Personality Quiz

Readers, I found the following quiz in a nondescript public garbage can outside the soda fountain near my house.  I recommend you take a minute to fill it out.  It is very enlightening and gives you insight into who you really are.

Personality Quiz from the Year 2180: Find out who your true self is, what your destiny entails, and how to follow your dreams.

Preliminary Information for Statistical Analysis

What is your race or ethnicity?

1. South Antarctican
2. Staten or New York Islander
3. Robot
4. Constantly Sun-burned
5. Schwarzenegger

What is your gender?

1. Female 1
2. Female 2
3. Technically born of a frog embryo
4. Post-structuralist, i.e. male

How tall are you?

1. 7’1-7’3
2. 7’4-7’7
3. 7’8-7’11
4. Taller than 8’0 

How much do you weigh?

1. 0 pounds
2. .5-1 pound
3. 0 pounds
4. Greater than 1 pound

Thank you.  The quiz will now begin.  Directions: Please use whatever writing implement is closest or seemed least beat up in the bric-a-brac drawer in your kitchen.  Read each question quickly and haphazardly, missing key details.  Respond to each question in nonsensical, incomplete fragments.  The time limits are arbitrary; you may ignore them.  You may not talk to your neighbor unless you are discussing which answer is best.  If you have a question, keep your hands down, gaze intently at your quiz, and ask your question multiple times in ascending volume until I hear you and respond from a distance.  You may start now.

1. Which best describes your typical Tuesday night?

A. Ironically barbeque up some Hot Pockets, then eat them while ironically watching reruns of “Home Improvement.”  Then pass out on the couch and ironically dream of a better life.

B. Go out with your buddies to the Hole in the Wall.  Steve, what up, man?  Pass me some of that PBR.

C. Hit the e-books!  I’m an e-student and need to e-study!

D. Get a quick bite to eat after work at the In-N-Out Burger on the Moon and then watch the game with your kids, whom you adorably call Sport, Honey, and Bottom Feeder.

2. What is your ideal first date?

A. Enter a virtual reality simulator, go to the mall, eat cheese fries, and people watch while discussing how awesome high school was.

B. I hate first dates!  Can’t we just skip to the second date?  We would already know the basic stuff, so we would be comfortable with each other and could do something really fun, like go to the beach and build a sand castle, where we would benevolently reign for eight fortnights, two nights and a foghorn.  We could make a declaration, yes, a set of rules that govern all human behavior.  Everyone would be equal and all talents would be valued.  It would be an ideal society, and we could unblock the vast reservoir of human potential.  No Canadians.

C. Enter a virtual reality simulator, where you go to a nice restaurant, see a 9-D movie, and take a virtual walk in a P.A.R.K. (Partial Aphrodisiac Reaction Knapsack), before having your date signals app instruct you on whether or not a kiss would be appropriate.

D. Hit the town!—where you enter a virtual reality simulator and go to a concert, followed by a hike, cooking a nice breakfast, eating breakfast for dinner, and staying up all night just talking—you as a 75-foot gorilla, your date as a new animal that flies and looks like Mila Kunis, made possible by virtual reality.  (BTW, boyish man-slob who turns out to be a gorilla and inexplicably charms Mila Kunis is the plot of the next Judd Apatow movie.)

3. You’re going to be stuck on a desert island.  What five things do you bring?

A. Gunnysack filled with etch-a-sketches.  Record player. Generator. Popsicles.  Halloween costume for party situations.

B. $150,000,000,000 American.  Dylan Zorbzrob’s Survival Guide for the Modern Paranoid Maniac. The Desert Island Botanical Guide to Edible Plants, Animals, and Adrift Plastics. Rice. Portable water purifier.

C. Your favorite novel.  A guitar.  Favorite sweater.  Barbeque sauce.  Fully-automatic AK-47.

D. Your five best friends, but don’t tell Jenny because she’s ranked #6 right now.

4. Fill in the blank.

I wish I were _______ so I could _________

A. The same_____do the same thing.

B. Healthier ______ live to be 350.

C. A better cook ________ cook better.

D. A little bit taller, was a baller, had a girl who looked good _______ call her.

5. This is the final question.  Imagine the following scenario.  You’re the leader of a ragtag crew of scrawny misfits, and you’re going up against the strong, non-prudish rich kids in the championship game of summer league zoom ball.  You’re all about to start high school, and you want to enter with a bang, completely reshaping your loser middle school image.  Plus, the guy/gal of your dreams but also of real life will be watching, and you could be the new it couple.  However, your coach was injured in a tragic accident (picnic, lightning, pack of Segways gaining self-consciousness and rebelling against their human overlords), so now you’re in charge.  What do you tell your team to pump them up for the big game?

A. Well, we made it this far.  Nobody could have predicted that.  Now let’s make Coach Cox proud out there, although he could be dead by now.  And even if he’s not dead, he might be so badly injured that he has no concept of what zoom ball is anymore, and he might not even remember who each of us is.  So, no matter what happens out there today, let’s tell Coach that we won, and that we did it for him.

B. Listen up!  I want you to wipe those stupid looking frowns off your faces!  We’ve got a game to win!  It’s time to ship in or ship out!  Is that it?  Ship in or ship out?—something about doing something or shipping out.  That means you, Turner!  And you, Rodriguez!  Let’s get ‘em!!!!!

C. OK, bring it in.  Let’s face it.  They’re bigger than us.  They’re stronger than us.  And dang it, they’ve gone to more school dances than us.  But, guess what?  We’re smarter.  It’s time to talk strategy.  They’ll get off the line faster, so I want a man-to-man defense, but I want Gottfried playing loose and helping out downfield.  If they go to a 4-6-1, we’ve got to match up.  And this is important: instead of going for the big play, let’s just chip away one point at a time.  That means when we get the ball in their mouths, we do the ceremonial dance for no more than ten seconds before getting back on d.  And if they start doing cartwheels to get the bonus scrim, we need to counter with a pack of ferrets that we let loose.  Harrelson, I want you to be ready for our special Hammock Parachute play, so suit up in your astronaut costume at the end of the second.  No mistakes; tighten your control.  Let’s go.

D. In June, would anyone have said we’d be here today?  No!  They all said that the Chesapeake Dogwalkers were a loser team!  That we’d never win!  Well, here we are.  To all those people, we need to go out and prove that they are factually inaccurate!  That their powers of prediction lack along one, maybe two vectors!  Coach or no coach, the Dogwalkers are going up against the Grizzlykillers this afternoon, and I want to see some Grizzlykiller blood out there!  Now everybody take a knife.  Also, there’s an old zoom ball rule that if your coach can’t make it to the championship game, then you can hire a different coach temporarily.  So, here he is, Mr. Zoom Ball himself, Titian Macromanager!  [Titian:] When I heard about what happened to your coach from my supermodel assistant who rarely wears clothes around the office, I thought to myself, Wow, how sad.  I wonder if I can do anything to help that takes no effort.  I couldn’t think of anything, so my other supermodel assistant suggested that I coach the team for a game.  And here I am!  I know how you guys play.  I’ve seen the tape.  I’m impressed, and I know you can beat this team!

Scoring

If you answered…

Mostly As:

The whole “life is boring so let’s make fun of it by doing things half-heartedly and then sleeping in a pile of regret, broken promises, and CAN records” shtick is getting old—really old.  Half of you is a lame sourpuss whose vacant insides are projected onto the events that surround you, but the other half is sincere, showers, and downright loves life.  Embrace the second half of you, cultivate it, and watch it ripen and flower come harvest-time.  Make sure to eat plenty of nitrogen-rich fertilizer.

Mostly Bs:

You, sir or madam, are a king among kings, a queen among queens, which is to say, pretty much like everybody else around you.  It’s time for some excitement!  Some joy!  Some spontaneous acts of windigglefrazzling!  But I understand: you’ve been beat down, pushed around, treated like trash.  It’s been a tough few months, but it’s time to pick yourself up and dust yourself off.  Find your center and focus on the important things in life—specifically, exacting terrible revenge on those who did this to you.

Mostly Cs:

“Hey, what happened to the friend I used to know?”  Are your friends asking that behind your back?  If so (and they are), then let’s face it: you’ve changed.  While you used to be quirky, spontaneous, and downright criminally negligent, landing you 15 to life in the slammer, now you’re conservative, frigid, and bland—like a frozen, worn-out pair of Cheerios jeans.  Your friends want you the way you used to be.  You’ve done your auto-da-fé, and now it’s time to party!  Find a rager and rage like you’ve never raged berage.  Just don’t get caught and violently harassed by the police like last time ;)

Mostly Ds:

We all get it.  You’re a working professional with many “obligations,” such as “tending to your family,” “performing ER surgery,” and “courageously fighting the onslaught of mutant scorpion-kings.”  Big whoop.  Well guess what?  Nobody cares.  You seem constantly to exude joy and happiness, but what’s this?—I think it’s my fist, exuding joy in your face.  Take it down a notch.  No, take it down three notches, then another five notches, then six more notches until you’re hypoglycemic, comatose, and sleeping inside your dishwasher.  See how that feels for a while; then re-enter the world a little more apathetic.

I hope you enjoyed the quiz and are happy with your results!

The Week’s Training

Sunday, September 18^th: 10 miles, 65 minutes.  At the Minuteman Trail.  Right calf had been feeling a bit iffy the past 48 hours, so decided to take it easy.  Feeling better, though.

Monday: AM 5 miles, easy on the river.  PM 12 miles, 83 minutes.  Three times around Fresh Pond, very relaxed pace.  Calf starting to loosen up.  Behind in mileage for the week because of the light day yesterday, so I might be playing ketchup*.  (*The need to “play ketchup” was first coined by football announcer John Madden in the year 1793.  Originally meaning “to pour ketchup on yourself, then put leeches on the ketchup to get the demons out, followed by jumping into the ocean to see if the ketchup floats,” it has been generalized to mean “take steps to rectify falling behind.”  It is never written “play catch-up,” even though many people, even learned people, sometimes spell it that way.)

Tuesday: 14 repetitions of a segment of Heartbreak Hill.  A bit faster than the last time I did this workout, but not feeling too great.  Stopped a little before the goal.  14 miles total.

Wednesday: AM 12 miles, 80 minutes.  Took the T to the Fells, like last week.  Was a delight.  Legs a bit beat up from the hill, but in general doing fine.  PM 6 miles easy easy easy on the river.

Thursday: 14.5 miles.  93 minutes.  Very pleasant run at the Fells.  Or, as David Attenborough would say, “The single greatest smallest migration to the Fells ever undertaken by a person named Chas at the end of September 2011 in humankind’s 200,000 year history.  Astounding.  Beautiful.  Humans may never witness anything like this again ever until next week.” 

Friday: 10 mile tempo run.  Warmed up to the Chestnut Hill reservoir, which is a gravel path around a reservoir near Boston College.  A flat, nice surface, and we deduced it was about 2500 meters around (around 20 seconds longer than 1.5 miles), although we should measure it exactly.  Loop splits of 8:25, 8:17, 8:13, 8:04, 8:16, 8:15, last mile perhaps 5:15.  So, an average of around 5:20, fastest mile around 5:10.  A fine workout, a nice improvement from last week.  I feel like I’m rounding into shape, not quite there, but getting there.

Saturday: 6 miles, 42 minutes, easy on the river.  Legs very tired.

Week in Review: 96.5 miles, two long, decent workouts.  No long run, but a shorter version of a long run on Thursday of 14 miles.

Yoko Ono tweet of the week:

yokoono Yoko Ono

Send a paper moon to your friend. Ask them to burn it.

17 Sep

Words of the Week

“The Lee Shore” Chapter of Moby-Dick:

Some chapters back, one Bulkington was spoken of, a tall, newlanded mariner, encountered in New Bedford at the inn.

When on that shivering winter's night, the Pequod thrust her vindictive bows into the cold malicious waves, who should I see standing at her helm but Bulkington! I looked with sympathetic awe and fearfulness upon the man, who in mid-winter just landed from a four years' dangerous voyage, could so unrestingly push off again for still another tempestuous term. The land seemed scorching to his feet. Wonderfullest things are ever the unmentionable; deep memories yield no epitaphs; this six-inch chapter is the stoneless grave of Bulkington. Let me only say that it fared with him as with the storm-tossed ship, that miserably drives along the leeward land. The port would fain give succor; the port is pitiful; in the port is safety, comfort, hearthstone, supper, warm blankets, friends, all that's kind to our mortalities. But in that gale, the port, the land, is that ship's direst jeopardy; she must fly all hospitality; one touch of land, though it but graze the keel, would make her shudder through and through. With all her might she crowds all sail off shore; in so doing, fights 'gainst the very winds that fain would blow her homeward; seeks all the lashed sea's landlessness again; for refuge's sake forlornly rushing into peril; her only friend her bitterest foe!

Know ye now, Bulkington? Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore?

But as in landlessness alone resides highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God--so, better is it to perish in that howling infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety! For worm-like, then, oh! who would craven crawl to land! Terrors of the terrible! is all this agony so vain? Take heart, take heart, O Bulkington! Bear thee grimly, demigod! Up from the spray of thy ocean-perishing--straight up, leaps thy apotheosis!