Tickle Me Stupid

I did this personality test today. I'm not entirely sure why, especially as I knew in advance that it was going to give me a completely arbitrary and pointless grading of my life, as told from a small selection of often irrelevant questions. But, I did it anyway. Perhaps I was working on the Calvin & Hobbes principle that it's difficult to know what people knew before magazine questionnaires. Well I got knews for ya, Watterson, the magazine questionnaire has been superceded! Usurped! It's all about the internet these days - put that in your retirement pipe and smoke it.

My life is, according to the esteemed monkeyquiz.com, a grade 7.1, or thereabouts. What this quite establishes, I'm not sure, but I'm slightly better than average, although I have a long way to go with my love and friends/family ratings.
Well duh.
Well actually, friends and family are just fine thanks monkeyquiz.com, and I'll resolve any romantic trauma myself, cheers. The rest of your ratings are pretty much on a par with everyone else, so thanks for the insight.

So what do these things tell us? Literally nothing. Why do we do them? Again, no further details available. I'm blaming mine solely on a quiet day at work, which is probably the significant factor behind the rise of the internet pseudo-psychologist. The Tickle IQ tests bang on about how they're written by people with a PhD (I know! Amazing, isn't it!?). Now, I've known Doctors of Philos. with the common sense of a doughnut, and the equivalent social skills thereof, (and don't forget the TimeCube guy, real life doctor!) I don't think it's neccessarily something to advertise if you're looking to better peoples' lives. Just because a doctor has scheduled a few seemingly innocuous doesn't mean they can diagnose your life, or tell you your a loser from your answers. If you're going to train to become a psychiatric doctor, it's going to take something like seven years, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it doesn't take seven years to learn how to write a bunch of leading questions.

That said, as a diversionary tactic away from work, I've seen more destructive: WeBoggle for example, or Sudoku. I don't know anyone personally who'd take these seriously, but going on the principle that a guy sending spam emails can earn £1.8million before getting caught, there must be some people taking these things to heart. If you're one: be afraid.

Of yourself, idiot!