Radiohead-hatin'

Here’s a little bit of history, just in case you’re twelve years old or something: There once was a band called Radiohead who made two pop-rock albums, followed by a gigantic nerd opus called OK Computer that set the world’s population of dweebic collegiate brow-furrowers on fire like so many lighters at a Bon Jovi encore.

22% of the letters in Thom Yorke’s name are superfluous. Fuck him.

Heh, that was the best review of The Eraser. Granted though, this guy hates all bands.

Nerds of all shapes and sizes

Mike and I went to see Wordplay yesterday, a documentary about crossword puzzles! It focused on Will Shortz, the current puzzlemaster of..the universe I guess (he majored in puzzles at college!). But it also had brief cameos of famous puzzle-lovers like Ken Burns, Jon Stewart, and Mike Mussina (!). The latter two were just icing on the cake of ninety minutes of dorky glee. They had profiles of the major competitors at the annual crossword puzzle competition, and while the people were a pretty diverse group, the overall tournament still exuded a distinct nerdly atmosphere. The rows of people with pencils in hand, the emcee with the mic and timer at the front, the talent show, just had math team tournament written all over it. Heh, nerds will be nerds I suppose.

The joy of the well-crafted sentence

I have never been disposed with any particular favor toward cats. I have maintained an opinion of them like to the one they always seem to hold of me. I glare at them, and they glare back. They barely conceal their disdain for me, and I hardly keep mum on mine for them. Now and then, one of them will - if they still have their claws - succeed in a malicious hit-and-run upon my bared hand or too-near face. For my part when thus victimized, I take pride in a higher moral standard than that of the feline, and I turn the other cheek and think ill of them from the next room over. This is how I have coexisted with the feline order through the years.

- "Incidence with a cat", from the most wonderfully written but sadly defunct paper Three Weeks, via the eclectic blog of the Nonist.

Unhealthily obsessed

..with The Superficial. For some reason when I tried to access it a few weeks ago, I kept getting a page not found error. Perhaps the Internet gods wanted me to study for finals instead. In any case I have been soaking up all the tabloidal energy the past few hours like a middle-age housewife at the supermarket. Mmm stupid celebrities:

• Tom Cruise dancing (working Youtube link here)


• Jake Gyllenhaal being stupid


• Britney's horrid poetry


• David Spade and Heather Locklear are together?

long time no nerd

Apologies all around. The Cadre members are now unfortunately separated across 1000+ miles, so our nerdly strength has been reduced. But fear not! Our eyes and ears are still avidly probing the atmosphere for signs of geeky intelligence.

Anyway, here're some jokes (from the SA Post Your Favorite Nerdy jokes thread):

• e^x is walking down the street when he notices all sorts of variables running back at him from the other end of the street. The variables are shouting "LOOK OUT! A DERIVATIVE IS COMING! IF IT GETS TO US WE'RE ALL DOOMED!" But e^x isn't afraid of derivatives, and he's kind of a cocky son of a bitch, so he keeps walking. He gets to the end of the street and sees the derivative standing there, and he goes up to it to greet it.
  "Hello, you must be the derivative. I'm e^x."
  "Yes, nice to meet you. I'm d/dy."


• I was having lunch with that Gary Kasparov [sic] the other day. We were eating on a checked tablecloth. It took him three hours to pass me the salt.


• What do you get if you drop a piano down a mine shaft? A flat minor.
  What do you get if you drop a piano on a parade ground? A flat major.
  What do you get if you drop a piano on a Chinese gangster? A diminished triad.


• Phineas Gage walks into a bar...

Tee hee.