I'm holding out for a movie about Model UN.

Something wrong with superhero picture books, boy?

Model UN

I did that too! (Just once, but still.) I was Vanuatu!

In model congress I was Warren Rudman.

Yesterday, I believe I may have referred to my experience in Model UN as a kind of super-boring LARP. I tried to jazz things up by threatening bioterrorism, but this slick motherfucker representing Brazil managed to cockblock me.

Are there no policy debaters in Unfoggeddom?

5: I, too, was a policy debater in high school. I also add that based on passing references to where you attended high school and your age there is a high probability that we debated and/or knew each other (at least in passing).

In model congress I was Warren Rudman.

Wow - you really are aiming for the "I'm boring" cred bottom line, aren't you? (even though I do have a soft spot in my heart for the former Sen. from Conn.)

And isn't Unfogged where the policy debaters go to chill out?

there is a high probability that we debated and/or knew each other

Huh, yeah, if you were anywhere in Illinois and are around my age, there's a good chance you're right.

5 - I think Tom might have been one.

Model UN

I was Iran, bitches.

I spent more time in Model UN in HS, than I'd care to admit to right now. Back then we didn't call it "cockblocking" - we called it "raising a point of inquiry"

Speaking of geeky subcultures, this movie is playing in Williamsburg on Thursday. Plus:

Before the film, composer Jonah Rapino will perform music from the Darkon soundtrack live as Darkon warriors battle each other live on the lawn.

I was Vanuatu!

I was Australia.

Silvana not only did Model UN, she did it in The Hague. She beats you all, bitches.

Shit, even my little sister did it in the Hague.

You mean Den Haag?

I did forensics instead of debate, as the debate team were all the kind of guys who thought being purposelessly argumentative for hours on end ("What did you think of the movie?"/take opposite position/grind opposition into the ground/prove superiority/admit actual agreement to pour salt in wound) was, like, totally a great way to hit on girls.

Me at end of date: So you were just being mean to me for three hours for no reason?
Dude: Yeah! I just love arguing. It's so fun to get you going.
Me: (Byronic silence and tears)

Something wrong with superhero picture books, boy?

I was listening to KISS instead. Same concept, but better outfits and girls who put out.

the kind of guys who thought being purposelessly argumentative for hours on end ... was, like, totally a great way to hit on girls

Yes! That was us! It totally works, too, but not on the forensics people, obviously. What were you, an LDer? Scoff, snicker.

During the space exploration topic, one of our cases was to place a giant, glowing, inflatable clock in orbit around the earth. The advantage was, of course, world peace. Policy debate was rediculous.

18: Yeah, that Wonder Woman. What a prude!

The advantage was, of course, world peace

We have three nuclear war scenarios, they only have two!

"a giant, glowing, inflatable clock cock in orbit around the earth"

Much better.

I recall proposing and successfully arguing for a smoking-ban bill long before any such thing had passed in the US. My speech teacher, a smoker, looked personally hurt at the end of the session.

Yes, I was on the debate team in high school.
About half the debaters were attractive and socially successful; the other half not so much.

The national competition question the first year was
"Resolved: that the Unites States should adopt a policy of national service by all citizens."
The Ripon Society provided huge decks of pre-printed evididence file cards so one really didn't need to do one's own research -- an early example of the think-tank/noise machine strategy in action. I have actually cited the Laffer Curve in debate.

I can't remember the topics during the years I debated. Maybe social security one year and prison reform the next? Sounds right.

I only did something like that once. It was fifth grade. The eighth grade team couldn't go because it conflicted with their class trip to DC, so me and four other fifth graders were tapped to learn about nuclear weapons and mutually assured destruction. And then we got to go to the competition.

And we won. Four excited ten-year-olds beating the rivals from the nearby snooty suburb. I missed only one point, because I wasn't nice to someone in one debate who refused to say anything, pointing out that 'this would be easier if you actually talked.'

Other than that I mostly stuck to the science competitions. Then I grew up, switched majors, and lost my mind in grad school.

I was a master debater. I loved little more than making people cry by connecting tax code violations to nuclear armageddon. (I had the cards to prove it! Or anything!)

I realize now that, had I kept it up, Norman Podhoretz would offer me a job.

Three other fifth graders.

I am really going to have to see this movie.

So what geeky subcultures haven't been covered by a movie now? We've got spelling bees, policy debate, professional video gaming, and LARPing. What's left?

30: Unf!

31: Furries.

vorarephilia

31:
Linux

33: Wrong.

14/15 -- ooh, la di da. I did it at Penn, Brown, Johns Hopkins and Lock Haven. The time we went to Brown I was sitting next to this guy with a real All-American name and look about him, and was bewildered when I asked where he was from and he said "Gstaad". I later figured out that he was from one of the richest families in the world.

Also, that time I was Communist China on the Historical Security Council, and the entire session consisted of me trying to explain why it no longer made sense for Chiang Kai-Shek to be the internationally recognized leader of anything other than Taiwan, nor for Taiwan to have a seat on the Security Council. My failure to actually determine at any point whether I had convinced anyone of anything was what taught me that I had no future in debating.

Have also represented Gabon, Mali, Djibouti, Brazil and France.

I did debate in HS. Policy my first year, LD the second, and those stupid acting events my third year. (I had better shit to do as a senior.) In retrospect, I really should have competed in that impromptu "pulling shit out of your ass" argument event. I woulda been good at that.

35: As I was recently educated, "vorarephilia" involves the desire to be consumed whole, not in pieces, so I think I'm still good there...

I did a couple of LD debates, student congress, and a bunch of the forensics events, though my favorite was extemp.

I did model congress, AND science bowl, AND was ((very briefly) something called a 'mathlete'.

I tended to not actually talk during model congress though.

I never made it to the Hague, just D.C. twice--shook hands with Gore & Clinton once.

"a giant, glowing, inflatable clock cock in orbit around the earth"

Much better.

Before apo's "correction", I actually did read it as "cock". God, I'm depraved.

I'm waiting for the documentary on UIL literary criticism. Competitive Shakespeare analysis rules!

I really should have competed in that impromptu "pulling shit out of your ass" argument event

just as well that you didn't. It turned out to be fake.

spent my high school years in a speechless stupor. couldn't have talked my way out of a bag. (would have had to pull my head out of it first).

but i did wind up a few years refereeing a debating match between the ivy that employed me and the ivy that visited. (the kids all knew each other, of course, it being a small world and all).

they had some special name for the kind of debate it was, roughly the fact that it was impromptu rather than massively prepared.

this was an improvement on another style i have seen in which it is somehow held to be a virtue to be able to talk insanely fast and rattle off extraneous stats.

here the kids had to think a bit and come up with arguments on their feet.

still, neither team wound up saying much of relevance to the actual question proposed. i wound up judging in favor of the visitors because they had come slightly closer to the topic.

never got asked to judge another one after that.

Why, Apo, why do you know where to find these things?

Also, I played your mix for the kids and it had them totally grooving. (Me to.) Fortunately the double entendres went over their heads. Thanks!

Too

I was the captain of my hs debate team in NJ, but I did LD.

I did, however, know the director of this movie when he was a hs debater in NJ with a (slight) speech impediment.

Three nuke war scenarios? Was this 1986? The year of proliferation?

Why, Apo, why do you know where to find these things?

Everybody needs a hobby, Rob.

I played your mix for the kids and it had them totally grooving. (Me to.)

Sweet! NCProsecutor's lovely wife told me this morning that she wished she had a video camera to capture him dancing to it, so that I could see what I had wrought.

I was a mathlete, too. Captain of one of our school's two teams. We were "Go Forth and Multiply." Or something like that.

Er, perhaps I should specify that my cube is just outside her office. Wasn't over breakfast or anything.

Rocket Science is officially an awesome movie. Like, really really great. Go see it! You don't even have to be nerdy to appreciate it. I took my two friends who debated in high school and they both loved it.

I, as mentioned, did not do debate, but did several years of Model UN. I was Zaire (which became DRC in the middle of the year--that was exciting!), Macedonia, the Arab League, and Israel. It was cool, when I was the Arab League I was the ambassador for our school's delegation, and so my speech at the GA opening ceremonies was broadcast (along with all the other zillion) on local tv!

Of course, representing Israel at my school in Cairo was a bit dicey (I was doing it, of course, to expand my intellectual horizons 'cause I was a pompous little prick); the last session they passed a resolution to dissolve the state. So.

So nerdy of you all, it's frightening. I was about to deny any involvement in such things -- though my best friends did model UN -- then remembered that I attended something similar, back when I had really bad hair. (My memory is chiefly informed by old photos I have of this.)

Turns out that it was something called Girls' State. Now what was that? I really don't remember. It involved representative government, went on for several days, and there were bunk beds.

Apparently I was not really a nerd in the end. Debate would have been so obvious; instead I began hanging out with the theater crowd.

"It involved representative government, went on for several days, and there were bunk beds."

sure, but that could be a lot of things.

I was Zaire (which became DRC in the middle of the year--that was exciting!)

You mean "Dr. Congo".

, Macedonia

That reminds me, I was Greece once. One of the college students running the Model UN conference made sure to slip every Greece delegate a note saying "Remember, Greece is opposed to Macedonia calling itself Macedonia, so you have to make the obligatory motion to refer to Macedonia as 'Former Yugoslav Republic Of Macedonia'", so I had to stand up and make a fool of myself by doing that. This was the only advice I got from any of the people running the conference.

I did a lot of debate in high school and college, but not the appalling American policy kind.

I've got video somewhere of me and a couple of other chancers making some American debaters cry on TV. OK not literally cry, but close.

Interp, bitches!

I did a duet reading of the opening of Monty Python and the Holy Grail one year. I really was an extraordinary dork.

Chopper, I did RUSSIAN LANGUAGE INTERP and did Monty Python's parrot sketch one year, the 4 Yorkshireman the next, and "I want to buy an argument" the year after that -- all translated into Russian.
Do I win the dork contest yet?

In retrospect, I really should have competed in that impromptu "pulling shit out of your ass" argument event.

There was/is such an event? Damn. I totally missed my calling.

I bet Monty Python went over better than PG Wodehouse did, though. So many people tried to talk me out of that excerpt.

57: Ah but did you have an extreme (flat-top on top, to the shoulder blades in back) mullet while doing so?

Rocket Science is officially an awesome movie. Like, really really great. Go see it! You don't even have to be nerdy to appreciate it. I took my two friends who debated in high school and they both loved it.

Based on the previews I determined that it would be depressing for me to see it.

We had a weak-ass debate team at my high school in which I participated a very small amount. I think it started improving my senior year and after, when the Palestinians got involved.

In the debate-dork competition, how would you rank playing bridge and/or juggling between rounds?

I did LD in high school, and was part of the Northern Ireland delegation in Model UN. Fanning the sectarian flames turned out to be pretty fun.

One guy from my school represented Mauritius that same year. He made a secret alliance with India and nearly started a regional nuclear war. Not bad for a little island in the middle of nowhere.

It's not depressing! It's great. It's poingnant. It's everything a good movie should be. Funny. Sad. Interesting.

Also, there is some awesome supporting acting, including, in particular, "Judge Pete", the kid's mom's boyfriend who always laughs at his own jokes inappropriately loudly. Really great writing.

In the debate-dork competition, how would you rank playing bridge and/or juggling between rounds?

We worked on our D&D characters between rounds.

Apparently I was not really a nerd in the end... I began hanging out with the theater crowd.

Non sequitur.

I did some humorous interp. A Patrick McManus piece.

I witnessed many, many, many Monty Python pieces. Including, of course, (TA)S(W)CMT.

I went in the hallway and smoked during breaks.

Nerds.

All this dorkier-than-thou contest makes me very sad. You know, all the really dorky boys never wanted anything to do with me 'cause they were too intimidated by my coolness. I have the disadvantage of liking really really dorky shit, but also coming off as "cool" (which I guess I am). I have no place in the universe!

60:

Touché, Sir. I had blue/black hair and wore miniskirts, fishnets, combat boots, and ripped up sweaters or tshirts. But as an enduring symbol of the 80s, the mullet surely wins.

In the debate-dork competition, how would you rank playing bridge and/or juggling between rounds?

We worked on our D&D characters between rounds.

Both those are pretty good. My friend and I would stage arm-wrestling matches/tournaments. What a self-esteem booster, that was.

I always did the dorky thing, but then slacked off in doing it. Cutting mathlete & National Science Bowl practice is not actually a very good way to impress people with how cool you are, though.

Who here went to their prom?

67: I showed up dosed (true story).

Man, in high school I really wanted to like D&D. Rolling the dice just annoyed the hell out of me. I knew at the time that my geekfu would suffer.

I went to prom!

With another girl. We left after an hour (got bored).

I went to the prom junior year, but not senior year for lack of a date. May or may not have been attributable to the industrial-size mullet I had.

Anyone else spend a lot of time playing Diplomacy? Its value as a simulation of WW I is diminished by the fact that, properly played, Turkey is unstoppable, but it's great geeky fun. We used to play one-turn-per-day, allowing for maximum dealmaking and skulduggery. (The only time I've ever consciously exploited feminine wiles. Worked pretty well.)

I went to prom both years, although it wasn't a really big deal at my school and I think I wore the same dress both years 'cause I totally didn't give a fuck.

I was off being a presidential scholar, but I wouldn't have gone anyway. Actually, I don't think anyone in my immediate family has gone, but my sisters tended to at least go into the city with their friensd instead.

The only time I've ever consciously exploited feminine wiles.

That might be the single saddest thing you have ever written here. It's never too late, LB.

Hmmm, how do I rate?

Didn't read comics, wasn't on the debate team, and didn't do any of that Model UN or Model Congress stuff ....but I was president of the chess club.

No, I did not go to the prom.

I did interp too. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, the tennis scene. However, I also went to both my proms, as well as another class'. ???

I went to prom in a pack of six friends, none of whom were dating. Sadly, immediately before prom, the other two couples kind of coupled up, leaving me paired off with a guy who (a) annoyed me and (b) I'd somewhat ill-advisedly made out with at a party a month or two before. And my mother got overinvolved in the dress thing, leaving me looking rather like the Statue of Liberty out on the town. A grim evening all around.

One bright spot was spending a fair amount of time dancing with a very pleasant boy I hardly knew; diffident, but cute. I was then horrendously rude to him at a later graduation party for reasons I couldn't remember at all. Mostly, I try not to think about high school.

None of y'all have REAL nerd cred. One got that in the 50's by carrying one of these around the school, with it filled with a few books, several pounds of batteries, a vacuum tube receiver and transmitter, a hearing aid ear-piece, and a Morse code key, all to be able to send short messages to a couple of other nerds in the Electronics Club.

79: Eh, who have I got to be wily at these days. Buck totally has me busted.

made out? party? Sounds like you had a better time than I did in high school.

85: You kind of had to be there to pick up the full lameness of it all.

76: My crowd was totally into live-action Diplomacy. Man, you should have seen the costumes.

I only had fun at prom as a sophomore, when my partner and I went as "just friends." Junior and senior year suuuuucked.

Anyone else spend a lot of time playing Diplomacy?

Yeah, I played it a fair amount the summer I was a counselor at Boy Scout Camp. Oh, the conniving and behind-the-scenes trickery.

I did go to prom both years, though each time with a friend. The girls I had been dating earlier in each year had both gone a bit crazy by the time prom rolled around, so no real date.

That is a sweet case, Biohazard.

Oh, man. Boy Scout camp. That was some prime dorkery. "Let's make lanyards!"

83--

i'm sorry mister bond; you've forgotten one vital piece of equipment:

your slide-rule.

My HS didn't even have a prom.

Boy Scout camp. That was some prime dorkery.

The classic rendition.

Boy Scout Camp was probably a LOT more fun than Mormon Girls Camp. My mom was a hike leader every year, and the worst thing was that by and large she was better to hang out with than most people. That's got to be some kind of camp lameness record, right?

Of course, not all of the other Mormon girls wanted to hang out with me once I got into my turbaned phase.

Did interp: Catch-22 scene between Yossarian and Orr
Did theatre: always supporting, never lead, often crew.
(I was better at memorizing lines than at delivering them, I fear.)

But the nerdiest thing I did was to be an Official Youth Delegate to the Iowa Republican Statutory (platform) Convention. Musta been in 1970? I think. The convention itself was boring beyond belief; the evening aftermath, stuck in the Hotel Fort Des Moines with many hundreds of partisan adult Republicans getting purposely and seriously drunk and looking for adultery, was a Steadmanesque visual and cultural nightmare from which I doubt I'll ever recover. I spent most of the night up on the roof of the hotel, chain-smoking Marlboros, because my roommate was using the room to seduce a Young Republican that we had nicknamed "La Voluptua", and I was still too young to drink. Besides, in those days, in my circle, drinking was for haters -- mellow people smoked pot.

And yes, I went to the prom. Wore the tux my Dad had worn to the prom in '47 as an ironic statement.

From Ogged, far above:

Huh, yeah, if you were anywhere in Illinois and are around my age, there's a good chance you're right.

Illinois? Where in Illinois? We had a truly terrible debate team into which I was roped when the debate teacher heard my extempore speech (wasted on an unwilling classmate) about gun control. I dropped out as soon as I could.

Southwest Chicago suburbs, me.

You? I'd guess Oak Park or New Trier HS. Or that other really fancy one.

Rebellious little punk that I was in HS, I remember not wanting anything to do with any of the various Model Governments. I was happy to argue about nothing on my own time, but I thought participating in organized arguing over nothing was lame. I did once serve as Counsel for the Defense on a mock court, but that was only because I wanted to climb up on a desk and shout "I'm out of order? You're out of order! This whole court's out of order!" at some point during the trial.

My HS didn't even have a prom.

They wouldn't even let me go to the prom.

Not that I wanted to: I look horrible in those dresses.

Okay, you want geek cred . . .

I didn't do any academic extracurricular activities my first two years in HS because It would have interfered with my tabletop-RPG interests (not D & D, at that point, ShadowRun and GURPS), and then did Math Team, Science Bowl and one year of debate after that.

My greatest success was my first year of math team, my senior year there was a new coach, and I put too much enegery into debate to be really competative in Math Team but, for sheer geekiness, I submit the fact that, my senior year, I played MtG at Math Team nationals with S/teven W/ang from IMSA who, the year before, had dominated every event he was in (he kicked my ass in Magic too).

My debate experience was frustrating because I was torn between my competative impulses and the desire to mock the proceding as much as possible. I ended up having only moderate success at either objective.

I still daydream, vaguely, about some day having the chance to bounce to my feet and snarl, "OB-jection. Badgering the witness."

100: Who's "they"?

"Let's make lanyards!"

There was some lanyard making, though for us it was more "let's make fire!" and "let's shoot shotguns!". And the construction of large, elaborate wooden contraptions that could span ravines, or launch watermelons far into the distance. Sometimes simultaneously.

Oh, and I never got to participate in a turn-a-day Diplomacy game but I always wanted to. My cousin described one such game going on in the dorms at St. Johns which sounded great.

I never went to any HS dances because, what was the point? They seemed like a waste of time.

I maintain that those two sentences have no necessary connection.

I never did get signed up for the debate team, to my lasting disappointment. Climbing the ranks of the Strategic Games Club (lots of Diplomacy played there, LB) only partly assuaged my longing.

The "underground" high school newspaper and "transgressive" high school literary magazine only helped a little.

It took BBSs to make me whole.

Wore the tux my Dad had worn to the prom in '47 as an ironic statement.

I wore the tux my dad wore to his prom because it fit me and was free. Tux rentals ain't cheap.

I never went to any HS dances because, what was the point? They seemed like a waste of time.

One could say the same thing about marijuana, but that didn't stop me from filling as much of my free time as I could with it.

Matt, the lanyards were, I kid you not, free time recreation.

We made the bridges and the towers and shot lots of 22s, trying to fit all the shots into the space of a dime or whatever.

Do real lawyers ever daydream about yelling I'm out of order! You're out of order! The whole trial is out of order!

Weird. I thought Science Bowl had relatively few participants compared to other such things, and there are at least 3 people reading this thread who participated?

And why was it always held at the National 4-H Convention Center? I seem to remember playing pool and video games in the lounge there, more than the actual matches.

103:

100: Who's "they"?

Oh, I got in trouble, that's all; the administration thought I should lay low, much better to walk away. I agreed.

92: Right. I have the big one and the 6 incher framed under glass near the computer, complete with little hammer on chain and a sign reading "Break glass in case of emergency"

The "underground" high school newspaper

Our newspaper wasn't even "underground," but it was an opportunity to play with a computer, layouts, and exacto-knives.

112: You did something particularly prom-related and bad, or you were in enough trouble to be generally advised to remain invisible?

111: it was held at Brookhaven labs & then some D.C. Marriott when I did it. Or maybe I just stayed in the Marriott & remember that most vividly (wall paper, instead of cinder block walls! free waffles cooked to order! such luxury!)

One year of speech/debate, mostly individual events but a little bit of LD. What was fun was the quiz bowl team, especially my junior year, when I was the most nearly normal member of the team and we absolutely kicked ass. And way too much time wasted on student government and school newspaper BS. I should have stuck to cross country, which was a whole lot more fun.

I was off being a presidential scholar

That ought to count for some major geek cred.

Please do not tell me you are from New Trier High School, ogged. I hate those bastards.

Almost everyone went to the prom at my high school. A lot of people went as friends, including me. At my junior prom I danced for the first time. At my senior prom I was with a tall blonde blue-eyed 19-year-old ballet dancer from Hungary who I believe is now a TV talking head there. After the prom about 10 of us went to my gay friend's basement and watched an incredibly clichéd romantic comedy starring Matthew Perry, and fell asleep.

The best was making a list of "phrases not to start clauses with in Model UN resolutions". I remember "Noting while stoned", "Noting with scorn", "Noting while eating pancakes in the bathtub", "Redundantly reiterating once more", etc.

I have the big one and the 6 incher framed under glass

Ahem.

Upstairs, in the fridge, dipped in yogurt.

121 and 122 to 120.

118: there was the artsy, pot smoking kind. But I was the SAT-score-essay contest kind, so, yeah. If we get into those kinds of markers of geekdom, I can probably sweep all before me

I was also editor of the school paper. I wasn't even listing that, as I considered it relatively socially acceptable.

We didn't have a debating team, but Our Reach for the Top team kicked some ass. Not while I was on it, of course. After.

Anyone else spend a lot of time playing Diplomacy?

I wanted to say on the QED thread - Becks, do not rule out divorced guys of good character. I inherited a bunch of children who had been trained to play Diplomacy, with costumes, as babies apparently. The all night games took over the house, especially on holidays, and those kids were cutthroat. It was a lot of fun.

I never went to any HS dances because, what was the point? They seemed like a waste of time.

This sounds like something I might have said in high school. But everybody could see right through me -- that I would have given up all my chess trophies in an instant to be the kind of guy that had the nerve to ask that girl to the dance.

Seems to me this movie is pwned by Thumbsucker. Which has the added benefit of Keanu Reeves playing a dentist.

I did go to prom, and wound up in the bottom bunk with my girlfriend. In the top bunk: my "did you sodomize her?" friend, alone, having ditched or been ditched by his date. No kidding.

I never went to Prom, but spent most public high school occasions bearding for my gay boyfriend. I don't know if that's a geek cred thing, probably not, but I want some kind of credit for it.

. I don't know if that's a geek cred thing, probably not, but I want some kind of credit for it.

That's better than going to prom.

Aak! The "did you sodomize her?" friend. You guys really do go back.

115: No, I did not do anything horribly bad. Geez. I seem to think I may have written about it here in the past, maybe pseudonymously, but I'm not sure. Basically, I got semi-caught smoking pot in school during senior year and everyone freaked out, the student body demanded that I be suspended, rumors abounded, it all went to hell, I was supposed to be the valedictorian but was politely asked not to give the address lest I be publicly booed, and later not to go to the prom. Had I intended to in the first place. Which I had not. I walked away.

128: So did you sodomize her?

131 misses the issue. So, ogged, on Prom night-- did you?

That's better than going to prom.

Totally worth it from a friendship point of view, but all that hanging out at the mall got to be tiring.

Holy crap, parsimon, are you some kind of Mormon?

Becks, do not rule out divorced guys of good character

As a formerly divorced guy of good character (despite my exaggerated author function here), I'll second this, but:

1. Not soon after the divorce and especially not during the separation but pre-divorce. It's the height of crazy time and they're likely to latch on with both hands, professing their undying love. They'll believe it, too, but it's quite often self-delusion.

2. Divorced parents are a tricky situation, and I re-entered the dating pool with a 1/2-time-custody 3-year-old. You'll end up forming relationships with the kids that will make it very difficult to objectively assess the relationship with the parent. Even though I was a divorced parent, I wouldn't have dated one.

No sodomy on prom night.

I was a master debater

anyone done the "masterdebation" joke yet? thought so.

the military strength of Turkey in Diplomacy is meant to be compensated for by the social convention that all the other nations will gang up on the player playing Turkey, for more or less explicitly racist reasons. That's how it always used to work in my family anyway.

That's where the feminine wiles come in. (This was, admittedly, fairly easy to pull off in ninth grade; probably less so now.)

I want some kind of credit for it.

John Hughes-cred.

138: Because that was only the second date.

I second apo's caveats because I realize I got lucky with the timing, the situation was well worked out and the ex was nice to me. But if the relationship hadn't worked out leaving the kids would have been horrible. I can't imagine it, actually.

Thanks for the funk apo! The baby likes it and my house is clean!

132: seriously, what the hell was wrong with the student body at your school?

Totally worth it from a friendship point of view, but all that hanging out at the mall got to be tiring.

WTF do you think the rest of us were doing? The same, or engaged in semi-homoerotic competitions at...everything.

137: Becks should only be dating guys in metal bands. Glam metal bands. (That's the closest we're going to get to an objectively pro-mullet policy, I think.)

138: But you'd not tell us in either case, right? So sodomy remains a possibility!

Ready for the Prom. Circa 1957.

Seems to me this movie is pwned by Thumbsucker.

Exactly what I was thinking, since I just watched that last night. It caused me to remember why I never bother watching praised, "quirky", indie films, but I suppose it was well executed.

Also, this thread contains some frighteningly nerdy revelations, even for you people.

132: Holy crap. Where/when was this, if one may broadly inquire? My hs was quite drug addled -- people who attended my hs have written best-selling memoirs of their drug-addled-ness. Well, one did anyway. The rest were MTV vjs, male models, and Real World housemates. A recently-busted valedictorian would have gotten a standing ovation.

146: That's a great, great picture.

It really is. Boy, a crewcut is hard to carry off.

148: It might have to do with a double standard. At my high school a couple kids were kicked out shortly before graduation for some sort of irrelevant alcohol thing. Then one of the National Merit Scholars did not get kicked out despite having committed the same infraction. A lot of people got upset.

Never mind Model UN, I did model OAS. At the OAS building. Turks and Caicos, I believe, with a little visit to their embassy to prepare.

Plus, math team!

136: if she is a mormon, she's apparently the bad kind.

124: Yeah, that was pretty much my assumption.

I do feel bad about having been co-editor of the paper for no particular reason and thereby denying absolute journalistic authority to my friend and co-editor who actually went on to actually make his living as a journamalist, but it's not the worst of the many ways I sucked in high school (and beyond!).

WTF do you think the rest of us were doing? The same, or engaged in semi-homoerotic competitions at...everything.

Yeah, but he was cruising for older men and I was playing endless Space Invaders waiting for him to be done so we could go have some actual fun, from my point of view. It didn't feel like a real balance of good times.
I was just not that into Space Invaders.

155: Should have gone with Tempest.

147: Whew, I thought I was just seeing things. But seriously: TWO quirky indie films about a kid gaining self-respect through debate in, what, two years? Did some firm sell the same set of marketing numbers to two different studios at the same time?

I did policy debate in high school. I now coach the club.

In HS I had this ideal haircut that I thought I had invented, I could totally picture it in my head, I described it in detail to the hairdresser, and she did it just the way I said. It was a mullet.

Damn, parsimon, we'd have welcomed you.

I can say with pride that my graduating class came within a couple votes of electing as Homecoming Queen a noted stoner who was very obviously pregnant and who wore OshKoshB'Gosh bib overalls every day, and who promised to wear them to the Homecoming Dance if elected. Her entire self-nominating speech was "Keep on truckin'"

(When you grow up in Iowa and you're trying to keep up with those hippy kids in California, sometimes you have to overcompensate at bit. ...)

136, 144: It sucked, yes it did. It's on-topic, believe it or not, because the hatred on the part of the student body was motivated by what they viewed as my complete nerdity.

Anyway. Ancient history. I started dating the lead singer of the band who played a lot of the school dances shortly thereafter; he thought those prom dresses were pretty silly-looking, too.

Cryptic Ned - here's something that should be easy for you to decode. You suck balls.

162 to 119, I figure.

I called the phone activation company again today during business hours. It's gotten worse.

"To keep it real, this call may be recorded for quality assurance purposes."

Are they using a random phrase generator? That doesn't even make sense.

Huh. I found 119 one of the smartest things Ned has ever said.

143:
if the relationship hadn't worked out leaving the kids would have been horrible.

When my marriage failed, my ex bailed and I took over raising her [teenage] daughter. The step-daughter had big troubles and bad relationships for a long time, and I've ended up pretty much raising her kids too.

So apo's advice is spot-on, I say.

I'm totally reassured though, hearing that their on-hold music is "Theme From the Greatest American Hero, for Strings". I like corporate to act corporate.

166: Whoa.

Who was it that drove up to New Trier in 1983 and spraypainted New Trier Sucks in orange on the sidewalk?

I tried calling my phone company last week. After getting through the third tier of automated menus, I pressed 3 and was told, "We are unable to connect your call." Click.

169 I think Evanston high school's colors are orange...

They had some special name for the kind of debate it was, roughly the fact that it was impromptu rather than massively prepared.

That would be Parliamentary Debate. And parliamentary debate roolz, whilst policy debate -- and on this point the expert consensus could scarcely be more clear cut -- droolz.

19: I did Prose (KS state champ '04) and Humorous Interp (won several small tournaments, nothing big).

And why was it always held at the National 4-H Convention Center?

Ooooh, oooh, I've got one. I was a delegate to the National 4-H Convention. On a Venn diagram, this would be the point of intersection between "nerd" and "hick".

I came *this close* to losing my virginity to one of the national winners in the youth swine breeding program ("Sponsored by Pfizer Genetics").

169: some motley connection of douchebags, no doubt.

173: That's '94, of course, not '04. Good God, I'm old.

parliamentary debate roolz

Nay, good sir. Impromptu formats are dispreferred for being insufficiently all-consuming.

175: While w-lfs-n's away,....

some motley connection

About right. Unopposed, though.

169: I would have, had I been alive then. Even though Naperville North were more frequently considered our rivals, they were our nemeses and not our archenemies. Their student body's middle class backgrounds of high-achieving engineers and local professionals was too close to our own to truly hate.

The nearly aristocratic sense of entitlement among New Trier kids was enough to put them in the true archenemy position, and I would have disliked them far more if they were good enough to actually be remotely competitive at any of the competitions I cared about (with the exception of scholastic bowl, where they tended to put together some damn good teams if I recall correctly).

spraypainted New Trier Sucks in orange on the sidewalk

That does sound precisely as sophisticated as you'd expect an ETHS prank to be.

It appears I made a wildkit-level typo. Too bad.

176
Oh no you're not.

Impromptu formats are dispreferred for being insufficiently all-consuming

Hence their appeal to the "lazy stoner dilletante" demographic to which I proudly adhered.

The top pair on my college team won the national championship, and from their example it is clear to me that a certain lassitude about the activity is part of what it takes to be a champion.

We had a semi-local Quiz Bowl for our lame-ass part of the state. Freshman year we had two teams: one team that was "stacked" with the brightest juniors and seniors, and one with the freshpersons and sophopersons, which was the rest of us. Predictably we met in the semifinals and the weak team won.

183: My birthday is tomorrow and I'm kvetching. It'll pass.

I went to junior prom with the Big Man On Campus. That is, he was the sort of BMOC who was especially popular for being the sort of nerdy guy everyone beat up when he was an obnoxious brainy 13-year-old to shooting up to 6'2" and dominating the swim team. God, I loved him, from obnoxious little twerp to his ridiculously handsome, charming final phase.

But no, since you will ask, we never touched each other. We just ate lunch together in near silence for four years, had one very tender coffee date, occasionally laughed and were easy together, but mostly awkwardly insulted each other after failing to make successful passes. After prom, I got a kiss on the cheek. He published a self-mocking column in the school paper the next week about how awful it is to freeze up when at a dance with the object of your desire. I was permanently embittered.

The next year, it seemed much easier just to go with a gay sophomore boy and skip the drama.

Happy birthday! I'd be offering to arrange drinks, but I am so panicstrickenly screwed at work that I doubt I'd be able to leave the office. And you're a veritable child.

Unf!

Also happy birthday, AWB, and no bitching.

I must say, disdain for New Trier seems a sentiment that truly brings together high school kids from throughout the Chicagoland area. The one thing upon which so many agree.

Trevians?

sophisticated

Too bad we couldn't get someone as perceptive and recondite as L/z Pha/r for a torchbearer. How's the nightlife in Winnetka these days? Sophisticated chain restaurants? (said with a smile, I had a couple of friends up that way and recognize the potential for decency even there)

How we suffer.

190: And Quiz Bowl people throughout the nation.

Okay, which one of you jokers from Evanston is responsible for the Norovirus outbreak?

Happy birthday AWB!

I would like to see a Wikipedia article listing the most hated preppy high-property-values public high school from each metropolitan area. I'm not familiar with very many.

Chicago -- New Trier
Pittsburgh -- Upper St. Clair
Wilkes-Barre/Scranton -- Crestwood
Cleveland -- Solon
Philadelphia -- I believe there are quite a few, including Lower Merion and Neshaminy
Boston -- Oh boy, there must be dozens

196:
Minneapolis/St.Paul - Edina

"You don't move to Edina -- you achieve Edina."
(real-estate agent sometime in the 70's)

196: Boston = Weston, Wellesley

It is a shame your subliterate Wildkit education will prevent you from writing that article, Ned.

196- New York -- Great Neck North? Way back when, something like over 98% of each senior class went on to college.

Happy Birthday AWB.

I came in grouchy, now I'm peppy. I've realized I got lucky with my family set-up, in our school we bought drugs from the guidance counselor with impunity, and at no time was I available as a teen to date my town's Did You Sodomize Her Guy. It's the count-your-blessings-Unfogged thread.

engaged in semi-homoerotic competitions at...everything.
Really? Is that what everyone was doing?

I don't remember hating Great Neck or Dix Hills or any of those richer & more successful districts, though. Maybe living in an unincorporated area degraded our sense of hometown loyalty.

Boston has a strong private school culture. So Team Ressentiment has a target rich environment.

Among the suburbs, Brookline and Newton have (by far) the superior schools; yet Wellesley is far more hated.

The Bay Area schools are so shitty no public schools could really inspire any hatred. Maybe down in Los Gatos or something you might get that. Even Marin schools aren't so hot.

187, 189, 195, 201: Thanks!

Yesterday, I believe I may have referred to my experience in Model UN as a kind of super-boring LARP.

Every day, in every way, I am getting more and more crushed out on AWB.

Also, happy birthday, AWB!

Brookline and Newton have (by far) the superior schools; yet Wellesley is far more hated.

Right, this is what I wanted to say. The New Trier kids aren't actually as rich as the, for example, Lake Forest kids, but New Trier is the object of ire. NT parents tend to be of the professional class: lots of doctors' and lawyers' kids (read: strivers and overachievers), while the Lake Forest people are just "rich."

Actually, baa's evidence cuts against my point, since, if I'm remembering my Boston demographics correctly, it's Wellesley that's rich, and Brookline and Newton where all the striving kids of the professional class go. Maybe Wellesley holds its position for historical reasons. I don't know.

In Boston, it works in reverse. Wellesley (merely rich) is more hated than Newton/Brookline (meritocratic elite/strivers).

We didn't have debate team or model UN or speech club or any of that stuff. We did have prom; I arrived late to find I'd been elected king. At the after-party, I was thrown into a pool by resentful subjects.

X-posted to the extreme.

I would argue: Bostonians have good taste, and disliking the meritocracy is tasteless in the extreme.

There's all that class consciousness in Boston...

Happy birthday AWB!

I get to feel old today without any of the presents and good wishes and shit--it's my little brother's 40th.

True. But as finance, education, and biotech increasingly dominate, old Yankee power gets eroded, and new class power (as defined by education, excellence, striving, and intellectualism) grows.

So we should expect Newton and Brookline to be hated any minute now.

I can't believe this site is populated by fucking trevians

Small world just became a little too small

The New Trier kids aren't actually as rich

Wealth (not income) gradient, maybe. There used to be considerable conflict between NE and SW Evanston, with the proverbial tracks and somewhere between Dempster and Church forming boundaries. The sharper the gradient, the more styles and attitudes differ. John Cheever is good on the waning of the old ways. Actually, Adam Langer (another subliterate wildkit) wrote a nice book about Rogers Park that touches on some of this (geography, not so much changing times)

Resolved:

That in organizations having no actual business to conduct (e.g. Children of the American Revolution, Girls' State), strict adherence to Roberts Rules of Order shall be considered a violation of the Geneva Convention and a crime against humanity.

... it has been moved that we adopt as approved the minutes of the last meeting. Is there a second? It has been moved and seconded that we adopt as approved the minutes of the last meeting. All in favor? ...

"Tedium is the worst pain." John Gardner, Grendel

197: The Edina debate team is/used to be crushingly good. I'm friends with the guy who coached them to national prominence, and then moved on to run Victory Briefs>.

moved on to run Victory Briefs>.

For every pair of underwear you buy, a dollar goes to support the troops!

New Trier is a (kind of) mix. Kenilworth/Winnetka has lakeshore mansions grander than Lake Forest and west Wilmette has much smaller Chicago bungalos (which still go for a mint because of the school system). Much down-nose-looking ensues.

I once overheard a Winnetka matron insist that girls from west Wilmette menstruate much earlier than the girls from other parts of the township.

Kenilworth/Winnetka has lakeshore mansions grander than Lake Forest

You're right, that's true.

I once overheard a Winnetka matron insist that girls from west Wilmette menstruate much earlier than the girls from other parts of the township.

Sometimes I do miss home. I think we lived in one of literally three or four rental properties in the entire New Trier district. Some of my neighbors were even black.

160: My sister's year one of the cheerleaders had a baby during Christmas vacation and graduated on schedule. She cheerled while visibly pregnant. She's still married to the father, who was the brother of the guy who kept stealing the town police car. Life in Mayberry can be fun.

216: bring it on, motherfucker.

Actually this whole Wellesley thing I'd never heard, probably because I was insulated from it by all the motivated professional types surrounding me in their comforting womb of overachievement.

Wrongshore nerd cred: my first year of high school, I qualified to go to the National Forensic League's national tournament in Extemporaneous speaking. The same year, my Odyssey of the Mind team qualified to go to Worlds with a sketch that involved Dionysus brand wine (also, per our sketch, a good toilet bowl cleaner. Hah!) and very good show in the Spontaneous round.

OM Worlds was held in Boulder, CO. NFL (yes) Nationals was held in town. The Forensics coach, in a fit of pique that I had qualified for a competition that I wouldn't attend, banned me from the team FOR-EV-AH; I groveled and grumbled a bit and got back on after missing the first big overnight tournament the following year.

Oh, and I kicked Lower Merion's ass all around town.

223: heh, we managed to find not only a rental property, but a rental property next to the projects! No mean feat, in my town.

Enough resentment and nerdiness: get with the mixing, people; I need music.

She cheerled while visibly pregnant.
My mental image of this makes me really very happy.

Also briefly pleasant was trying to pronounce (mentally) "cheerled" in one syllable in that moment before I realized, "cheer-led."

I did that too. ("How does one 'cheerl'?")

Incidentally, Brookline and Newton kids generally sort of hate each other, and each thinks of the other town as hopelessly upper class and snobby. Until they get out of high school and start dating each other, obviously.

In Albuquerque it's La Cueva.

As for the rest of the thread, I don't think my high school even had any of this stuff; at least, I didn't know anyone who did any of it, and I knew almost all the white kids.

Noted also:

1. The Model UN movie has been made. It is the video to the Decembrists' 16 Military Wives.

2. I eventually got into the final round at nationals in the National Catholic Forensic League (needed not be a Catholic school to enter) in Poetic Interp with "Pyramus and Thisbe". There I placed last.

3. I went to the junior proms of a girl I pined for but only barely ever had; a girl who pined for me, and, years later, had me for a while; and a Nigerian exchange student in a different state. I went to my own senior prom in a rented costume of Louis XIV-ish style.

4. Thanks for the funk + robots, Apo & Tweety.

5. On divorced guys, 137 is mostly right. During the initial separation, I dated while my wife and I were still ostensibly trying to work it out; fun for me, disaster for the dated. Very shortly after we severed for good, I went back out, and the woman who snapped me up and with whom I've happily stuck around made it very clear that she wasn't afraid of me still processing. I didn't actually file the divorce papers for another three months after we started in, but I was done.

We did have prom. I went to my junior prom with my then-girlfriend in a purple suit I bought at a thrift store for $22. My senior prom I didn't have a date, so I went by myself in a keffiyeh. Man, the looks I got, especially before people realized it was me. Note that this was in the spring of 2003.

I went to NFL nationals in Minneapolis; that was pretty swell. I liked Minneapolis a lot.

The commemorative shirts had a typo: "National Debate, Speak, and Student Congress Tournament" or something like that.

My senior prom I didn't have a date, so I went by myself in a keffiyeh.

Very cool. Largely as the result of a pissing match with my mom over wardrobing, I wound up going in a rented hoop skirt dress with very poofy sleeves and white gloves. The friend who went as my date found the whole thing very amusing and went with a matchingly over-the-top tuz with long tails, top hat, and dandy cane. He wore white gloves, too.

12: I meant to say, Becks, that I really want to see Darkon on Thursday. My only nervousness about it is that one might want to feel a little cool or laugh about the film (in the way one laughs at King of Kong), but so many of the people in the film will be in attendance for the live demonstration! No snickering allowed!

There are people in Brookline and Newton who are merely rich. They live in the neighborhood that straddles both: Chestnut Hill. Those kids mostly go to private school.

I loathe Weston. Lincoln is beautiful. Concord has a lovely old town, but Weston is just giant McMansion land.

I didn't know that Wellesley was hated. I like the town. All of the people I knew who lived there were affiliated with the college. I'd take people from Belmont (even Mitt) or Wellesley over Weston any day.

My nerdiness consisted of studying and reading. We didn't have a debate team. My school was much too small, and even the nerds had to play sports 2 out of 3 seasons initially and then at least 1 season. I never signed up for Model UN.

High school dances were only okay the first couple of weekends of the year. Then there were these lame jocks who would start dancing around some girl.

I liked adults.

BECKS STYLEE-O!

I was a bigger nerd than any of youse! I did policy debate for one year, BORING! And then Lincoln/Douglas debate for 2 years, plus a couple of boring speech meets in "Discussion" which was just bullshit. Then I had my apotheosis and became one quarter of the 2nd-place in state Quiz Bowl/Knowledge Bowl team.

Our debate team was like the Bad News Bears or something -- disheveled, unprepared, uncoached and outgunned by the fucking suburbanite pre-law shits. The only person I met at any of those meets who I had the slightest regard for was some exurban misfit in a white fringed leather jacket from a school which later had a "tragic" school shooting.

"Tragic, sad - pish" as the poet says.

Our Quiz Bowl team of uber-nerds was somewhat ironic, as the previous team, of people who almost to a person went to Ivies had never done that well. We, a ragtag bunch of oddballs wound up wiping the floor with our suburban "betters". And THEY all had dedicated classroom time to boning up on their fucking presidential trivia and what not. When we came to their lily-white schools they would ask "Are you in a gang?"

How many people have slept with someone from a country mentioned above in re: model UN?

Also, in high school, I spent a lot of time on radical organizing and putting out a Quaker peacenik zine. Nerdy in the extreme.

Awright, I'm fucking off to bed.

A relative of mine lived in Lincoln. He put up a fake street sign in his driveway that read "Gettysburg."

196/7: There's also Wayyyy-zata, Minnetonka/Shoreview and more recently Forest Lake.

I once endured a 30 minute (or so) ride back to a friend's house while the drunk in front of me shouted about how much he hated people from Naperville. He was still shouting when the train stopped and I had to get off ... in Naperville.

After thinking about it, I realize that I can't really remember what I did in HS. There was the newspaper and some theater and lots of cutting class to roam the halls and leave school. There was the greasy Italian restaurant I worked at, some parties, the books I read when I should've been doing something else, one or two brief and embarrassing run-ins with the law, and lots of MTV; but besides that, those years are a blur. I honestly can't say if those years were a total waste of all the glorious opportunities offered to me or the best preparation possible for the years to come.

I did LD and Extemp, mostly. Ended up taking second in state in LD one year. There weren't a lot of policy events in my state (TN), and I have to admit that the absurd spreading speech style turned me off (for those not familiar, it involves speaking as fast as you can to make as many points as possible in the allotted time). I did some DI in forensics, and sucked at it. Did model UN (Argentina) in Governor's School/Humanities, and everyone hated me. About 5 of us teamed up and kept introducing resolutions to kill all the cheerleaders in the world to solve the CFC/ozone problem, to make the spork the official international eating utensil, etc. I think my favorite resolution was to force any delegates from countries that begin with the letter C to wear a clown nose while addressing. It was amazing how pissed off some of the other people would get.

Then there were the math competitions, which were surprisingly good events for picking up frustrated smart chicks from Catholic schools.