Gadzooks! It's time to post again. Today was my birthday. It's amazing how fast things are changing, especially with social media. Today I got birthday congratulation from people on Facebook, Twitter and Orkut. I don't remember how it went last year, but I'm pretty sure the most I got was was couple of tweets on Twitter. I'm looking forward to seeing where birthday wishes come from on my next birthday.
More DVDs Than you Can Shake a Stick at
Yesterday I received 5 DVDs in the mail. That's because, in addition to my Netflix membership, I recently signed up for a free trial with Blockbuster. Normally that would only last two weeks, but I learned of a secret password here that extends this period to four weeks.
Besides the extra DVDs, the great thing about the Blockbuster trial is that it gives me an opportunity to finally rent the movies that Netflix has labeled "long wait" on my queue, meaning that it may be weeks before they let me have them. Blockbuster, for the most part, lets me get these same movies right away. (Netflix would too if I were a new customer.)
Another advantage is that I get to compare the two services. The first thing that impressed me about Blockbuster were the envelopes, which are more secure than Netflix's. About a third of the disks I get from Netflix are torn at the edge in a very suspicious manner. There is always just enough of an opening so that a postal worker could separate the paper and look in to see the title. I became convinced that this was actual tampering when I received an envelope with a much longer-than-usual tear. I noticed that the disk inside was upside down, meaning that the tear had to be extended to see the title. So far, I've never had a disk become lost in the mail, but it's probably just a matter of time. The Blockbuster envelopes make tampering a bit more difficult.
Where Blockbuster lost a lot of points with me was on my rental of the Battlestar Galactica miniseries. Unlike Netflix, Blockbuster lists it as spanning two DVDs. The first has the original run of four episodes on one side with special features on the other. The second disk, which counts as an additional rental on the three-out plan, has those same special features and nothing else. In other words, it's completely redundant! True, this isn't a huge tragedy for me. I've still got more DVDs out now than I know what to do with. But Netflix has never done anything quite that stupid to me.
I wonder what else awaits me on this epic four-week adventure.
Emode
Like a meticulous collector, you've fed your brain a unique set of facts and figures over the years. Words, numbers, you've got it all. That's what makes you a Facts Curator.Whether or not you intend to absorb every piece of information that comes your way, your mind has certain steel-trap qualities to it. You are a knowledge sponge. You have almost enough words in your head to fill a dictionary, and you're equally adept when it comes to manipulating numbers. You can also detect important patterns in number sequences, and probably remember the mnemonic devices you were taught in grade school.
You may feel comfortable in classroom settings where absorbing details is critical. You're also able to learn from example and piece together all the little facts in life to get to the big picture. That's why you never stop accumulating information as you walk through life.
Your strengths lie in both the verbal and math realms — placing you in the same arena as someone like Bill Gates. Gates has the ability to not only store and retrieve an especially large amount of specialized data, but to translate and present that information to the population at large. His entire empire is based on this unique talent. And to think — your brain works in this same way! When it comes right down to it, you and other Facts Curators can ride a wave of information to live a truly enriched life.
I'm not quite sure what to make of these results. On the one hand it's nice to be told I have a high IQ, but I'm not sure I like being compared to Bill Gates. Couldn't they have said I have the IQ of Gandhi? Now that would be an IQ to be proud of. I guess this must all be accurate since the certificate says "PhD Certified", and anyone with a PhD is infallible. It's interesting that they never say who has the PhD or what her area is.
To explore further, I took another Emode quiz to determine my ideal job, and then they told me I had to pay money for them to give me an answer. Apparently I should become an architect and, under no circumstances, become an underwriter (not that I even know what that is). Being an architect might be fun, but there are clearly many other jobs for which I am much more ideally suited.
Okay, let's try just one more test. How about the Santa's Little Helper Test which is supposed to tell me what presents I should ask for this Christmas. And the answer is . . . electronics??? I could have told you that. What a useless test!
Based on the results of the last couple of tests, I feel reasonably assured that I am probably nothing like Bill Gates, and my true IQ is probably more like 70 (assuming that there is any validity to IQ scores). So now I suppose I should give up on Emode entirely -- but only after I take the What's Your Cat's Type? quiz.
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