Month: February 2013

“Me fail English? That’s unpossible!”

From: The Simpsons

Genre: Cartoons, Television

Who said it?: Ralph Wiggum

The story behind the quote: GeekWisdom has been running for more than a year now and I’ve never posted a quote from one of the longest running series of all time. The Simpsons has been on air for over 24 seasons, had a feature-length film and has entered pop culture consciousness but this is the first time a quote is being posted here. One of the reasons is because I can’t embed most of the Simpsons video clips on YouTube. Another is, well, nothing really is super memorable from the main cast… but I forgot about Ralph Wiggum.

Ralph is the dim-witted son of the dim-witted Police Chief of Springfield, Clancy Wiggum. He tends to do incredibly odd things that are pretty stupid and he has the tendency to make unrelated comments with the situation he’s in. Unfortunately, it seems that he’s pretty much in the dark about his clue about how clueless he really is.

In the clip below, Principal Skinner is announcing the children who are failing in English. Ralph is overjoyed and actually thinks he won something. When Principal Skinner corrects Ralph, he smiles and expresses disbelief since he thinks he’s really great in speaking the language.

Geek wisdom: We can be extremely ignorant of our own… ignorance. We like to believe that we are so totally awesome and great. However, it’s totally possible that we’ve put ourselves on an extremely high pedestal and actually fail to see our own… well, failures.

It’s easy to be blind to our own weaknesses. We sometimes have to take a long, hard and impartial look at ourselves to really see who we are.

“Have a pancake!”

From: Wonderfalls

Genre: Television

Who said it?: A cow creamer?

The story behind the quote: Sometimes, even great and inventive television shows get cancelled. One of those shows would be the brainchild of Bryan Fuller. However, if you were thinking of Pushing Daisies, well, no. It’s not. It’s another show that actually stars Pushing Daisies’ Ned, Lee Pace. That show is Wonderfalls.

The general idea is that Jayne Tyler (played by Caroline Dhavernas) a smart and sarcastic underachiever who has her life turned upside down when various inanimate objects (such as the aforementioned cow creamer) tell her to do various things to help people. While these acts may seem extremely mundane and simple, like in the quote mentioned, these actions have far reaching implications, which she would never foresee.

You can actually see the first part of the episode where the quote is mentioned below:

Geek wisdom: Like in the show, the smallest decisions we make have bigger implications that we may not see. In fact, all of the actions you have done throughout your lifetime has made you the person you are today. All of those choices has brought you to this specific point in time.

While we may not really understand the implications of the minor choices we do, they do impact us, one way or another. Make sure you make the correct ones.

GeekWisdom in need of new quotes

Hello everyone!

I realized that I’ve been doing this GeekWisdom thing for a while (a year and a half already!) and I’ve been having fun wracking my brain remembering TV, movie and video game quotes and trying to extract some wisdom from them. But, right now, I’m pretty much stretching my memory getting really memorable quotes at this time. Also, it’s also been a problem finding the quotes, especially on YouTube (since a lot of the quotes that I would want to put here are either not there because of copyright issues or they can’t be embedded).

Anyway, if any of you guys and gals reading this have any quotes that I may have missed or would like to get some geek wisdom from, please add them in the comments for this post. I promise I’ll give the proper credits necessary.

Thanks!

“Jill, here’s a lockpick. It might come in handy if you, the master of unlocking, take it with you.”

From: Resident Evil

Genre: Video Games

Who said it?: Barry Burton

The story behind the quote: The Resident Evil series from Capcom popularized horror games and was the basis for the entire “survival horror” genre. Take note that didn’t actually create survival horror as there were horror games like Alone in the Dark or Clock Tower that came before it. However, it does earn the distinction of taking horror games into the mainstream.

While the first game in the series was a breakthrough and did have some genuine scares (remember the jump you got when the dogs jumped through the windows?), that’s not to say that the story and script was very good. In fact, the voice acting is pretty bad, especially if you compare it to today’s standards. But at the time, having any voice acting in a game was pretty phenomenal. However, there is an advantage to having such poor voice acting and awful dialogue: the quotes in the game become extremely memorable… such as the quote in question.

If you play as Jill Valentine, the female in the game, you and one of your squad members, Barry Burton, get separated from the rest of your team members. So, they decide to split up to cover more ground. Barry then remembers that he found a lockpick. Knowing that Jill is “the master of unlocking,” he generously gives it to Jill since it will be much more useful to her.

Geek wisdom: If you’re not really using something and you know that someone will find that item useful, you might as well let that someone have it. We tend to be greedy with our possessions and actually hoard stuff, citing that we “may need it in the future” or there’s some sentimental value with these items. But there may be people that may need these items much more than you.

Try to remember to help other people. It may be difficult to let go but, if it helps other people, you know that the thing that you loved before is being put into good use.

“These pretzels are making me thirsty!”

From: Seinfeld

Genre: Television

Who said it?: A lot of the the cast!

The story behind the quote: We’ve already noted in a previous post that Seinfeld has a lot of memorable quotes. So… here’s another one! The quote comes from the third season episode “The Alternate Side.”

Kramer goes to Jerry Seinfeld’s apartment to announce that he just got a line in the latest Woody Allen movie. George then busts in, severely rattled because of his new job of parking cars across the street (which is apparently not as easy as he thought it would be). Anyway, Elane asks Kramer what the line is and he tells everyone the line he’s going to say is “These pretzels are making me thirsty!” Elaine and Jerry then give their own way of saying the line. Then, George, who is still stressed from his job, gives the line in a very angry tone.

Everyone looks at him funny and George explains that they have no idea what the pretzel guy is feeling that day. Maybe the guy is angry because he took up a job parking cars for a living. He then rushes to the window and yells the line at the people waiting for George to park their cars.

Geek wisdom: We always tell people to use their words when they talk. However, the way they say it is also very important. You can’t just rely on the actual words; you have to listen to the way the words are being said. In fact, the way something is being said can actually be more important than the actual words.

Try to pay attention to the way things are being said and not just the actual thing being said.