As seen at Rants of a Feminist Engineer and See Jane Compute.
Ten Weird Things about Me:
1. I won the first NCAA basketball pool in which I participated, picking the teams in my bracket with absolutely no knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of their teams. Just based on my impressions of the schools (or in some cases, the names of the schools), I nailed three of the Final Four, not to mention the winner of the tournament. I have never done well in an NCAA basketball pool since then.
2. I like the puffed Cheetos-like snacks (although no-name brands more than actual Cheetos) when they’ve been allowed to stale. Essentially, you’re eating artificially orange colored, cheesy styrofoam packing peanuts … and now, I’m sad that there aren’t any in the house.
3. Seeing extremely out of season produce in a supermarket (yesterday: peaches and plums) makes me sad.
4. While I’ve never felt particularly warmly toward Microsoft, what pushed me over the edge and made me want to rough up Bill Gates my own self was when I heard (on a news program? The Daily Show? I can’t remember) him describe something as “very unique”. If a computer guy doesn’t understand the binary nature of uniqueness, he needs to be relieved of his command, with extreme prejudice.
5. I have named my cars, but only the red ones. (That is to say, two of the four cars I’ve had over the last 20 years have had names.)
6. The sound of an eraser on a chalkboard bugs me the same way the sound of nails on a chalkboard bugs normal people. I also have difficulty with the sound of a scratchy pencil on paper.
7. I can touch my nose with my tongue.
8. I tell myself that I’m not a show tunes kind of person, and yet I’m extremely susceptible to them. They get stuck in my head … partly because I end up playing them over and over. And we’re not just talking show tunes that would fit into the rock ‘n’ roll oeuvre (as the songs from Hedwig and the Angry Inch do). We’re talking A Year With Frog and Toad.
9. I haven’t owned an umbrella since sometime in college, and I have no intention of owning one ever again. They blow inside out, they poke you in the eye, they escape on buses– they’re just bad news. A good rain parka (and, if one is cycling or walking a significant distance, rain pants) solves the same problem more effectively.
10. I’m oddly resistant to keyboard shortcuts.
If you’re not using keyboard shortcuts, you’re wasting a lot of time and energy, which could surely be put to good use with something else.
Not to quibble, but the so-called “absolute adjectives”, like unique, perfect, round, or square have allowed comparatives for centuries (just check out the Constitution). This is understood to mean ‘more nearly’ and is perfectly acceptable English by any standards except mathematical … which language is not.
I use only 4 keyboard shortcuts. That’s all. Think of all I could get accomplished if only I used more! (not)
I’m with Janet on the resistance to keyboard shortcuts. They promote lazy typing. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Cheetos, however, they frighten me…. That orange is found nowhere in nature…
I’m halfway from Janet to Jennifer on the stale food issue: nothing that (Cheetos) color should ever enter a human GI tract, but I like most bakery produce other than bread (so cookies, cakes, donuts — all the sweet stuff) better when it’s stale than when it’s fresh.
Those aren’t weird — they’re fascinating.
Ooooh, I can do #7 too! And I’m with you on #3—besides, it tastes so bad, so why would anyone in their right mind buy it anyway?
Thanks for playing along!
By the time your sprogs are teens, and convinced you are the wicked witch of the [pick a direction] it is good to be practiced at walking in the rain with no umbrella, even more effectively with no head covering whatever, within their view stating: “See, I don’t melt, so I am NOT a wicked witch!”
Also, despite your prejudice against my usage, any mother of two knows that at any given moment, one is uniquer than the other; any mother fortuante enough to be raising 3 or more, will describe one at any moment as the uniquest. I know we’ve had this discussion before, but there are moments when each of you has been the uniquest-sometimes in a positive sense, and somethimes otherwise.
I know lots of keyboard shortcuts including weird ones that shutdown your computer.
E.G.
Window key, enter, H for hibernate,
I’m with you on umbrellas, haven’t owned one since early junior high school, so like 6 years ago? Also I don’t like keyboard shortcuts and avoid them like the plague.
Number 3: I agree. It’s like seeing a pack of thong-clad south-sea islanders dropped off in Helsinki for the weekend. It’s just wrong – we should respect the fruit!
And you know something else that’s wrong – Europe’s largest producer of bananas is Iceland. That’s right, Iceland. Now that just makes me shiver…
I agree on the umbrellas…haven’t had one since 1974.
I am addicted to key board short cuts, though. My favorite is ‘win key e’ to open my PC directory structure.
Peter, I can’t get ‘Window key, enter, H for hibernate,’ to do anything on my XP os.
What’s a keyboard shortcut?
Wow, I’ve been going around all this time thinking I was the only person in the world who doesn’t like umbrellas! I guess it’s true that you can find like-minded people on the Internet for *any* definition of “like-minded”.
“3. Seeing extremely out of season produce in a supermarket (yesterday: peaches and plums) makes me sad.”
Me too!
Kinds of sadness that can only happen in/as a result of the modern world are amazing. I’d like to compile a list.
I agree wholeheartedly with #4 but have to wonder if #9 will come back to bite you.
I’m going to guess your sprogs will eventually want to take up field sports and that is when the umbrella changes from a nuisance to a god-send…at least out here on the Wet Coast! I’ve heard people claim that they hate umbrellas but just wait until you’ve been standing on the sideline in a torrential downpour watching little people chase a soccer ball up and down the field for hours on end. As a former coach and spectator there is nothing quite like a big golf umbrella and a pair of waterproof boots to keep your spirits high and your body dry.
Hee, for number four I automatically added “or watch some West Wing”. (Yes, I need help.)
With respect to #5 I’ve only named the most recent car, and it’s not really a name more of a sad description.
And keyboard shortcuts are sometimes my friends. I do way too much copying and pasting not to use them. I just wish that the Z, X, C and V keys weren’t so bloody close together because then it wouldn’t mean switching keyboards requires learning how to short cut all over again.
OK, elderly produce is just SAD, can’t they send it to a retired produce home rather than putting it on mark-down at the grocery store?
Re. the Bill Gates thing – YES, YES, YES!!!!! As a grammar hound (part of my job), I just cringe when folks talk about the relative uniqueness of processes, products, or results. ACK! A serious Mr. Bill moment just occurred!!!
I only named one of my cars, a cute little Ford Focus that came from a plant in Hermosillo, Mexico (my dad was an expat plant manager there, he followed the car down the production line and left me a note in the glove box) named PEPE.
So, what do you call an ice blue Chrysler Town & Country that is used as a Mom-mobile for the 8 miles from our house to our very small town (population ~3000 when college isn’t in session) and as the cross-country mobile when we need to go to railroad hobby shows to sell our Rubber Rocks?