I’m more popular than you

My SJ-R column this week is on why I’m more popular than all of you, relatively speaking and not really.

People are more talented than me

We took in a Gus Gordon production yesterday at the Hoogland with the Rewinds. It was quite enjoyable and was made even more so by the appearance at our table of several Goose Island ales. My wife’s hair looked fabulous.

It amazes me watching people perform on stage. They sing, they act, they dance, they prognosticate on weather events. I can’t do any of that. And even if I could, I don’t particularly enjoy having people look at me, which would have put a serious damper on my performance arts career, had I chosen that path. Much better for me, and you, if I to stick to writing in private, which is different than writing in my privates, as a certain alternative publication would have you believe.

They harmonize prettier than me, and you (probably, I’ve never heard you sing)

The Ginn Sisters will be in Springfield in June! You don’t want to miss them.

You didn’t graduate from St. Aloysius in 1980

But if you did, Dave H. wants your pictures. He’s set up a Web site, on humzOo, so that members of that illustrious class can keep in touch and reminisce. I know Mary Y. and Roy M. read BFS occasionally, so if you see this, spread the word.

Fred Armisen is funnier than?

I don’t why I think this clip of Fred Armisen as Nicholas Fehn is funny, but I do. Yet, I can understand why people might think that it’s weak. But it’s not, it’s funny. Or is it just me who thinks that? That it’s funny.

Fehn is a cross between David Brenner and a really partisan person who finds humor in anything that he thinks he’s ideologically obligated to laugh at, even though he’s totally lacking a sense of humour.

My keyboard is more silky-smoother than yours

Saturday morning, I took the initiative and set out to complete a long-neglected chore. Six years of dust,  debris and epidermis had built up under the keys of our computer keyboard. It would be my job to clean it out.

As I carefully removed each key and placed them in a bath of sudsy water, the squalor that we had been typing upon gradually revealed itself. It was just too gross not to share so I made Tammy and the kids gather ‘round after all of the keys were stripped away. I was hoping that the stark reality of seeing such a disgusting sight would shock some sense into them, but since I really didn’t have a lesson to impart, I allowed them to return to their play.

I  used isopropyl alcohol applied to a series of store-brand cotton swaps to clean away the gunk and grime, patted dry the keys (now supple and lightly-perfumed from their rejuvenating bubble bath) and then proceeded to put the keyboard back together.

Per Lifehacker’s recommendation, I had taken several pictures of the keyboard prior to disassembly so that I would know where each key went. Although I did refer to the pictures often, I wish I had challenged myself to put it back together from memory.

The numbers would be easy, as long as I didn’t forget that the first position is held by the tilde/grave accent key, a fact that is often overlooked. I’d like to think that I could place the letters in their proper position, but I’m not sure that the tactile knowledge that guides my fingers on and about the home position while typing would be recallable when completing this similar-yet-different task. The Windows-specific and other seldom-used keys would probably have been a challenge. I’m guessing that I would have scored around a 75 percent.

The whole exercise gave me an idea.

You’ve heard of soldiers who are taught to reassemble their gun while blindfolded, in case they ever find themselves blindfolded and need a way to pass the time. I would imagine that there’s quite a bit of status to be had by being able to do this well and that other soldiers are envious of those that can do it the fastest.

So I thought, why not have something similar for computer nerds. Those that can put a keyboard back together correctly, without the benefit of vision and under a given time (I’m proposing a benchmark of 4 minutes and 21 seconds, the running time of Kraftwerk’s nerd anthem, Pocket Calculator) would be like the kings of the geeks. Maybe there could be a contest at one of the technology conventions where competitors vie for the Farmer Ted Award. Or maybe we could make it a Spfldbloggers-sponsored event right here.

Are you up for the challenge?