Wednesday, March 28, 2007

More ramblies! Yay!

Some fun things I found on the internet today:

Double Fine Productions' News page (there are some really hilarious entries in here - especially if you've played the excellent Psychonauts)
Double Fine Productions' Job Openings page (it gets pretty funny towards the end)
GrumpyGamer (Ron Gilbert's blog)

Ok, so after those two random but yet semi-related links, I present the following: Introspection. Today I realized that I haven't much talked about any of the peculiarities about myself that I have observed set me apart from how it seems other people act/think, but that may not be apparent from merely observing me. First, I would like to point out that I have obsessive-compulsive tendencies. It's not debilitating, I'm not Monk (in terms of level of condition or genius), and I've never suffered from it - but it does affect me. For example, I have a very strong (but not absolute) aversion to stepping on cracks in the sidewalk. Unless something is actively drawing my attention away from my footsteps, I will make significant effort to pace my stride in such a way as to look natural and avoid the cracks. If for some reason I become conscious that I'm doing this, I usually continue to do it while chuckling at my own silliness, but I have been known (even today) to consciously step on a crack. I've heard of my mother's back suffering no ill effects.

I count steps. Usually in multiples of four or twelve. If the bell tower is chiming, I count the number of steps I take between tolls - I try to time my steps so that I have exactly ten. There's nothing special about ten except that it's the number of steps I naturally take in that period, I simply attempt to adjust the cadence of my footsteps so that the tenth step falls exactly at the time of the bell. When counting my steps in multiples of four or twelve, I'm simply counting to myself "one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four" over and over. Rarely do I keep track of how many times I count to four or twelve. Also, I count the number of steps in a flight of stairs. I am annoyed to no end when confronted with sequential flights of stairs which do not have the same number of steps - ESPECIALLY when the difference is an even number (usually 2). Why didn't the designer simply move one step from the flight with more stairs to the flight with fewer? Then they'd have the same number of steps. Then I could count to the same number both times. *sigh* Some things I may never know.

I cannot wear long sleeves without wearing long pants. It makes me feel top-heavy. Of course, this rarely is a problem because I am rarely without long pants (and when I am, there's probably no good reason to have long sleeves on), but still it's something that I have noticed. A friend of mine (some of you know him as Uthalinus, others perhaps as Jerm) used to regularly wear shorts with a sweatshirt. I would boggle at that because I could not under any circumstance imagine voluntarily choosing that outfit for myself. Clothing has a hierarchy - shirts are dependent upon shorts or pants (it is improper to don one's shirt before one's shorts or pants), long sleeves are dependent upon long pants, and also: long sleeves should not ever be worn unless there is a short-sleeved shirt underneath. You will rarely find me breaking any of these conventions.

And, in case you're curious for any reason - I won't be found existing in the state of shorts or pants without a shirt. That is simply a temporary state that I go through when getting dressed or undressed (the shirt comes on first, goes off last). Some may prescribe these things to "habit" - but I consider it to be stronger than habit. "Habit" is which sock I put on first. I actually don't know which one I put on first. I probably put one on first more often than the other (probably by a significant amount), but I don't know which one it is. If I were conscious of the order I normally do it in and reversed it, it wouldn't seem odd to me at all. That is not at all how these other things feel - there is something in my mind that compels me to obey these very arbitrary principles. I can break it if I choose to do so, but I rarely do because I rarely have any non-arbitrary reason to do so and I am overly conscious of being in violation of my own arbitrary rules - and that distracts me from whatever it is that I'm trying to do with my life at any given moment.

So...there you have it. Paragraphs of my personal quirks. Enjoy.

4 comments:

JadeGordon said...

Unless the obsessive stuff is keeping you from getting out of bed, getting to work, eating, sleeping, and just generally taking care of yourself and having a life, I'm not sure it's a bad quirk. I see the whole numbers thing as a natural side effect of a mind so keen at math, programming, and technology. (Do you watch Monk?)

I can send you a picture of a sidewalk near where I used to work. It was more cracked than not. I avoid cracks in some places because things are often not level, and if you don't pay attention, you might trip. There are plenty of perfectly fine, level, and well maintained sidewalks though, so most of the time I don't notice.

Karya said...

Cracks... Yup, I try to avoid them, too. But I never really thought about it until you just mentioned it.

I play with numbers in my head. Sort of like I've learned tricks to figure out different problems and I manipulate them in my head whenever I happen to encounter them. Well, that probably makes no sense to anyone but me. I do count stairs though. And if I have to wash my hands (or some other common activity) I count in my head until I've reached a number high enough to feel _done_.

Spaulding Lab said...

your nuts

TurboNed said...

I'm going to take that in the best possible way and assume that you meant the contractual form of the pronoun...specifically "you're nuts." The implication of the literal translation of what you wrote there...it seems out of character.

*pokes Jester in the face*