Archive for April, 2004

We’ll Be Asking the Questions Here

Thursday, April 15th, 2004

I’m sure by now you’ve all seen those delightful Internet personality quizzes, where you answer a pile of questions about your personality, and are rewarded with answers to questions you had previously never thought to ask: Which anime character are you? Which Dungeons & Dragons character class are you? Which French region are you? Which version of the popular prime time television franchise Law and Order are you? Which syphilitic side effect are you? Etc.

In the spirit of continuing to make the Internet as pedestrian as humanly possible, while at the same time perpetuating a wide range of offensive stereotypes that completely undermines the overall mission of the Vaults of Erowid, I am proud to present the latest and greatest Internet personality quiz for your enjoyment:

WHICH PSYCHOACTIVE SUBSTANCE ARE YOU?

Now the key to this quiz is to just react – don’t spend time thinking about your answer. For the vast majority of you, this will not be a problem. Also, please be completely truthful and forthright – otherwise you won’t get an honest result, and also, the NSA will not be able to properly update your file.

The music I most enjoy listening to at a party is:

  1. Extremely repetitive thump-thump music that makes me shake my fist in the air and feel very good about myself for no discernible reason
  2. Crazy improvisational rock and roll where the reason I have to follow the band from town to town is that I don’t know when they’re going to get around to playing the end of that song I like
  3. Unnerving experimental jazz performed by torturing the parents of the musicians, recording their screams, and using them as the emotional foundation for ironic aural explorations of the motifs of modernity
  4. Bombastic classical music that must be enjoyed lying prone, blindfolded, cocooned in an isolation tank, after twelve years of silent meditation atop a mountain peak on the far side of the world, having eaten nothing but dirt and wind, in order to appreciate the true majestic godlike genius embodied by the viola line throughout the final three measures
  5. Art Garfunkel

The thing I most want to be remembered for after I die is:

  1. The sheer amount of honey-dipped good vibrations I spread to all the good peoples of this magical planet
  2. The staggering breadth of my contributions to vital fields of medicine, science, and research
  3. The incredible amount of ammunition and explosives I had hidden on my person at the time
  4. The serene and peaceful look on my face that tells whoever finds me that I did not die in pain, no matter how much blood is on the walls
  5. My sofa – I really like my sofa

If I were a snack food, I would most likely be:

  1. A huge, monster-sized bag of cheese puffs
  2. An artfully arranged assortment of crackers and cheeses from around the globe
  3. A whole pig, roasted in a freshly-dug pit for twelve hours
  4. Candied orange wedges made out of a synthetic foodstuff based on matter found only on asteroids
  5. My own vomit

When entities emerge from the walls attempting to communicate, my first reaction is to:

  1. Reach out with my heart and send powerful messages of love and friendship
  2. Put down the pipe – I’ve had enough
  3. Attempt to steal their wallets
  4. Rip their fucking throats out with my teeth for interrupting the really good sex I was having with the police chief’s kid
  5. Ask myself, “What would Jesus do?”

When I snap back to consciousness, only to find myself on a Greyhound bus heading for the border, covered in filth, muttering incoherently and not wearing pants, I usually:

  1. Laugh it off and chalk it up to another lesson from the Trickster
  2. Bum a smoke from the recently paroled murderer next to me
  3. Attempt to stop the hemorrhaging
  4. Make mental note: that was fun, but probably didn’t get a threshold dose
  5. Begin shouting “Turn this bus around or I will introduce you to my bodyguard, BEERBELLY THE INVISIBLE CLOWN, and his MINIONS OF INFERNAL LAUGHING MENACE!” Then, kill myself

Okay, let’s tally up your score! For each time your answer was 1, give yourself three points; for each time your answer was 2, give yourself five points; for each time your answer was 3, give yourself eight points; for each time your answer was 4, give yourself ten points; and for each time your answer was 5, give yourself 1,027,433 points. Perform a fast Fourier transformation on the partial products of the point values associated with each answer. Then take a Cartesian product of those values with the original answers that you provided, followed by a Gram-Schmidt process on the results, treating each as a polynomial. Calculate the standard deviation. When you have an answer, set yourself on fire. In your flailing death throes, the answer will be revealed to you, as though a veil was being peeled back allowing you to see the true machinery of the universe (do not mistake your skin peeling back for the veil peeling back – it’s a common error). You will at that moment know yourself as one of the following psychoactive substances:

Ecstasy – You are truly at one with the inherent bliss and wonder of reality, and are showered with blessings at every turn. Your heart is open to a wide range of emotional contexts, and your friendships and relationships are deep, meaningful, and annoying to other people. You get spare changed a lot and recently lost your car on the classic “59 Switch” con, even though instead of a gorgeous eighteen-year-old as the bait, the scammers used your own grandmother.

Marijuana – Nothing interferes with your ability to have a good time. Responsibility takes a back seat to a great rekkid on the stereo and a home cooked meal. It’s the simple pleasures in life that mean the most to you: a good conversation, a long weekend, remembering your own name when asked several times by the person who is almost your ex-boss. You pride yourself on still being able to count to four, as long as both hands are not in handcuffs and you do not actually need to count to four.

Acid – Your sharp, analytical mind is suffused with a questioning nature that puts you in regular contact with the fundamental issues that define humanity as a self-conscious organism. You know well the gnosis that comes from such heightened understanding, and you are at peace with your mortality. Which is good, because you have been lost on the streets of Chicago for several years now, wondering where the hell your apartment is and why won’t they stop shouting inside your head.

Speed – If anyone comes any closer, they will die by your sure and steady hands. For weeks, you have waited patiently for this moment, and now by the grace of a god you do not believe in, you can take your pick of any of a dozen federal agents on your lawn, who believe you are on the second floor of the house, when in fact, you are cleverly hidden ten feet away in a tree house made of twigs, cigarette butts, and part of your own small intestine. Your breath is not particularly fresh.

2-TC-Special-G – You should be so lucky.

That’s it for this month’s edition of eScottology, friends! Tune in next time when we lock Myers and Briggs in a room, dose them with datura extract when they aren’t looking, and webcast their wacky antics as they struggle helplessly to comprehend the way the ceiling seems to be threatening them in Portuguese!

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