Prototype of a Prototyper

Earlier this year I discovered that the one and only (sniff) season of Prototype This! was avaialble on NetFlix. Knowing that my kids love Mythbusters and my son in particular has watched the Nova special on the DARPA Grand Challenge at least a dozen times, I thought they might get a kick out of the show. I wasn’t disappointed.

The all liked it, but for my 5 year old, it became his new favorite show. Over the course of a few weeks he watched every episode, and then watched them again. We of course supported his new found habit fully although we knew he’d gone a little overboard when we were at the diner table and he yelled “Give me pizza or give me death.”

So when we asked him what he wanted to be for halloween this year we were only slightly surprised that he said “Zoz!” If he had picked one of the other hosts we might have been in trouble, but fortunately Zoz has his signature shirt and at least on the show always appears wearing camo shorts. So my wife got to try out her new screen printing set and a costume was crafted in no time.

His look of chagrin is due to me taking the picture, not his excitement about the costume.

I will add that my geek cred took a jump with my kids when I told them I had chatted with Zoz at DefCon the year before. Then I made the mistake of offering to send him a picture since as well known as Zoz is, being made a halloween costume for a 5 year old is still likely a first. Unfortunately, with as popular as he is, he’s apparently gone in to hiding on the internet and the only address I could find for him was an old MIT one. Still, I think I’ve got a chance of getting this to him through some alternate channels.