Internet Meme Time: Am I a Manly-Man, or simply Self-Sufficient?

Via Andrew Sullivan:

There are two lists going around the interwebs right now that tell you what you need to know to be a man, or self-sufficient. The first, from Popular Mechanics, tells you the "25 Skills Every Man Should Know." Below is the list, with what I can do bolded. Also, I should mention I claim to know it if I am reasonably sure that if I was presented with the task, I could figure it out without looking it up on the internet.

1. Patch a radiator hose
2. Protect your computer
3. Rescue a boater who has capsized
4. Frame a wall
5. Retouch digital photos
6. Back up a trailer
7. Build a campfire
8. Fix a dead outlet
9. Navigate with a map and compass
10. Use a torque wrench
11. Sharpen a knife
12. Perform CPR
13. Fillet a fish
14. Maneuver a car out of a skid
15. Get a car unstuck
16. Back up data
17. Paint a room
18. Mix concrete
19. Clean a bolt-action rifle - This may change very soon
20. Change oil and filter
21. Hook up an HDTV
22. Bleed brakes
23. Paddle a canoe
24. Fix a bike flat
25. Extend your wireless network

This gives me a manliness percentage of...72%. Wow. Apparently, I'm alot manlier than I thought. In that case, remember ladies, I'm available.

I know, it's amazing this man is not snatched up by a beautiful woman.

The second list was drawn up in protest against Popular Mechanics' list. This one presents the reader with 20 tasks that any self-sufficient adult should be able to do in 2007. Same criteria applies to the above list:

1. Know basic nutritional needs & how to plan balanced meals
2. Hone your sense of direction & navigation so you don’t need step-by-step turns to find a location
3. Understand types of health insurance & terminology such as OOP max & co-insurance percentage
4. Maintenance of a personal computer
5. In-depth knowledge of your employment benefits
6. Change a flat tire
7. Wash & iron clothes
8. Balance a checkbook & manage your finances
9. Patch holes in walls
10. Fix a clogged toilet
11. Jump start a car
12. Use public transportation to get around
13. Write an effective resume cover letter
14. Professional oral & written communication
15. Basic math
16. Stay calm in emergencies
17. Know when to ask for help
18. Personal hygiene
19. Do your own taxes
20. Use internet search engines strategically (if you know how to do good searches, you can find any information you need on the web)

And according to this I am...80% self sufficient. I am officially a B- quality adult! Wooo! Now all I have to do is stop living at my parent's.

UPDATE: I just found this list of things Robert A. Heinlein, Science Fiction Author and all around manly man, said that all human being should be able to do:

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

OK, Heinlein. You win. I am not a man. I'm pretty sure that however I die, it would not be gallantly.

Mental Health Day

I skipped work today.

I decided last night that I needed a day off. The job has really been getting to me recently. The meaningless jobs have been piling up, each one seemingly more mundane and mindless as the next. For the last few days, each time someone dropped something new on my desk, I felt like throwing it back. It doesn't help that what they say while they do the dropping usually is along the lines of "Matt, could you change these peoples' addresses in the KSS database?" or "I noticed the phone messages are really out of date. Could you change it?"

I think the fact that this is a temporary stop is finally catching up with me, especially with the prospect of other jobs on the horizon. And if I'm bad now, I'm scared to think how I'll feel when I actually have another job. It'll be Applebee's all over again.

I worked at Applebee's for a few months over the summer while I looked for a less temporary job. Once I got my current job and gave my manager my two weeks notice (actually, that happened while I was enjoying a few beers there with Oded, who was in town looking for a job of his own), I got antsy. Or maybe I just realized how much that job really sucked. With about a week before my official last day, I walked out. It was the only time I've ever done that, and probably will be the only time that I ever do, but man did that feel good.

That probably won't be happening at the OTL, because unlike Applebee's, I respect the people I work with at my current job. But if I get a job offer that I like, expect me to bouncing in my chair until that new career path starts.

The Tortoise and the Eagle

I read a lot. Most days, I'll down fifty or a hundred pages. Sometimes more. Reading this fast means I run out of books quickly, so I've learned to reread books. Those that I like, I'll reread often. Terry Pratchett's Night Watch, which is probably my favorite book, I've read at least a dozen times, but most likely more.

Since I reread my collection fairly often, I find there's parts that I keep coming back to. My favorite passage, the one I think about a lot and have even tried memorizing a few times, is also from a Pratchett book. It comes from Small Gods, which is not only an amazing book, but also probably my personal explanation for my religious feelings.

The particular passage I love is from the first page and a half. It doesn't have a title, but if it did, it would probably be called "The Tortoise and the Eagle." Or possibly "Making Friends. Then Eating Them." Terry Pratchett's a weird guy.

Now consider the tortoise and the eagle.

The tortoise is a ground-living creature. It is impossible to live nearer the ground without being under it. Its horizons are a few inches away. It has about as good a turn of speed as you need to hunt down a lettuce. It has survived while the rest of evolution flowed past by being, on the whole, no threat to anyone and too much trouble to eat.

And then there is the eagle. A creature of the air and high places, whose horizons go all the way to the edge of the world. Eyesight keen enough to spot the rustle of some small and squeaky creature half a mile away. All power, all control. Lightning death on wings. Talons and claws enough to make a meal of anything smaller than it is and at least take a hurried snack out of anything bigger.

And yet the eagle will sit for hours on the crag and survey the kingdoms of the world until it spots a distant movement and then it will focus, focus, focus on the small shell wobbling among the bushes down there on the desert. And it will leap...

And then a minute later the tortoise finds the world dropping away from it. And it sees the world for the first time, no longer one inch from the ground but five hundred feet above it, and it thinks: what a great friend I have in the eagle.

And then the eagle lets go.

And almost always, the tortoise plunges to its death. Everyone knows why the tortoise does this. Gravity is a habit that is hard to shake off. No one knows why the eagle does this. There's good eating on a tortoise but, considering the effort involved, there's much better eating on practically anything else. It's simply the delight of eagles to torment tortoises.

But of course, what the eagle does not realize is that it is participating in a very crude form of natural selection.

One day a tortoise will learn to fly.

I don't know why I like this so much. I appreciate the wit and the creativity, and I like how this passage ties together much of the book, but in a way that you don't realize until you finish the novel. But I can't explain what it is about this passage that draws me back again and again. Its possible its the message of getting back for betrayal, or that what the bully does eventually will come back to bite them in the ass (it seems that everything comes back around to the mental anguish I suffered in middle school). Possibly I just like Aesop-like fables. Or maybe I really like the transition (or lack thereof) from "What a great friend I have" to "Then the eagle lets go." But whatever it is, I keep reading the passage and I keep enjoying it.