Good Interview Series

Today, most interviews of celebrities on T.V are little more than shallow plugs for their upcoming movie or album. It is rare to see an in-depth, genuine and meaningful conversation with someone who has a significant influence over many people. Part of the problem is the quality of people that gain status in the public eye, Paris Hilton is probably the number one example.

In my humble attempt to counteract this trend I am going to post a series of 10 well done and interesting interviews to hopefully raise people's standards for what entertainment is and isn't. I'll begin with a segment of the Dick Cavett show with John Lennon and Yoko Ono that took place shortly after the breakup of the Beatles. I'm a huge Beatles fan, and John Lennon is my number one hero. So I may be somewhat biased, but you can decide for yourself.

(This is only a portion of the interview, I believe you can find the rest of it on YouTube as well.)

Nerd Without A Cause

1. You'd rather battle an orc than talk to a girl.
2. You'd be more excited to battle an orc than have sex with a girl.
3. You can't stop thinking about battling an orc long enough to realize that even your little sister can beat you up.

These three statements would apply to the majority of my fellow classmates. Not that I have a problem with nerds, or that battling an orc wouldn't be cool, but the problem is that I am different kind of nerd. I'll provide a simple comparison that defines two general types of nerds.

Nerd Types

Preference	Classic Nerd (Me)	Techno Nerd (Them)
Music	Classical/Classic Rock/Jazz	Heavy Metal/Video Game Music
TV/Movies	Star Trek	Star Wars
Recreation	Books/Chess	World of Warcraft/D&D/LAN Parties
Language	English	C++

As you can see although in some ways we are similar, we are at opposite ends of the nerd spectrum, kind of like Fascism and Communism. I don't want to say one nerd type is better than the other but when someone wears a Dragon Ball Z t-shirt and three other people ask him wear they can get one you can't help but feel certain standards of civilization have been abandoned.

I suppose I have no right to complain, I am invading their environment by taking a web development program. I'm getting by with a better than average GPA but I'm hardly skilled in my area of study. In fact, it took me nearly 30 minutes to put the above table in the proper place. So I have to respect some of the talents my classmates possess but it's also perplexing that many of them have extreme difficulty forming a single coherent English sentence, and no, they aren't from India, they're pure Canadians. Alas, I am caught between two nerd worlds, never mind trying to be part of normal society.

The one highlight of my current semester is that one of our courses (Graphics) is being taught by a very attractive teacher (attractive women in our program are rare, Black Lotus rare...) Today we were asked to practice making a colour scheme for a potential company. Here's what I came up with:


Note the feminine colours I chose actually reaffirm my masculinity...

In truth I admire the techno nerds in that they have focus and know generally where they are going and how to get there. I on the other hand am still struggling to find my niche in the universe. I suppose I'm looking for people with more intellectual interests. On that note, one thing most types of nerds have in common is sexual repression that twists the imagination into creating strange sex creatures.

"At 30 a man should know himself like the palm of his hand, know the exact number of his defects and qualities, know how far he can go, foretell his failures - be what he is. And, above all, accept these things. "

- Albert Camus

At 23 I know my palm very well so that's something.