The IAT Dork (formerly "the L&TM5K Dork") provides a range of ceremonial functions within the IAT community, most of which are fulfilled merely by existing as the Blog Dork. The Dork must also be prepared to take on occasional practical tasks, such as picking a random number, making an arbitrary choice between two options, and so on. In recent years, the Dork has also occasionally pointed out broken links, brazen mistruths, and problems of that nature, although heaven knows that's not required. During one's tenure as Dork, one is expected always to act in a dorky manner befitting the high intellectual and moral standards of the IAT readership and the larger dork community.
The IAT Vice-Dork (formerly "the L&TM5K Vice-Dork") must stand ready to assume all the responsibilities of the L&TM5K Dork in the event of the Dork's incapacitation, decapitation, or defenestration. The Vice-Dork may also be asked to pitch in with the practical tasks as well. During one's tenure as Vice-Dork, one is expected always to seethe in resentment of the Dork, who is clearly not nearly as qualified for the position and is not doing nearly as good a job as one would have done oneself.The Illustrious Past
In 2007-2008, g served as Dork, and FingerstotheBone as Vice-DorkBy the bylaws of the blog, a sitting Dork is not eligible to run again for the year immediately after his tenure. Due to the curious circumstances of the past year, however, everyone (except me, of course) is eligible to enter.
In 2008-2009, Rex Parker served as Dork, and Rebel as Vice-Dork
In 2009-2010, Eversaved served as Dork, and Jenners as Vice-Dork
In 2010-2011, Morgan served as Dork, and nichim as Vice-Dork
In 2011, I forgot all about it, and I suppose Morgan and nichim continued on as Acting Dork and Acting Vice-Dork
New This Year! If you are for whatever reason hesitant to apply for the positions of Dork & Vice-Dork, but would like to nominate yourself for some other honorary or functional role in the IAT community, knock yourself out.
The Application Process
For the remainder of the week, we will be accepting submissions of evidence. Entrants should endeavor to provide evidence that they are dorky enough to fill the role of Dork with zest, aplomb, and a greater or lesser degree of occasional social awkwardness. There are three entry formats available:
DorkFest Standard Entry: The classic form of entry is to mention a dorky thing or two about oneself in the comments to this post. This form of entry is quite acceptable. The strongest standard-entry candidates have generally returned compulsively to the comments in order to disparage other peoples' entries and puff up their own credentials.
The Dork Resume: A resume laying out your training, experience, and special skills in the field of dorkiness may be sent in .doc or .pdf format to InfiniteArtTournament {at} gmail.com. This form of entry has something of an advantage over the standard entry in that it is inherently dorkier.
The Dorky Post: You may make a case for your own dorky qualifications on your own blog, or any other publicly available website. Just don't forget to post a link in the comments, to make sure it gets seen by the committee, and also make sure to really talk up Infinite Art Tournament so that lots of new readers flock to the site.
The Perqs!
By traditional, the newly-appointed Dork is awarded the Mr. Shain Memorial $16.40 Starbucks Giftcard. The Vice-Dork gets nothing, which is a cause of considerable anger and resentment. It is possible that there may be certificates.
Small Print
Anything you submit to the InfiniteArtTournament address might get posted on the blog.
IAT is not responsible to any damage to reputation, self-esteem, or social "pull" you may incur due to participation in DorkFest '12.
The decisions of the Dork selection process, whatever that turns out to be, are final and irrevocable.
Please do not create your Dork Resume while driving.
10 comments:
I, esteemed Inaugural Dork ('07!), will watching the festivities harshly, fairly, and with great glee from my armchair. Let the dorkiness begin!
Wow, a celebrity Dork sighting at the opening ceremonies! You can feel the excitement in the air!
Oh, I was so desperately hoping you'd never notice and I could go on being Vice-Dork in perpetuum.
Ima do a cv, but to kick things off: Since my inauguration (yes, with at least a modicum of resentment) as Vice-Dork, I typeset, edited, and proofread a dictionary of Chinuk Wawa ( Chinuk Wawa / kakwa nsayka ulman-tilixam laska munk-kǝmtǝks nsayka / As Our Elders Teach Us to Speak It)
Sorry for the extra space after the parenthesis, but please note that I can code links in HTML.
I'm sure I could totally take this if I tried but I'm going to leave it open to others since I recently served as Vice Dork.
Just so we get this clear, does the week end Sunday at midnight, Pacific Time? Because, well, parameters are the staff of life to some of us.
Indeed. Must prospective antipodean dorks submit their entries by the end of the week in their own local time, or are we using some kind of global standard?As an aside: Personally I endorse the French Republican Calendar, with its ten-day weeks that give those of us who are generally a bit lazy some extra time to submit, but I will undoubtedly be crushed beneath the foot of the oppressor in this matter.
You know, I'd always thought of myself as a dork. But when I'd come to the MichaelMMMMM blog, I just felt out of my league. I mean, how dorky could I be if I was happy to get 3 quiz questions right? And the keeping track of running records by a certain numbered date of the month... Well, let's just say in all of my number-loving obsessiveness, the idea never occurred to me.
So I retreated into being the dorkiest of the notdorks- running circles around the sporty guys from work in Fantasy Football, sending out e-mails to the other teachers where I correlated bathroom use to grades... It was all well and good, but at the same time, I knew I was competing in the minors
And then came the Infinite Art Tournament. I've always been a bracket lover, but something about the unnecessarily complex rules combined with learning about artists and all contained by a double-eliminatiion tournament... I was in love. Is cyber-stalking blogs dorky? I would think so. Is figuring out the matchups early so I don't have to wait dorky? How about being excited when I realized it was past 12:30 and it would be posted?
Oh, and did you say that one of my jobs would be to let you know about missing links? Well, I would love that freedom. Yes, I realize Michael, that I've done that a few times. But I've also resisted. Like, those endless weeks where the first bracket said 1 of 16 and the second said 2 of 8? Or, how you did not follow your own Tuesday/Thursday posting rules while on vacation? I tried to think of a funny way to point this out in the comments, but was unable to. Mostly, because I didn't think it was funny.
As dork king (kings are way dorkier than presidents), I would propose making the SubTournament its own category (What is it doing with the brackets!) and maybe even adding some running list of the eliminated artists. Also, due to the traumatic news that the tournament is 40% or so less infinite, perhaps you'd consider making it triple elimiation? Or running one at the end where we try to determine the worst of all the artists. Or...
Standard entry {Should score some points for having read all the words in the application}
Considering how insufficient past loss of the crown has made me feel, I've decided to overcome said feeling of insufficiency
with some volume and {strike*} panache.**
(*strikethrough tag not allowed in comment form. **not becoming of dork for style points reason)
Volume(s) appear to be the key as having noted habits of past winners. So, I, dutifully, sent off request for subscriptions to
-Life and times of sea algae
-Cataloging snow flake shapes in the Aleutians
-Knitting your afghan with toothpicks
etc., etc., (Usage of lots of these earned you some points if not respectability in grade school subjective answers).
While on this drift log of serious intent, I was knocked over, yes, knocked over by wars- wars in the gadgetry obsoletion world!
Here I was still in the process of figuring if 3G or 4G LTE was a good option when, blam, lo & behold, I had to consider hand-wieldiness,
formfactor, app quantities, and retinal quality. All this while I single-handedly tweeted, tumbled, and book kept!
So here I am sitting at my laptop that has rested anywhere but on my lap (something to do with a wobbly lap and a journal paper
on how it burned some essential parts) and I don't have the luxury to confess that I've done due diligence in making due
studies on leaf color as connected to global warming trends or the mating habit of bullfrogs as relating to their warts
or writing that 300 page manifesto on how to win dorkfest by hook or by crook.
(A delightful book by David Crystal which explains the origin of the phrase- By hook or by crook).
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