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So this is what having a social life is like…

I’ll never be a social butterfly by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s no longer as bad as “going out twice a month” like back in 2005 (as documented on Beauty and the Geek, though Mindi and Lauren didn’t mention my name or use a phrase like “that loser who never gets out of the house”).

Something that never would have happened back then: I got quadruple-booked for tonight. I decided to join a group of friends for “Bad Movie Night”, which meant I skipped dinner with the Gen-X Mensa group, playing pool with a Meetup group and seeing You Better Watch Out with some other friends. (They were debating between tonight and Sunday afternoon—I knew about this potential uber-conflict, which is why I went to see the play this last Saturday. Incidentally, if you have the chance to go, I highly recommend it.)

It’s a lot of fun stuff to pass on, but a man has to set his priorities. In this case, I’m ditching several bunches of friends to watch a really crappy movie. … Yeah, that seems odd to me, too.

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Mensa: The High Test Scorers’ Society

Officially, Mensa is the “High IQ Society”, but someone on Twitter (I’m not going to identify that someone, since the person is extremely smart and pretty cool, too) had a legitimate gripe about the organization this afternoon: high test scores don’t always correlate with high intelligence. People can study for tests to improve their scores, but that doesn’t make them smarter.

The person also brought forth the issue of different tests that can qualify a person for Mensa membership. In general, they tend to focus on verbal, math and logic skills. I sent in my LSAT score with my application and was welcomed with open arms. However, it’s a test score, not an actual measure of IQ (or EQ or any other standard that measures actual smartness).

That said, the person made some rather harsh generalizations that… well, I’ve met some people who would fit the qualification of “douchebag”. Some people tout their membership in Mensa (or worse, the 99.9% Club) as an identifying aspect of their character. What’s worse, they think that makes them superior to others who can’t get the scores needed to join. Said others may have been blessed with way more smartness than some members, but without good test-taking skills, they’re stuck on the outside looking in.

I like to think I’m not one of those people. I’m a member of Mensa and I know I’m not that smart. I don’t wear my membership like a badge on my sleeve and I never bring it up in conversation. If someone else says something, I’ll talk about it. If not, I keep that info to myself, thank you very much. I think the problem is that I don’t see myself as being special (or “douchebag-y”) in that way, but because of Mensa’s reputation (justified or not), other people make judgments accordingly.

Oh, and another tweet pointed out that some people are so proud of their membership, they’ll reveal that as soon as they meet someone: “Hi, I’m Dave and I’m a member of Mensa.” Almost makes it sound like a support group, doesn’t it? “I’m addicted to my Mensa membership. I try not to go to events anymore, but I can’t stop playing poker with other smart people!!!”

As for myself, I haven’t sunk to such depths. It’s been documented on national TV. When Brian McFayden asked me to give my best pickup line, I said, “Hi, my name’s Shawn, what’s yours?” Nothing about Mensa in there. I think that sounds like a good way to introduce myself to someone who’s not very good at taking tests, don’t you?

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The government wants to regulate the Internet?

The stories are blazing through Twitter that the feds are voting on a bill that’ll let them prevent you from looking at various websites for… I’m not sure how they’ll justify deciding which ones are bad, but it’s probably gonna end up like Justice Clarence Thomas’s opinion about pornography: “I know it when I see it.” Under the circumstances, I think the government should know my opinion this situation as well:

I think Congress is full of Mustuselongerwords tomakeallathisflibbertygibberish lookimpressiver.. They get elected, then sit around and IguessIhavetouse somespacesjust soitallfits intoseparatelinesas opposedtobeinglarge blocksoftextso onlyfiveor sixwords mightbeina lineonthescreen whichisatotalbummer.. I swear, if it weren’t for the democratic system, they’d Mansmooshingstuff togetherlike thisisharderthanIexpected.. To me, Congress is trying to Butaman hastomakesacrifices forhisart all the time and it’s getting Guesswewill seewhatthereadersthink whenthisispostedand itlookslike everythinggot censoredout!! Sorry, I don’t mean to yell, but they just make me so While throwinginsome random sentencesand phraseshereandthere and I wouldn’t want to play Parcheesi against these Timeto giveitashotandsee whathappens.. Hopefully, someone can do something to Andapparently noapostrophesallowedbut IthinkIshouldbeokay…. remember the whole “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” thing? Yeah.

Oh, and one more thing: Thiscouldbealotoffunandindeeditwas.. Thanks for reading.
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ADDENDUM: It looks like the plugin that originally “censored” the gibberish in here may not work with this version of WordPress. Itwasalotoffunbutnolongerisdammit..

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The passing of another day

I’m trying to think of positive accomplishments I made today… it’s turning out to be a short list.

  • I dressed myself (always good).
  • I didn’t hurt my knee while I dressed myself (bonus!).
  • I read some stuff (literacy is nice).
  • I used my laptop (yay for technology!).
  • I picked up the mail (nothing for me).
  • I ate nachos (mmmmm, nachos…).
  • I drank Mountain Dew (mmmmm, Mountain Dew…).

Yeah… pretty short list. I’m sure I could focus harder and think of more stuff (I got out of bed, I breathed oxygen, I pooped, etc.), but it might be better for me to use this last hour and fifteen minutes of the day to do something more than add another item to the list: “I made a list.”

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Haters gonna hate

“I hate my cell phone.”

I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard that phrase. “I hate my cell phone.” “I hate this place.” “I hate it when that happens.” Really?

You can probably blame the comedian Louis CK for this blog entry because he had an interview with Conan O’Brien a few years back that felt like a slap in the face. Technology has advanced so much in our lifetimes (especially in yours, all you young ‘uns) and what do we do with it? We use it, we only sometimes enjoy it and we almost always take it for granted.

When I was in Norway with my parents, we bought a new cell phone with some prepaid minutes. We needed it to call people, find out where we were supposed to go to meet them, contact hotels, etc. It came in really handy. When we got home, I wanted to keep it for my own, but the chip inside was related to AT&T’s network. The people at Sprint wouldn’t replace the chip, so I couldn’t use it. Since I couldn’t use it, we gave it to my niece. She was 10. 10 years old with a cell phone! I would never have dreamed of having a phone at that age and some adults almost expect it these days.

Now there are iPhones and Blackberries and various other “smart phones” that you can use to download music, find restaurants, make fart noises and who knows what else. Do people using their phones to watch videos on YouTube think, “Oh my God, this is amazing!” Nope!

I see people trying to send text messages or surf the Internet and sometimes it doesn’t work right… “I hate my phone!” No, you don’t. You may be upset that it doesn’t work, but hate it? Then stop using it. Put it in a desk drawer or hide it from yourself for a month. Or a week. Or even a day. How does it feel? Are you nervous and jittery without it or do you feel better because you hate your phone? I never say it, but I almost always think it: “If you hate your phone so much, get rid of it and see how much you hate it afterward.”

Which is not to say that I’m immune. There are times when I’m doing simple stuff like taking vitamins in the morning. I’ll shake the bottle a little to get one in my hand and it’ll fall on the floor. “God, I hate that.” Really? Do I hate it? No. It’s annoying and inconvenient, but I don’t hate it. I try to make a point to correct myself whenever I think something like that. “That’s so annoying.” And I feel better.

And if you hate something as insignificant as your phone, what does that say about everything else by comparison? What do you think about the Holocaust? If someone killed your parents? Vin Diesel’s acting? “I hate my phone, but I super duper really really really hate that other stuff.”

We’ve been given a lot of gifts in this world and we tend not to notice them. They’ve become a expected part of life. When parts of our lives don’t work, that sucks. Fair enough. Does that mean we should hate them? No. There is very little out in the world that deserves hatred and we should remember to appreciate how much awesomeness is inside these tiny handheld devices that we can hold up to our ears and talk to our friends around the world. Around the world. Isn’t that amazing?

As for Vin Diesel’s acting… like I said, haters gonna hate, but sometimes it’s well-deserved.

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Okay, so my phone is old-school…

It’s a flip phone. I like it. The little hinge helps it hug my face (yay for hugs!) and puts the receiver closer to my mouth so I don’t have to talk as loudly. It keeps the conversation… more private? I know that might sound a little weird, but that’s basically how it feels.

However! I’m starting to think I should upgrade, if for no other reason than people keep sending me text messages. This is important because 1) my current calling plan doesn’t have free texting; and 2) when I say “phone is old-school”, I mean it’s the 10-digit pad where you have to hit the 7 button four times to get an S in the message. It takes a while to write stuff, especially when you’re committed like me and type out entire words as opposed to “how r u?”

I’ve started doing some research online and just looking at the information (and the prices) is making my wallet feel like a piece of charcoal that’s going to burst into flames any second, which is especially bad since I keep it in my front pocket. Part of the reason is because I don’t want to get a fat wallet and start leaning to one side every time I sit down; part is because if someone’s going to pick my pocket, I might as well get a little thrill out of it.

But due to the joys of the Interwebs, there’s an ungodly amount of information floating around that may or may not useful. Consequently, I figured I could ask all of you what phones you have and why they’re awesome/why they suck. Thoughts/comments/suggestions? (Writing “I can’t believe you’re a geek and you don’t have a smartphone” isn’t productive, so don’t bother, Matthew…)

Oh, and I was also thinking about buying a new GPS on Cyber Monday because mine sometimes has issues and the company that made it no longer exists. (One time I used it to try to get home—when I was “at my destination”, I was actually in St. Paul, about half an hour’s drive north.) If I get a smartphone, it could fulfill that need as well, so two birds with one calling plan…