Earlier today Pygmalion in a Blanket introduced me to the latest internet smash hit: CryingWhileEating.com. But now I find that it's actually part of a contest! ContagiousMedia.org is sponsoring a competition to see who can create the most infectious meme. The competition will be ending June 9th, after which $5k in prizes will be awarded. Unsurprisingly, CWE is off to a big early lead.

no No NO NO NO! Look people, I can stand the self-congratulatory self-diagnoses in Slashdot comments. I can bear the interviewer's rampaging narcissism in this Q&A with the creator of BitTorrent. But I just can't take it when Tycho, co-author of one of my favorite webcomics, attributes his ability to enjoy a boring videogame to a mild case of Asperger's. Especially when he spells it "Asberger's".

For those unfamiliar with it, Asperger's Syndrome is like autism lite. Sufferers have trouble picking up on facial and other social cues, and often have a hard time relating to people. They're frequently quite bright but poorly adjusted. The disease is poorly defined, hard to diagnose, and frequently confused with egotistical self-pity.

See, now that the condition has made its way into the popular press, every IT helpdesk peon in the land is self-diagnosing his lack of success with women as proof for a biological propensity toward reclusivity and unheralded genius.

I don't mean to belittle those who genuinely suffer from Asperger's. But as for the rest of you -- well, look, I understand that you think girls are terrifying. They are terrifying. But until a doctor tells you it's so, kindly spare me the explanations about how your tragic genetic destiny is to spend every night playing D&D on IRC.

to paraphrase an email i just wrote to tommy:

just wanted to let you know that i got back from the doctor [i've had some breathing problems all week including what seemed like a minor, out of the blue asthma attack last friday night] and she thinks i have allergy-induced asthma. so i have to take claritin and GET AN INHALER WHICH I MUST USE FOUR TIMES A DAY. i saw star wars on its opening night and now i get to whip out the inhaler. all the time. it's like i'm regressing straight back to middle school.

let nerdom reign! i'm off to charlottesville for the weekend to watch my brother don the cap and gown and get commissioned into the navy. woot. have a great one!

We saw Star Wars, and it was good. No: very good. I came away impressed. All of the stupid, boring and/or whiney bullshit (trade embargos?) finally culminated in a surprisingly decent sprint of character development. My spoiler-free quibbles:

• General Grievous was decidedly less awesome than his cartoon incarnation. Also, he turned out to be yet another bad guy with a stupid pseudo-Asian accent (no offense, pseudo-Asian readers). In the cartoons he was mute, dispatched Jedi with ease, and kind of scary.


• The acting remained non-great. Christensen continued his anticipatory method technique of pretending to already be half-machine. McDiarmid's lines dripped with so much menace that it began to collect in puddles on the floor. And Natalie Portman committed the cardinal Star Wars starlet sin of not actually looking all that hot. On the upside, Ewan McGregor's Obi Wan finally had something to do other than act like a weenie, and he did it well.


• Yoda's charming speech mannerisms have been codified into a strict Yodelian Grammar, and it's really annoying. Object Subject Verb. Object Subject Verb. Every. Single. Time. Even puppets ought to change things up once in a while.


• The writing, although better than the last two, was still pretty bad. George, why must you call them "younglings"? Is "children" not sufficiently mythopoetic? Let's compromise: how about "space-children"? (I'm a longstanding supporter of adding the "space" prefix to every scifi noun.)

  On the other hand, I am looking forward to endless months of encouraging Catherine to remember "when there was only our love," and we weren't buffeted by the cruel winds of a galactic power struggle, or, say, the need to put away our Xbox controllers.

Finally, allow me to direct you (via Yglesias) to Tyler Cowen's excellent case against the Jedi. In short: everyone's a fascist. Well, except maybe the Ewoks. And we probably only think that because of our patronizingly primitivist worldview.