Finally we had a weekend day (and evening) with no rain. So, my better half got me a new bag of mesquite charcoal, I took the wire brush to the Weber, and I officially greeted Spring by grilling our dinner.
Of course, while you’re tending the grill, your mind sometimes wanders, and you end up pondering (possibly geeky) questions. Such as:
Category Archives: Passing thoughts
I dislike anti-intellectualism and honking big cars.
I’m a total sheep. Cool kids like Chris Clarke are making subversive Chevy Tahoe commercials, and I just couldn’t help myself.
I made one too.
Please, before you rant up my comments, I fully believe that you are a responsible SUV driver. It’s the irresponsible ones I encounter on my commute that make me angry …
I’ve got your ego right here, buddy!
Oh wait, it looks like I don’t …
GrrlScientist, the resident online quiz maven, points us to the online tool EgoSurf. Said tool does a “deep search” with the search word you provide, looking for links to the domain you indicate (like, for example, your weblog).
So, I went egosurfing with this site, using both my nom de blog and my real name as the search terms. As you’ll see from the results (below the fold), I might have an easier time letting go of my ego than some of my sibling bloggers because … well, there’s less to let go of.
Intelligence is one thing, how you use it quite another.
On April 1, internet quizzes seem at least as appropriate as renouncing our principled stands on the world, so here we go again. GrrlScientist poses the first part of the question: are you an idiot?
But she doesn’t deal with the obvious follow-up question: what are you going to do with that intelligence?
My answers (as measured by quizzes that actually claim not to be “scientific measurements of what kind of person you are”) below the fold.
Am I evil, or just misunderstood?
Blogging is something I do, but it doesn’t own me.
Because GrrlScientist asks, I took the quiz about whether my blog is working for me or I am working for my blog:
Marketing philosophy to admitted students.
My university had events on campus today for newly admitted students. My department tapped me (and two of our fabulous philosophy students) to man the Philosophy Department table at the College of Humanities and Arts open house.
Hundreds of admitted students — many with their parents — milling around in a room with such enticing major departments as English & Comparative Literature, Art & Design, Music & Dance (yes, the cool ones have ampersands), and we were supposed to sell Philosophy.
We opted for brazenness, and wrote in big letters on the white-board/easel we had brought with us:
A conversation on the way to class.
Do other bloggers ever stalk you in real life?
OK, maybe it doesn’t count if (1) it’s someone you know from real life (and I think even an online course counts as real life here), and (2) it’s someone who actually has business to transact in the building in which you run into her. Besides, Julie‘s a pretty cool blogger by whom to be stalked.
Anyway, Julie was kind enough to chat with me as I walked to class, and something like the following exchange took place:
Am I geekier than I thought?
Eszter Hargittai at Crooked Timber points out another silly online quiz: Web 2.0 or Star Wars character?
So of course, I had to take it.
I think maybe the test is broken.
GrrlScientist, trendsetter that she is, took the Simpsons Personality Quiz. Thought I, “Gee, that looks like fun.”
I totally didn’t see this coming: