My Band Name For Today

I am a nerd.

I'm so much of a nerd that Star Trek regularly sends me email.

Yes it does.

But my place at the top of Anorak Mountain was seriously challenged by this note from my friend K*le last night (names altered to protect the hip and well-adjusted persons involved):

In celebration of the pending release of Transformers on DVD and HD-DVD, I present a picture of an Optimus Prime helmet that J*d and I made today (yes, I did this at work). It was made with an empty oatmeal box, foam, and lots of duct tape. We're thinking of constructing a full Optimus Prime costume for Halloween

And he sent this picture:

I made the photo small on purpose, but you can click on it to see a large version. Two things occurred to me at first:

• A friend of mine has constructed an Optimus Prime mask from common household materials (call me mister obvious, but it took some time for it to sink in).
  
• He constructed it with the help of a guy named J*d.
  

Then I had a couple additional observations:

• The mask is really pretty good.
• There is something horrifying about it (that's the reason I made it small).

I've had several hours to mull it over, and I'm still not sure how I feel. It's really an ingenious use of materials, if you think about it. Maybe I'm just jealous. Jealous that I didn't think of it first. Jealous that it wasn't me instead of J*d.