By Dick Johnson
May 7, 2007 | North Iowa Globe Gazette

“There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary, and those who don’t.”

Ah, spring. Smell the fresh-mown grass and the lilacs. Watch the newborn ducklings bopping in line behind their mamas.

See the geeks rip off their winter wear, trip and get back up to dance as only geeks can — and join them.

Better find a date, Poindexter. The sixth annual Geek Prom is Saturday at the Science Museum of Minnesota in downtown St. Paul, Minn.

“It seems like a perfect marriage. Geeks and science really go hand in hand,” says event co-founder Paul Lundgren of Duluth, Minn. “It’s really been a blast. We had a lot of fun there last year and we’re looking forward to doing it again.”

Geek Prom is a major happening for everyone 18 and older who had a bad experience at their high school prom or didn’t go at all. It features “awkward romance, cheesy music and spastic fits of clumsy dancing.”

“It’s the one time out of the year when I can really hit that dance floor and spaz out where I don’t stand out because everyone’s spazzing out,” Lundgren says. “You might be pointed at and laughed at — but they’re also saying how awesome you are.”

Lundgren wanted to start some kind of adult prom, just not a boring one where you dress up and stand around listening to a DJ.

A friend advised bringing in some circus geeks.

“You mean like a geek prom?” Lundgren asked. And that, kids, was that.

A bartender at the first GP in 2002 concocted a drink called the Pocket Protector.

“I don’t know what was in it,” Lundgren says. “But it actually tasted like a pocket.”

Saturday’s event will include the traditional king and queen coronation, a “spaz-dancing competition,” “Gonzo Gong Show,” video-gaming, handwriting analysis and music by E.L.nO., an Electric Light Orchestra tribute band.

Let the pens and the pocket protectors fly.

“It amazes me, the level of nerdiness at this event,” Lundgren says. “The majority of people there are geekier than me, and I’m pretty geeky. They make me seem cool.”

Lundgren did attend his high school prom.

“Perhaps my credentials as a member of Denfeld High School’s audio/visual squad were what impressed the young lady into saying yes,” he says.