I am un chien Andalusia

Friends, family, acquaintences, and even my pub quizzers are painfully aware of a fact about me. I am a nerd. I know it, they know it, some of us are even content with that fact.

My friend D is one of those people. He's a good man. We have many shared interests, from hockey to cycling to music. We've been friends for, hm. 5 years? Possibly longer. I should look into that. He was asking me about the questions from last week's birthday edition pub quiz, one of which was what is 32 in binary? It is, of course 100000. He tried to trip me up by firing another question at me: "what is it in hexidecimal?"

Little did he know that I, as a 7th grader, was first formally introduced to the mathematical subject of bases, and that I was more than capable of quickly shifting gears between bases. I am also a notorious wise-ass, which is why he asked the question in the first place.

"Two-zero," I said, "just like 20." The car fell silent for a minute, while everyone did a little math in their heads. "Hexidecimal is base 16, 32 is 2 times 16, ergo 20." Relief passed through the car, as no more math was required. I felt my geekdom hanging out there in the breeze, so I started a chant: N-H-L, N-H-L, N-H-L, N-H-L, so I didn't have to feel like a nerd for long.