For those poker fans out there (yes, you, Paul, and you, Ken) there is a fan site that follows the World Poker Tour, covering both the Travel channel coverage and the game itself.
11:38:39 PM  #  comment []

Continuing in the boring tradition

That I score embarassingly boringly on these tests is not the worst of it; it’s that I take them far too seriously and overanalyze them.

When I first took one of those political compass tests in college more than a decade ago at the behest of a campus libertarian recruiter, I came out centrist as well—he was appropriately dismissive. So I suppose my political beliefs are not only boring, they’re boringly static as well. I took one of their smaller self-test back to Dave and Ron’s room and managed to game myself to the libertarian end. I took the test last year when Felicity and Liz mentioned it, and came out only a few tenth-points more to the right, despite my pretentions (fraudulence=moderate) to libertarian conservativism.

I keep thinking that perhaps my belief in natural law warring with my libertarian impulses brings me these awful scores, but who am I kidding? I am neither conflicted nor sophrosyne, I am boring!

Speaking of Inferno, Zits had something like it on Tuesday, meaning this image should be correct in a week and a half: .

I tried gaming the Inferno test to shoot the moon, and still got only into Purgatory (as there seems to be no Paradiso) with very low scores for each circle but fraudulence, very high for limbo, and extreme for purgatorio. So even my repentance (High) is middle of the roadish, missing very high and extreme. Bland bland bland. Ah well.

Before Limbo, for virtuous non-believers, there is the hell of the uncommitted, which would have been a nice category for the test. Perhaps in a more complete test, I go there.

I am not quite sure Socrates belongs in Limbo; believing that Christ is the Word (Λoγoς) and that reason (λoγoς) is the disembodied preIncarnate Christ, I think Socrates’s adherence to truth even unto death may put him in purgatory, if not paradise. Caesar may belong lower, as a man of appetites and discord and violator of authority, even, according to that Richard Girling/Luciano Garofano documentary I saw (synopsis), a suicide by Senate.

The synopsis includes some material not included in the documentary, including the “kai su, teknon” bit, adding that this if true (probably not) would make Brutus, of the line that expelled the Tarquins, a parricide. This is one of the worst crimes in the Roman canon of crimes, subject, if I recall correctly, to a horrible punishment involving a bag. Maybe dogs. Or was it a drowning? Umm...nope, all three. It may be, if Garofano is correct, that by all his bestowal of honors on Brutus, Caesar was making it a broad implication, and thus was pushing Brutus into the Cassius castra.

Where was I? Whoops. The next several turns of the downward spiral are reserved for the unrepentant, immoderately concupiscent, including, I am unreliably informed, the chocolate lovers and the chocoholics (boogah!). Further down come those who do not respect truth, nature, and goodness. Then the heretics of Dis (though I find Dante’s definition of heresy somewhat overbroad) and the violent. Then the fraudulent, in one of ten bolgia. Then the great lake Cocytus, which I have always conflated with Colchis, where teacherous traitors gnaw upon each other’s brains.
10:50:07 PM  #  comment []

Boring!

I hate these things. I always fall into the most boring categories: you’re in Purgatory, you’re a moderate, you’re a centrist (Your political compass
Economic Left/Right: 0.13
Authoritarian/Libertarian: -1.28
[how lame is that?]
by way of FMcC). Bah!
11:42:21 AM  #  comment []

Purgatorio

Your fate has been decided....

Purgatory

---

You have escaped damnation and made it to Purgatory, a place where the dew of repentance washes off the stain of sin and girds the spirit with humility. Through contrition, confession, and satisfaction by works of righteousness, you must make your way up the mountain. As the sins are cleansed from your soul, you will be illuminated by the Sun of Divine Grace, and you will join other souls, smiling and happy, upon the summit of this mountain. Before long you will know the joys of Paradise as you ascend to the ethereal realm of Heaven.

The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to Purgatory!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	High
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	Moderate
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Moderate
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Low
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Moderate
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

By way of various sources, including Ravenwolf and Dr. Weevil.
11:41:24 AM  #  comment []