Yvette's Inner Geek Blog

I had some fun yesterday afternoon with my friends’ kids and the under-used system of counting to 31 on one hand using binary. They’re some of the coolest kids I know… and not just because they aspire to gain a higher geek quotient by using the Geek Test as a study guide.

It started because my little six-year-old friend asked me if, when counting to six on my hands, I held up my thumb or my index finger to mark the sixth digit (digit here meaning finger or thumb). I of course told him that that’s not how I count to six, and showed him how I count in binary… and that what he saw as the number 2 was really the number 6 to me.**

So he went around to other adults and kids for a while with his index and middle finger held up, announcing that he was six. When he wasn’t being ignored, a couple geeky friends laughed… though some people didn’t get it. I realized that I may have just screwed up this poor kid’s ability to succeed in math by learning binary before he knows enough about counting with plain old numbers. I’m sure he’s going to show all of his friends and teachers at school today… but then, that’s better than my other friend’s story about an uncle (I think) trying to teach her that her nose was called “banana.”

Okay, so that’s the start of yesterday’s binary story. With the older, geekier girls (16 and nearly 12), I had fun figuring out what hand gestures were synonymous with certain numbers. For example:

562 = Rock on
28 = OK
19 = I love you (pulling in a little sign language to the mix)
17 = Call me
4, 128, 132 = important numbers to know while driving in Utah

And of course there’s “Gimme 31,” High 31″ or “High 1023!”

**It’s important to note that I hold my hands with the palms facing me, thumbs out. You won’t get the same results if you start the sequence by counting with your pinkies out. That is the first time I’ve ever used the word “pinkies” in a written sentence.

I don’t normally post these silly tests from OKCupid, but I’m on a big Heroes kick right now and I came out as Mr. Bennett! Who, until at least the next episode wherein we may learn some of his secrets, her remains quite mysterious. Heh heh.

Mr. Bennet You scored 54 Idealism, 50 Nonconformity, 41 Nerdiness

Are you on the list? Congratulations, you’re Mr. Bennet! You are one mysterious person with mysterious motives. Despite all the mystery, it’s clear that you believe what you do is for the greater good, and you are obviously a well-educated person in your field. Your best quality: Dedication to your work/organization/etc. Your worst quality: Keeping too many secrets

Stupid Movable Type asked for my password, and when I tried to recover it (feeling like the dumbest person ever because I didn’t jot it down somewhere), it told me to enter my username and my password hint. 

What?  Password hint?

Movable Type, I think you might have been tipsy when you wrote that code. You’re supposed to provide the hint, then I provide the answer. If I knew the fucking password hint, don’t you think I would have remembered the password?!?

Let’s go ahead and change the subject while I deal with other stupid issues, like when people leave comments, I approve them, and then I look veeeeeery unpopular because all of my blog entries on the main page say "Comments (0)". Rargh…. Hulk SMASH! It’s late, and I may be starting to appear as though I have anger issues. I don’t.  Stop judging me!

No, I haven’t found my Wii yet. EB Games took their megasweet bundles off preorder because they were so popular and Nintendo apparently can’t provide the number of consoles that people like me NEED, or at least, would really like to have. If I don’t have one soon, I may suddenly fall ill and need to travel back to Cincinnati to be nursed back to health at the Hippie-WithaK Wii Recovery Center.

Did you know that some archaeologists are working to prove that some of the first people to migrate to the Americas were actually from Stone Age France? I <3 teh PBS! Especially in High-Def on our glorious hunk of futuristic bigwidescreen televisual device. It’s just like Walt Disney World predicted in 1989!  Maybe with slightly less outrageous clothing on innocent children.

That’s me on the right with my sister, who clearly didn’t realize that fanny-packs-for-ankles were supposed to be worn the other way. Incidentally, that trip to Florida marked the first time I had ever been in a Wal-Mart. After 1997, I haven’t lived more than 15 minutes away from one.  

We can’t find our Wii!

It’s white, has an output resolution of 480i and should be packaged with at least one controller and a couple of games. We haven’t met it yet, but we’re already in love. If only we were all together… just me, Ben and Wii.

Seriously, I wasn’t in a big rush to get one as soon as they came out in what, the end of November? It’s February and I still can’t find one. For a while they weren’t advertised in the Sunday newspaper ads, but I got my hopes up this past Sunday when Target had an ad. I called around and nobody has them in stock. I even called Wal-Mart and the helpful customer service asshole laughed out loud.

Anyway, I found this link that apparently is connected to Target’s database of Wii products and tells me that all of Utah is out of stock. Grrrowl. To check your local area, just change the zip code in the URL.

Bonus Geek Test percentage point if you can tell me what URL stands for RIGHT NOW. You get negative karma if you Google it and come back all like, "I totally knew what it was right then when you asked." Shyea. Like I don’t know how quickly Google changed my life. Google and I have been together since the late 90s. We’re solid.

I just hope they stop eating internet startups like they were Lays Barbecue Potato Chips made with the new recipe (ohmygod those are dangerously tasty). I don’t want Google to get so big that I have to criticize them like other Monopolizing Companies That Shall Remain Unnamed. Eh, they’re probably big enough for me to criticize now. Especially because I didn’t buy any shares when their sock went public.

Why is it that math wasn’t one of my strongest areas when I’m so good with tangents? 

I had a whole discussion at work yesterday about Valentine’s Day and how Ben and I don’t really celebrate it because it’s all commercial and stuff. The truth is, I always get or do something for him (usually very small, mind you) and he occasionally gets me a card or does something nice.

Well, I got a cute card and a 4-inch Resse’s peanut butter filled chocolate heart this morning, before I had taken my second sip of coffee. I was as grateful and touched as any morning zombie ever was.

I think this is the first time he ever gave me candy for Valentine’s day. Thank God. Now I can go to work and maybe I’ll be able to stand all of the flowers delivered to co-workers or their stories about whatever fancy dinners they have planned.

My most embarrassing Valentine’s Day story? When I was 12, my parents bought me a cotton underwear-bra set with hearts all over it. I don’t know where my mom was that evening, but my dad actually gave it to me and that was sort of traumatizing.  It might explain why I was very anti-heart-anything for many years. I’m able to tolerate them now in certain circumstances that are unavoidable because I married someone I love, blah blah blah. But the underwear set for a tween? Please don’t ever do that to your child, even with the best of intentions!

So all of you other ladies (and queens) out there can keep those heart-shaped necklaces and your three dozen roses. We’re going to save that money and go to Vegas soon. Losing nickels at 3am while sipping gratis Strawberry Daquiris and arguing over things like how can regenerative Claire from "Heroes" have pierced ears?  Now that’s what I call love.  

Last night there was a shooting at a mall in downtown Salt Lake and five random people were killed by a teenager with a motive not yet known.

The first I heard of this was last night around 7:50 when I turned on NBC to get ready for "Heroes." The local news was on with a "Breaking News" banner and raw footage of the commotion outside the mall. Ben and I watched for a few minutes until we realized that they didn’t actually know anything… they were just telling us exactly what we were watching on the screen (but in a very urgent tone).

My heart goes out to the people and families of those who were killed, injured and emotionally scarred.  Apparently the crisis hotline has been jam-packed.

However, the chances that I knew someone shopping at the mall that night were slim, and I quickly grew irritated that the news completely superceded Heroes. Of course I feel shallow and guilty for even saying that, but come on–they didn’t actually know anything that couldn’t have waited for their in-depth coverage at 10. Here’s a quote as I remember it:

"And now it looks like the police are guiding some of the mall customers off to the side to talk to them. They’re wrapped in blankets and look very cold. You can only imagine what they’re going through. Nothing has been confirmed about what happened in the mall, but there may be wounded people inside. It looks like the police are guiding the crowd further down the street now. We don’t know if the gunman has been found or if there is a second one."

Seriously. Here is live-action confirmation that live news media coverage is panic-inducing. I understand this is a huge thing and hundreds of people were being effected, but don’t they realize that they’re not helping? A ticker or a half-screen notification would have been a lot better than just showing the same witness say the same thing every three minutes. I understand that these are randomly targeted people in a very public place, but how much do people really need to be inundated with repetitve information for which they can do nothing about? If you knew someone in the area and had just tuned in, a ticker would be enough to call them on their cell phone and ask if they’re okay. Sheesh.

So this is a partial complaint that Heroes didn’t come on until 8:23, and right before a commercial, to boot. I really hope I don’t seem like an insensitive asshole for being irritated by this, but in the words of Jon Stewart, I agree that the Media is hurting America.

P.S. I can’t believe Matt Parkman only had a scratch after that fall. 

I love used bookstores, even if they are musty and make my allergies act up.

This weekend, my husband and I met my parents at Red Rock Brewery in downtown Salt Lake City. It was my second time there, and even more delicious than I remember! Ben asked me if he could buy some of their microbrewery equipment for our house. I said no. We still have a 25-year-old couch in front of our tv, for God’s sake!

Anyway, we went to Sam Weller’s bookstore afterward and of course the time just slipped away from me as I walked around. I managed to hit all three floors this time… and next time I want to visit the Rare Books room that is guarded by a guy at a desk who locks the iron gate when he has to leave it unattended. I’ve managed to avoid the "local" wing of the store (read: "Mormon" wing) simply because something else always distracted me first (like the iron gate to Rare Books at the top of the stairs). But this time I looked over the half-wall separating it from the rest of the store and noticed a book called "Beer in the Beehive: A History of Brewing in Utah." So I picked it up and delivered it to Ben, who decided that it was a good idea to take it home.

Here are the other books we bought and then (I) excitedly cataloged in LibraryThing:

The singular Mark Twain: a biography
The Prince and the Pauper
The Borzoi Book of French Folk Tales
Panati’s Extraordinary Endings of Practically Everything and Everybody
(a great companion to my dog-eared copy of Panati’s Extraordinary Origins of Everyday Things)

That’s a lot of links in one post (for me, anyway). Thanks for reading.

Happy Friday! I think I’m coming down with a cold.

I have a daily Dilbert tear-off calendar at work, and I pass them around the office almost every day. Every day it occurs to me that Scott Adams is a genius of the corporate world. I don’t even work in an extremely corprate environment – I mean, I can wear jeans and my black t-shirt with a big yellow Star Wars logo on it if I want. I love many of my co-workers, but there are a couple who drive me batty on occasion or all the time.

I recently learned about Scott’s problem speaking (Spasmodic Dysphonia) and the ironic fact that Dilbert is never drawn with a mouth. Then I did a quick search and came up with a post on his blog last October that, if you haven’t read, I would recommend: here. For those of you who listen to NPR, it’s the same condition that Diane Rehm has. In fact, when I first tuned in to the Diane Rehm Show when I discovered streaming radio, I thought she must have been as old as Mama Jazz from the local NPR station in Oxford, Ohio… who, incidentally, I presumed to be a large black woman (given her extensive Jazz knowledge and gravely, drawled speech). I was totally wrong. Mama Jazz is a little old white woman who’s been on the show for over 20 years and just turned 75.

Just goes to show that perceptions of Radio voices can be totally wrong.  Speaking of NPR, if you didn’t already know, the weekly This American Life broadcast was recently made available as a free podcast.  W00t, for sure!

I received the sweetest email from Nino in Germany, whom I otherwise do not know. This was the message:

Hi!

p.s.: Please try to ignore my mistakes. thx.

Well, here’s a blog post just for you, Nino! I’m glad you liked the geek test and I’ll try to post here more often.

 I don’t generally like to share a lot of personal stuff on this blog, though I struggle because I want to write about it. It’s weird. And I should stop complaining about it, right? Right!

I am worrying about the Innergeek forum right now, because I don’t visit as much as I like. Though I really appreciate the people who have stuck around even when it’s slow and the ever-trickling flow of newcomers (not including the horrible, horrible spammers).

I will write more often. I will write more often. I will write more often. Thank you and good night.