How about that for a post title? About now you are probably wondering what could possibly follow a title like that. Well, let me explain myself or rather let me explain what Mozilla thinks of myself. I was recently informed by my Firefox browser that an update was available. Knowing those open source developers tend to get it right, I usually take them up on their patch requests. After a quick download and a Firefox restart everything was up and running again. Usually the “What’s New” tab is immediately deleted since it generally contains words to the effect web surfing is safer now or here’s another feature I’ll never use. This time something caught my attention. Somewhere towards the bottom of the page there were a few collages displayed with a teaser to Webify Me. Basically if I answer 20 questions they will generate a personal collage of what the web means to me (or at least that is what I took it as). What the hell, I had 10 minutes to spare and its cheaper than a shrink. 20 bizarre questions later Mozilla produced my “personal” assessment in terms of graphical icons… and here is the result:
Having looked at it, what are your first impressions? My attention was immediately drawn to four things. The rainbow bracelet was very disturbing and that feeling only amplified by the knitting needles. Apparently they felt obligated to make fun of my nose, but that’s been old news since grade school but they nailed my interest in photography. The first two observations were still glaring at me. What the hell did I answer that indicated I was living an alternate lifestyle (obligatory “not that there is anything wrong with that”) and spent my evenings creating stocking hats. My 10 minutes of spare time just turned into 30 minutes of investigation! Eventually I figured out you could click on the individual images and get some verbiage on what it stood for. Let’s just see what this is all about shall we?
Hit the review to read a rather detailed analysis of my Webify Me results
In no particular order (well, there is an order, but that is simply based on my Smugmug upload order) we start with the Statue of Liberty. First assumption is it detected I was born in the good ol’ USA. That’s a check. Maybe it stands for my strong belief in freedom and the strong distaste for socialism. In fact, I did visit New York State last year (although avoided NY City like the plague) so I can see some correlation there.
Well, they did detect I was born in the USA but the purple mountains is a reach. The best we have around here is a large hill. On the other hand we can’t go a mile without coming upon crops of corn or beans so the waves of grain would be a check. On a accuracy scale we’ll put this at an 8 (out of 10)
Next up we have the matchbook. I do not smoke (probably because I can read) so this one appears to be a miss. I might give it some associativity due to fact I do enjoy a good bonfire and probably one of the few who like the smell given off by a burnt match. This feels like a gift, but we’ll give it a 2.
Mozilla says it stand for .. huh? Matches represent a social vector? Smokers are outgoing and bold individuals or I’m a barfly on the hunt to get dates. Hit the gong boys, this one is a dud. Maybe the next one will get this analysis back on track. The MP3 Player is next on the list. Now this resonates with me. I do like music. I spend tons of ours pounding the pavement while listening to MP3s and almost exclusively listening to Podcasts and Audio Book all on .. you guessed it .. MP3 format. I won’t go into a certain library, but let’s say this is a 10.
I am clearly master of my musical domain (and just about any others you can think of hehehe). Completist is ironically accurate when it comes to music. No FLAC or WMA for me or any compassion for the RIAA. Nice job Mozilla. Another good catch is the paintbox. I do enjoy letting my creative side play and enjoy challenging myself to produce art (my definition) in a number of formats. Typically my tools in this space are the pencil and erasure tending not to foray into the difficult world of paint. A quick glance right at my bookshelf reveals no less than 11 books on drawing techniques – none on color. Giving a slight ding for the paint instead of pencil, let’s go with a 9.
Apparently Mozilla was going with a different tact. They mention the 20-sided dark side but they bought only a 12 color palette. Not sure if risk taking is a strong trait of mine choosing to more analytical and calculating than true risk taker. Although I did take a recent risk to put a small dent in my fear of heights by climbing the forest fire tower in Indiana. In the spirit of Spinal Tap, my Geekiness level probably goes to 12.
What’s up with this Panda? I do enjoy wildlife and no stranger to a zoo. A quick review of my photography portfolio will tell you this is my favorite subject to view behind the glass and as a result I tend to be overly sensitive to their conservation. On a sad note, I had to say goodbye to a female Cardinal today. She hit the window last night and literally cracked her neck. Surprisingly, it didn’t kill her, but left her unable to straighten her neck and thus unable to regain her balance. Her time was limited so I was forced to let her pass away peacefully in the night. If this reference is for my fondness for wildlife then I’ll give it an 8 – a two point deduction since I rarely see pandas.
I have no idea what this means and therefore I am imposing a 4 point penalty bring the score down to a 4. What could the ‘K’ stand for? I do enjoy board games and spent a lot of my childhood playing the major staples – Risk, Life, Monopoly, Chess, Battleship but not so much scrabble. Hey I admit it, I attended the College of Engineering and my spelling sucks – thank god my profession invented word processor spell checkers. There is also another possible hidden meaning. A good portion of my childhood was standing on a rubber mat staring down hitters. Maybe it stands for the classic strikeout symbol! Since there are potentially double meanings with this one I’m giving it a 10.
Check on the cerebral games and as Linda will attest I am not the most gracious winner (but we all know she has no room to talk there – those that have seen her victory dance know this first hand). I am not one to actually zone out in front of the TV. In fact, rarely can I just sit and watch TV without doing some other activity. It is really more of background noise that the center of attention. All in all, this one is fairly close.
So what about this Fossil? Is it a reference to being old or perhaps an interest in the past? On the old front I put myself on the younger scale mainly because I’m SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much younger than my brothers and pretty active on the sports and workout fronts. History is not a specialty in any front beyond what I pick up on Pawn Stars, American Pickers or American Restoration. Not thinking this is a good fit so going with a 3 with a slight nod to enjoying hunting for seashells.
Definitely a history clearer here and not so much a searcher for history as a trivia collector. There needs to be a rebate on this particular image. Now lets address those cocktail swords. Most months of the year are spent in some form of training state. As a result the drinking habits tend to favor Powerade over alcohol. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a beer every once in awhile with friends and Vegas just seems a little funner with a whiskey sour, but beyond that my drink choices are pretty boring – I also hate olives so a big fat 2 for this ranking.
Deft with the weapons of mass intoxication … umm not so much. Excuse me, where do I submit for partial refund. Wait a second, the USB Drive is a fitting icon. There is always one on the keychain and it has become the tool of trade in my business. There are 7 USB drives currently attached to this computer and there’s about 5 usb cables stashed in the drawer above them. Without a moments hesitation this one gets a 10.
Technology yes, Portable yes, Shareable and Gadgets.. yeah you got me. Just like the wrench below. although not a master of all things tool I can find my way around a toolbox and have been known to make a few things from time to time – like say a 46 foot bridge. With the exception of plumbing and car maintenance I can get through most routine repairs and even dabble in some of the harder ones. Although my favorite medium is PVC pipe which doesn’t often require a wrench. this still gets a 9. Besides, I need to justify all the money I spend on cools tools!
Oh, they were taking this from a customization perspective. Beyond a few add-ons for pop up blockers and the standard helper apps, my Firefox experience is pretty vanilla. A dock of 3 points will be applied to reflect this nuance. And now comes the Camera. There is really no need to go into this one. If you are friend of the blog you are very aware of the photography influence and even though this was a point and shoot it still deserves a 12.
Buy it, wrap it and put a bow on it. We tend to take pictures of landscape and wildlife over people, but we’ll let that slide. On to the Carabiner. Hiking is definitely on the agenda whenever we strike out on vacations. Sometimes that trek is simply between casinos, but a dirt trail is always beckoning when out in the parks. Linda has alluded to this being an attempt to collect insurance money from her but this is completely FALSE (this will clearly bring a comment rebuttal from her with likely some reference to something that may or may not have happened while walking in Acadia – true or false straight through is always better than going waaaay out of your way just because the path may be slightly better? good, you are with me! Let’s go with a 7 – it isn’t like I’ll risk climbing up a frozen waterfall or scaling a cliff.
Hey, active, strong and reliable .. that’s me (well, that might be little liberal on the strong side). Now, being up in the air is not a strength and probably closer to being a liability. Wait a minute.. I just remembered Linda tried to off ME on a cliff trail in Zion National Park last year.
Sigh, mystic crystals. Really? how about NOT. No mystic crystals, magnetic bracelets or pyramids for this guy. I do like Lucky Charms for breakfast which might be giving off a false vibe here. We’ll assume this doesn’t apply to all the little action figures and nicknacks scattered around my den and go with a ranking of 1 (the green clovers and yellow moon factor).
I can’t even spell “chakras” so this would be a dart in the wall which pretty much goes for the compass icon. With the exception of our trip to Indiana the navigation duties always falls on Linda. 90% percent of the time she is dead on and the other 10% she is bitching out the GPS unit. If the sun is visible I can usually get to where I’m heading, but any detailed directions requires a minimum of two hours studying Google maps and with a little luck a street view run through before I’m comfortable heading out on my own. As with the crystals it’s a 1 because I was smart enough to marry a map reader.
Well, I do know which way is up, and like adventure (as long as it’s on land), but I lasted only a month or two in Boy Scouts – long enough to learn a sheep bend knot and become convinced that just buying a match will save a lot of wear and tear on the hands.
Sigh, this next one is clearly a jest on the size of my snoz. Just look how prominent that is in the image. There’s a reason I never get my caricature done at the fair. Pretty proud of the fact that I’ve never had it broken even after spending many years learning the ancient fighting techniques. Its a 9 here and I think I smell cupcakes.
Interesting, they are taking the disguise route. Quite frankly this applies even better. Private is my middle name and take great effort in keeping off the grid as much as possible. This blog probably isn’t the best example, but if you didn’t get here by any public search index and my profiles are all setup as private (and thus no Google+ for me).
Although not an avid collector of action figures, there are a few here and there. Typically these are thanks to my friend Pakage who has a knack for finding cool things at comic expos and trade shows. What would you give 1 Six Sigma GI Joe Ninja, three Iron Man’s, two Wolverines, Punisher car, three Predators, a Lord of the Rings Ringwraith and 1 Mr. Burns? Survey says.. a 4 just because I know how much more Pakage has than I do.
My inner nerd psyche is on the fritz… and that’s the way “ahuh ahuh” I like it. No D&D in my past, but I did make a photo collection containing pictures of a predator action figure at various locations on our trip to Colorado.. twice! Life is pretty dark without a flashlight and there are a number of them scattered about the house. Not sure I want to be around anyone who doesn’t appreciate a good flashlight. This was probably a no-brainer in their icon list and therefore a 7 simply for taking the easy way out.
Exploring the Internet is one of those rat-holes I tend to get myself into from time to time. I tend to justify this as a need to seeking out new views and projects to stir my own creativity. In reality it is more likely due to being a huge people watcher and the Internet is second only to Walmart for interesting subjects.
And from there it went downhill FAST. Back to the first thing I noticed, the rainbow colored friendship bracelet. Is there a reason they chose a friendship bracelet with this color theme? I definitely don’t need a bracelet to remind me I have friends and if they are trying to imply something in addition to that they are definitely wrong. My 20 years of wonderful marriage (that ‘s gonna cost me) puts this selection at a -10.
Does overjoyed translate into hysterical laughter? Because that is what they are doing when they see knitting needles so prominently displayed on my image wall. I can’t think of a single question that would lead to any aspect of Knitting. I can only guess they’ll try to use some bullshit words to try and make this sound more manly than it is. You wield the deadly daggers as you stab and hack your way through the perils of life while weaving a tapestry of social responsibility and charity. Puke this gets a -5 only because you might actually be able to kill someone if you sharpened one of these and shot it out of a crossbow.
I told you. Blah blah blah you knit a mean mitten. Let’s see the final results: 8,2,10,9,4,10,3,2,10,9,12,7,1,1,9,4,7,-10,-5 for a grand total of 109 (I think) out of a possible 200. That results in a ~49% which is FAILING in my book. What does all this translate to? 92 minutes. Yes folks, that is the amount of time I lost thanks to taking that damn quiz. Stupid Stupid Stupid.
On a closing note, don’t think I missed all the long shaped objects, tools and don’ t forget the cocktail reference…guessing there’s a bias in their creative department.
