Eternal Sunshine of the Nerdy Mind

Miss Missives has a dirty little secret. Fine, Miss Missives has quite a few dirty little secrets in her back pocket, but here's one out of the bunch. I love nerds. Love them.

There I said it. Some girls like the suits, the jocks, the bad boys, I like the late-to-bloom nerds.

Dictionary.com defines nerd as:

a stupid, irritating, ineffectual, or unattractive person, or an intelligent but single-minded person obsessed with a nonsocial hobby or pursuit.

No, no, no, they've got it all wrong. Nerd, unlike the other n-word, does not have to be pejorative. Urbandictionary.com more accurately lists among its definitions:

An individual persecuted for his superior skills or intellect, most often by people who fear and envy him.

An individual who does not conform to society's beliefs that all people should follow trends and do what their peers do.

A person who gains pleasure from amassing large quantities of knowledge about subjects often too detailed or complicated for most other people to be bothered with.

A four-letter word but a six-figure income. The person you will one day call 'boss'.

Today's reviewee, Matt Stratton, is like the alternate nerd universe's Mark Ruffalo.

Mark Ruffalo:



meet your nerd doppelganger, Matt Stratton:



In Matt's own words, Matt's blog:

focuses on the areas Matt finds interesting,

which leads me to one of my only problems with nerds. What the average nerd finds interesting versus what the average nerd-lover finds interesting, are frequently universes apart, as hottie patottie Mrs. Matt can attest to.

Matt posts a bunch of Tech Tips, Wordless Wednesdays, Follow Fridays and his personal fitness challenge. The tech tips are well-written and understandable even to the relative technophobe. The Wordless Wednesdays, well, they are wordless and on Wednesday so whatever. The Follow Fridays were lost on me because I really have to admire some one's tastes before I care to read what they read.

If I want to know who to read, I'll check in with David Sedaris. If I require a restaurant recommendation, I'll ask Thomas Keller. If I want to know where to get my heroin, I'll hit up Amy Winehouse. If I want to know who I should follow on Twitter, Matt man, it's not coming from you. As for the Fitness blogging, I see the benefit of keeping yourself accountable and trying to garner some much needed moral support but my problem is all of these things mixed together creates a bit of a jumble in the demographics department. I have a hard time figuring out just who Matt's reader would be. I liked this but for me it was one of just a few things that got me to slow my skim.

As for design and layout specifics, Matt, Matt, Matt. What I would hope for is that you are one of those techies with a catalogued system for their software and power cords labeled, almost artfully bundled. In fact you are more like the guy with lonely hard drives scattered on his desk, boxes of Star Trek figurines shoved in the back of the closet getting crushed by your camera bag and a jumble of stray cords piled up on the floor.

Now literally, just minutes away from pushing publish on this review, I discovered that Matt has substantially altered the layout of his blog. Perhaps he realized Miss Missives was picking through assimilating her review. He did make some changes for the better but Matt, you still need to cleanup the DOUBLE sidebar and move some of that stuff onto your tabs, which need to be merged to one set of tabs by the way.

So Matt, for Miss Missives, you get one smoldering look because you are the kind of guy more women need to get to know(yes Mrs. Matt, I know he's taken, I said the kind of guy). Your blog however, gets a Meh.








But Bill Gates offers up a High Ten, compadre:



Side note to the women currently traversing the dating world: give the nerds a chance. They might seem goofy on the outside, but you can always work on the clothes, glasses and haircut later. They are so great for so many reasons. They are good with the nookie. Think about it, all that time thinking about sex, imagining sex, dreaming about sex, coupled with a desire to make you happy? Give it to them and they are grateful. They are trustworthy. They're not going to flirt with or ogle other women. First, they don't have the social confidence. Second, they're more interested in the nearest electronics store. Third, they really respect you. Forget the alpha male and embrace the beta guy, trust me, you won't be sorry.