... toe the left one in a bit, a little bit more, a little bit more, move it forward 0.5cm, move it back 0.25cm, then toe it out slightly. And a little bit more. And a little bit more... And a little bit more. "You haven't got a clue what you're doing, have you?" she says. You stare at her frightened / angry face, sigh, and then - your concentration interrupted - start the process again.

18. Secretly coveting the Segway
Stupid UK laws mean you won't be riding one down your local high street anytime soon, but you can dream can't you? Two wheels side by side in perfect harmony, that stand-up and beg 'driving' position... you even own the fake US policeman's uniform. All you lack is the physique, the cash and a complete absence of shame. Although if you do get one, the local hoodies could be a problem. So you google: "Armour plate Segway with frickin laser beams"... then "two-seat Segway for girl from Accounts". Well, you never know...

19. Downloading a just-released movie using BitTorrent
What do you mean everyone does it? You mean, like, openly? Wow.

20. Haggling with white van man over speakers
He pulls up beside you at the traffic lights in town, "'Ere mate I've got some overs on a delivery down at Amazing Hi-Fi on the high street. Fancy some? A grand normally. Yours £200. I can't take them back to the warehouse." You: "What's the impedance?" "What?" "The power handling, then?" "Come again?" "Do they have an adjustable crossover?" The lights turn amber. "Well, do you want them? "Maybe. Are they magnetically shielded?" "Eh?" The lights go green, White van man grapples with his reluctant gear stick and his charge lurches forward in a plume of white smoke. "Real wood veneer, then?" You shout. "They must have real wood veneers." The smoke slowly clears. White van man has gone.

21. Windows: the love that dare not speak its name
You know you're not supposed to, but you just do anyway. Macs, Linux and open source maybe the 'cool' thing to be into these days, but you know you actually like the Windows start-up sound and Flip 3D in Vista. You even - whisper it - go all kind of gooey over User Access Control (UAC). Anyway, what have the black turtleneck/penguin suit wearers got that you don't? Haven't they realised yet that computers and operating systems of any stripe aren't 'cool' - never have been, never will be. You don't suffer their delusions of grandeur, thank heaven, and you don't pay through the nose for the privilege, either. Well done, you.

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