More Pseudoscientific Units!

So, no one else suggested anything, but I think we're going to go with the following:

Douchery will be measured in Pratts (Pr), for Spencer Pratt; here's an example of his douchery. Note: The abbreviation will not be "P," as that is the symbol for poise (on a side note, measuring viscosity is a kind of annoying exercise). I, unfortunately, don't know how to zero this scale or have any useful comparisons; I suppose I could make Spencer Pratt = 1 Pr, but there are a couple of issues here:

1. That would make most everything else in fractional Pratts, but I guess that's okay. I mean, most of the time, things are measured in fractional Tesla, right?
2. It's a moving target; the trend for Spencer Pratt's douchery is to increase. That is to say that his douchery is non-static. I suppose we could freeze him and store him at some institute of standards... I mean, I'm all for freezing him.
3. This really isn't an issue, but I have a suggestion on how to make Pratts even more representative of douche-y: it should be a non-Metric unit. So, 7 Pratts = 1 Cruise (Cr) (this is merely an example. I don't know how to compare Spencer Pratt to Tom Cruise).

Frustration will be measured in Friscos (Fi). I should go back and expand on how much I dislike that person to really build a more complete profile of frustration. Also, in keeping with the idea of being frustrated, I again propose that Friscos be non-Metric. Another unit of frustration should be Claw Shrimp (CS)... how about 13 Fi = 1 CS?

Please, make more suggestions as you see fit.

A glimpse at my general thought process.

Basically, for trivial things that excite me a lot, my thought process can be broken down into roughly four steps:


So, the first frame represents the question or point of interest. The second frame represents my contemplation of the first frame. The third frame represents a solution or proposal of action to the first frame. The fourth frame represents my response to the third frame. Do you need a flowchart for that? I hope not.

Note: This image was taken without permission from here. If you like Metal Gear Solid (MGS), I strongly recommend checking out the rest of the comics. They're a pretty good synopsis of the series, in the same way that Yu-Gi-Oh: The Abridged Series is a good synopsis of Yu-Gi-Oh. That is to say, it is fucking amazing.

In case you're wondering how this all came about, it's mainly due to a discussion about the vagaries/idiosyncrasies of rank nomenclature in the US military -- all branches, but mainly the Army. In fact, I thought of this comic mainly because of how appending "Big" to "Boss" to make "Big Boss" echoes or parallels the "laziness" of the existing rank nomenclature:

[6/9/2009 4:40:49 PM] Ozan D: yup
[6/9/2009 4:41:05 PM] Ozan D: they have some pretty random ranks
[6/9/2009 4:41:08 PM] Me: Haha.
[6/9/2009 4:41:13 PM] Ozan D: like they needed more ranks, but ran out of creativity.
[6/9/2009 4:41:23 PM] Ozan D: "gunnery sergeant"
[6/9/2009 4:41:26 PM] Ozan D: "master sergeant"
[6/9/2009 4:41:29 PM] Ozan D: ...
[6/9/2009 4:41:33 PM] Ozan D: "master gunnery sergeant"
[6/9/2009 4:43:47 PM] Ozan D: it's kinda like "you're not fooling anybody. you just put two ranks together."

On a side note regarding ranks in the branches of the US military, how many can you get correctly? I got 88; I can't believe I missed all of the Petty Officer ranks.

Finally, to tie this all back into the original point of this point and as an illustration of my thought process:

[6/9/2009 5:01:59 PM] Me: Boo, they don't have anything else military related that is also trivial like that.
[6/9/2009 5:02:06 PM] Me: Sporcle, I mean.
[6/9/2009 5:03:01 PM] Ethan K: you could make one
[6/9/2009 5:03:18 PM] Me: !!!
[6/9/2009 5:03:19 PM] Me: I COULD.
[6/9/2009 5:03:29 PM] Me: Weapons used by the US Military by war.
[6/9/2009 5:03:30 PM] Ozan D: i am imagining andy saying this.
[6/9/2009 5:03:35 PM] Ozan D: it is pretty awesome.

Ooh, ooh, time for some pseudoscience!

Of course, not to be confused with a psuedocarp.

So, if you had to come up for a unit of measure for "douchery", what would it be? My friend Ozan thinks that it should be, in typical form, related to the name of a notable douchebag, though the exact person needs to be determined:

[2:43:51 PM] Ozan D: you certainly wouldn't want to choose the biggest douche you could find
[2:44:02 PM] Ozan D: since that would make everybody else have fractional douchery
[2:44:07 PM] Me: Right.
[2:44:23 PM] Me: Well, fractional douchery is fun.
[2:44:28 PM] Me: Because then you can use metric prefixes.
[2:44:34 PM] Ozan D: but you would almost certainly want someone whose defining characteristic is douchery
[2:44:35 PM] Me: Which make it sound more science-y.,
[2:44:46 PM] Ozan D: that is, they don't have any other important qualities.
[2:44:53 PM] Andrew Chen: Like a microdouche.

If we were to make this a rigorous kind of thing (and not pseudoscience), I suppose I should define what douchery is. I won't. Instead, I present to you a list of douchebags (I'm lazy, it was one of the first links I Googled). EDIT: I don't like this list. For one, it's even lazier than me and is sort of an example of approaching the Godwin limit. I suggest simply going by what you define as a douchebag, because, really, there is no really rigorous definition of douchery. Any proposals for units, of course, should be accompanied by an appropriately humorous reason.

On a related note, Vivek provided me with a funny term: the douchebaguette.

Yes, it's in German.

So, as the title suggests, a lot of the controls on the blog are in German. I know how to change it to English, but I've decided not to. While you're probably more than capable of figuring out what a given word means in the context, I've decided to play it safe. Also, if you don't want to go through the (minor amount) of effort to use Google Translate, I've provided the translations for the German words here.

Things you'll see on the front page

Days of the Week
Sonntag (So) = Sunday
Montag (Mo) = Monday
Dienstag (Di) = Tuesday
Mittwoch (Mi) = Wednesday
Donnerstag (Do) = Thursday
Freitag (Fr) = Friday
Samstag/Sonnabend (Sa) = Saturday

Months
Januar = January
Februar = February
März = March
April = April
Mai = May
Juni = June
Juli = July
August = August
September = September
Oktober = October
November = November
Dezember = December

Ältere = Older
Startseite = Homepage
Neuere = Newer
Abonnieren = Subscribe to

Things you'll see when commenting

Steam!

So, I'm starting to use Steam more now. If you want to add me on Steam, here's my Steam ID Page.

Games I'm Actually Playing (that you can play with me!)
Team Fortress 2
Left 4 Dead
Empire: Total War

Games I'm Gonna Play for the Achivements (either single player or games you don't want to play with me)
Portal
Half-Life 2: Episode One
Half-Life 2: Episode Two
Day of Defeat: Source
Counter-Strike: Source (when they supposedly get released)

Miscellaneous Category (everything else)
Half-Life 2 -- Why aren't there achievements for this? They certainly exist for the Xbox 360.
Dawn of War II -- I think these are integrated into Steam
Sins of a Solar Empire -- I think there are achievements in this game and if so, they should be integrated into Steam

Steam also has a neat feature where you can use it to launch non-Steam games. The actual level of integration of these games is quite minor; basically, it shows up in your launcher list (basically organizing your games) and if you play the game, it lets all your Steam friends know that you're playing. Steam also tracks how many hours you've played that game, so if you like collecting data on your life, this is an enabler.

What Team Fortress 2 Character Are You?

No, this isn't a stupid webquiz, mainly because I think they're stupid. That being said, I often find such quizzes amusing, but come on, we all know that:

1. Such quizzes are often written in such a way that is hardly rigorous.
2. Even if they were, people often (sub)conciously tailor their responses to meet the answer they want.
3. I don't have a point 3.

But, on to the main show!

Nick: man the heavy's simile (Note: I'm assuming Nick means "smile"... or maybe he means metaphor, I don't know.) is so similar to yours that it creeps me out
Me: Haha.
Me: That's what people say.
Me: Now, if I were mowing down people with a minigun, could you imagine me laughing maniacally?
Me: Relishing in the death and destruction?
Nick: no question

So instead of a stupid quiz, let's look at the other characters!

The Heavy: Laughs maniacally when killin' (++), loves a good sandvich (+), bald (-), interesting non-sensical rationale/moments of clarity (+), seemingly singular focus in combat (-), seemingly singular focus in life (-), HAS A FUCKING GATLING GUN (note, it's not technically a minigun insofar as it's not a 7.62 mm NATO M134 or even a 5.56 mm NATO XM214; in fact, it's probably closer to a M61 Vulcan...) (++), has the ability to shoot invisible bullets with his hand (+)

The Scout: New Jersey accent (+ for Erik, neutral for me), not much of a stand-up fighter (-)

The Soldier: Crazy military guy (++), non-sensical rationale (++), has a guttral battle cry (+), wasn't actually accepted into the military (--), knows how to operate a lot of different firearms (+)

The Pyro: Fire, while useful, isn't a primary weapon for me (-), also has a maniacal laugh (+), has a hadouken taunt (+)

The Demoman: A drinker (+), only one eye (clearly, all demomen must have one eye)(-), likes to blow stuff up (+)

The Engineer: Cool and calm personality bordering on sociopathic (+), likes to build stuff (+), also likes to blow stuff up (+), generally relies on other things to do his killing (--)

The Medic: Creepy German accent (+), creepy German accent (-), likes to make Horrible jokes (+)

The Sniper: Rifleman (+), has a plan (+), drinks his coffee (assumedly) black (+), has annoying parents (that we've confirmed) (--),

The Spy: French accent (-), wears a suit (-), good knife play/work (+), also not a stand-up fighter (-), uses a revolver (+)

And, of course, none of those pluses or minuses is quantitative. The list also isn't complete. It's sort of like that Simpsons episode where Moe proves that he's the best bartender and ends up with a face makeover.

Oh, this so encapsulates everything.

I've taken this image, without permission, from PostSecret.