guff

Dweeb vs. Nerd

Most of us have stumbled into those long, drawn out theoretical to the death skirmish of words cooked up by the fan base of competing fictional beings or technologies: Superman vs. Batman; Star Wars vs. Star Trek; the Professor from Gilligan’s Island vs. MacGyver. Some of you may even take part in them. I myself have done my best to stay out of these slugfests, though I’m certain the aliens from the Alien movies would kick ass over the aliens from the Predator movies. I mean, get real — those guys bleed acid! In any case, I’ve decided to drop my defenses and list here who I believe would most likely come out on top in a few of the lesser considered dreamed-up Battle Royals.

Moby Dick vs. Jonah’s Whale (from the Bible)

Though it’s hard to go against God on something like this, I’ve got to be in Melville’s corner this once. Biblical scholars still debate whether Jonah’s catch of the day was truly a whale or just a really big tuna, and I’m not sure the ambiguity works in its favor. Also, its only engagement of note involved swallowing a bellyaching pessimist, whereas Moby goes about whacking ships and seaman to their doom while they try and kill it with the best whale slaughtering technology of their day. One could call Moby Dick the cetacean Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Olivier’s Hamlet vs. Gibson’s Hamlet

Avoiding arguments on the basis of acting caliber, I’m on Gibson’s side for a Hamlet wrestling double-up. Olivier could certainly swing that blade, but his Hamlet was far too wispy and — risking the bite of politically correct watchdogs everywhere — effeminate to pull off a strong arm attack against his more powerful twin. Besides, I think Gibson might go into his Moe Howard crazy-talk stratagem to confuse Olivier long enough to where he could pick him up and toss him off the side of the castle.

Hobbits vs. Smurfs

This is a hard contest to make a choice on. On the one hand, you have the blue Lilliputians with a brilliant Papa Smurf heading a well organized fighting team, but their only nemesis is the boorish Gargamel, and they could never figure out how to finish him for good. The big-footed Hobbits as a whole are far too much like Brits on a weekend holiday, though they fared pretty well in their match up against Ultimate Evil’s right-hand man. I’ll begrudgingly give this to the Hobbits, but I think they’d end with major losses on their side. Not necessarily a bad thing.

C vs. C++

Without a doubt, C++ would win. I’m not even sure C could make it past the first round, and not just because it’s now little more than a subset of C++ these days. Nor is it an issue of C having to defer to C++ when it comes to programming power and extensibility. No, it’s that C++ looks so much like an emoticon for working the weights. You’ve got to be one tough high-level language to pull that off for so long.

Mathematicians vs. Physicists

I’m going to give the upper hand to the mathematicians here. Much like the tension between dentists and “real” doctors, I think the long period with physicists look down upon them has taken it’s toll, so they’re ready for payback. And let’s be honest, which group of brainiacs is going to have more time on their hands for taking stuff like kick boxing lessons, the ones keeping the particle accelerators running? No way.

(If I ever visit this topic again, I’ll discuss at some length the well known Barney vs. H. R. Pufnstuf controversy.)