Bring Back the 90s

I'd never thought I'd say this but I miss the 90s.

I think they've been ushered in once more with the resurgence of Vanilla Ice, the Spice Girls and New Kids on the Block.
But I didn't pay these acts any notice. I had a nauseating notion that the 90s were back but I didn't really feel it in me. When I think of the 90s, I think dance tunes, nostalgic rap and thumping beats. I also think of Lebanese guys competing for the biggest car subwuffer but that's another story.

So I was at the gym the other day, tuning in to the 9 plasma screens for something out of the ordinary. Suddenly, plasma screen number 5 grows dark and this menacing basey march begins to resonate. Meanwhile this bouncing black dude with gold chains appears from the ominous darkness, promising to rap away to the beat. Then without warning, I hear a frantic female voice in the background oozing out an "I've got the POWER!!!!"

I nearly had a heart attack. Man, that's a song that I was certain to have buried deep into my most embarrassing music crushes never to be mentioned again- area of my brain...but here I was, actually liking this song. Worse, I had this huge smile on my face and I felt like doing the running man and all that stuff.

After Snap, you wouldn't believe who else came on... Another black dude, this time no rap. It was Haddaway. You know, "What is love? Lady don't hurt me! Don't hurt me!" Admittedly one of my favourite 90s dance song mainly because I used to dig the caped girl dancing in her thigh high boots in the music video.

How could this have happened? I promised myself when I started my first IT job in 1998 to never go backwards to the 90s. Never, ever. The 60s, not a problem, the 70s and the 80s maybe, those are the 'classic' re-doable periods. You may go there. But the 90s??? Don't ever think about it.

You can't be serious.

All this in vain because I'm digging every 90s song all over again. Ok, so EVERYBODY dance now. Give me the music....
I want to get seedy with Dirty Cash and Mr Vain, or catch the Last Train to Transcentral with the KLF at 3 A-e-A-m. I'm going to dance because Rhythm is a Dancer and Finally, it has happened to me, right in front of my face and I just can not hide it!!! Or how about 100% Pure Love? That was my ultimate, ultimate favourite. Crystal Waters dripped with cool. She was attitude, I wanted to be her and wear that hip white suit and those heels and move around like a snob.

And then there was Ace of Base...how many hours did I spend dancing in the bathroom in front of the mirror to Ace of Base? How many? I won't tell. I went crazy for Fashion Party in their main album.
Ok, ok, this is the bit I liked. It's when the guys belt out a rap with a deep warning voice:

Confess you look at her
Confess you'd like to be with her
Confess you look at her
Confess you'd like to be with her
Confess!
Confess you look at her

Crack me up. Ok, how about this bit later in the song, when the girls get a little sassy:

Dance yourself mad
Dance yourself mad
You'll like it
You'll like it

Attitude!!!! That's what I'm talking about.

Which reminds me that nothing beats Groove is in the Heart for a song with attitude. I still know the entire song off by heart! Bless me. The chills that you spill up my back...
Strange. Come to think of it, I'm not missing MC Hammer. He said Can't Touch This but hell, I don't even want to...yuck.

Although, guess what, I did have MC Hammer pants once. You had to. It was the done thing... I'd put them on. Then I'd bounce up and down, rapidly moving my legs front and back in criss cross motion and spinning around. The pants looked so good back then.

But no,no,no, those pants are off limits. For the moment anyway...

Sick of Being Sick

The Classic IQ Test

My Result: Facts Curator

Like a meticulous collector, you've fed your brain a unique set of facts and figures over the years. Words, numbers, you've got it all. That's what makes you a Facts Curator.



Whether or not you intend to absorb every piece of information that comes your way, your mind has certain steel-trap qualities to it. You are a knowledge sponge. You have almost enough words in your head to fill a dictionary, and you're equally adept when it comes to manipulating numbers. You can also detect important patterns in number sequences, and probably remember the mnemonic devices you were taught in grade school.
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You may feel comfortable in classroom settings where absorbing details is critical. You're also able to learn from example and piece together all the little facts in life to get to the big picture. That's why you never stop accumulating information as you walk through life.



Your strengths lie in both the verbal and math realms — placing you in the same arena as someone like Bill Gates. Gates has the ability to not only store and retrieve an especially large amount of specialized data, but to translate and present that information to the population at large. His entire empire is based on this unique talent. And to think — your brain works in this same way! When it comes right down to it, you and other Facts Curators can ride a wave of information to live a truly enriched life.

What are you?
http://web.tickle.com/jumpto?test=uiqogt&c=50652

Because I was bored today and still ailing from a nasty cold, I decided to test my IQ for fun. I got 136 which isn't bad considering I didn't resort to pen and paper and completed the test in bed, at invalid pace. So ok, I'm not a genius like Sharon Stone (she got 140), but at least I have the social intelligence not to attribute May's Sichuan earthquake to bad karma.

I find it amusing how this profile draws similarities between Bill Gates and me (or anyone with similar test results as me). I guarantee you that Bill Gates and I have very little in common. I'm hardly business driven and have very little ambition. I also don't have a clue how to turn my many far-fetched ideas into profitable enterprises and wouldn't know how to begin to execute them if I wanted to. Most of the time, I sit there passively contemplating extravagant scenarios but I do nothing about them.

In fact, this IQ thing is completely retarded. It's very much a Western concept. It falls on its face in certain rural communities where social, spatial and naturalist intelligences are more important for success. I'm therefore not a strong advocate of Binet's IQ test for rating individuals' cognitive abilities. I think the validity of any cognitive test depends largely on what parameters are being tested and whether those parameters are relevant to that community's values and lifestyle. In general, I am more inclined towards Dr Gardner's eight intelligences:

Linguistic intelligence ("word smart")
Logical-mathematical intelligence ("number/reasoning smart")
Spatial intelligence ("picture smart")
Bodily-Kinesthetic intelligence ("body smart")
Musical intelligence ("music smart")
Interpersonal intelligence ("people smart")
Intrapersonal intelligence ("self smart")
Naturalist intelligence ("nature smart")

Emotional intelligence (EQ) is also an attribute that I respect and value over IQ. Sadly it is hard to come by these days. Society still seems to raise IQ on a pedestal at the expense of humanistic aptitude.

I was reading a French forum a couple of months ago. It was my impression that French people seem to be understandably pro-Binet. Of course I shouldn't generalise (after all, I'm part French) but that's the impression I got from the posts. The forum comments were rife with vicious personal attacks on other bloggers' low intelligence or 'lack of logic'. There were several people being accused of 'having a low IQ' because their arguments were judged as not making any sense. Even poor grammar was seen as a good excuse for holding others with contention. The comments went on and on, with each blogger insinuating that they were more intelligent than the other, as if IQ mattered above everything, over social skills for example. In many French forums that I have encountered, there seems to be a general concern for who will deliver the most high-impact argument and assert their intellectual superiority as opposed to who will demonstrate the most regard for other people's opinion and communicate most diplomatically. The forum encouraged depersonalisation, aggression and objectification of other members. It was like a bunch of apes trying to show how clever they were by clubbing all the other apes. Very disturbing.

I've been sick for several days now. Fun fun fun. Just my luck that it's a long weekend and I could be out and about but I have no choice but to be in bed pretending to study.

Hence all that bitterness.