welcome to the pedantic web

February 06, 2003, 02:05 pm

Jim, our sales guy, comes down to talk with us and he starts telling this joke. He says,

So a bunch of nuns are having meeting in their monastery. If you're not familiar with Catholicism, monasteries are where nuns live.

And I said, Don't you mean convent?

Don't be anal.

You mean “pedantic”?

The rest of the lame joke had something to do with the head nun saying there was a case of gonorrhea found and a blonde nun saying, Oh that's good. I was getting tired of the chardonnay. Hey, I already said it was lame.

The important part is the fact that I suggested “pedantic” in place of the less appropriate “anal,” a perfect example of being pedantic! Of course, JB cracked up after I said that. It's unfortunate that it seems only geeks think recursion is so funny.



A few weeks ago, I cleaned out the walk-in closet in my former room at my parents' house. The stuff I threw away was almost embarrassing: boxes to old software like Dune, Kings Quest VII, and Windows 98 (the sucky first edition); manuals to old hardware like the 300 baud modem, a couple of random CD-ROM drives, an old SoundBlaster 16 MultiCD.

And then there are the cables. I have always enjoyed “hooking things up.” As a little kid, I would collect coaxial, phone, & audio/video cables. Especially coveted were the old XLR cables that I got from my dad. I also kept other miscellaneous things like extension cords, couplings, splitters, and AC adapters. I kept these cables in this Delta Airlines duffel-bag-thing that my dad got as a press release (we were always getting weird things as press releases).

I threw away most of them. It was kinda sad.



I was talking to my sister about moving and I confessed that secretly, I like it. I said,

I like putting all my stuff in boxes. I like "setting up" my computer and my TV and stereo (especially, the possibility that I might discover the perfect way of hooking up all my stuff, so that all the cables are neat and orderly and things are easily accessible).

I even find carrying lots of heavy stuff around pretty satisfying.



Saturday morning, I got up and went to Best Buy. As I was driving down Watterson East, there was an early nineties Toyota Celica driving about forty feet in front of me. Totally unexpectedly, the Celica's hood broke off, flew about thirty feet into the air, and crashed down on the ground, spinning. I was completely unphased and sleepily engaged my turn signal and changed lanes. Totally NASCAR.