I'm a geek and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I love Star Wars. I watch the Sci-fi channel. I’m one of those fanboys that will wait in line for a midnight movie so I can be one of the first ones to see it. I even dress up in costume for some super hero movies, and I still buy and read comic books. I'm proud of my geekiness and I embrace it. Being a geek today is different from what being a geek was even a few years ago. It used to be that geeks wore the pocket protector and carried their comic books or role-playing cards around with them everywhere. Today being a geek can mean spending hours designing comics, games, etc. It's almost (insert any word being used today that means the same as "cool" did back in the 80's) to be a geek. As I write this I feel like I want to climb to the top of the Comic Oasis and yell at the top of my lungs, "I'm a geek and if you got a problem with that, bring it on! I'll slice you in half with my light saber. It's not a costume I'm wearing…it's a uniform!"

Being the geek that I am I just happen to know various bits of trivia that most people don't know or don't care to know - so you can imagine how happy I was to hear my favorite comic store in Las Vegas Comic Oasis was having a little trivia contest and was going to be giving away a really, really cool PGX signature series copy of X-men #500 variant signed by Terry Dodson. Needless to say, the little fanboy in me was jumping up and down and doing summersaults inside of me.

According to the contest, the first person to answer three questions correctly about the 80's cartoon The Smurfs would win the comic book. When I thought about the variant X-men cover, the autograph, and the PGX grading I felt like one of King Arthur's knights on the quest for the Holy Grail. I was like Ralphie who had to have the Red Rider BB Gun, I had to have the comic book. Unlike Ralphie, I couldn't shoot my eye out, but then I guess I could poke my eye out with the corner of the plastic casing, but I didn't care…The comic book would be mine! Whahahahahaha <-(evil laugh).

I looked at the questions and they seemed simple enough except for one:

• What is the name of Gargamel's cat?
• Who/or What was the Smurf that Smurfed Smurf?
• Which smurf was created to destroy the other Smurfs?

I started to answer the questions when I happen to notice the time the email was sent. It had been sent 14 hours earlier. Frak! (If you know where that word comes from then, Frak you, you're a geek too). There was no way I could win now. Somewhere, somehow, someone had to have the correct answers by now. I had missed it. I lost the Holy Grail. It had been right there in front of me and I missed it.

“Frak!”

Oh well, I decided that I would send in the answers anyway and see if I had the correct answers.

I knew I had a good chance because when I was little we used to live in Germany and Smurfs were crazy popular there. My brother used to collect the little figures, so I had a good idea as to who was who and the storylines of the cartoons. I filled in my answers and sent them in. It’s kind of scary when you know the answers to Smurf questions.

It was a few days later that I received the message from Derrick himself, the owner and operator or Comic Oasis telling me that I had won the comic book. After doing a little jig I realized that no dream is out of reach you just have to believe…that and I really am a geek.

...and there are two more...