I have no idea why, but for some reason every now and then (around once
a month or so), I'll get some random person IMing me on my AIM account. Of
course, since this seems to me to be on the same level as telephone
spam telemarketing calls, but with less stringent quick-thinking
requirements, I decided to have some fun.
So, here's a transcript of my most recent one:
warmhandsovenman: Have you ever read The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas?
Me: no
warmhandsovenman: Why not?
Me: insufficient time
warmhandsovenman: What type of books do you like?
Me: good ones
Me: of course, there have to be other incidentals
warmhandsovenman: Like Sci-Fi?
Me: e.g. the background and foreground colors have to be different
Me: a book can be the best book in the world, but if it's white type on a white page, I won't like it
Me: also, it should be made out of paper
Me: beaten copper looks nice, but it's too cumbersome to actually read
warmhandsovenman: I see.
Me: and engraved stone is right out
warmhandsovenman: How many books per month would you say you read?
Me: incidentally, why are your hands warm?
Me: do you keep them in gloves all the time?
warmhandsovenman: No, it's an inside joke with my friend.
warmhandsovenman: How many books would you say you read per month?
Me: lifetime average?
warmhandsovenman: Yeah.
Me: including the years where I was pre-literate (e.g. 0-3)?
warmhandsovenman: I see.
warmhandsovenman: Who's your favorite author?
Me: favorite in what sense?
warmhandsovenman: The author who you think writes your most enjoyable nooks.
warmhandsovenman: books*
Me: G.K. Chesterton
warmhandsovenman: Cool.
warmhandsovenman: What's the farthest you've ever ran non stop in your life?
Me: how picky are you about the definition of "run"?
warmhandsovenman: I mean what's the farthest you've ever ran/jogged in your life?
Me: how picky are you about the definition of "non stop" (and shouldn't that by hyphenated, i.e. 'non-stop'?)?
warmhandsovenman: Yeah, but I don't type in correct puncuation online. I mean non-stop like the farthest without walking.
Me: so would it count to run, stop (without walking), then start running again?
warmhandsovenman: No.
warmhandsovenman: Now can you answer it?
warmhandsovenman: How far?
Me: Not yet
Me: Are you defining 'life' in the secular sense of one time from fetus to corpse
Me: or do you allow for 'past lives', as in the hindu, budhist, or certain ancient greek conceptions?
warmhandsovenman: I ment life as in since you were born out of your mom in the hospital.
Me: if you look carefully at my question, you'll notice that within reincarnation schemes, that can be arbitrarily far ago
Me: but I presume that you mean the 1 fetus-to-corpse cycle
Me: counting any jogs one's mother took as being her runs, not your own
Me: correct?
warmhandsovenman: No.
warmhandsovenman: I mean how far have you ran non-stop in your life, the beginning being your way out of your mother's vagina.
Me: bear in mind that if you allow for reincarnation, the passage through one's mother's vagina (incidentally, this question doesn't apply to me outside of any reincarnative possibilities since I was born by C-section) arbitrarily many times, once per future life, so you're not asking a well-defined question (in the mathematical sense of the phrase "well-defined").
warmhandsovenman: GOD
warmhandsovenman: JUST F---ING ANSWER THE QUESTION.
warmhandsovenman: ROUGHLY.
warmhandsovenman: I DON'T CARE ABOUT ANY OF THIS WELL DEFINED S--T.
Me: I'm curious. Why do you think that being rude to me is going to persuade me to do you any favors, such as answering your questions?
warmhandsovenman: Because with all of your previous contradictions, I view you as a person that isen't normal and is an insecure nerd.
Me: How on earth does that lead you to the conclusion that being rude will induce me to do you favors?
Me: And, incidentally, what contradictions are you referring to?
warmhandsovenman: I asked you a question of how far you've ran. A NORMAL person would say "Oh, about so-so many miles..." and insted you contradict everything saying all this s--t that no one cares about and you haven't answered the question yet.
warmhandsovenman: So how many miles?
Me: Are you familiar with the definition of "contradict"?
warmhandsovenman: Here we go again.
Me: Allow me to be of service:
warmhandsovenman: You're a nerd with no life.
Me: Contradict \Con`tra*dict"\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. {Contradicted};
p. pr. & vb. n. {Contradicting}.] [L. contradictus, p. p. of
contradicere to speak against; contra + dicere to speak. See
{Diction}.]
1. To assert the contrary of; to oppose in words; to take
issue with; to gainsay; to deny the truth of, as of a
statement or a speaker; to impugn.
[1913 Webster]
Dear Duff, I prithee, contradict thyself,
And say it is not so. --Shak.
[1913 Webster]
The future can not contradict the past.
--Wordsworth.
[1913 Webster]
2. To be contrary to; to oppose; to resist. [Obs.]
[1913 Webster]
No truth can contradict another truth. --Hooker.
[1913 Webster]
A greater power than we can contradict
Hath thwarted our intents. --Shak.
[1913 Webster]
Me: Dude, I'm not the one IMing random people on a wednesday night
warmhandsovenman: How are you random?
Me: Well, you don't know me
Me: And, not knowing me, it seems far-fetched that you could have carefully selected me for this series of questions of highly dubious relevance to anything you might have learned about me prior to IMing me.
warmhandsovenman: Okay.
warmhandsovenman: You're cool.
warmhandsovenman: I'm sorry.
And when I next said something to him, he was gone.
(In the interests of full disclosure, I corrected a typo in my last sentence from "serious" to "series" in the interests of readability. Also, I redacted the profanity of my unknown conversational partner.)
(In the interests of defending myself, that definition was copy-and-pasted from the unix program dict. As for the charges made against me in this conversation, I am most certainly not a nerd with no life. I'm a nerd with a beautiful girlfriend.)
