Rightfully So

Lock the Library! Rowdy Students Are Taking Over - New York Times:

Every afternoon at Maplewood Middle School’s final bell, dozens of students pour across Baker Street to the public library. Some study quietly.

The Baker Street library in Maplewood, N.J., near a middle school, will soon close from 2:45 to 5 p.m. Others, library officials say, fight, urinate on the bathroom floor, scrawl graffiti on the walls, talk back to librarians or refuse to leave when asked. One recently threatened to burn down the branch library. Librarians call the police, sometimes twice a day.

Lousy kids. In my day we only played in the neighbor’s yard.

Spaniard, 67, becomes world oldest mum with twins | International News | Reuters.com:

A 67-year-old Spanish woman became the world’s oldest new mother on Saturday when she gave birth to twins, a Barcelona hospital said.

This is just messed up. I couldn’t imagine what would be going through her mind to think that she needed to be impregnated at the age of 67.

Unfortunately, the title isn’t about the more pleasurable subject as a woman shaking her booty. It’s about the ever increasing bulk of Americans that is now consuming 1 billion more gallons of gasoline a year.

The above study doesn’t even reflect on other wastes of fuel. Is it that hard to actually park your car in a parking lot instead of circling for 20 minutes, vulturing for that prime spot right next to the handicapped spot? I’m reminded of the woman in Clerks, searching for the gallon of milk that will expire in the next century. It’s not going to happen people! Besides, the walk will probably be good for you.

A dad who didn’t think his 6 or 7 year old son wasn’t getting enough playing time decided to pull a gun on the coach.

Now in what world does this sound like it’s a good idea? Even in the old west I don’t think there was ever a showdown at noon between a dad and a coach. The father is being charged with aggravated assault, simple assault and reckless endangerment.

What do you call yourself when you hate stupid people? If someone doesn’t like a specific race they can be rascist or a bigot, or if they don’t like someone who can’t smell, they can be called politically incorrect. What do you call it when you hate stupid people?

The scary thing is, the stupid people are multiplying! Go into your local big-box retailer (Walmart, K-Mart, Quickie-mart) and take a look around. These people are the ones procreating… These are the ones voting to “git-r-done”. Will the human race survice for the start of the 22nd century?

Granted, stupid people have always been around us, from the people that thought it was a good idea to live under a volcano to the ones that thought it would be safe to ride under a bag filled with millions of cubic feet of combustible gas. Today’s stupid people rely on the lottery, check cashing places, and rent to own. They cruise parking lots looking for a close parking space just because they are too lazy to get off their big fat ass and walk into the store. The turn signal is an unknown device to them, and buying a 30 second ringtone for $2.99 seems like a good idea. They super-king-size their meals, and then wonder why they get out of breath searching for the TV remote.

What will happen when it comes crashing down? Will we be relegated to the dark ages of phone party lines, non-cable TV, and walking? Will the smart ones be required to force mate and rebuild civilization?

This spring I started a new hobby of bicycling. Now I know you might be thinking geeks and exercise are as different as Tom Cruise and sanity but once I started I found some suprising parallels between bicycling and Role Playing Games.

In your typical RPG you start out with the bare minimum equipment and as you progress through the game you find or buy new equipment that gives you slightly better stats. It could be a sword that gives you +5 strength, or a shield that gives you +1 resistance to fire. These slight improvements won’t be noticable right away but they do add up over time. As I was buying gear for my bike I saw the same thing. The lighter the components are the faster the bike is going to go. A jersey and shorts can give you +5 resistance to wind. In RPGs you have to find the proper balance to make your character most efficient. On the bike you have to balance comfort versus speed. A gel seat will be more comfortable but it also weighs more so you won’t be as fast. Unfortunately bicycling gear doesn’t have the cool names that RPG gear has. At the bike shop I have never seen The Carbon Fork of Victory or Lance’s Waterbottle of Destiny. Other than that I find the two hobbies to be pretty similar. Bicycling sure does use up all my gold anyway.

Last week on Rightfully So I gave tips on how to lower the temperature in your MacBook Pro. Not really, I talked about dating. To insure that the geek bloodlines carry on into the next generation (not the show) we will have to negotiate with the opposite sex the same way Harrison Ford doesn’t negotiate with terrorists. You can win her over with looks or personality, but how do we aquire these two things? We fake it.

First off, personality. Girls love to talk, but not about anything cool. Pretending to listen is going to be your greatest asset. When she starts talking about who knows what, you can use that time to think about upcoming video games you might want to purchase or who would win in a fight between Jack Bauer and Michael Knight. Just make sure you nod your head and throw a “yeah” in there every now and then. Once you get really good you can listen to the last sentance she said and turn it into a question that keeps her going. Eventually you will have to talk but you have to make sure you pick the right topic. If you start in with your analysis of Stargate SG1 vs. Battlestar Gallactica she’ll be gone before you can say “Cylon”. If it helps, pretend you are a rogue that maxed out your charisma points and you will say anything to the barmaiden to get the key to the dungeon (her pants).

The other route is working on your looks. Looks are more important than personality. If you are good looking then you can get away with playing Game Boy while she is talking to you. Even though most geek activities are the opposite of exercise, here are a few tips you can do to lose some pounds. The first is what I call the “Half Cheese” method, where you take in half the amount of cheese servings you normally eat. It doesn’t matter if that cheese is in whiz, do, or it form. Next you have to work on your wardrobe. Yes we all voted for Pedro but its time to put away the Hot Topic T-shirts when trying to make a good first impression. In order to look like the proper tool just go to any Old Navy, Gap or Abercrombie. They usually have a manaquin dressed up so you don’t even have to worry about matching things yourself. These clothes might cost a little more so you may have to put off buying your “The Evil That Men Do” trade for another month.

By following this advice you should be able to get the girl of your dreams*. We must strive to prevent geeks from dying out the way swing music died out in the late 1990s.

*Rightfully So takes no responsibility for kicks to the crotch you might receive.

Following the success of my Geeks Guide To NCAA Basketball I decided to write more articles to help geeks fit in with outside world. Studies show that 98% of the world is outside your basement. Unless you live in a Bio-Dome (the actual facility not the Pauly Shore movie), you’re going to have contact with this world, but with my help you can get through it.

Procreation. Even if you are not intersted in the opposite sex for recreational pruposes you should consider the fact that you will need someone to carry on your legacy someday. You need a kid that you can pass your D&D Miniatures on to and, if necessary, avenge your death.

So how do you make yourself appealing to women? Women rate guys based on the following equation:
(looks X 2) + personailty = dateability
As a geek we are naturally lacking in both departments. You can either work on your personailty and find a girl who likes you for what’s on the inside or you can work on your appearance, then you don’t have to be nice to girls at all. Some geeks hold out thinking they will find a female geek, but those are harder to come by than a Mox Ruby.

Next week we will take a look at both strategies: personality and appearance

Those who can’t, teach.

Anyone who works in an office knows you have to come up with things to do to take your mind off of the soul crushing. For March this means filling out brackets for NCAA basketball. “But RC, I am a geek who doesn’t know anything about sports”. Not a problem. With my help you’ll be fitting in with the normies in no time.

First let me give you some background. About 20 years ago some of the colleges around the country decided to play basketball against each other. However, people could care less about college basketball so ESPN invented tournament brackets to add gambling into the mix and increase TV ratings. Thus, March Madness was born.

So how do you fill out a bracket? First, you go to Google and type in “sports”. This should take you to a web page that has printable NCAA brackets. Make sure you pick the correct year and that you do not pick the women’s tournament. You will then pick which team you think will win at each round until you get to the championship. The number beside each team name is their rank. Ranks are based on which college has more hot drunk chicks with MySpace pages. You can’t base everything on these ranks though, there are other methods to determine who you think will win.

Most newbies will choose winners based on which name they like better. Tennessee is a much cooler name than Winthrop for example. There is one team named Bradley, and I know someone named Bradley, so I’ll pick them. Another team is named Xavier, who is the leader of the X-Men, so they are surely going to go far. You can also go by who would win in a fight between the two mascots. A panther could definately kill a golden flash. I don’t even know what a golden flash is. Lastly you can try to eliminate schools that you don’t think actually exist. George Mason? Everyone knows George Mason sacrificed his own life flying a nuclear bomb out of LA during season 2 of 24. Nice try NCAA. Gonzaga sounds like a character on Fraggle Rock so I am pretty sure they are made up as well. Now see Oral Roberts has a funny name, but Memphis has a lot higher MySpace slut rating, so that will be a judgement call. Follow these strategies yourself and you may not win anything, but at least you will be participating the hell out of this game.

Are there catchy slogans in China, such as “Buy Chinese”? Walmart used to market how much they bought in America, but it seems they have dropped that aspect of their PR campaign. I wonder if they just resurrected it in China, where they discuss how much the sell from China, and promote shoppers to “Buy Chinese”.

We recently picked up some little plastic farm animals and exotic animals toys. Each one is proudly stamped with the word CHINA. I can’t help but wonder what the person was thinking as they painted the spots on the leopard and the coloring on the pig. Had that person ever seen a Giraffe? Rhinoceroses? Did they think they were painting some alien creature, the type that could only be imagined by a methamphetamine addict from the midwest?

What does the Chinese assembly line worker think of America? Between SpongeBob SquarePants and Bratz dolls, America must appear to be some sort of messed up world, where the women have no waists, perfect breasts, and wide hips. Males worship mechanical deer and salmon that sing. Girls always play with pink toys, and boys play with cars that have oversized tires or the words Star Wars on them.