Friday, December 03, 2010

The friendship algorithm

I guess I'm just geeky enough--or am close to a few people who are nerdy enough--to merit the receipt of a ThinkGeek catalog at Christmastime.

I'm not sure I want to buy anything, but I do enjoy seeing what Geeks find enjoyable. A lot of the ThinkGeek t-shirts strike me as humorous. (Last year I gave one of our kids the "There are only 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary and those who don't" shirt.



And then--perhaps a sign of my geekiness--a week or two ago, I saw the "Get Real/Be Rational" t-shirt at SnorgTees . . .


. . . and "Your Tan Line is Showing" . . .


. . . and I thought, "Wouldn't those make great Christmas gifts for someone?"

Anyway, as I perused the ThinkGeek catalog, I found the "Friendship Algorithm" t-shirt . . .


. . . on a page filled with t-shirts that made obvious references to Sheldon Cooper, PhD, the socially inept (autistic?) lead character in The Big Bang Theory TV show.

I couldn't read the flowchart in the print catalog, so I looked online to see what I could find.

Oh, beautiful! A full introduction . . . with necessary modifications . . . as (it turns out) proposed by Sheldon's friend Howard Wolowitz.

And the 2:27 portion of the episode where the algorithm is introduced.


(Sorry. CBS won't let me embed the video on my blog! Click on the picture, however, and you'll go to the appropriate page on YouTube.)

******

Perhaps I should note how I was introduced to Sheldon and The Big Bang Theory. It was about three years ago. Someone at Sonlight linked to this episode, Sheldon's Greatest Christmas.

Somehow, it struck me as just a little too close to reality among some people I know.

Sarita and I wound up getting the entire first two seasons' DVDs as a mutual Christmas present.

Fun! (At least for us.)

. . . Oh. And some of the other t-shirts on the same page in the ThinkGeek catalog?

How about The Ferrous Wheel ("It's 'pre-ironed'! Get it!?!"):


. . . or the "Knock Knock Knock PENNY!" shirt:


. . . If you've watched the program, you know it captures Sheldon's actions precisely. (As the print catalog says, "The theoretical physicist [Sheldon] always knocks thrice." --Yes. Exactly. And in sequences of three--as indicated on the shirt.)
blog comments powered by Disqus