The Doors of Perception are the Doors of Reality

As mentioned previously, I am now finished with my novel (such as it is), so, no longer having a deadline (even a self-imposed one) hanging over my head, my time is once again my own to do with whatever I wish.
Well, “whatever I wish” in the sense that there are no tasks actually required of me, not “whatever I wish” in the sense that I’m whiling away the hours cavorting with a harem composed of some of the most beautiful women in the world, or spontaneously developing Superman’s powers (and also cavorting with a harem composed of some of the most beautiful women in the world; basically, no matter what the fantasy, a harem composed of some of the most beautiful women in the world is going to figure into it).
In any case, I got up this morning, went through my usual ablutions, then headed out to my local Wal Mart to pick up a few things, most notably the “Spider-Man 2” DVD.
After I got home with it I toyed with the notion of totally “nerding out” and watching “Spider-Man” and “Spider-Man 2” back to back. I started to do just that, but decided that I didn’t want to devote that much time to sitting on the couch, and I was also eager to see “2” again, so I popped out the first DVD and popped in the second.
I was dividing my time between watching the movie and doing some laundry, and everything was going along swimmingly until about halfway through the movie when it just stopped dead, with one image frozen on the screen. All attempts at tricking it into skipping past that point failed, and despite the fact that I could find no visible flaw on the DVD itself, the fact remained that my DVD player would not move past Scene 34.
The on-screen display will pretend like it’s playing, even though it’s not.
However, if I put the DVD into the DVD-ROM drive on my computer it plays without a problem.
I’m not certain what the problem is, but I think that I’ll bring the DVD back to Wal Mart tomorrow and exchange it to see if that resolves the issue. If it doesn’t, then I guess I’ll just have to resort to connecting my computer to my TV whenever I want to watch it.
It’s just so strange that it plays without a problem up to that point, then just craps out without any warning.
After I determined that I would bring the DVD back to Wal Mart I realized that I had thrown out my receipt. Luckily, the bag it was in was still at the top in the dumpster, so I was able to recover it fairly easily…once I realized that I could actually walk around to the opening on the other side to get at it (as it had rolled over after being tossed in), and that I didn’t have to actually climb in to do it.
I was pretty amazed (and thankful) that I realized this before I decided to climb into the dumpster.
After Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, most everyone, except for myself, and a few other people, began playing a game called “Munchkin.”
I don’t know that much about the game, apart from the fact that it’s played with cards and dice, and is something of a parody of other, similar games, such as Dungeons and Dragons and Magic: The Gathering.
While I’ve never been much of one for any kind of games, I’ve especially avoided playing those sorts of games. In high school I had friends who were into D & D, but I assiduously avoided getting involved. I suppose it was because I felt that I was already enough of a nerd, and that there was no need to gild the lily, or, perhaps more accurately, plastic the pocket.
Beyond that, I find that I have very little patience for the pace of most games, and I hate having to learn the rules, wait for people to take their turns, and perform some lame-ass rituals at various prescribed points.
Overall, I’ve just never been a fan of structured activities.
Once in a while I can stand to play chess, even though I’m not especially good at it, but even that gets old really fast.
I do enjoy playing trivia games, but I usually find that the people playing against me don’t enjoy themselves, and frequently decide that they will never allow me to play trivia with them again.
Ultimately, though, I guess I’m not especially competitive, since there’s never really much at stake. I mean, even if you win a game of Magic, you’re still a nerd.
Or maybe I’m just allergic to fun. Who can say?
In any case, while the majority of those present were playing I coined a new phrase in response to some rather spirited debate amongst the players. The phrase was "nerdosterone," which is like testosterone, only for nerds.
I'll use it in a sentence: During Magic: The Gathering tournaments, the air is thick with nerdosterone, frequently leading to nerd-showdowns that begin with recitations of insults from the Monty Python "Argument Sketch," but which soon degenerate into pocket-protector throwing and “windmilling” of the air with gangly arms, ultimately leaving the gaming floor littered with broken glasses, shattered graphing calculators, and twenty-sided die strewn about in disarray.
Nerdosterone is the substance that raises the ire of Poindexters debating the merits of Kirk vs. Picard, whether the Punisher would win in a fight with Bat-Man, or any similar nerd hot-topic.
It’s the substance that would lead to the kind of riots that occur when some sports team wins (or loses) an important game…if nerds actually had the kind of upper body strength required to engage in looting or the overturning of cars.
With nerdosterone, the fallout usually tends to take the form of flame wars on Internet message boards.
Make no mistake; there’s plenty of nerdosterone flowing beneath my pasty white skin, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t find it all at least a little funny. Depressingly funny, but funny nonetheless.
No one actually seemed to hear my little bon mot, though, which was somewhat disappointing.
That’s actually another one of the many reasons I tend to avoid gatherings of more than three people; my voice usually gets lost in the din.
I’ve been accused of being a mumbler, which I don’t feel is entirely accurate. Mumbling implies that the person is somehow obscuring his or her words. If anything, I am simply, to borrow the “Seinfeld” term, a low-talker.
I am conscious of this fact, though, so in social gatherings, and even at work, I do make a deliberate effort to broadcast, but it usually doesn’t help, since even if I had a bullhorn it often seems that no one would hear me.
I think this relates to the idea that perception dictates reality.
It’s like with computers. Some people feel that computers are so incredibly complex and arcane that the average person could never hope to learn how to use one, and only a select group of “gurus” are able to successfully plumb their mysteries.
This perception, then, becomes the reality, and no matter how straightforward software designers try to make their applications, the people who hold this perception will never be able to understand them.
They will look at a message on the screen that says “If you want to continue, click OK,” and even though they know that they do, in fact, want to continue, they will be as baffled and utterly clueless as to what to do next that they might as well be trying to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs without the benefit of the Rosetta Stone.
And so it is with me: the perception is that Jon is quiet, so that is the reality, even if I’m screaming at the top of my lungs.
And somehow this is a perception that becomes implanted in people’s minds immediately upon encountering me. It is, apparently, something that I emanate.
But whatever; that’s what this blog is for.
Nothing too interesting happened over the past weekend, with the exception of a brief encounter with “Flame Chick” on Friday.
I’d brought some of the leftover “Summer Salad” that I’d made for Thursday’s dinner to have with my lunch on Friday. However, for those people who had to work on Thursday, Thanksgiving dinner had been provided, and on Friday, just as at millions of homes across the country, there were leftovers.
So at lunch time I eschewed my salad (Which, for those of you wondering, consists of raspberry Jell-O, whipped cream, crushed pineapple, and cottage cheese) in favor of some leftover pumpkin pie.
Later in the day, though, I got peckish once again, and decided to head to the break room to have my salad.
I walked into the break room and was surprised to see FC sitting at the table eating something and reading a book.
She had looked up at me when I walked in, then quickly looked back down at her book.
I got my salad out of the refrigerator and looked for a spot to sit. Normally, I would have gone down to the far end of the table in order to isolate myself from anyone else who might come in. She had done that herself, though, and I didn't want to make her uncomfortable by pulling up a seat next to her.
The population of my workplace is overwhelmingly male so the near end of the table was a sticky gross mess from assorted slobs tearing away at the leftovers.
The verye end of the table seemed the least objectionable, and as I prepared to sit there I said, "Hmm, I guess this is the LEAST disgusting spot."
She looked up, said, "Yeah," with a sort of laugh, then went back to reading.
I said, "I'm surprised at how much food was left over."
She responded, "I heard that they had something like twelve turkeys."
I said, "Wow."
After a pause, I said, "So, did you do anything for Thanksgiving, or-"She looked up, said, "I was working, so..." shrugged, and went immediately back to reading.
Before I could formulate anything else to say, this old, annoying, Southern guy, whom I dislike (one of those people who pisses me off just by existing; he hasn't actually done anything in particular to make me dislike him) came in to get something from one of the coolers (there were a bunch of leftover soft drinks as well). He said something to her about the soft drink he’d grabbed being very cold. She said, "Isn't that a good thing?" and he said that it was just surprisingly cold.
With some of the left over turkey, someone had made turkey soup, and this sort of loose-meat turkey-barbecue sauce sandwich mix, so those were both available for all comers, in addition to a plain old turkey.
Annoying Old Southern Guy said to her, "So, did you partake of any of the offerings?"
She looked up, said, "I don't eat meat, so this doesn’t really do me much good."
He said, "Oh, are you a Vegan?"
"Vegetarian," she responded.
Having noted that whatever she'd been eating appeared to be some sort of dairy product, and having reached this conclusion by process of elimination, I asked her, "So are you a lacto-ovo-vegetarian?"
She looked at me and said, "Yes," though I wasn't sure whether or not she was impressed by my correct identification, or my knowledge of the lingo.
Annoying Old Southern Guy went on to talk about Vegans who won't eat honey and another story about having taken a Vegan to a barbecue restaurant, and just generally be an ass and to try to offend her (he's just that kind of person; the annoying kind that goes around trying to provoke a response from people for no good reason). She just laughed it off good-naturedly, and finally he left.
She left shortly after that, though, leaving me alone with my Summer Salad.
At the end of the day, I went in the break room to put on my jacket. When I was walking back out of the break room, for the first time ever she actually looked up at me as I was going past her workstation.
I'd never before been able to draw her eyes away from her computer screen.
Unfortunately, once she noticed that I was wearing a leather jacket it seemed to me that her mouth turned down into a disappointed frown, and she immediately went back to looking at her computer screen.
That could just be my perception, I suppose, but, as we’ve already discussed, the perception is the reality, so either way things don’t look especially encouraging.
Still, that was the primary excitement for the weekend, and I have to admit that it did get my nerdosterone pumping.