Someone Nerdier Than I Am

If you get this "joke", then understand that the reason I post it is just to get it out there that someone actually did this. On my way home today, I saw a car with a license plate that read:

2QPLUS2Q

Really? The First Thing, Captain Kirk?

Ok listen, I am a nerd. I will happily admit that I am a fan of Star Trek and I enjoy watching the various series and movies. I love the original. I love the Next Generation. I like Voyager. I've seen most of the movies, and I do not begrudge anyone who is a bigger fan than I am. If you want to dress up like a Vulcan and go to conventions, that's cool. If you want to learn to speak fluent Klingon, fucking go for it. If you want to build a replica of Captain Kirk's original captain's chair based on things like the "Starfleet Technical Manual" and the "USS Enterprise Bridge Blueprints", like the people in this article, and then put that chair in your living room, then build away, friend.

But then there's this:

"Mr. Veazie, a manager at Underwriters Laboratories, built the chair himself last year, and has been gratified to find, since installing it in the living room in May, that 'when someone comes in, it’s the first thing they comment on.'"

No fucking shit, dude. So you're saying that no one comments on your fucking normal couch in the living room? No one comments on your tiny bookshelf with your super sweet DVD collection sorted in color order and pictures of your family? The first thing the eye is drawn to in your living room is the elevated replica of the captain's chair with the buttons and everything? I'll bet that's gratifying.

A Lame and Nerdy Joke

There are 10 kinds of people in this world.

Those who understand binary, and those who don't.

Best Facebook comment ever?

(Disclaimer: This particular post may only hold meaning to those who went to our high school. Oh, and Side Bar, too, I guess. He lived in our town, so he'll probably get it too. Side Bar, for those who didn't know, went to a private school because he was better than us. Also, I'm going to rip on him repeatedly in this post, so maybe you should read it just for that. It's gonna drive him mad. You might even say, "schizophrenic." K-Bye!)

Now, we all know how Side Bar hates Facebook because he's a friggin' old man (Just look at his hair. Zing!) who also hates children and ice cream and sunshine and "things that are fun," but I felt I had to report this.

Chuck and LJT have access to this photo because they're on Facebook, but for Side Bar's cranky, old sake, I'll post it here:

That's us (and our esteemed friends AWD and Lumpy) outside Carmine's two Fridays ago celebrating Queen's Quest's "Bachelor Party." (I owe a drink to whoever figures that out first.) This picture was uploaded to Queen's Quest's Facebook page. One feature Facebook, uh, features is "tagging" photos. Side Bar, pay attention: You drag your mouse over someone's face in a picture and identify them, presumably so that other people can search for pictures of you.

Another Facebook feature is that it sends you messages when you've been tagged in a photo. And yet another is that folks are allowed to comment on these photos. And finally, if someone does in fact comment on a photo you're in, Facebook alerts you to that as well. It's amazing, isn't it? Though, yes, not as cool as color TV, right, Side Bar?

Anyway, I occasionally receive these messages from Facebook when someone comments on one of my photos, or someone else's photo that I'm in.

This afternoon, I received a delightful email from Facebook. Apparently, Queen's Quest had tagged me in the above photo. (LJT and Chuck, did you get this too?) Due to the anonymity principle of this widely read Web log, I won't type the name of the person who made the comment, but I'll post a screen shot of the Gmail message. I highly recommend you download the photo, because you need to read the comment. Upon downloading it (Stop me if I'm going too fast, Side Bar. If you need help operating basic photo software on your computer-machine, call me.), zoom in and read the name of the person and what he said. (You might be able to just click on it, too. Try that. Side Bar, that thing to your right is called a "mouse"...)

The basic situation is: Queen's Quest uploaded this photo, then tagged me, LJT, Chuck, Lumpy, and AWD. She didn't tag Side Bar because (have I mentioned this?) he's not on Facebook and can't be tagged. But instead of writing AWD's real name, she wrote someone else's. Someone very funny. A real person we all remember from high school. So in case you didn't get it, the person she named in the tag obviously isn't the person in the photo. Well played, Queen's Quest. Apparently, this falsely tagged person received a Facebook message and, well, disputed its honesty.

Now, granted, I can't be sure if he was serious or not. But goddammit, that is just about perfect. I'm not gonna say I shit myself because when people say that, it's always stupid hyperbole, but when I saw that comment, I totally shit myself. We all remember what happened to that poor kid. I'm half-amazed he's still alive, much less still in North Jersey (says his Facebook profile). I figured he'd've moved somewhere far away, like Central Jersey or something. (For y'all who don't know this kid -- he was that kid you knew in high school who got picked on mercilessly. He had a really weird voice, a weirder name, and the weirdest face this side of post-bullet-to-the-face Mary Joe Buttafucco.)

I think he was serious. I also must give serious dap to Queen's Quest for tagging our boy AWD with that guy's name. (AWD, like Side Bar, also isn't on Facebook because he's scared of newfangled nonsense like cellular telephones. In fact, he's not even on Gmail. Can you believe it? He actually has both Hotmail and Yahoo email accounts, but not Gmail. Hotmail! I didn't even know that was still around! AWD is slowly figuring out this World Wide Information Superhighway thing, though -- once he figures out how to get "12:00" to stop blinking on his VCR. Okay, that was pretty cliched. Sorry! Still friends?)

But think for a second: When [the guy in the picture, I can't even think of a good nickname; what's better than his real name?] received the message from Facebook that he had been tagged in a photo, then checked it, and saw AWD instead, what was his actual reaction?

I think it was "That's obviously not me."

Finally, the Internet has an honest commenter.





P.S.: Side Bar has old, wrinkly balls. That's why he likes kicking people in the balls. He's jealous of their young, supple balls. Because his are old. And wrinkly.