Seriously, I don’t know everybody.

The following conversation happened on Twitter last night, whilst I was distracted by a lovely little movie named Whale Rider:

fesworks: I’m apparently following @MarkWaid, just realizing who he is, but don’t remember how I came to follow him. I blame @chebutykin… Somehow…

wdonohue: You can almost always blame @chebutykin for this sort of thing. Has anyone done ‘Six Degrees of Melissa’ yet?

fesworks: I decree that Melissa’s New website should have a search program to calculate the 6 Degrees of Chebutykin.

kelvin_hatle: That’s called Google Earth.

Yeah, yeah. I know. I have this reputation that I have met everyone on the planet. For the record, I have not met Mark Waid, and I don’t know why Fes is following him. I don’t think I’m even following Waid on Twitter. (That said, I do like his comics work. Go read Kingdom Come, kids.)

The conversation did get me thinking, though, as it would actually be possible to implement a 6 Degrees of Chebutykin tool, using the official movie-to-movie rule. It wouldn’t be an interesting tool, as it would merely be the 6 Degrees of Trekkies 2, as that is the only film I’ve been in. And I was only in that because I was chatting with the cameraman, and he liked my glasses.

Yet the cabapility of playing the game exists, because The Oracle of Bacon exists. This site uses the IMDB to calculate the shortest path between two listed actors. You can’t use directly it on my name, because I’m not officially listed in the credits of Trekkies 2 (as I am onscreen for all of two seconds while I say, “I like the Borg”). However, you can always stick Richard Herd’s name in the box instead of mine, as he’s also in Trekkies 2; just add 1 to the results.

(For the record, I also have never met Richard Herd. I just wound up in a movie with him.)

Anyway, there are far better ways for everyone to use their time. This is just my convoluted way of pointing everyone to The Oracle of Bacon, which is one of my favorite completely-trivial-yet-awesome things on the web. You, too, can use it to chart a path between Spongebob’s Patrick the Starfish and Wernher von Braun. (Yes, I have done this.)

And do you know what the extra dumb thing about this post is? I have never actually watched Trekkies 2.

11 Comments:

  1. I’m pretty sure that between you and A Real Girl, I can get in touch with anyone on the planet.

  2. well based on people you’ve met/know at our New Year’s Day party… and given what some of their social circles are like. I think we can pretty much collapse the metro area into a singularity. 🙂

  3. Moose & I have both met Richard Herd. 🙂

    ~Sharon

  4. You know, it doesn’t just have to be movies. You could redefine it as any creative endeavor you’ve been paid for/published in. (My favorite variant – Erdös numbers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erdős_number )
    Higher-order variants have been done – there is a (very small) pool of people who have Bacon-Erdös numbers. Let that melt your brain a bit.

    — Brian/Drinks/wdonohue out —

  5. You’re in Trekkies 2? I’m in Starwoids! Throw a rope over, we’ll start a convention. Docunalia 2013, or somesuch. The Making of Micael Jackson’s Thriller at 10:30 a.m. in the Redwood Room. Favorite Bloopers at 11:00 in the Cedar. No admission without camera. I leave it in your hands.

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