White and Nerdy?

[Disclaimer: This has potential to be a very embarrassing and revealing post, not to mention a ridiculously long and stupid post. My apologies in advance for the blatant use of self-deprecation for the purposes of entertainment, both mine and (hopefully) yours.]

So I just saw the video for Weird Al's latest hit, "White and Nerdy". Wow. I'm continually amazed by his talent for imitation and humour. Anyway, after watching this video, I was half laughing, half worriedly thinking to myself, "Wow, that hit pretty close to home." So in an (admittedly nerdy) attempt to discover exactly how close to home it hit, I decided to go through the references and apparent signs of nerdosity, and see how many of them apply to me. This will give me some kind of percentage. At the time of writing this, I haven't yet discovered my nerd grade - I guess I'm hoping it will be somewhere around 65% - fairly nerdy, but not without hope. To make this more fair, I'll rank each reference out of, say, three. 0 = not applicable, 1 = a little bit, 2 = yeah, pretty much, 3 = bang on. Also, I won't include all of the lyrics here, but I will quote them where appropriate.

1. "Mowin' my front lawn" - I currently have no lawn, but even if I did, I doubt I'd be out there mowing it. 0/3
   
   
2. (Pac-man reference, picked out in flares) - I've played lots of Pac-man. It was one of three table-top video games (along with Galaga and Dig-Dug) in the lounge in our community centre. I think the ghosts were named Inky, Blinky, and ... ah yes, Pinky and Clyde, although I had to look the last two up. I think to get a full three, though, I'd have to have it set up as my screen saver at work, like a friend of mine has. 2/3
   
   
3. "First in my class here at MIT" - Wasn't first in my class, didn't go to MIT, but I did go to a university somewhat known for its comp sci program, which I took. 1/3
   
   
4. "I'm a champion at D&D" - Haven't played D&D (except maybe an kind of intro game once or twice, and of course the electronic game versions), but I know more about it than I let on. 1/3
   
   
5. "M. C. Escher, that's my favorite M.C." - I do like M. C. Escher, I think I had a calendar of his drawings a while back. But, there are lots of other good M.C.s out there... 1/3
   
   
6. "Keep your 40, I'll just have an Earl Grey tea" - Okay, the last three times I've been out to lunch, I've had Earl Grey tea, and have ordered it "hot" in my mind. And I don't drink. 3/3
   
   
7. "My rims ... they're quite stationary" - Referring of course to the pimped out car wheels. I have no car, but if I did, I'd like to have a Toyota Prius like depicted in the video, with - yes, stationary rims. 1/3
   
   
8. "All of my action figures are cherry" - Sort of - I have action figures, and they're in pretty good condition, although not to the extent shown in the video - I don't mind if people pick them up and place them in funny/rude positions. 2/3
   
   
9. "Stephen Hawking's in my library" - Well, yes, although I'm sad to report that I only have one of his books, and it isn't the one shown. However, I guess I do meet the criteria. 2/3
   
   
10. "My MySpace page is all totally pimped out" - I don't have a MySpace page, although I'm considering looking into it after this video. 0/3
    
    
11. "I know pi to a thousand places" - I know pi to 7 places, which isn't that much, but maybe enough to get me one mark? 1/3
    
    
12. "I still wear braces" - I had extensive orthodonture committed on me as a child, although I don't wear braces anymore. However, that may be changing, at least for night time use. We'll see, but it's probably enough to warrant... 2/3
    
    
13. "I order all of my sandwiches with mayonnaise" - This is true. Whenever I order or make a sandwich, it has mayo on it. 3/3
    
    
14. "I'm a wiz at Minesweeper, I could play for days" - I am, I could, and I have. My records: 3 seconds for beginner, 26ish seconds for intermediate, and 89 seconds for expert. 3/3
    
    
15. "My fingers movin' so fast" (on the keyboard) - Well, I do make a living with a keyboard, so yeah, I'm pretty fast by now. It's only taken me 14 seconds to type this far into the post. 3/3
    
    
16. "No killer app I haven't run" - Well, vaguely true. Kind of. Definitely more on the Linux side of things, but still somewhat on Windows. I'm no stranger to bittorrent, I know a bunch of graphics packages, I've dealt with lots of system-twiddling programs... 2/3
    
    
17. "At Pascal, well I'm number one" - This one is outdated. Who uses Pascal anymore? I was number one at it, back in high school, but get with the times, Weird Al! Try Ajax or Python or at least C++... But I digress - if I were to brush off my Pascal skills, I'd probably still be decent. 2/3
    
    
18. "Do vector calculus just for fun" - I've done lots of linear algebra with vectors, and I've done lots of calculus, but I can't remember doing vector calculus. 1/3
    
    
19. "I got a soldering gun" - I wish. That'd be sweet. I could totally ruin my old motherboards by attempting to stick batteries and stuff onto them. 0/3
    
    
20. "Happy Days is my favorite theme song" - It is a good song, I'll admit that. But there are better theme songs out there, methinks. 1/3
    
    
21. "I could sure kick your butt in a game of ping pong" - Arguable. I'm probably the weakest player in my extended family, but they're all crazy-good. Plus, I've got a pretty good reach, which helps me play a deceptively laid back style of game. 1/3
    
    
22. "I'll ace any trivia quiz" - Probably not. I get the odd tough question, but I'm rubbish at history and ... well, most stuff that isn't science/nature or recent arts/entertainment or hockey. 1/3
    
    
23. "I'm fluent in JavaScript as well as Klingon" - I am fluent in JavaScript, but I only know a few phrases in Klingon - not enough to feel confident wearing forehead ridges to a convention, by any means. 2/3
    
    
24. (Segway reference, with helmet and knee/elbow pads) - I think people who ride these are twerps. And against all common sense, I prefer not to wear knee/elbow pads, although I usually wear a helmet for biking. But not rollerblading. 1/3
    
    
25. (Donny Osmond reference) - Pretty funny dancing, but I don't know much about Donny Osmond. 0/3
    
    
26. (Equation behind Donny Osmond) - Looks like physics, but I had to look it up - it's Schrödinger's wave equation for the hydrogen atom, and apparently, there's a mistake in it! Cool. 0/3
    
    
27. (Star Wars kid (link1, link2) reference) - Yeah, I caught it, although it was on the second viewing of the video - I was laughing too hard the first time around. 2/3
    
    
28. (Power bar for a present reference) - I don't think I've given a power bar as a gift before, but I have been pretty happy to buy them for myself, sometimes. And I do own about five or six of them. 2/3
    
    
29. "I been browsin', inspectin' X-Men comics / You know I collect 'em" - Guilty as charged. I've been known to spend a lunch hour down at the comic shop, sifting through the $1 bin for X-anything comics. I've got way too many of them, more than I've read. Although to be fair, I don't really inspect 'em, I'll take them even if they're beat up. 2/3
    
    
30. "The pens in my pocket, I must protect them" - Nope. Never had a pocket protector. Never kept pens in my shirt pocket. (Maybe behind my ear for a short length of time, but that's about it.) 0/3
    
    
31. "My ergonomic keyboard" - I don't think these actually help, rather like trackball mice - I'm betting they do more harm than good. The fact that I've thought about this and have an opinion, even though I don't have a bent keyboard must be enough to grant me... 1/3
    
    
32. "Shoppin' online for deals on some writable media" - Yes, I've done this, and yes, recently. I don't put that much effort into finding great deals though - it's more to find out where the spools of DVDs are available in the quantities I'm after. 2/3
    
    
33. "I edit Wikipedia" - Not yet, but it's probably just a matter of time - I use the darn thing enough. 0/3
    
    
34. "I memorized Holy Grail really well" - I don't know about "really well" - at least, not as well as "Life of Brian", but still to a degree where I could be one half of the Black Knight battle. 2/3
    
    
35. "Have you R-O-T-F-L-O-L" - I've actually made a few people LOL recently, but I don't think anyone has been ROTF doing so. 2/3
    
    
36. "I got a business doing websites" - Almost - I do a bunch of volunteer web work for various people, and am starting to charge for my services. 2/3
    
    
37. "When my friends need some code, who do they call? / I do HTML for 'em all" - Definitely, as above. 3/3
    
    
38. "Even made a homepage for my dog" - My dog never had a website, but my upcoming child has a blog... Does that count? 1/3
    
    
39. "I got myself a fanny pack" - No. Not like that. Not for regular day-to-day use. I do have a money belt for when travelling, I guess that's partway there. 1/3
    
    
40. "They were havin' a sale down at The Gap" - I don't shop at The Gap, if I can at all avoid it. 0/3
    
    
41. "Spend my nights with a roll of bubble wrap / ... gettin' freaky" - Um, no. I enjoy a good bout of bubble wrap popping, but not quite in the manner suggested. 1/3
    
    
42. (Badminton reference) - I'm not that good at badminton - although I once helped paint a very professional -looking badminton court on a driveway. 1/3
    
    
43. "I was in A/V club..." Nope, although it would have been vaguely cool, and I'm at least partly competent with A/V stuff now. 1/3
    
    
44. "... and glee club..." Nope. 0/3
    
    
45. "... and even the chess team" Not on the actual team, although I was chess champion for various grades in elementary school. 1/3
    
    
46. "Do I like Kirk or do I like Picard?" - Picard, baby! Make it so! And of course I've put thought into this question, how could I not? Kirk has never held that much draw for me, so it hasn't been that much of an angst-filled question. 2/3
    
    
47. "Spend every weekend at the Renaissance Faire" - Not every weekend, no. But I knew how to spell "Faire" without looking it up. I have been to a Ren Faire. Dressed up. I tried to pull the sword from the stone. I know the regulars are called Rennies. I've been forwarded pictures of people I know doing crazy stuff in character at the Faire. 2/3
    
    
48. "Got my name on my underwear" - Not for quite some time now, no. I do have a shirt that says "hoser", but that's just not the same. 0/3
    
    
49. (Star Wars holiday special reference) - Not only have I heard about this, I have a copy. It's so terrible it's awesome. 3/3
    
    
50. (Vulcan salute reference) - Yes, I caught this at the end in place of a gang sign. Very nice. I did have to look up the name of it, however. But on the plus side, I can do it without using my other hand to help. 2/3

Okay, I guess that's it. There were probably references that I missed, but what are you gonna do? Let's total them up... 69/150 = 46%. Hmmm. That's not very nerdy. Not even half nerdy! Damn. Guess I'll have to join some clubs, learn about MySpace, and hitch my pants up a bit. Otherwise, my street cred will suffer at work. :P

So until next time... [Vulcan salute]