cross-posted from my facebook page (thanks alot Jared!)
1. My nerdiness knows no bounds. I’ve caught myself graphing (in my head) the ratio of chocolate coating to jelly center in various shapes of candy deciding which shape is optimum for chocolate lovers vs candy center lovers.
2. Waiting doesn’t bother me. I can sit for an hour somewhere and there’s always something going on in my head that keeps me occupied.
3. I don’t believe that spans of time breaks down friendships. I really enjoyed seeing people at my wedding reception I hadn’t seen in 15 or 20 years. The problem lies in that I worry that I’m bothering people if I contact them. I have a hard time thinking of things to do to get together and put off social things because I can’t think of a reason to call someone up. But when I do get together with old friends it’s like no time has passed at all.
4. I got into the Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games with Dark Age of Camelot and spent about a third of my time on the game several years ago. I’ve tempered my addiction and now play Warhammer Online (I never really got into WOW) and have made several friendships with people I’ve never met in real life.
5. Related to #4… When Ixa died (IRL) it really hurt, despite the fact I never played in-game with him. The closest we ever got to even communicating is responding to each others posts in an online forum thread. He was really funny, though, and when he was suddenly gone it left a hole that I hadn’t known was going to be there. It often makes me think of the far-reaching effect of everything we do that touches people we barely even know.
6. The question “what if” plagues my waking thoughts. More often it’s the crazy creative “what if I replaced all these things with something slightly different and wierd” type thoughts that lead to more art projects or stories, but sometimes it’s the fear “what if I end up living under a bridge” -type extreme situation questions.
7. I’ve assimilated entirely too much pop-culture into my life. Hardly a conversation goes by that I don’t segue into some sort of “It’s like on Casablanca when…” type-statements. And it frequently involves “The Simpsons”.
8. “The Simpsons” lost me several years back. I don’t think I’ve seen a new episode in years. In fact, I didn’t see the movie until more than a year after it had been out on DVD. It’s kind of like on the Simpsons where Bart doesn’t get to see the itchy and scratchy movie till after he’s been made the chief justice on the Supreme Court.
9. I frequently do stuff that amuses me to no end, but if nobody catches it I don’t let people in on the joke.
10. I’ve read the entire (so far) Discworld series. Superficially that can be taken as light, easy reading, but there is a depth there that is as good as any serious literature. I don’t want them to end.
11.Apophenia
12. I’ve rated over 1600 movies on netflix. And since I don’t rate movies I’ve not seen (and even haven’t rated ones I’ve known I’ve seen, but can’t remember clearly) that means I’ve spent about a third of a year of my life watching films. And that doesn’t count ones I’ve seen more than once, or ones that I’ve not rated or netflix doesn’t have.
13. I find it funny that I work at the University in a specialized field and that I don’t have a degree, despite all my hours of schooling. I find it even funnier that I work with other people who are all smarter than me that don’t have degrees either. But despite it’s amusement I wish I’d finished at least one of the degrees I worked on.
14. I love math, but my intellect topped out at Calculus when I stopped being able to apply story problems to make the calculations make sense. I was the weird kid that loved story problems.
15. Spell checkers save my life. I can’t spell for anything.
16. I love The Daily Show and watch every episode. But I find it makes me somewhat more cynical that they can point out something completely ridiculous in what government or business is doing, but the only attention given to it is on a comedy show for laughs.
17. I miss being able to rock climb more than anything else in my past that I can think of.
18. I love helping out with the pottery classes, but interacting with the new college students boggles my mind. I mean, I remember being clueless at that age and doing the same stupid things to get acceptance from my peers, but really.
19. I don’t understand greed. I’d love to be out of debt and to be able to do something fun every now and then that is out of the ordinary, but I don’t understand the need for $15,000 umbrella stands or accumulating wealth in the billions.
20. I love crowds in which I can be anonymous –like concerts or fireworks. It’s the groups I’m supposed to be social in that freeze me up –like in church. Christmas Shopping crowds make me bonkers, however.
21. I’ve not bought a (non-dress) shirt for myself in several years. I live off the give-away t-shirts vendors give out at the Supercomputing Conferences. Hence, I look the nerd as well. I did have to buy a Hawaii baseball cap so I don’t end up wearing two pieces of nerd-ware. I am somewhat fashion conscious.
22. Despite my nerdsona, I can’t maintain a windows computer for anything. I’m constantly asking the windows guys at work what I should do for a particular problem. This despite keeping a webserver in my bedroom for over a decade. I’m not sure that Linux is that much easier than windows, I just perceive it as less petty niggling.
23. I’m no bandwagoner. I don’t have an iPhone or even an iPod, even though I think they’re cool, I didn’t play Magic the Gathering until it’s waning popularity, and I pretty much just got on the Facebook boat.
24. Despite my brother’s influence and a couple of bands like Beulah or Granddaddy, I pretty much listen to the same music as I did 15 or more years ago. This perplexes me, as I had an inordinate love of music.
25. I hate top XX lists. (this isn’t a ‘top’, it’s random, so it’s ok). The rage online these days seems to be “top 10 action movies” or “top 100 birdcalls”. You just can’t do it. Leave it alone. The best song ever, though is “For What it’s Worth” by Buffalo Springfield.