INTJ — Myers Briggs For Idiots, Or at Least Me

 

Who I is?
Who I is?

I took the Myers-Briggs personality test my freshman year of college, but I don’t remember what I was. I’m pretty sure that my personality has evolved in some areas since then. The other day on Twitter @eeUS was asking for people’s types, and I took this quick test to find out what I am. I usually don’t buy into this type of thing to heavily, but I have to say this pretty much pegged me.

 

I came out as an INTJ (11% Introverted, 88% iNtuitive, 62%Thinking, 22% Judging). There are a couple of articles describing this type along with some examples of famous people who possess these personality traits. Imagine the horror I felt being grouped with Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan! Of course, that was offset by the fact that I also get Ayn Rand, Isaac Newton, and Stephen Hawking in my stable.

Then The Missus took the test and (surprise surprise) came out INFJ, which is listed as the ideal companion for the INTJ. Pretty cool!

So take the test and let me know in the comments who/what you are!

Tennessee Football–What I’d Do

Actually, it’s what I’d do in just about any situation. I’ll be the first to admit I don’t know much about football at all. I mean, I played for 10 years, but most of the teams I played on weren’t very good, so it’s safe to assume that most of what I learned was wrong anyway. On top of that, I don’t really care if Tennessee decides to fire Phil Fulmer. I love hearing the drama on local talk radio, so if he stays that’s fine with me.

But if I were tasked with the difficult job of recruiting and coaching in a state that’s not really known to produce a huge amount of talent out of high school, I would adjust my strategy and get the top talent in the region by doing something no one else in the league is doing.

I’d do what no one else in the league is doing.

I’d take the same contrarian approach to football that people take to investing–do what no one else is doing while it’s cheap and easy to get in. Wait until that’s the fad, then get out and do something else.

No one in the league is running the option? Sweet–that means I should have no problem recruiting the best option quarterback in the region. Yeah, some of those guys would choose to go to another school to play a different position, but in most cases quarterbacks want to play quarterback. Why not give them the opportunity?

It could be–and this is just speculation–that the coaching staff can’t do anything else, so they are forced to compete for the top talent to fit them in to the only system they know.

Do You Have REAL Game?

There’s really only one way to tell. Gain a bunch of weight, sit on a stool, sing a song that expresses your desire to take an old gray haired woman in curlers and “lay her down.”

If you do these things and have chicks screaming, you have Conway Twitty level game.

If you don’t want to gain the weight or sit on a stool, take it to the karaoke stage on a Tuesday night. If a woman buys you a beer within the next few minutes, you may have Conway Twitty level game. We can’t be sure though…not without the weight and the stool.

Our Own Hot Coffee Lawsuit

Looks innocent enough  

Looks innocent enough

It looks like the little town of Knoxville has finally arrived.  We’ve got a hot coffee lawsuit on our hands.  That’s not a hot lawsuit about coffee, it’s a lawsuit over hot coffee.

The lawsuit alleges that the 23-year-old Triplett drove to a Starbucks on Kingston Pike on July 13 and bought coffee via the store’s drive-through window. The lawsuit is silent on what Triplett ordered.

Seems like mos of the commenters over at KNS are in agreement–too bad, so sad.  I have to agree.  “The lid wasn’t put on properly” doesn’t seem like a $250k mistake to me.  Doesn’t this happen all the time?  It seems like every time I try to put a lid on one of those cups I can’t get it, and I’m an engineer.  (Insert joke about my inability to build a Jenga tower here.) I don’t expect a high school kid who hasn’t even taken trigonometry yet to be able to affix these lids perfectly every time.

I could probably find five or six better reasons to sue someone every day, and I go 3-4 day stretches where I don’t even walk out of my house.  Who is her attorney–Jackie Chiles?

New Digs

 

Change
Change

 

Big changes here, obviously.  I have a lot of other changes planned as well, but will phase them in gradually.  Some things remain the same though–bad writing, lame attempts at humor, and uninformed opinions remain.

Basically I’d hacked the other theme up to the point that something had to be done.  I’m not very good at designing anything to look nice, so I went out and found a theme that was 99.9% what I wanted.  Again, still some changes coming, but I think I may stick with this for a while.

Just like last time, please let me know if you catch anything here that’s broken and I’ll get around to fixing that at some point.  Ah, who am I kidding?  I’m never gonna fix it unless it’s costing me money.

Here’s What I’m Trying to Say

Here are ten phrases and terms I’d like to work into my daily conversation arsenal:

  1. My sources are telling me
  2. The biggest no-brainer in the history of earth
  3. Working like heck
  4. Boondoggle
  5. Let’s break this down
  6. Change
  7. That’s a good point
  8. My old lady
  9. I don’t think you understand your question
  10. Not guilty

There are plenty of others, but this is a good list to start with.  If I can work one or two in on a regular basis I’m sure to annoy friends and law enforcement regularly.

***UPDATE***

SVD takes it to the next level.  He works the whole list into one diatribe.

Stock Market Realization

I just realized last night why the ol’ gov’ment is so concerned about the stock market’s behavior over the last couple of weeks–they are afraid of competition.  I’m not talking about competition among business operating in an free market.  I’m talking about the free market’s competition with the gov’ment.

Up until now, the only way to achieve the negative returns people have seen in their 401ks was Social Security. 

Paying it Forward With a Book

So this is really cool…

I pre-ordered Seth Godin‘s new book Tribes through Amazon. It’s not supposed to come out until October 16th, but I received the book in the mail today. Odd.

Folded inside the book was a letter thanking me for pre-ordering his book on faith. This book, the one I received today, is an advanced copy. I’ll still be receiving the one I ordered when the book is officially released, and Seth would like for me to give that copy to someone in my Tribe, or at least someone I want to be in my Tribe. What a brilliant idea, and what a great way to say thanks.

So it’s up for grabs! You don’t have to put a bone through your nose or get tattoos on your face to be in my Tribe (although you’ll get bonus points), just leave a comment or write a post that links here from your blog letting me know you would like the book. I’ll choose to give it to someone based on nothing more than my own judgment and, of course, spite where applicable.

$700B Well Spent

I’m not one to take a one day sampling of the stock market and make a “see-I-told-you-so” snap reaction.  It’s pretty unreasonable to think what happened in Congress on Friday would have much of an impact today–the assumption of the passage of the bailout was already priced into the market.  But the reaction to today’s drop is fast and furious, so I thought I’d join in with some snark.

Dow dips below 10,000Maybe the market realized over the weekend that its new business partner is the US Federal Government?

Should the Fed cut interest rates?–That sounds like a good idea…let’s rig the system so that we can borrow our way out of this.  Why didn’t someone think of that before?

Global markets affected by the credit crisis–Duh.  Easy fix–just set up some sort of central banking system.  Better yet, let’s set up several.

The biggest irony of all–we continue to look to the people who cause problems to solve them and wonder why things don’t get better.  My favorite phrase is being thrown around by fear mongers is “uncertain economic times”.  When have we ever lived in certain economic times?