Friday, September 29, 2006

Nerd-off 2006

Since I am chained to a computer (with Intraweb access) all day for my employment, I find myself rather frequently dallying about various and sundry Web sites, looking for a distraction from my meager existence. A scant number of weeks ago, I found such entertainment in the most recent musical video of one Weird Al Yankovich - a video entitled “White and Nerdy.”

As one who is both “white” and a “nerd” (though I envision myself as more of a “geek” - man I love me some raw chicken heads), I found this latest aural venture rather enjoyable. But after perusing said video a number of times now, I couldn’t help but notice a certain smugness on Mr. Yankovich’s metal enhanced maw. An “I’m better than you” attitude that began to stick in my craw.

After my craw had become infected (and I had to miss three days of work), I decided that it was now time for me to take action. Well, Mr. Yankovich, since no one else has decided to hoist you by your own petard, I will take up the charge. Let us have a nerd-off to see which of us is the whiter and nerdier.


Begin:



Yankovich: “They see me mowing my front lawn”

Josh: I have a natural aversion to sunlight and avoid it at all costs

Advantage: Josh



Yankovich: “First in my class here at MIT”

Josh: Umm…I went to CU Boulder, and wasn’t even in the honors program…but I did learn how inherently evil I am because of my white skin and my penis…though I can’t remember which is more evil anymore…I think it’s the penis

Advantage: Yankovich



Yankovich: “Got skills, I’m a champion at D&D”

Josh: Haven’t really played too much D&D…that’s more my brother’s department. I cover the comic book front…

Advantage: Yankovich



Yankovich: “MC Escher that’s my favorite MC”

Josh: I’d probably go with MC Frontalot - the lyrical mastermind that gestated the “Penny Arcade Theme” and “Rhyme of the Nibelung.” Of course, I’m more of a metal fan.

Advantage: Tie



Yankovich: “All my action figures are cherry”

Josh: a) Action figures are referred to as “mint,” not "cherry"
b) If they are out of their boxes, they are no longer mint
c) I lack the snazzy shelf display of Mr. Yankovich because the vast number of G.I. Joe figures I have wouldn’t have fit onto the same shelf…not to mention my Star Wars figures…or X-Men figures…and don’t even get me started on vehicles…amateur

Advantage: Josh



Yankovich: “Stephen Hawking’s in my library”

Josh: I think I’m pretty much pooched on this one. I mean, I still have my Physics texts, but none of them were written by Hawking. Has anyone heard of Raymond A. Serway? No?…nevermind then.

Advantage: Yankovich



Yankovich: “My MySpace page is totally pimped out”

Josh: Pshaw! You call that pimped out? With a white background? Mine has a painting by Alex Ross of proposed X-Men costumes that he did for Wizard magazine. Beat that…I mean, if I had a MySpace page, that’s what I’d have…but I don’t.

Advantage: Josh?



Yankovich: “Know pi to a thousand places”

Josh: 3.14159265…that’s all I’ve got. I do have a copy of the “Pi” song by Kate Bush…I guess I should listen to that more.

Advantage: Yankovich



Yankovich: “I’m a whiz at Minesweeper”

Josh: Minesweeper? Minesweeper? You’ve got to be kidding me. Okay, this should be an easy one. I’m currently splitting my time between Diablo II and Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy. Sweep this. (Author’s note: I am holding my sac while writing this…never realized how hard it is to type with one hand before.)

Advantage: Josh



Yankovich: “Do vector calculus just for fun”

Josh: My electives in college included three semesters of Calculus along with individual courses in Differential Equations, Euclidean/Hyperbolic Geometry, Linear Algebra, Probability Theory and Abstract Math. I took so many math classes “for fun” that I stumbled into a Minor in Mathematics without even trying.

Advantage: Josh



Yankovich: “Ain’t got a gat, but I’ve got a soldering gun”

Josh: I’ve got neither, though I’d probably get a gun first. But before I do that, I probably should get these random suicidal urges under control.

Advantage: Yankovich



Yankovich: “Happy Days is my favorite theme song”

Josh: I think that indicates that you are a homosexual, not a nerd. I guess I’d go with the theme song to Firefly.

Advantage: Josh



Yankovich: “Sure kick your butt at a game of ping pong”

Josh: I proudly claim that I lack the hand-eye coordination to beat a drunk five-year-old at a game of ping pong…on a similar note, I apparently can’t beat a five year old kid at drinking games either…damn that little girl could slam the Goldschlager.

Advantage: Josh



Yankovich: “Ace any trivia quiz you bring on”

Josh: Hrumph. I see that you were playing the Genus Edition of Trivial Pursuit. I guess you could play that…of course, the last version of Trivial Pursuit I played was the DVD Star Wars Saga edition. And I won.

Advantage: Josh



Yankovich: “Fluent in JavaScript as well as Klingon”

Josh: Jegh…I know a couple of words, but I am by no means fluent in Klingon.

Advantage: Yankovich



Yankovich: Oooh. Look at me. I’m so nerdy, I’m dancing in front of the Schrodinger equation.

Josh: I frickin’ derivated the crap out of that abomination to find its probability density function so that I could use it to determine the location of a single particle in a two-dimensional box. Sweep this. (Author’s note: still holding the sac)

Advantage: Josh



Yankovich: “I’ve been browsing, inspecting X-Men comics, you know I collect them”

Josh: The hell you do! Mother F*cker, that is not the proper way to hold a comic. Bending them? If you’re going to bend a comic after it’s been bagged and boarded, you might as well drop trough and floss your sphincter with it.

For all of you novices (I’m looking in your direction Yankovich), if you bend a comic that has been bagged and boarded, the board bends. And anyone that knows anything knows that if a board bends, it stays bent, which will cause your comic to bend and be permanently disfigured a la Mel Gibson’s face in The Man Without A Face…or his career after dropping a few racial epithets.

Advantage: Josh



Yankovich: “I edit Wikipedia”

Josh: Can’t say I’ve ever done that. I did waste an afternoon reading the flame war over the article on Freemasonry, though.

Advantage: Yankovich



Yankovich: “I memorized Holy Grail really well”

Josh: While I enjoy the film, I can’t say that I’ve memorized it “really well.” I could paraphrase it to the annoyance of everyone around me though.

Advantage: Yankovich



Yankovich: “I got a business doing Web sites”

Josh: Yeah, and my job is professional sex slave for Natalie Portman…and Keira Knightley…and Jeri Ryan.....................sorry, got a little distracted there. What was I talking about?…Oh yeah. Come on Yankovich, we all know that you are a multi-Grammy-award-winning musician. Me? I’m a copywriter, and I spend all day writing boring marketing material about servers and tape libraries and service oriented architectures.

Advantage: Josh



Yankovich: “I got myself a fanny pack”

Josh: Your point. I’m not even going near that.

Advantage: Yankovich



Yankovich: “They were having a sale at The Gap

Josh: Slow down, cowboy. You shop at The Gap? What kind of a nerd are you? I buy my staples - pants, underwear, socks - at Wal-Mart. Everything that covers my upper half (re: T-Shirt) is purchased where real nerds buy their clothes, online or at a SciFi convention.

Advantage: Josh



Yankovich: Spend my nights with a roll of bubble wrap
Pop! Pop!
Hope no one sees me, getting freaky

Josh: Um, what?

Advantage: ???



Yankovich: “I was in AV Club and Glee Club and even the Chess Team”

Josh: Drama, Basketball, Soccer…yeah, I lost this one. In my defense though, I went to a small, private school (grand total of 12 in my senior class), so they pretty much had to accept anyone that tried out for a sports team…beggars can’t be choosers.

Advantage: Yankovich



Yankovich: “Only question I ever thought was hard was whether I liked Kirk or did I like Picard”

Josh: If you’re a real nerd, you already know the answer to this question “balls to bones.” Of the two, I pick Kirk. (But between you and me, I’d take Capt. Benjamin Sisko for the win every time.)

Advantage: Josh



Yankovich: “Spend every weekend at the Renaissance Fair”

Josh: I went once this last summer.

Advantage: Yankovich



Yankovich: Oooh. Look at me. I’m purchasing the Star Wars Holiday Special.

Josh: Okay, I don’t have a bootleg copy of the Star Wars Holiday Special, but I can tell you that it contains the first public appearance of Boba Fett, the most feared bounty hunter in the galaxy.

Advantage: Yankovich



And the winner is…

ME.

Damn straight. Respect my authority. Don’t want none, won’t be none…I suddenly feel like crying

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Has anyone heard of Raymond A. Serway?" Yeah, unfortunately, I have...

You're not alone, lol.

Anonymous said...

Going to have to side with you on the "Firefly" front. Damn best theme song ever. Sure wish there were more episodes . . .

Anonymous said...

You are so far off on so many of these it's hilarious. Weird Al wins in so many more categories than you said, just because you thought something he said was gay, not nerdy, which it was definately nerdy. And are you on crack? This song isn't about Weird Al himself you dumbshit, it's about some made-up nerd.

Anonymous said...

Seriously, are you working or just comparing yourself to a fictional song there, buddy? It must have taken you HOURS to do all the research on that crap. Good job. lol and anyway the song is genius, so don't you be slammin it :P

Anonymous said...

you dushbag how dare you disrespect a good song :p you mofo