A pet peeve: Sometimes, people are so busy trying to be cool, they don’t realize how stupid they're being.
A few weeks back, I was at my college welding class. Actually, “welding camp” would be more accurate. It is this three-day program where students from three surrounding high schools come to the college to learn how to better their welding, while the college students can attend too. Anyway, it went pretty well. Until lunch. As some welding buddies and I ate, we were approached by a high-schooler. This story is completed in two cases.
Case 1: Boy pulls out cell phone. My friend notices that it is melted in a couple spots.
My friend- “Dude, what’d you do to your cell phone?”
Boy- “Welding.”
My friend- “Dude, it’s melted in two spots.”
Boy-(with relish, and not the pickled cucumber kind) “Yup, couldn’t be bothered to move it.”
So he not only knew that it was burning, but couldn’t risk upsetting his perceived welding coolness by leaving it in the classroom. And you know the ironic thing? Welders actually look down on that sort of thing. Burning your personal communications device is commonly regarded as idiocy. It always gets a laugh, but no one truly admires you for it. The real thing to be proud of is burning your clothes, welding equipment, and yourself (now I know why you have so many fingers: spares). Nothing is more satisfying than to be able to point to various burned patches on your clothes and skin and drawl(in a suitably hillbilly accent): “Yeeeeessirreee, that ‘un thar wuz when I wuz weldin’ so perfect, when I cawt fire I cuddent stop, it was lookin’ so purty.”
Case two: After Boy finishes talking, I say (in an optimistic tone), “Well, at least you weren’t carrying a plastic BIC lighter, *chuckle*”
My friend latches on to this, telling a story in which his welding caught a lighter in his back pocket on fire, “Shooting out a flame three feet.” At this the Boy, at this point cooler than a sunbather on the arctic tundra, dramatically pulls a lighter from his FRONT POCKET (let me put it this way. If it’s in your front pocket, it’s toast. Literally), and says (and you could almost hear the hillbilly in his voice), “Like this?”
Sigh.......the kid couldn’t have been over 15. Why exactly did he carry the lighter in the first place? In case of U.S.C.s (Urgent S’more Cravings)?
Friday, April 30, 2010
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Tron
Today, I found out that the long-awaited Tron Legacy has delayed its theater release until December. This aggravated me. As I sat thinking on this topic, I realized that there was no particular reason why this should upset me. After all, it is only a movie….
As I was talking to my friend, also an ardent supporter of the Tron franchise, the source of my frustration finally hit me. I believe that deep down, there are quite a few people who fantasize about being sucked into their computers, to find a strange new world inside the machine, albeit one without creepy guys in black suits and sunglasses (who also express amazing abilities in martial arts). I think that, as the chances of this happening are currently rather slim, then we of this hope must instead content ourselves with living our dream through the characters on the screen.
The first Tron movie was a surprisingly enjoyable ride, with simply amazing CG and special effects (though I must confess that at times I found the seamless blend of computer graphics and live action slightly disturbing). It truly made me feel as though I was looking into the computer.
Tron 2.0: Killer App.(the video game that acts as a sequel to the movie) was, first, an incredibly hard game (I found out the hard way that “normal” is a relative term), and second, almost more immersive than the movie. This time, I wasn’t merely watching events play out; I was making it happen, there inside the computer. I had all the power. It was, I came to realize, an amazing game, that well deserved its status as a sequel to the film.
I can only hope that this movie is well worth the wait.
As I was talking to my friend, also an ardent supporter of the Tron franchise, the source of my frustration finally hit me. I believe that deep down, there are quite a few people who fantasize about being sucked into their computers, to find a strange new world inside the machine, albeit one without creepy guys in black suits and sunglasses (who also express amazing abilities in martial arts). I think that, as the chances of this happening are currently rather slim, then we of this hope must instead content ourselves with living our dream through the characters on the screen.
The first Tron movie was a surprisingly enjoyable ride, with simply amazing CG and special effects (though I must confess that at times I found the seamless blend of computer graphics and live action slightly disturbing). It truly made me feel as though I was looking into the computer.
Tron 2.0: Killer App.(the video game that acts as a sequel to the movie) was, first, an incredibly hard game (I found out the hard way that “normal” is a relative term), and second, almost more immersive than the movie. This time, I wasn’t merely watching events play out; I was making it happen, there inside the computer. I had all the power. It was, I came to realize, an amazing game, that well deserved its status as a sequel to the film.
I can only hope that this movie is well worth the wait.
Zombies in Taco Bell
Zombies. If there’s one thing a geek loves (aside from certain geeks, who may prove to be the exception to this rule), it is zombies.
Case number 1: The other day, one of my relatively normal friends (who happens to have just a few geeky tendencies) and I ate lunch at Taco Bell. The talk swiftly turned to video games, then zombie video games, then finally, simply zombies. For the next 45 minutes, we outlined an extensive plan to survive a zombie outbreak, leaving no contingency unprepared-for. We even had separate plans for each of the three subcategories of zombies: undead, infected, and alien parasite. A sample of the conversation follows:
Me: so, I think that we can both agree that Big 5 is probably the best place to hold out.
Him: Definitely. They’ve got guns, crossbows, food, and everything else!
Me: Yeah, crossbows are good for killing zombies, but they’ve gotta hit the central nervous system to do anything.
Him: well, we’ll save those for last, then. But of course, you’ve gotta remember the explosives, they’re pretty effective.... what’ll we do for explosives?
Me (after taking big bite of burrito): how ‘bout Molotov cocktails?
Him: Yeah! Molotovs!
....And so on and so forth. About the time we got to comparing the effectiveness of various types of chainsaws and debating using an ATV verses an industrial riding mower, we realized that the closest patrons could hear us, so we inserted more references to zombies to make it apparent what we were talking about, and keep people from thinking that we were psychotic mass murderers and restraining us with clean white jackets while the nice men in white drove us to a permanent tour of the funny farm....
Case number 2: The Zombie Song:
A few months ago, a friend and I came up with this song (sung to “the wheels on the bus”):
The claws on the zombie go slash slash slash, slash slash slash, slash slash slash,
The claws on the zombie go slash slash slash, all through the town!
The teeth of the zombie go gnash gnash gnash, gnash gnash gnash, gnash gnash gnash,
The teeth of the zombie go gnash gnash gnash, all through the town!
The victims of the zombie go “AAAAAAAAHH, AAAAAAAAHH, AAAAAAAAHH!”
The victims of the zombie go “AAAAAAAAHH, AAAAAAAAHH, AAAAAAAAHH!”
All through the town!
And so on and so forth. The whole point of this song is to see how many things you can think of for the zombies and their victims to do.
Case number 1: The other day, one of my relatively normal friends (who happens to have just a few geeky tendencies) and I ate lunch at Taco Bell. The talk swiftly turned to video games, then zombie video games, then finally, simply zombies. For the next 45 minutes, we outlined an extensive plan to survive a zombie outbreak, leaving no contingency unprepared-for. We even had separate plans for each of the three subcategories of zombies: undead, infected, and alien parasite. A sample of the conversation follows:
Me: so, I think that we can both agree that Big 5 is probably the best place to hold out.
Him: Definitely. They’ve got guns, crossbows, food, and everything else!
Me: Yeah, crossbows are good for killing zombies, but they’ve gotta hit the central nervous system to do anything.
Him: well, we’ll save those for last, then. But of course, you’ve gotta remember the explosives, they’re pretty effective.... what’ll we do for explosives?
Me (after taking big bite of burrito): how ‘bout Molotov cocktails?
Him: Yeah! Molotovs!
....And so on and so forth. About the time we got to comparing the effectiveness of various types of chainsaws and debating using an ATV verses an industrial riding mower, we realized that the closest patrons could hear us, so we inserted more references to zombies to make it apparent what we were talking about, and keep people from thinking that we were psychotic mass murderers and restraining us with clean white jackets while the nice men in white drove us to a permanent tour of the funny farm....
Case number 2: The Zombie Song:
A few months ago, a friend and I came up with this song (sung to “the wheels on the bus”):
The claws on the zombie go slash slash slash, slash slash slash, slash slash slash,
The claws on the zombie go slash slash slash, all through the town!
The teeth of the zombie go gnash gnash gnash, gnash gnash gnash, gnash gnash gnash,
The teeth of the zombie go gnash gnash gnash, all through the town!
The victims of the zombie go “AAAAAAAAHH, AAAAAAAAHH, AAAAAAAAHH!”
The victims of the zombie go “AAAAAAAAHH, AAAAAAAAHH, AAAAAAAAHH!”
All through the town!
And so on and so forth. The whole point of this song is to see how many things you can think of for the zombies and their victims to do.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
The Fingers of Life
One of the most useful of tools in the geek’s lifestyle is (insert dramatic pause and drum roll here) the fingers of life. By the fingers of life, I do not mean to imply that a geek can simply waltz on over to a squashed, formerly-happy little forest creature plastered to the tarmac, wave his (or her) fingers, and restore the forest creature’s former optimistic outlook on life. No, this is one of the few tools that, for now, remain exclusive to technology.
We all, at some point or another, have known somebody who possesses the fingers of life. These are the people who you ask help from after you have tried to defeat a technical issue/problem approximately 37 and a half times. There you are, practically pulling your hair out, quietly screaming in frustration, when this person walks over, performs the exact same series of actions that you have already tried 37 and a half times, and somehow, succeeds! My first experience with this phenomenon was when I was attempting to install the necessary software to enable my flash drive to run on my computer (at that time, an ornery old ’98). After I performed all of the necessary steps, I would receive an error message. But this was no ordinary error message, my friends. No, this error message was different, all right! Specifically, this error message was in FRENCH. After receiving this message following more than a few tries, I (feeling more frustrated than a depressed lemming without a large body of water) called over my sister, the former owner of the computer. She followed the same steps, and it worked on the first try.
Over the last few years, however, I have slowly developed this ability with most computers. Most people mistake this for actual knowledge! Skill and knowledge are very different things! Knowledge is an actual understanding of concepts. Skill merely takes what knowledge you do possess and uses it to help you to make accurate conclusions from fragmented data. Many a time I will hear a cry for help and scurry across the room to the rescue, only to find that the computer in question starts behaving as soon a I get within a foot or two of it. My so-called fingers of life appear to have exceeded their physical limits, scuttling around the computer unseen, as though it were being swarmed by giant, invisible spiders spreading their skill around like jam on a piece of toast.
We all, at some point or another, have known somebody who possesses the fingers of life. These are the people who you ask help from after you have tried to defeat a technical issue/problem approximately 37 and a half times. There you are, practically pulling your hair out, quietly screaming in frustration, when this person walks over, performs the exact same series of actions that you have already tried 37 and a half times, and somehow, succeeds! My first experience with this phenomenon was when I was attempting to install the necessary software to enable my flash drive to run on my computer (at that time, an ornery old ’98). After I performed all of the necessary steps, I would receive an error message. But this was no ordinary error message, my friends. No, this error message was different, all right! Specifically, this error message was in FRENCH. After receiving this message following more than a few tries, I (feeling more frustrated than a depressed lemming without a large body of water) called over my sister, the former owner of the computer. She followed the same steps, and it worked on the first try.
Over the last few years, however, I have slowly developed this ability with most computers. Most people mistake this for actual knowledge! Skill and knowledge are very different things! Knowledge is an actual understanding of concepts. Skill merely takes what knowledge you do possess and uses it to help you to make accurate conclusions from fragmented data. Many a time I will hear a cry for help and scurry across the room to the rescue, only to find that the computer in question starts behaving as soon a I get within a foot or two of it. My so-called fingers of life appear to have exceeded their physical limits, scuttling around the computer unseen, as though it were being swarmed by giant, invisible spiders spreading their skill around like jam on a piece of toast.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
