Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Getting down to business

Instead of writing this morning, I've been bad and taking quizzes. Every morning for about a week now I've let myself be distracted for a bit and then I go take a nap. Change of seasons dragging me down? Maybe. Staying up too late and getting up on insufficient sleep? Most likely a contributing factor.

But my quiz results got me to chuckle:

You are OS X. You tend to be fashionable and clever despite being a bit transparent.  Now that you've reached some stability you're expecting greater popularity.
Which OS are You?


and,

You are 32% white and nerdy.
How White and Nerdy Are You?


I suspect I should maybe have gotten a higher score on the white and nerdy test, mainly because I am white and isn't that 50% of what they're testing, but also because I struggled with the second of two questions that formed a series and I chose the less nerdy/white route on a technicality.

The first question was, do you like Earl Grey Tea. I used to, but between the caffeine content and now being acclimated to herbal teas, the idea of drinking Earl Grey makes me recoil. However, I still love the fragrance. I mark No, though I feel a bit guilty because in some ways I really do like it, even though I can't drink it, and I used to drink a lot of it. The second question was, did you recognize that the previous question was a Picard reference? And there the struggle was born. Now that the test had mentioned it, oh yeah, I do know that Picard drank Earl Grey, hot. But I didn't realize at the time that they asked the first question that they were referencing Picard with that. I marked No, because it didn't occur to me on my own, but should I have marked yes and acknowledged that branded somewhere in my brain is the useless character-defining tag line (a classic writer's technique, btw, though sometimes it's done so badly it makes me laugh. Or cringe) "Earl Grey, hot." ? Isn't the point of the question to reveal the fact that I carry with me, always, a nerdy white cultural factoid? I know that honesty is a fine trait, and much admired, especially when handled with discretion. However, I suspect that in my attempts to be accurate, true-to-self (and thereby avoid being accused of slanting a made-up test in order to get a particular result )(Oh dear, what if I end up a Microsoft platform?) (and who would be accusing me of slanting the results on a made-up test anyway?) I end up wasting a lot of time torturing myself about inconsequentials when I should be WRITING.