Attention Nerds (a light rant)

Yes, actually, we do get it.

The joke is on us.  You were ostracized in your youth and now look what’s happened.  The tables have turned.  The nerds and the geeks are in charge.  In fact, the nerds are now the cool ones.  Congratulations.  The bums lost.

But you need to stop gloating about it.  Every time  you indignantly ask some square, “You haven’t seen MST3K?!”, I die a little inside because I also enjoy that show, and I’m not indignant about it, and you’re an embarrassment.  Your nerd pride is sullying all the very few benefits you and your so-called nerd brethren are privy to.

America cannot survive by nerds alone.  This world needs people who don’t realize that Weird Al also wrote a bunch of original songs.  These people enter your data and talk to your customers.  They are your customers.  They raise the kids that will be your kids’ classmates.  They vote.  So drop the condescending tone and pretend you know what social cues and fashion are.

Which brings me to my next point: just because a person is an expert at something does not make that person a nerd.  I realize this is semantics, but nerds are nerds because they’ve been shunned by popular society.  When it became cool to wear thick plastic glasses, it ceased being nerdy to wear thick plastic glasses.  This is the way it has to be.  Go ahead and learn Perl, but you’re not a nerd until you know Perl and you sing TV theme songs at work without realizing it bugs the shit out of people around you.

So you go to Renaissance  Faires in costume and get drunk.  Maybe you hack Super Nintendo roms.  Or you consider yourself a theatre nerd, or a football nerd, or a food nerd.  At least you have a hobby that brings you out into the light every now and then.  You have your nerd pride but deep down you don’t think of yourself as uncool.

But imagine the people that you, a cool nerd, shun.  The coworkers who never hang out.  The smelly guys with no personality.  The loud eaters who pick their asses at bus stops.  These are nerds.  They don’t even have to know Perl.  Why are you defending these people?

Look, I own and play an orange ukulele.  I do improv comedy.  I’m adapting a film into poetry.  But I’m not a nerd.  I’m a square with interests.  And so are most of the self-proclaimed nerds I know.

Nerds aren’t ironic.  You are*.  Nerds are not proud of themselves.  You are.  If everyone who likes computers and felt vulnerable during adolescence is a nerd, then no one is.

*(This includes tweeting about nerdy things you’ve done to let everyone know how nerdy you just were.  “Imagine!  I just did that!  Ha!”)

Atheists Are Dicks

For clarity’s sake, I’m not a deeply religious guy.  I don’t really do church or services or anything like that.  I was raised pretty much secular.  I think faith is a personal thing and should be practiced on a personal level.  I’m not a fundamentalist by any means.  I believe in evolution.  I know oil is dinosaur gunk that’s been rotting for millions of years.  I’m just barely a reform Jew, and even then it’s tenuous.

Right.  It pisses me off that there aren’t enough funny religious people to compete with the tidal wave of funny atheists out there.  George Carlin, David Cross, Bill Maher, Adam Carolla, the list goes on and on.  These are all smart people who are hilarious in my opinion, and their humor happens to be very anti-religion.  That’s fine.  A lot of it is really funny.  Comedians should be allowed to make  fun of whatever they want to make fun of.

But where are the quick-witted church-going artists who will defend their institutions?  I know there are funny religious people.  I’ve met them.  I’ve had drinks with them until the bar closed.  Why will no one go after atheists?

I’ve heard the argument that the material is too weak.  Religion is easy, atheism is not.  But I refuse to believe that.  What about the idea that atheists will make fun of the Bible but will endlessly quote pop science books by a bunch of asshole scientists who most of the time can’t get their stories  straight?  What about the fact that all these atheist douchebags make fun of Jesus all year but celebrate his birthday anyway just to put up a tree and exchange gifts.  How is  that not a compromise of morality?

Religious peoples have a backlog of beautiful tradition and stories and great people, and all these opportunistic, I’m-so-edgy, hip atheist fuckwads talk about is the Crusades and the Inquisition.  Well what about the fucking atom bomb?  That scientific marvel caused a lot of pain.  What about the official atheism of the Chinese government?  What, those guys aren’t considered a bureau of cuddly genius teddy bears?  Go figure.

But there I go blaming the atheists.  If those assholes want to decry prosyletization, molestation, war, and all  the rest while conveniently ignoring the charity, comfort, art, music, faith, human spirit, and handful of miracles offered by all religions then I am powerless to stop them.  In fact rants like this only fuel their fire.  Whatever. Atheists need to have fun while they can because really, life is much shorter for those guys.

But come on, religious people.  Quit turning the other cheek and start fucking entetaining your brethren already.  Let these uppity superior titfaces have it.  They’ve won over a significant portion of this generation.  Fighting fire with fire may be the only way to win ‘em back.

Umbrellas Suck

After it rains in the city, I like to walk around and spot the umbrellas that have been abandonded.  They’re always in such terrible condition that I have to wonder how it got so bad before the former owner ditched the mess I see before me.  I’ve lost or broken every umbrella I’ve ever had.  They’re flimsy.  They get the rest of my stuff wet.  It’s nearly impossible to look cool while holding an umbrella.

So, I say go without.  Just get wet.  Walk in the rain, you pansy.  What are you, made of salt?

Printers Suck

I’m doing a little spring cleaning on my old hard drive and just uninstalled the drivers for my previous printer.  Why does the support software for any printer need to exceed 200 MB?  Why is installing a printer on a Windows computer still handle through a relatively archaic networking protocol?  Has  anyone ever heard of an iPod?  You install iTunes, plug your iPod in, and the thing syncs right up.  When my iPod breaks I plug it into my computer, walk away, and by the time I come back it’s fixed.  If my printer breaks I may as well just get a new printer.  The printer I have now will turn itself off if I leave it idle and won’t turn itself back on again unless I  unplug/replug it.  Toner is expensive.  No printer setup software has ever had an intuitive design.  And the software they give you to make scanning, copying, printing, and fixing the printer is usually the ugliest consumer software available.

I guess it’s asking a lot to have a  computer control a device that physcially changes a piece paper from blank to containing something.  But is it really?  Weren’t printers around before monitors were?

If any aspect of home computing is ripe for a huge redesign, it’s printing.  Screw tablet-sized iPods.  Let’s get a cheap, easy, good-looking printer with software that I like to use.