I wanted U
I hoped for U
I waited for U
Time after time
I looked for U
But U passed me by
U went to others
I thought U would never come to me
Then when I had given up all hope
That I would ever be able to hold U
U appeared
U came to me
Finding U fulfilled a need
Because without U
I might well have finished
Forlorn, distressed and clutching
That little tile
Imprinted with
The letter Q
Category: geekiness
extra cheese
You know what really cheeses me off? When I finish a list and realize I’ve forgotten something.
It’s like going to the grocery store to buy bread, eggs and milk, and then remembering I need cheese too as I’m driving on my way there, but I figure I’ll wait to add it to my list, since it would be hazardous to write while driving, even if it is only one word, and then when I get there, going into this trance as I wander the aisles with my shopping cart, and wondering what it means that supermarkets now play music that was actually popular when I was in high school, and feeling up the melons and squeezing the toilet paper, then browsing the cereal aisle and feeling nostalgic for the days of my youth when lucky charms were an exotic unattainable bowl of cereal at the end of the rainbow because my mother insisted on having us eat healthy cereals like wheat chex and when I finally tried them, they really weren’t that thrilling, and resisting the urge to buy cookies and redi-whip and donuts, and before you know it, I’ve filled up the cart and then I head home with my bags of groceries, and after I put away my bread and my milk and my pint of organic blackberry sorbet, which seemed like a healthier choice than the chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, but screw it, I bought that too, and bananas and maple syrup and zucchini and oatmeal and frozen peas, and then find a crumpled up paper in my pocket, and it’s my grocery list with its three measly items (bread, eggs and milk) scribbled on it, and realize that I’ve forgotten the eggs, and (crap!) I also forgot to get more cheese.
You know what I’m saying?
Anyhow, I realized that I left off some key pieces of cheese from yesterday’s cheeseful bounty. Such as:
- Richard Cheese, a musician who, along with his band Lounge Against the Machine, provides cheesy lounge music reinterpretations of so many your favorite contemporary songs. Also in the music category is the band The String Cheese Incident. Then there’s the apparently sadly now-defunct Cheese Patrol, a
yearly homage to all the songs that people vociferously hate but secretly know all the words to. These are the songs we grew up with; overorchestrated. overwrought, oversynthed, over the top.
- Somehow I also managed to leave off the appearance of the cheese guy in the Buffy episode “Restless“, as well as a few other cheesy references. And in my research I came across this brilliant essay “An Analysis of Cheese as Metaphor in Buffy the Vampire Slayer”. Apparently, the layers of cheese in the Buffy series run far deeper than I’d realized.
- For more on cheese philosophy, you can check out this essay “on the non-existence of cheese.” Is there proof of the existence of cheese in the universe? Perhaps not.
- Then there’s the Cheese Burglar. But I’m not really a big fan of the cult of which he is a member. So instead I offer this cartoon mouse classic, The Cheese Burglar (1946). (You can even see it on YouTube. Though I admit to not having watched anything close to the whole 7 minutes.)
- I actually like the animation of this (shorter) shortThe Cheese Trap better, which features a cg version of the board game Mouse Trap, one of my childhood favorites.
- Do you hanker for a hunka cheese? Do you remember this rather creepy cartoon psa from the 70s? You might also be interested in the hunk-hankerers guest appearance on the Family Guy.
- Yesterday’s cheese did not include much in the way of cheese activities for those of you with too much time and not enough cheese on your hands. Options include: a quiz to let you know what kind of cheese you are. (There’s also a similar-veined one-step cheese “comparator,” but the reviews are not stellar.)
- There’s even an experiment with cheese that you can perform at home on your own. (However, the author does recommend exercising caution if you are lactose tolerant.) (And no, my dear seester, this is not the same cheese experiment you tried with me that one time when we were little. I’ll write about that later.)
- Most thrillingly, you can actually watch cheese *live* online. That’s right, you can watch watch cheddar cheese aging. Not only is it just as exciting as it sounds, it is also apparently the cool thing to do. (If you don’t have the months to spare to see the change in progress, you can also check out this time-lapse video encapsulating 3 months of the cheese-aging process.)
- And even though I offered it up yesterday, no cheese list would be complete without The Cheese Shop sketch. This time, I serve it up in its youtubiful glory:
breaking research from the geekology laboratories
I mentioned yesterday that there are tests out there to help you determine how you fit into the geek/nerd/dork paradigm. There are many, many tests out there. I may explore these more, but here are a few (with my own results, when available).
Geek, nerd or dork tests
1. The “original geek test”
I like this one. And I actually like that you get bonus points for being a female geek. (Ha!)
I scored 23.07692%, which puts me at the (unmodified) “Geek” level. (There are, of course, higher levels of geek. You also get to have, should you choose, a button with your test results. Behold mine!
2. The Geek Test: How geeky are you?
This one is a shorter test, and may be derivative of the preceding test. (Or maybe they both are derivative of some previous source. Scientists at the North American Geekology Laboratories are furiously researching this question as we speak.)
Here are my results:
Geek Test Results
You are 47.5% geeky.
OK, not that geeky at all, are you? I’ll bet you even have a girlfriend (or boyfriend).
The current average score is: 31.55%
Fact: 35.45% of people who took this test admit to wearing a costume “just for fun”.
3. A nerd test, called the “nerd purity test“:
Here are a few sample questions:
Do you have a Rubik’s Cube?
Can you solve it?
Without the book?
Without looking?
Do you have acne?
Do you have greasy hair?
Are you unaware of it?
And here are my results:
Your Nerd Purity Test Results
You answered “yes” to 26 of 100 questions, making you 74.0% nerd pure; that is, you are 74.0% pure in the nerd domain (you have 26.0% nerd in you).
Your Weirdness Factor (AKA Uniqueness Factor) is 11%, based on a comparison of your test results with 576688 other submissions for this test.
The average purity for this test is 73.8%.
The first submission for this test was received June 16, 1994.
4. Another nerd test, this one called The Nerdity Test:
THE NERDITY TEST
Version 5.x.cubed.minus.3.x.all.divided.by.2
10 December, 1993
HTML-Version: 7 May, 1996
CGI-Enabled: 13 March, 1998
JavaScript-Enabled: 25 October, 2000
This one looks pretty good, and gets extra points for the version number. However, I didn’t finish taking the test due to time constraints. (Also, when I clicked on the “credits” link for one of the questions, I accidentally cleared out my answers for the test at the point, and didn’t want to go back.)
5. Blogthings had a pretty lame one. I’m not convinced by my results, even though the “nerd” percentage is somewhat similar to the previous test score. But come on. “no one would ever call you a nerd”? Oh, how wrong can they be:
| You Are 24% Nerdy |
 You’re a little nerdy, but no one would ever call you a nerd. You sometimes get into nerdy things, but only after they’ve become a part of mainstream culture. |
6. To balance things out, we have a dork quiz:
This one is not interactive, but the questions do look fun, like:
9. Who do you most closely identify with?
a) Kermit.
b) Gonzo.
c) Scooter.
7. I’m actually most partial to the OKcupid Nerd? Geek? or Dork? test
I like it that this considers nerd, geek and dork to be dimensions, and helps you to place yourself on those axes. This one has some pretty funny questions, like:
When you encounter something you don’t know, do you often try to find out what it is? (Like an unknown word in a dictionary or event in an encyclopedia.)
Wait a second-there are people who would answer “no” to this question? I’ve often wished I had access to imdb while watching movies in a theater…
Do you enjoy quoting books/movies/tv shows, etc. in your conversations/letters/emails?
This test also claims to give a score about how you ranked on the three variable (nerdiness, geekosity and dork points) compared to others of your age and gender. Note that my score shows higher than 99% for all three. Which I thought was interesting. So I was curious about how I’d score if I were a male. Still got the same. So I actually tried retaking the test from a nearly totally different persona, a sort of suave but kinda dumb athletic type. And still, I get over 99% on the three variables. This suggests to me that a) this feature is probably broken, and these levels are probably not actually a reflection of the test-taker demographics b) I am really a nerd, geek and dork to follow up on this and c) I really should be getting back to the work I need to be doing and stop taking these damn tests.
Modern, Cool Nerd 78 % Nerd, 65% Geek, 47% Dork |
For The Record: A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia. You scored better than half in Nerd and Geek, earning you the title of: Modern, Cool Nerd. Nerds didn’t use to be cool, but in the 90’s that all changed. It used to be that, if you were a computer expert, you had to wear plaid or a pocket protector or suspenders or something that announced to the world that you couldn’t quite fit in. Not anymore. Now, the intelligent and geeky have eked out for themselves a modicum of respect at the very least, and “geek is chic.” The Modern, Cool Nerd is intelligent, knowledgable and always the person to call in a crisis (needing computer advice/an arcane bit of trivia knowledge). They are the one you want as your lifeline in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (or the one up there, winning the million bucks)! Congratulations! Thanks Again! — THE NERD? GEEK? OR DORK? TEST |
 |
My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:
|
| Link: The Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test written by donathos on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test |
geek, nerd or dork?
I wrote a bit a couple of weeks ago about clique taxonomies, especially as they pertain to the high school movie genre. In my research, I came across some interesting tidbits, which I thought I’d share.
Most high school clique taxonomies make some reference to individuals who are not considered popular: the “outcasts” or “outsiders.” Most commonly, these “others” are labelled geeks, nerds or dorks. (Though the terms dweeb and spaz or spazz are not uncommon.) The use of these terms has usually been extended past the high school age, when clique membership becomes less clear. Interestingly, the taxonomies for these groups have become hotly debated.
For example Militant Geek (“Militant Geek Custom Shirts: Propaganda for a Geek Friendly Future”) offers these words of concern:
An alarming trend that we’ve noticed at the Militant Geek HQ is the sloppy usage of the terms ‘geek’, ‘nerd’, and ‘dork’. It was almost as if certain individuals assumed that they meant the same thing! For the record Geeks are those that have technical aptitude, nerds are bright but socially awkward, and dorks are just inept excuses for protoplasm.
This site has even offered up a “handy comparison chart” to help people understand the differences in the classifications.
Coyote of Not funny…ever offers these words of wisdom in a post called Geek Dweeb or Spaz?
Dork – (Pronounced “Door’k” From the Latin “Murdockious”) A Dork, like the Spaz has all the knowledge and ability of a Geek or a Nerd, but has NO clue
Buckethead of The Ministry of Minor Perfidy offers definitions and discussions in the similarly-titled though differently-punctuated post Geek, Dweeb, or Spaz?
Nerd: the nerd is base type, from which all the others are derived. Nerds are bright, and lacking in social skills. They have odd interests. They are dilettantes, and usually end up consumed by counterproductive pursuits like the SCA, Star Wars collectables, and Star Trek conventions. Some nerds can achieve purpose in life translating the arcane thoughts of the geeks to the mundane normal people. Nerds are hapless, though they often have a goofy charm.
And this is just the tip of the iceberg! Whether it’s the Wikipedia entry for geek an “ask yahoo” response to the fundamental question “What’s the difference between a nerd, a geek, and a dork?” or a discussion board topic on a site called Geek Culture. You can even get t-shirts that help you with the terms, like the cafépress “geek hierarchy” shirt:
Geek Hierarchy: Geek > Nerd > Dork. Geeks design it, Nerds buy it, Dorks break it.
Do you wonder where you fit into the picture? Do you have leanings of geekery, or hints of nerdiness? Or are you just a total dork? There are tests to help! (Well, to help you figure out if you are a nerd or a dork. Finding help with being a dork is another question.)
Okay, I’ll have to post about the tests later. I’d better get to work.
collecting tokens 