March 2, 2009

It’s a good thing you spent all that time, money, and effort earning that college degree. So maybe you don’t use your bachelor’s degree in applied anthropology as often as you’d like to in your job as a phone support specialist, but at least you get it when your officemate wears his “Jews for Cheeses – Fight Lactose Intolerance” T-shirt. Priceless – easily worth your $20,000 in student loans, final-exam stress ulcers, and your embarrassing experimentation with bisexuality. Hey, who could have known the field research for your Comparative Anthropology of Ancient Greece class would lead you to hot-oil wrestling night at the Boyz Cellar? College is about expanding your horizons anyway, isn’t it? And even though your event horizon may have been a little sore the next day, you still rocked a solid B on that paper … and memories to last a lifetime. Plus, now you’re a walking repository of hopelessly arcane information. You’re the guardian of a collection of knowledge that is, although fascinating, an excruciatingly painful conversational stretch to reach. You could wait around all night for just the right moment to pop off with a pithy bon mot about the dating rituals of Paraguayan Mennonites, and in the end you’ll still sound like some know-it-all prick. Do you think Stephen Hawking goes around randomly croaking out theoretical physics equations at cocktail parties? Well, maybe. Hawking’s horizons were expanded so much in college that his black hole actually radiates. Doh! It’s safe to say that in mixed company, some information is best kept on the inside. Of course, once you, Hawking, Rain Man, and Good Will Hunting get ushered over to the nerd couch, you can chat it up all you want. Go buck wild. Create a unified field theory, just don’t unleash your torrent of intellectualism on people trying to act vapid enough to actually get laid. The only thing worse than a garrulous egghead is a garrulous egghead who is unintentionally cock-blocking. Yes, it may seem harsh to hate on people who are innocently trying to shake out their mental detritus, but if you look at it in the cold, hard light of objectivity, they’re no better than someone trying to drive while talking on a cell phone. Oblivion is not an excuse. This doesn’t mean you have to completely cordon off the arcane wing of your mental library; you just need to be judicious about when you choose to unhook the velvet rope. You need to find the right setting. Maybe you should see if Opal Divine’s Geeks Who Drink fits that bill. Geeks Who Drink is an English-/Irish-style pub quiz that happens every Sunday at 7pm at Opal Divine’s Freehouse. Teams of up to six people can win bar cash and glory just by knowing shit other people don’t. Plus, if it turns out you’re really stupid, you can blame it on the booze. Genius!