Out of 10

Zeitgeisters,

At my work-place, Media Dell’Arte, we like to make lists and rate things. This isn’t our actual job. The sort of work we do attracts people with say, an above average interest in popular culture. My co-worker, Big Red, takes this notion a little further, she is particularly fond of starting the morning by rating her day out of 10. Sometimes others in the immediate vicinity will also give their “Out of 10”.

I think this is a civilised notion and providing you and your co-workers play the game accurately, (no pretending to be a 6 when you’re really a 4), then it can be a handy guide to know who needs to be treated with kid gloves.

About seven weeks ago, I went to see a 9.30pm session of the New Zealand film BLACK SHEEP at the Millenium in Fremantle. I usually like to suss out the trailers before the feature starts, even though these days they do that sneaky thing of interspersing crappy commercials with the coming attractions.

I was so early the slide ads hadn’t started. So, I thought I’d SMS a friend with the following. “Rate Life out of 10.” Yeah, it was a little melancholy and existential, but that’s how I was feeling at the time. After firing that cheery message out into the ether, I wondered how other friends on my Nokia’s contact list would be willing to score Life at that moment. So I sent the message off to 45 others.

I’m a bit eccentric at times, sure.

I have put the answers below, but because no one replied with the expectation of becoming a blog post, I have protected their anonymity by using a single initial, rather than full names. You know who you are – thanks for playing.

Just a little more context, the “bob” referred to is Bob Dylan who was playing in town the next day; we had recently run a work quiz-night; “the cut” refers to the final cut of a friend’s short film.

And yeah, the whole thing would have been quite a bit easier if I was on Facebook. (Just a quick tangent here, I was stunned to discover that Miss Raspberry Beret was on Facebook today. I would've bet money that she wasn't. See what I miss by not being part of this rapidly-cooling hot trend?)

I have retained most of the respondents' spelling and punctuation in its original state to give you, dear Zeitgeister, a greater sense of its SMS-ness. For my own shortcoming in this area I have no such excuse.

THE RATINGS

What’s this about? - V

4 point 2 – T

Half – but we’re sorted now - E

6 - P

I give it about a seven right now…What about you? - C

Six – im very happy about some things and deeply troubled by others,evens out to a generally positive feeling .. why? - C

7, room for improvement but generally good :D - N

During Fitz(roy Crossing) - 1. Now I’m back in Perth - 5ish. You? - C

Why? - E

6.5 so far. U? - S

Whose Life? - M

Is the cut that bad? To answer your question, I’d give it 6.5 , why have ya heard something? - R

10…give or take. - P

3.1415…or thereabouts. Haha did you intentionally capitalise the word life? Well if it makes you feel any better I feel better than pi out of 10 – that’s the only interesting number I could think of. - B

7. You offering to make it better? - A

If you mean my personal life as it pertains to me at this present moment then I would have to say we are pretty high - around the 8s or 9s! But the fact that bob is playing Perth tomorrow night and a lot of my friends are going but im not,
is a bummer which must be taken into consideration. How is yours? - M

10 - G

8 - A

Before the Quiz Night: 8. Now: 3 - J

9, almost awesome. - T

I would choose pi because I like the Infinite length but it seems quite low numerically – how about you? - G

5.1. It just makes it over 5 because my shower works. - S

Elevate the Insignificant

Mr Trivia