So I did it...

I took the test on Lizalou's blog because I was bored, and now I'm posting it here for everyone's enjoyment or not enjoyment as the case may be. I don't understand how I ended up with the title of Nerd when my highest score is in Geekdom... Oh well. And here I've been calling myself a dork all this time.

Here are my results:


Modern, Cool Nerd

60 % Nerd, 73% Geek, 43% 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 and Geek, earning you the title of: Modern, Cool Nerd.

Nerds didn't use to be cool, but in the 90's that all changed. It used to be that, if you were a computer expert, you had to wear plaid or a pocket protector or suspenders or something that announced to the world that you couldn't quite fit in. Not anymore. Now, the intelligent and geeky have eeked out for themselves a modicrum of respect at the very least, and "geek is chic." The Modern, Cool Nerd is intelligent, knowledgable and always the person to call in a crisis (needing computer advice/an arcane bit of trivia knowledge). They are the one you want as your lifeline in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (or the one up there, winning the million bucks)!

Congratulations!


Link: The Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test written by donathos on OkCupid Free Online Dating

New Look. Same Quality Product.

So I finally got around to making a new template for my blog. I'm still working out the kinks, but I was just too excited to wait any longer. After many months of attempting to learn CSS and continually banging my head against the wall and whining, "I don't get it! Can't I just make a table?" I have finally learned enough to make a mostly funcitonal template.

I haven't tested it in all the browsers yet, but I'm kinda tired now... So, I guess the testing will come with time. Just think of it as a beta.

Also, I realize the links up there aren't really functional yet. DON'T click on them until I tell you to! Cuz all you're gonna get is a broken link, and nobody likes to hear Link scream. Like when he falls down into one o' them pits and screams bloody murder. Kills me every time... Poor Link.

Anyway, eventually, when I finally apply my new CSS look to the rest of my website (and actually update it too) those links will work and, hopefully this blog will fit seamlessly within the rest of my website at that point. Ah, just thinking about it makes me gushy. I'm so weird.

I'm interested in any feedback you may have.

I-70 Blues

I went to visit my cousin in Columbia this weekend. I had a great time with her and her husband. We went shopping, ate good food and watched some Nikita and Highlander.

The only downer was the trip home. What should have been about a 2 1/2 hour trip took FIVE HOURS. There was a car accident. I'm still trying to find information on it and exactly what happened, but from what I--and the new friends I made on the road--pieced together four cars were involved and one of them blew up. We were stuck on the same stretch of highway (without moving more than half a mile) for 3 hours. A highway that usually feels like a racetrack had turned into a parking lot.

It was a surreal experience. I had seen the plumes of thick black smoke from a distance, but didn't even think about the possibility of them being the result of a car wreck. I started to wonder when I saw the helicopter and we started slowing down. Within minutes, the highway was packed with vehicles of all sizes and shapes for miles, but we all somehow managed to maneuver ourselves out of the way for the emergency vehicles to get past half an hour later. After an hour or two of moving no more than two feet, everyone had turned their vehicles off and many people were standing outside just to get some breeze. I made friends with the ladies in the car in front of me. They were kind enough to give me a bottle of water which really saved me because I hadn't brought anything to drink at all.

While it was frustrating being stuck on a stretch of highway without a way out (the next exit was on the other side of the wreck) it was also sobering to think about the reason we were stuck there. Several people's lives were probably changed forever--or even over. Our lives would only be inconvenience for a little while.

When we finally got to moving again, and passed the place where it had happened, workers were still struggling to put out the fire that had spread onto the grass beyond the highway. The remains of two of the vehicles were piled up on trucks parked on the shoulder--they were beyond totalled. One looked a little like the car from Planes Train and Automobiles except that the engine section was nothing but ashes. The other car was missing wheels and crunched together into an unrecognizable mess.

As awful and chilling as this sight was to me, apparently not everyone was as deeply affected. Within minutes many cars were driving at the same breakneck speed ten or twenty miles over the speedlimit, and dodging in between vehicles with only feet to spare between them.

By the time I got home I was physically and mentally exhausted. My left arm was sunburnt and I had a headache the size of Africa. But at least I was still alive and relatively healthy. If I had left a little bit sooner I might have been involved in that accident.

Dream Again

So, I had another weird dream last night, and I'm sure you peoples don't really care all that much, but I find them interesting, and I've never actually kept a dream journal so I thought I would record some of them here.

Anyway, so I don't remember a lot about my dream except for a couple random fragments. One of them involved my dad and I going to see a movie (don't know what it was) and there was this little girl there (who looked a lot the girl from Yotsuba&! which I just purchased last night) and she instantly made friends with me as we walked in and didn't want to let go of my arm. When we got up to buy our tickets, dad offered to buy all of our tickets (I totally can't see him doing that--though sometimes I suppose he can be really generous) and the girl wanted a row behind the one we chose. Yeah, you had to choose your seat like they do in movie theaters in Japan. Well, we couldn't figure out which way the numbers went so I asked the lady at the counter. She was really snotty and informed me that I could easily figure it out. "You just use the rule of unique distances," she said. "It's like driving to Colorado. Or New Orleans. You have to use unique distance equations to figure out distances of that magnitude, so all you have to do is use an equation to find out which distance is larger!" I did not act like she had said something completely unintelligible. Instead, I screamed, "Well, then I'd need to know the size of the theater, wouldn't I? I can't do an equation without any of the variables!"

Don't know where all that came from. The only other part of my dream I remember is near the end. My mom and I were up in the attic of a house that looked nothing like our house, but in the dream it was. Anyway, we were busy closing all of these tiny crystal windows because a storm was coming and we didn't want the rain to come in. There were hundreds of these windows and they were all about 3 inches square and cut with a bevel like a mirror (why they were called crystal windows). We were hurriedly turning the little cranks on the windows to get them closed when a huge Michelin truck pulled up (don't ask me) and raised up a platform so this guy on the platform could inform us we won their competition. Then suddenly all of our family members and a whole bunch of cameramen and reporters came in to photograph all of us and congratulate us on our award.

What the hell? I didn't even drink or eat anything odd last night. Anyway, thinking back on it just cracks me up though.