Journal entries in 'Ruminations' for June, 2006

Down the street from my neighborhood there are two identical urbanizations on opposite sides of the street, the dark tinted glass of their respective guardhouses facing each other across the street. When I leave for work at midnight and drive between these silent, opposing sentries on a deserted road, I feel like Atreyu passing between the sphinxes that guard the passage to the Oracle. Fortunately, they haven't incinerated me yet.

I realized recently that I understand the bitterness that gay people feel about how it's "cute" to be lesbian these days. I see the same thing occurring with nerds. Everyone loves to say how much they love nerds these days, or how they're a big nerd, but I suspect very few of them would really enjoy sitting in on a Linux install or helping to calculate 100 digits of π with pencil and paper for the fun of it. I think this recent infatuation with nerds is similar to the same way that I like cows or Japanese like Americans: They like the concept, but the actuality is less glamorous and a lot more Cheez-Doodle-encrusted.