Dorkfest 2008

Just a heads up that I'm again running for Head Dork over there at Michael5000's. I was Runner Up, Miss Vice Dork 2007 (despite my most excellent legs), so I think I have an excellent shot at it this year.

I'll be updating my own Dorksume here, but making disparaging remarks about the other contestants over there. Why soil my own front stoops, eh?

The festivities run through the end of the week, by which I assume Michael5000 means Saturday night 11:59:59pm. So I shall be updating my Dorksume frequently until then.

Starters

The Good Prince and I are like clockworks (that's pretty dorky in itself), a movie a week whether we need it or not, randomly chosen using the following unix command line, erh, command (that makes it Double Dorkiness):

jot -r 1 1 n

'jot' returns 1 random number between the numbers 1 and n, where n is the number of movies in the hopper. And then we go to the movie jot selects.

And here's how we decide where to go eat—get in the car, start driving. I choose 2 restaurants and decide which one is even and which one is odd. (Some restaurants are always odd, like 3 Square Grill, or always even, like noodle soup). The Good Prince picks a distant car at random, and its license plate then chooses where we go eat. Sometimes it's hard to see the license plates in the dark, then we drive around aimlessly until we find a plate we can read, that actually has a number on it.

The Good Prince firmly believes that this will thwart any terrorists, secret agents, and aliens off our trail. We're paranoid—definitely signs of dorkdom.

The Main Course

Hmmm, I still keep track of what I do in 15 minute increments in a database.

And I still brush my cat's teeth.

I use '—' (the M dash, for you dork wannabes) rather than the non-dork '--' substitute.

I don't like to be touched by the blanket or the quilt in bed. The top sheet MUST, at all times, be folded down over the blanket and and the quilt. I adjust this continuously all through the night to ensure that there's no breach by the bedding.

The Good Prince reminded me that I used troff and wrote my own macros. But I think that was more geeky than dorky. But along the same lines—and this would qualify as dorky—I do websites by typing in lines of text into a text editor. I don't use no stinking web design tools!

I like to live off my past glories. Like dropping, whenever I can, that I was mentioned in a NYT column (which was so last year); or that I, along with about 20 others, won an Emmy (which was, omg, so 2 decades ago). Or how I scored the highest score in my Theory of Computation class (which was, omg, so 2.4 decades ago). Or how I'm always talking about having great legs...except the knees are all wrinkly now. Living in the past, definitely dorky. Hmm, and there I go again...

Patterns are a dork's best friends. I like critters that end in 'at'—like 'cat', 'rat', or 'bat.' I have a collection of cat, rat, and bat figurines.

My CDs are still sorted geographically. Unfortunately, the NYT op-ed columns are no longer available as podcasts, so much for that one. What's on my ipod right now—Hot, Flat, & Crowded, Three Cups of Tea, Power, Faith, & Fantasy...but the ipod is becoming like the bookshelf, full of unread/unheard books.

The Dessert

I wear the same outfit for days on end. Sure, you say, I work in my own studio, so who cares? But I did this when I worked 'out in the world' too, One day I showed up at work, and the Good Prince (back in his Pre-Good Prince days) said, very loudly, in the sea of cubicles, "hey, that's the same thing you've been wearing for two days!" But I married him anyhow. Awww!

The Check

As much as I'd like to go on and on on my Dork credentials, this must end or I'll not get anything done. So—

Obsessive compulsive behavior? Check.
Oblivion to social norms? Check.
Delusional? Check.
Constantly talking about past glories? Check.

The rest, is up to you, my dear judges.