Chucking in bits of geekery in communications?

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Does anyone else do this to see if the receiving party will recognise the reference?

For instance, I have taken to writing letters in very specific typefaces. In once recent letter I have used the typeface used on Britain's road signs - called Transport - to see if the person reading it notices and comments on it.

Does anyone else do similar things?

Sometimes, although using a British road sign font is a bit obscure. I usually just toss in a Doctor Who reference, and if they get that I may try a Heinlein reference or some basic gamer geek humor.

Yes. All the time.

I find it quite humorous.

It's even funnier when someone gets it but usually they don't.

At least when they don't get it I don't laugh out loud at my own joke because I rarely laugh out loud...

Considering that people see it every day (I live in the UK), I thought they might notice it.

I tend to use entirely too much technical language as a matter of course, but yes, sometimes I do it on purpose to see what will happen. There are also times when I use it to show off a bit or to posture myself above the listener as well. Usually though, I only do this when I feel that someone is speaking down to me. Sorry, but I just can't stand being treated like someone who is ignorant or stupid so I end up treating them as my inferior. I don't care if you are the CEO of the company I work for, talk down to me and I will make damn sure to make you feel stupid and let you know your place beneath me.

References are a major part of my humor; they always seem to go over well (granted, I don't overuse them and I make sure they are directly relevant).

I try not to, otherwise I may alienate people. Unfortunately, my geeky obsessions aren't ones shared by a lot of people and I don't hang out with that many geeks.

Ah, well, living in the UK would make it a bit less obscure. Sorry, my ethnocentricity was showing.

You know what's fun? While in conversation with ignorant peers, throwing in relevant quotes from a favorite oldie song and seeing the perplexed looks on their faces when they have no idea what I'm talking about.

Good times.

This isn't even a true geeky thing, because any mature person with decent tastes would understand the reference immediately.

sometimes. they have no idea what I'm talking about though

Hey, not everybody likes oldies. You'd have to throw out Broadway references for me to catch them.

Personally, I tend to randomly go off on tangents about science, even when they're not really related to the conversation. But then, I suck at conversations to begin with.

Same. I'm the only person from biology class that carried on discussion about the topic of evolution outside the classroom.

Sorry if I offended you with the oldies comment by insinuating that anybody who listens to other types of music doesn't have good tastes.

Nah, I just figured you overlooked the other sorts of non-vapid, interesting, well-made music out there. I wasn't offended; just, "Hey, you forgot about--!" and then me correcting you because I'm picky like that. At least I no longer correct people's grammar, like I did in high school. Boy, I was a brat back then.

People on another forum I'm on hate it when I correct their grammar. I got into an argument with one woman just because she felt that my correcting was an attempt to distract her from the real point of our debate. But the grammar thing really did bother me!

Oldies was just an example I used to make my point. I figured I'd be typing a run-on sentence if I included all the types of music I allude to in conversation. There's oldies, but there's also progressive rock, classical, and alternative. No worries.

My biggest pet-peeve: when people reply to a post with "wat". Hey, you forgot the "h" AND the question mark!

Is it just me?

I sometimes slip Internet memes or other inside jokes into conversations, etc.. I recently made a presentation about airport safety and used examples such as "Pick up ALL the foreign object debris". When talking about a possible network problem at work, I said "I think there's something wrong with the tubes"