At the fair last weekend, I decided to get my personality analyzed by a computer.
It’s called the ‘Televac Personality Analysis Computer’, and uses the ‘science of graphology’ to describe someone’s personality traits via analysis of their handwritten signature. Of course it’s all total garbage, and the output it produces is just random nonsense, but I’ve seen these at fairs before and always wanted to do it 🙂
After handing over the $3, I signed my name on a small piece of yellow paper and also selected my star sign (as if to cement the total crackpotism of the system). The friendly old coot running the machine then placed the paper inside a tiny slot, pushed a few fake buttons, then waited while a dot-matrix printer spewed out my analysis.
And what did it say? Here’s the first thing on the output:
You may provoke resentment by seeming to have all the answers.
Oh my, what a start! Is it accurate?
It continued; here’s some excerpts:
You have a very active imagination.
You are a good friend and always ready to help.
Your happy-go-lucky manner belies the depth of your feelings.
There is nothing halfhearted about you.
Platitudes! Aside from that first line, these could probably apply to anyone (or rather anyone would want them to apply to them).
The printout didn’t end there though. After the personality analysis came 3 ‘weird facts from the past millenium’ including this doozy: “In 1300 Anasazi towns were mysteriously destroyed in southwest America”!
And then the second page of the printout was a lengthy zodiac fortune, from which I discovered that my ‘mix of wry humour and spiritual insight’ will allow me to become ‘a quotable individual’.
It’s going to come true! You can quote me on that 😉
