Monday, October 16, 2006

Mid-semester melange

I am safely back from Topeka, where the chief order of business was to get Mrs. Meridian settled into a new apartment that will be, let us say, more conducive to her needs as a law student than her parents' house had been. She is now enshrined in a Palace of Learning from which she can ride out daily, kick law-student butt and take law-student names, then ride back. Another not-inconsequential benefit of this remove is that she and I can have a bit of space to ourselves when I go there to visit.

Below the fold: more meanderings this misty Monday morning of the Meridian's midsemester.


*It is mid-semester for me, which means that one 8-week course has ended and, Hydra-like, 3 new 8-week courses (2 preparations) will take its place. Tomorrow we have an in-service day, the theme of which escapes me but which will include--and I'm not making this up--a cowboy-poetry parody contest sponsored by the English department. With events like that, it sounds like PowerPoint presentations are not involved, and so I'm already predisposed to be in support of whatever is going to happen. I'll report back to you.

*This past summer, we Meridians ate at an Indian restaurant together (the first time in a very long time for me; the very first time for her), and when she moved to Topeka we were afraid that there wasn't an Indian restaurant there (Topeka is, let us be frank, rather humdrum as capital cities go . . . keeping in mind, as I must, that my basis for comparison of capital cities is my hometown of Austin). But a friend of the Mrs. recommended to her the oddly-named Globe Indian Cuisine restaurant downtown, and so we decided to give it a try. Well. Like we're experts on this sort of food. We know enough to know that the chicken tikka here tastes different from that which we had this summer. So, for what it's worth, let's just say that our discussions of the food there approached the sensuously scandalous, and that those of you in the Topeka area who are culinarily adventurous and appreciate attentive wait staff could do much, much worse than to go there.

*I'm one of those rather odd sort of fans who forms attachments to certain college sports teams despite having no official connection to the college in question. In my case, that attachment is to the U. of Texas by virtue of my having grown up in Austin during the Darryl Royal years of the '60s and '70s. Royal, still alive, already has a stadium named in his honor; I'm fully convinced, so revered is he, that when he dies the University will have his body embalmed and placed on permanent display inside the stadium's concourse. Anyway. It's inevitable that my loathing of the U. of Oklahoma is, on the one hand, completely irrational and, on the other, metaphysically inevitable. Texas' recent defeat of the Sooners didn't leave me especially giddy (the outcome wasn't unexpected in the least), but it did fill me with a sense of allegorical rightness every bit in keeping with my basic philosophy that Good WILL triumph over Evil. Having said all that, though, the news of Oklahoma's Adrian Peterson's season-ending broken collarbone made me sad. Oklahoma may be Evil Incarnate, but Good Players are Good Players, and Peterson is, no question, the best running back in college football. I don't wish his team well, but I'm sad that his season has ended as it has.

*And finally: Courtesy of my colleague dejavaboom of Musement Park comes one of those online quizzes that is supposed to tell you things about yourself that you didn't know before taking it. Anyone who can identify the person in the picture will earn my eternal appreciation. He looks like Neil Cavuto of Fox News, but I'm not sure.













Pure Nerd

82 % Nerd, 8% Geek, 34% Dork

For The Record:



A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.

A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.

A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.



You scored better than half in Nerd, earning you the title of: Pure Nerd.



The times, they are a-changing. It used to be that being exceptionally
smart led to being unpopular, which would ultimately lead to picking up
all of the traits and tendences associated with the "dork." No-longer.
Being smart isn't as socially crippling as it once was, and even more
so as you get older: eventually being a Pure Nerd will likely be
replaced with the following label: Purely Successful.



Congratulations!





Also, you might want to check out some of my other tests if you're interested in any of the following:



Buffy the Vampire Slayer




Professional Wrestling






Love & Sexuality




America/Politics




Thanks Again! -- THE NERD? GEEK? OR DORK? TEST
















My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:
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You scored higher than 92% on nerdiness
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You scored higher than 6% on geekosity
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You scored higher than 63% on dork points




Link: The Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test written by donathos on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

So now you know.

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