I Am Nerdly, Hear Me Roar

MommyTime is always good for a Sunday morning quiz, but I didn't read hers until this morning.  She was on a quest to determine her nerd factor, and was sorely disappointed with the results.  Now, she ought to be a HUGE nerd, because she is a college professor (Victorian literature, I think), but her very high Coolness Quotient -- one contributing factor of many: she is a rock climber -- puts her out of the running.  Okay, so I suddenly need to know just how big a nerd I am.

Bummer.  BUT WAIT!  Taking the second portion of the quiz, I found out this:

Still, disappointing.  I am a geek, okay?  So not cool.  But they left a few important markers out of this quiz, so I am going to fill a few in.
   

• In my house, egg salad is The New Crack.  Chas dubbed it so just this weekend, after he polished off the last of it yesterday.  Not to worry; I promptly made more.  (This is a post-Easter Crack Habit, I promise you, and we will go back to being a boring Crack-Free household when the last of the Easter eggs dries up.)

(Photo stolen from desertculinary on Flickr)

• There's nothing the girls and I enjoy more than sitting down to YouTube to watch funny stuff together.  I have bookmarked all my old favorites: anything Tom Lehrer has ever done (especially his old Electric Company grammar ditties and "Poisoning Pigeons in the Park") . . .

 

. . . the dancing fig performing the Fig Newton jingle (which has been a staple song around our house since I can remember) . . . and Maria Callas film clips from the 50s and 60s, especially the Habanera from Carmen ("Mama, are you crying AGAIN?!").

 

The girls were treated this weekend to operatic smackdowns between Callas* and Anyone Else Available, complete with explanations of why Charlotte Church and That Other Chick absolutely STINK because they repeatedly breathe in the middle of phrases and can't maintain their power and -- I'm sorry, I need to take a Nitro.

• I figure stuff out algebraically if I can, even though I'm not very good at it since it's been 26 years since my last algebra class.

• I was a profound Band Geek until I was cured overnight in college, but that's a story for another day.  These nerd tests don't take into account the level of geekdom that can be achieved by people who play instruments and think about notes on paper.  Expect to hear sentences like this: "OH. MY. GAHH. The tone on that oboe is KILLING me" or "Kenny G always resolves to the same stupid note!" or "Nobody sings as flat as Natalie Merchant, unless it's Carly Simon or k.d. lang or Frank Sinatra."  These are things I actually say.

• In college I used to figure out the phone bill for our apartment (four of us) to the penny.  All fees divided evenly, all taxes  by percentage of use, for both local and long distance calls.  Yeah, I know.  I couldn't WAIT for the phone bill to come each month.

• My pants are usually too short.  Meh -- bigger issues.

In summary, I think one can be a nerd even if one mostly got through college using superior reasoning  guessing  process of elimination skills on multiple choice tests.  (That particular skill set was simultaneously responsible for my getting into college, making the dean's list 2-3 times, and ultimately scratching out a mediocre-at-best GPA.)  One is automatically a nerd just by using the word "one" to describe onesself.

I think I have made my case.  What about the rest of you?

*That's

MARIA Callas, not

CHARLIE Callas, though it's an honest mistake.

Comments

[Rick's Cafe]

Young nerds are often described as having a head full of rocks.

Without rocks, a stream doesn't sing...doesn't even make a sound.

Old nerds are the rocks who's edges have been rounded by stream water and time - both are full of character and highly cherished.

[Bob Cleveland]

My kids say I'm more of a NURD. Any idea what they mean by that?

They also say I don't have enough memory and my CPU is too slow, but I don't think they were talking about my computer.

[Jessica Keith]

Oh, just took the test you have linked up there, and I didn't get a percentage, but apparently I'm a Non-Nerd. Shows you what they know.

[Jessica Keith]

Did you by any chance date a guy named Napolean? Gahh! Just kiddin.
I was only a geek until I was in middle school, then I did the prissy preppy thing, then I decided it would be much easier to go grunge/hippie, and it was but then I met Jeff and he wasn't so much into grungy hairy hippie chicks, so now I'm just a dork married to the cool kid. The end.

[Rusty]

Got you beat!!!

What does this mean? Your nerdiness is:

Mid-Level Nerd. Wow, it takes a lot of hard nerdy practice to reach this level.

If I could have embedded the graphic, I would have been a King Nerd I dare say.

[MommyTime]

Oh, and I was phone bill girl too...down to the pennies in proportional taxes for talking to long-distance boyfriends.

[MommyTime]

First of all, you ARE a bigger nerd than me despite your score (and I mean this in the loving-est way possible) because your post about nerdiness so outstrips mine that words cannot begin to express.

Secondly, my guess the other night when this post didn't go up right away was that you were making nerdy Venn diagrams of your nerd results; hence the delay. I was apparently not far wrong. Though movie clips are sooo much more hip-nerd than dork-nerd.

Third, the hair and the band and music stuff do totally win major dorkola points. And I can say that only because I have not posted my yearbook photos yet, but they look almost exactly like yours but with darker hair. Wonder twin powers activate...

[Asthmagirl]

Nerd patrol here... 64%. Kind of a let down as I thought I would be in the "Ult" catagory.

Perhaps I have not eaten enough egg salad? I do love the stuff. But once I start eating it, I have to make batch after batch. I guess it is the new crack!

[Bob Cleveland]

I don't have any Lehrer CD's but I do remember when he was on radio and then TV. I always liked "National Brotherhood Day" best, I think. Or maybe "Vatican Rag".

He was a mathematician, you know.

[Ava Von Snarky]

I must go now and consume mass quantities of egg salad now. The mere suggestion gave me a hankering for it. I very sensitive to the power of suggestion.

I need to take the nerd tests, just so I can find out just how much of a nerd I am. Am I 75.8% or am I closer to 96.3%.

Love the post!

[Kyddryn]

I must take this test, although I fear I will not be at all nerdly. Pooh. I was in Chorus, got my scholarship for voice, does that count??

I love my two Tom Lehrer Cds so much, I stole them from my mum. Yep. When I moved out on my own all those years ago, the CDs moved with me. Those two and the Andrews Sisters were the sound track to many a road trip for mum and I. Tooling down the road in the red convertible Olds Cutlass (sp?) Supreme, CDs blasting, you'd think we'd want rock music, but no. No, it was Tom Lehrer, the Andrews Sisters, and big band tracks. We still kick ass singing Andrew Sisters harmonies.

Shade and Sweetwater,
K

[The Mom Bomb]

I don't need no stinkin' test to know that I'm a huuuge nerd, especially when it comes to musical theater. In high school, I barely had any idea what Prince or REM was all about . . . I was too busy listening to Stephen Sondheim soundtracks.

[Ok, Where Was I?]

MamaMo--87!! I'm impressed. I got a 57.

I've been eating egg salad almost exclusively.

I've gotta go take the other quizzes--I'm going to do the Are you a Loser one next!

[MamaMo]

OH MY GOSH!! I thought we were so similar... I was going to prove it by taking the nerd test, but I was shocked to get my score - 87!!! How can I be that much nerdier than you?!! I wasn't even in band! (though I did do one year in the color guard in college)
Fun test though - thanks for sharing. It said I was definitely MIT material, which brought back all sorts of warm fuzzy feelings (I guess I am a nerd), because that was my "dream school" in high school.