Friday, January 22, 2010

Living With WTF Syndrome

For those of you who don't already know, I suffer from Word To Form (WTF) syndrome. Some helpful commenters helped me to identify my peculiar malady before I even knew it had a name, when I apologetically published the results of my first episode of WTF:


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Those nice people helped me to understand that I wasn't alone, and that knowledge allowed me to reconcile myself with my disease. So, what is WTF syndrome? It is characterized by thinking or saying something odd, followed by the thought, "I wonder what that would look like?" The next phase of the disease involves compulsively answering that question by manipulating existing images to provide an actual visual of some sort. The final stage of the syndrome requires the afflicted person to publish the aforementioned result online or at least show it to some friends or coworkers. Since I want to keep both my friends and my job, I have restricted myself to posting the results of my WTF online only.

WTF is a funny thing. I can go for months without an episode. When it strikes, I am caught completely by surprise, like with the bizarre and moronic PSA about cement trucks:

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WTF can also be sneaky. I didn't even recognize it the time it caused me to create a freakish movie poster:

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Anyway, as you may have guessed, I have been stricken by WTF again. On a recent post of mine, frequent visitor and commenter Steve A, owner of the blog dfw point-to-point, thought that one of my videos would have been even better had it featured dwarfs and squirrels. I think he was referring to what has become my personal White Whale, the racing dwarf I met once, and a video in which I spoke of squirrels' love of bikes as opposed to cars. He also teased me a little about the relatively warm weather in Texas. His taunting prompted me to threaten him with a squirrel and dwarf attack squad, and WHAM! WTF syndrome hit me hard. What would a squirrel and dwarf attack squad look like?

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original image links here and here and here and here and here and here.



Sadly, I know just how this looks. Pity me. I must publish it, even when I fear it might cause people to think me mad, stupid or weird. WTF requires it!

Well, thanks for letting me get that out. I do appreciate those who travel with me as I continue to live and learn from my syndrome, sharing in my journey of pain and healing and lunacy and joy and hunger and laziness and stupidness and sleepiness. Before I go, I need to show you two pictures that showed up when I did a google image search for "dwarf warrior":

source

source

Good God! WTF syndrome? Hah! I am way boring, almost even normal.


Have a Great Weekend,

R A N T W I C K

8 comments:

Steve A said...

I will keep this post forever in mind for use if you ever accuse me of going beyond the bounds of common sense as you rightly accused me when I did a "Bike Trek" post. In othe words, WTF?

RANTWICK said...

Steve A - You can definitely file this one away for later use... unfortunately I will have to live with the results of my disorder.

Anonymous said...

Reminds me of a Terry Pratchett novel where entities/beings would just pop into existence if someone just happened to comment "I wonder if there is such a thing as..". Basically driven from the premise of the tooth fairy. By the time the book is well under way, there's the Missing Sock Gnome (who is responsible for taking the sock you are missing from the pair), the Oh God of Hangovers (who gets the hangover that you SHOULD have gotten that night but for some reason didn't), and the Pencil Grinder (sort of a bird like creature who is responsible for wearing down pencils that you could have sworn you just sharpened yesterday.)
Chris

RANTWICK said...

Chris - Shhhh. I am Terry Pratchett...

Steve A said...

Forgot to mention. It hit 22C today here. They actually offered me ice water at Starbucks on the way home. How was it in London?

I imagine you'll get a little back in July...

cafiend said...

Nothing looks dwarfed on that last lady.

You should refer to being dopey, sleepy, happy, grumpy, bashful and sneezy. Then see a Doc.

GreenComotion said...

Rantwick,
What will you think of next? :)

RANTWICK said...

Cafiend - Except perhaps her head and neck compared to the rest! I am all of those things (dopey, sleepy, etc) all at once; good suggestion!

Chandra - I wish I knew. I really do.

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