Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal by Zach Weinersmith for October 16, 2014

If you’re going to be a future pedant, try to be a tolerable one. Those are easier to get along with.If I had a nickel for every time I said that, I’d still have the nickels I get for change at the stores on the weekends.

I you could harness all the energy wasted in whining, you would never again have to purchase fuel to heat your home, power your appliances or energize your vehicle.

I am called the Fount of Useless Knowledge. If I could download all the useless memories and fun-facts-to-know-and-tell in my mind and print them out — ha ha, I almost did it again. .Here’s a fascinating bit flung your way: In “Les Pensees” Blaise Pascal challenges skepticism with a suggested “pyrrhonism,” which is skeptical of skepticism itself, faith and revelation justifying each other in a circular fashion at a level deeper than skepticism..So here’s the assignment for today: If somebody professes skepticism about something, come right back and say, “Accuse me of pyrrhonism if you must, but …”

People sometimes come to me for advice (my shoulder is often soggy), and the following is a poignant confession from a distressed adult pedant of my acquaintance:.“I was a pedantic kid, I’m a pedantic adult. There, I’ve said it. Don’t hate me ‘cause I’m intellectual. I’ve tried Pedantics Anonymous, and eschewed Lyric Opera for Rockabilly, and PBS for network reality shows, but still … .“I wrote a play styled after Sophocles when I was five, but no other kid would be in it. I didn’t make snow forts, I made geodesic domes. I knew and recounted the names of insects and rocks and minerals (remember The Girls Can Flirt and Other Queer Things Can Do?). I knew about atmospheric and astronomical phenomena, and since other kids ran away, I explained them to a stray dog that I named Roy G Biv; he bit me more than once. ." I couldn’t dissect dead animals without people asking why the hell I needed the formaldehyde. Other kids wrote hopscotch patterns and rude words on sidewalks. I expressed chemical formulae or French declensions.. "By 4th Grade I was trying to escape the stigma (I actually used that word), but then a teacher asked if I knew who wrote “Hamlet,” and I blew my cover by retorting, “How should I know? Kids my age don’t read Shakespeare.” The other kids stared at me, then continued to pick their noses (Michael J. licked his fingers, yuck). I was marked as a pedant from then on. The shame of it!.“In 5th Grade I avoided a fight by suggesting to the bully he had an inferiority complex and might benefit through Freudian Analysis, and as he mulled it over (neurons misfiring like Robbie the Robot in “Forbidden Planet”) I made my escape. It wasn’t a clean kill..“In 7th Grade I achieved 12th Grade level in the Science and Language portions of my Achievement tests. I often helped my Science teacher with her facts during class. I had good intentions, so why did she yank me into the hallway to tell me to knockitoffwiseguy? I mean, altimeter is pronounced “al.TI.mi .tur,” not “AL.ti.meet.ur,” and I thought she’d appreciate knowing. Also, light from the Sun reaches Earth in a little over 8 minutes, 20 seconds, not 8 seconds, as she claimed. Pretty basic stuff. I thought she was testing us..“Later, my first idea of a date was to stay home to watch Jeopardy and outguess the contestants. Whenever I was close to “getting lucky,” I couldn’t help but visually anatomizing a girl’s muscle groups and her underlying bone structure. And then commenting on it, sometimes making sketches, and, and even starting clay models. Was that so wrong? I recommended philosophy books we could discuss together, to little avail. The lonely girl who ‘lent me a hand’ seemed offended when I stopped to prepare a slide to look at er, you know, under my new high-power microscope. .“As I became more isolated, I took refuge in old books, mostly The Classics. I really hit bottom after I learned Greek and Latin and often spouted fascinating relevant aphorisms in the original languages to schoolmates and co-workers. .“And still later, soon after my fifth dissertation, etc.”.There was more, but the poor, pathetic pedant felt bad and went away when I nearly broke my nose as my head hit the table.