3: On the Makings of a Nerd

Today’s blog post is brought to you by the Present Tense. Live the moment!

A knack for self-deprecation is the only ‘quality’ I readily admit to having. Anyone who knows me well will vouch for this. I am of a type and inhabit my role with Brandoian dedication. What you see is what you get. These posts, then, have so far pandered to this type like a touring band panders to the nearest crowd. In the unlikely event that anyone who doesn’t contribute to this blog is still reading, rest assured the trend for untrendyness looks set to continue with annoying regularity.

I like questionnaires. Anyone who relishes competition will doubtless know the thrill of assessing oneself against others. Am I this? Am I that? Am I fat/thin/capable of ‘taking’ her or him? And questionnaires are a valuable resource for stabilizing the perennially whigged, so naturally I dig ‘em. They’re emotional lifeboats. If the results are ‘right’, that is.*

After a(nother) heroic mood swing leaves me feeling chipper, I happen upon a questionnaire. It’s topic: Internet nerds. Were this quiz aimed at diagnosing regular nerds, my browser would be traversing pastures new, by now. Batman don’t need no shrink to tell him he’s got issues. But I often wonder how my Internet behaviour compares to others (around my age and beyond), so I indulge.

By question one, I’m unimpressed. There’s a blown wad right where there should be a tactful, intriguing opening salvo (paraphrased):

1. Are you always online?

As “foshiz” is the first option, I can be sure that, if I make a habit of going with the first choice**, I’m likely a geek par excellence. If I do so for choice number two (usually), I’m gonna fall safely in the middle. I’ll learn that I’m on top of things, but with enough distance from both the screen and net-dependency to prevent a thousand yard stare. And if I see what’s behind door number three, I might as well crawl back under my Martian rock.***

I don’t need to think too much to know that I’m online a lot, but not always. I check 2.

2. Are you a once-in-a-while blogger?

After missing the latest in a long line of boats years hence, I recently became co-author of a blog****. I contribute to it on a steady but not unusual rate. 2 again it is, then.

3. Do you often read other people’s blogs?

Before I started writing one, I never gave them a second thought. Since then, I’ve looked around to find some half-decent ones and found precisely two out of a monstrous number that appealed to me. And I don’t even read those two from start to finish. That’s a firm Belfast “no” for you, Question 3.

4. Do you use text-speak in everyday conversations?

I have used such language a handful of times in “everyday conversation” (phone calls to this blog’s own Christophe) for the express purpose of jest. No makes another appearance.

5. Do you watch online clips and streamed videos regularly?

More than I watch television, increasingly. My life wouldn’t be what it is without such classics as ‘Batman on Drugs’ and various Star Trek/Wars fan opuses. A resounding yes here. (Nerdlinger!)

6. Are you permanently logged in to your favourite Instant Messenger client?

Closer to the opposite. It’s not that I don’t love MSN, I just prefer to think of it like I would a favourite bar. Nipping in for a beer and the chance to see some regulars is one thing, but I don’t wanna make it a second home. The heart grow fonder absence makes, as Yoda might say. Nope, once again.

7. Do you like to keep your e-mail inbox open in the background?

I check my e-mails when I’ve done everything else I want to do/can’t think of anything else to do/feel that sufficient time has elapsed since I last did and should take a peep. So no.

8. Do you have accounts with multiple social networking sites?

Facebook is enough for me, thank ya very much. (That’s a negatory, good buddy.)

9. Do you own/maintain your own web-site?

Remember that episode where Marge tells Homer why the impressive components inside a robot’s head are the reason why his robot never worked? Well, if you swap the word “robot” for “website” and an episode where Marge explains HTML to Homer, reasoning that his website may have benefited from mastery of it, that could be a long-winded but fitting analogy for my thoughts on this question. (Guess which option I choose?)

10. Would it be fair to say that working for a major computer giant would be a dream job for you?

In my salad days, I thought it would “rock” to work for Capcom or Konami. If this counts (I think they mean more Microsofty), then maybe, once, I kinda could've ticked yes, but not now. (So 2+2 must equal…?)

11. Do you know the difference between Flash and Silverlight?

That’s easy. Barry Allen is the Flash and Silverlight (a.k.a. Dirk Duckford) used to be in the Justice League ‘til he got kicked out for cheating on Wonder Woman with Hal Jordan. Hang on… I mean Green Arrow. No, it was Black Canary. Silverlight wasn’t gay. Or was he? And wasn’t he in the Avengers?… (I think I’ll have to say…)

12. Have you made many good friends on the Internet?

No. I have made no friends on the Internet. I use the much-loved resource to communicate with friends I made in the real world, or “Matrix”, to use the Latin. (Come on. You can do it!)

13. Have you become romantically involved with someone you met on the Internet?

I met *radio edit* on the Internet. But unless a pre-recorded *mature themes* video of her not watching me *adult situations* to her counts as becoming “romantically involved”, I can’t think of anyone else. (What do the Yanks call minus numbers again?)

14. Do you check your e-mail using a mobile device?

I have a(n old) mobile phone which I use to make and receive calls on, as well as send the odd text message. I have, despite what those blurry photos of me on the beach in Saint Lucia suggest, nothing else that could be deemed a mobile device.

15. Do you upload photos to your blog service or photo gallery?

I don’t, at present, but I do plan to plaster some snaps of my ugly mug over the auld blog in order to “pimp” (read: gimp) it out. As for galleries, the pictures of me on Facebook should be more than enough to satiate even the most twisted Fangoria readers. (“If you stare long enough at these things, a picture’s supposed to appear.”)

16. Do you use online file storage?

I did at uni, but not anymore. That was the first - and last - time I ever went to the fourth dimens- oh file-storage (laughs). Oh, well… same again, actually. (“Hey look, a sail boat!”)

That’s a grand total of:
One 1,
Two 2’s, and
Thirteen 3’s.

Inconclusive is hardly the word I would choose.

Sure enough, the obligatory results page confirms what I suspected all along. I’m no more an Internet geek than most of the guys who frequent sites like Football 365 or Your Local United.com’s forums. For the most part, I like reading movie, music, and football sites, doing so at frequent but not alarming intervals. Otherwise, I’m largely aloof. The “mostly yes” and “often” columns have me pretty much bang on in, if they’re trying to not accurately describe me at all.

However, the “mostly no” assessment is (mostly) way off. I do check my e-mails once, maybe twice a day. But while I have read a blog once or twice in the past, this was no “accident” (see above.) Furthermore, I can say with some confidence that I have a considerable “interest in Internet culture.” Daily trips to preferred sites, as well as an active presence on Facebook, MSN, and the forums of my favourite website, CHUD.com***** all evidence this. That my true identity contains elements from all three pools intrigues me. Maybe questionnaires aren’t so boring and predictable, after all. Better still, maybe I’m not so boring and predictable, after all. You really do learn something new every day.

* This may or may not explain my fear of I.Q. tests.
** Like some sort of intellectual manchester city (condescending lower case added by author.)
*** Yes, any primary school kid who’s taken a quiz or two can see the strings of this charade, but still, a little effort to mask the fact’d be nice!
**** I’m more meta than you.
***** Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, fellow Sewer Chewers!

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Ian Pratt hopes you forgive his egregious use of footnotes. His near-namesake Terry Pratchett made quite an impression on him, as a wee lad.