Have you won any language or word game competitions?

[Loren Booda]

Have you recently won a competition?

As a teenager I was proud to earn an 800 on my Math SAT, and second place in mathematics in the Arlington county science fair.

Nowadays (age 47) I tend toward word games. Five years ago I won the Washington Post "Neologism" (word-coining) championship on a whimsical second try, and Parade magazine's "Ask Marilyn" phrase contests three times in the past 1 and 1/2 years.

Toot your horn here (especially if you can play like Wynton Marsalis).

 

[Cyrus]

I'm a loser

I suck. (Points and laughs at self) Haaaaaa Haaaaaa.

 

[mattmns]

I am with my boy cyrus on this one

 

[Evo]

You guys aren't losers.

Most people have something that is unique to them. The child of Evo is the negotiator from hell. I don't know where she picked up this talent, but let's all hope that she doesn't go to the dark side.

 

[Moonbear]

I WISH everyone could be a winner tonight, since I just watched the WVU vs RU game, and SO wanted both teams to win.

 

[0rthodontist]

I recently sat a 6 hour test where my optimistic expectation is a grade of at least 1%! That absolutely counts.

 

[scorpa]

No matter how good I am at something there will always be someone better :)I still try but I guess it's good to be realistic...haha.

 

[Lisa!]

Most people have something that is unique to them.

Im good at losing! I mean I always can turn a 100% win situation to a big lose

The child of Evo is the negotiator from hell. I don't know where she picked up this talent, but let's all hope that she doesn't go to the dark side.

Sounds intersting! More explanation pleaze!

 

[Evo]

Sounds intersting! More explanation pleaze!

I can't explain because I don't want to jinx it. But I'm impressed.

Also, you can't out do me in making a mess of things.

 

[radou]

...I still try but I guess it's good to be realistic...haha.

Maybe it isn't.

 

[Pyrrhus]

What am i good at?

I guess the answer will be finding interest on almost anything. It's a good ability, but it has to be kept in check (or it can be quite annoying).

 

[Gelsamel Epsilon]

I'm just the best.

 

[Math Is Hard]

ok, it's not that often when I do something really, really cool, but when I do, I just have to blast "Nobody Does It Better" by Carly Simon on my stereo. :)

 

[Ivan Seeking]

ok, it's not that often when I do something really, really cool, but when I do, I just have to blast "Nobody Does It Better" by Carly Simon on my stereo. :)

I love that song.

When I started my first business, I liked to play "New Kid in Town", by the Eagles.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

I'm a loser

I suck. (Points and laughs at self) Haaaaaa Haaaaaa.

Champions aren't made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them: A desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have last-minute stamina, they have to be a little faster, they have to have the skill and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill.

.....

 

[loseyourname]

I once won a walkman from Disneyland for being their millionth guest of the year or something.

I used to win all the time at NTN competitions back in middle school, when we had an afterschool club with a satellite link to other schools across the country. No prizes for that, though.

 

[BobG]

ok, it's not that often when I do something really, really cool, but when I do, I just have to blast "Nobody Does It Better" by Carly Simon on my stereo. :)

The Microsoft commercial where office workers celebrate doing something really cool with a Microsoft Office product always made me smile - especially the one where the guy 'took an immense amount of data and turned it into something incredible'.

When I was still in the Air Force, my contribution to the Afghanistan operation was to create a really, really cool spreadsheet along with a couple of buddies (one on each shift so we spent 24 hours a day creating and modifying it to do more and more). It helped us allocate our equipment and even printed out color coded labels to stick on the equipment telling how it should be configured. Space guys in the Air Force are such nerds.

It actually was a very cool thing to do. It was new stuff and nobody really had a good feel for how we'd fit in or what people would want from us. It turned out they wanted a whole lot more than our pathetic toy of a system could deliver and our engineer wound up creating a whole new system out of the parts we'd brought with us - actually a new system practically every day since every success sparked an idea that could improve tomorrow's system and because we only deployed to places that had FedEx (space guys in the Air Force are such nerds). I had to figure out a way for the operators to operate the system (and each new variation of our system) and then train them - and preferably one that didn't involve punching numbers into a calculator for 90 minutes before they even started reconfiguring their equipment - ideally a method that didn't require an 'operator' to hold a wrench and move cables from one place to another ('operators' only do patch panels - they don't do wrenches).

You could track our progress by the expression on the deployment commander's face - he went from the total dejection of seeing years of work on this project on a trajectory directly towards the trash can to curiosity ("You really think you can do that?") to "Holy cow! I can't believe we have an operational system!" One of the issues he brought up was "What happens if we run out of color ink?" - the color wasn't essential but it sure made things easier, plus looked cool - he went out and bought a box of color ink cartridges out his own pocket just to make sure.

Pretty cool experience. People used to laugh on the van on the way into work each day wondering "What miracle's going to happen today?" It was like one those magical sports seasons like the '69 Miracle Mets or something.

 

[Severian]

I have just been given an award for being "an inspiration to young people", which makes me feel very old...

 

[Evo]

I have just been given an award for being "an inspiration to young people", which makes me feel very old...

Well, congratulations, I think.

Kind of like when they added "senior" to my job title, I'm assuming it's due to my knowledge and not my age.

 

[BobG]

I wonder how many actually lose all the time vs how many 'feel' like they lose all the time.

I always get frustrated with finishing second or third; just barely missing out on winning. It seems like I always wind up barely missing winning - except for the times I do win and it's always easy to make an excuse for those. It's the ones you barely miss winning that are more memorable and it often seems like those would have been the more meaningful wins - the fact that you barely missed out makes them seem like a more worthwhile challenge, somehow.

I don't think I really noticed that until I was assistant coach for a junior high girls soccer team. They started out really, really bad (it seemed like the players with experience were the ones whose parents made them play to keep their weight somewhat under control and the ones with any athletic ability had no experience), but by the Spring season, they had turned into really good players and went into the last week playing the other undefeated team for the league championship. When we gave the line-up to the players, neither the head coach nor I could understand how the girls could care more about their own thing (the keeper who suddenly realized she could play attacker and didn't want to play keeper anymore; the forward who suddenly fell in love with the sweeper position; etc). They were just too young to realize how rare it is that you actually win something like that and that you don't let chances like that get away. The game turned into a disaster (for one thing, I got to watch my daughter, the shortest player on the team, stand in the middle of the field with blood running from her nose down the front of her jersey as she cussed out a 6'4" inch referee, which was a very special experience). After the game I got to thinking about it - it really isn't that rare that you win things like that - it only seems like it.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

for one thing, I got to watch my daughter, the shortest player on the team, stand in the middle of the field with blood running from her nose down the front of her jersey as she cussed out a 6'4" inch referee, which was a very special experience

A special experience for whom?

 

[Jimmy Snyder]

In 1939, I came in 2nd in the Indy 500.

 

[Danger]

I've never achieved anything important. Currently top-ranked player in my pool league (17-3), but that'll change all too soon (and there are only about 80-90 players in the whole league anyhow).

 

[Kalimaa23]

Well, congratulations, I think.

Kind of like when they added "senior" to my job title, I'm assuming it's due to my knowledge and not my age.

Naturally! Many "senior" academics at my university are quite young, so don't read to much into it!

 

[Evo]

I've never achieved anything important.

Have you looked at the badge under your avatar? Ya want to re-think that statement, hmmmmm? You're up for more this year bucko.

 

[Danger]

Have you looked at the badge under your avatar? Ya want to re-think that statement, hmmmmm?

Sorry. I didn't mean to dismiss the badge; it means a lot to me. I don't consider that I won it, though, since I wasn't competing for it. It's more of an honour bestowed by my peers.

You're up for more this year bucko.

If this is about the volcano thing, could you please schedule it on a day when it's -60 here? It'll be a welcome relief.