Guess Their Age

I discovered a new website. (OK, fine. I read about it over yonder at Lemondrop.) And I'm not quite sure why it's so interesting, but it seems to be. The site is Guess My Age and it is exactly what it sounds like it is. You're shown a picture of an individual and your job is to type in how old you think said individual is. Now, unless you've made a living as one of those traveling carnivals guys who does this sort of thing for a very odd living, you might find that it's harder that it sounds like it would be. I have yet to guess someone's age absolutely correctly. I can usually keep it within about ten years either direction, but I'm sure that's not overly comforting to those whom I am guessing are 40 when they're really 30. Yeah. Awkward.

Unless you're preparing for a career as a 7-11 cashier where you'll need to card people for alcohol and cigarette purchases, I really don't see anything useful coming out of this site, other than pure entertainment and efficient time wasting. (Combine the two and you've got yourself one heck of a day at work!) You can load your own photo on there and then check back to see how old people thought that you were. If you're the sort of person who is just fine with uploading photos of yourself to the all of the Internets and being perfectly comfortable with whatever age people guess for you (even if it's older than you really are by quite a few years!), then by all means, upload your photo. If you're the sort of person who is going to upload his or her (but most likely her in this scenario) and think that you're going to learn that everyone thinks that you look at least five to seven years younger than you really are, think again. That's not going to happen. All of the Internets are mean. If you go into something like this looking for an ego boost, you're going to make sure that you have an ample amount of rope with which to use to hang yourself after your little experiment is complete.

Let's take a look at some of the folks that I ran across whilst killing some time today, shall we?

I saw this chick and guessed 26. Her shirt (from what we can see of it) appears to be modest and that alone will rule out that she's still in her teens. She just doesn't appear to be over thirty (no reason for that assumption) and so I went a little higher up from the middle of the road.

This woman's age wasn't overly hard to determine for me. The haircut and the large print, somewhat frockish shirt put her in the over 40 category in my mind. I went with 41. See, now it's people like this chick whose age is difficult to ascertain. I think part of that is because she's probably a lot younger than I would be comfortable with her being and still looking/acting like that. I guessed 17.

Here's one that seemingly gives us a little bit of help. The spiky-haired chap below is drinking a beer. That immediately sets our low cut-off at 21. It's the spiky hair that is going to be a tough one to noodle through, however. Guys don't roll with the times as easily as women do (or want to). The thumbs up sign isn't a good sign and it doesn't seem like it's his first beer ever (due to the dorky grin that he thinks makes him look cool, even though it doesn't) and there is a leather jacket (though possibly pleather), so I'm going with 26.

This chick was fairly easy. That emo hairstyle that she has going on narrows it down to under eighteen. I went with the turbulent adolescent year of 15.

I'm surprised that this guy actually put his photo on there. The leathery skin and the confused look led me to guess 53. I also guessed that he's a two-and-a-half pack a day smoker who drinks Jack Daniels at 10am on weekdays. Sadly, that information is not available at Guess My Age.

I'm also surprised that this guy posted his photo on there as well, as he's awfully goofy looking. And that striped tank top isn't helping matters. I went with 32.

I'm going to wrap this little experiment up with this woman. I guessed 41. There were a variety of factors that led me to that very, very, very wrong conclusion. The hair. The white board with probably some sort of "To Do" list scrawled on it. The frumpy turtleneck. The phone with the cord in the wall. (At least, I'm hoping that it's connected to the wall and that it's not connecting the handset to the phone. It's sort of hard to tell.) This woman would not be happy with my guess.

So, have you been keeping track of your guesses? Let's take it from the top.

• Number One is 27. My guess was 26. A difference of -1. So far, so good. Nothing offensive there. Yet.
  
  
• Number Two is 43. My guess was 41. A difference of -2. Not too shabby.
  
  
• Number Three is 18. My guess was 17. A difference of -1. I'm not doing too badly at this point. Sadly, that will change.
  
  
• Thumbs Up Dude is 18. I guessed 26 because he was deceiving me with that beer in his hand. That's a difference of +8. If you're old enough to drink beer, you're too old to be doing the thumbs up sign because you're drinking beer. Got it?
  
  
• Number Emo Five is 16. I went with the Emo Rule and guessed 15 for a difference of -1. Hey, if you want to look older, drop the emo look. I'm just sayin'.

• Jack Daniels is 56. I was being generous in guessing 53. -3 for me with Jack. Now can we guess how long he's been on parole?
  
  
• Striped Shirt Nerd is, in fact, 32! Finally! Only took me seven tries before I guessed one correct!
  

But all of that doesn't matter. That's because on the last photo, I guessed 41 when in reality, that poor woman is 28. Ooohh! +13! Yeah, whoops. Oh, come on! Like you got that one right! I don't think so! While I can't ascertain whether or not the 18 year old would have been complimented that I thought that she was 26, I'm relatively certain that this 28 year old would eat me for lunch (possibly literally from the looks of it) if she knew I thought she was 41.

I don't know why this site draws one in so easily. Nor will I pretend to know why I spent about half an hour guessing people's ages. It's not like there's a prize or anything. But whatever it is, it does help pass the time.

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John McCain's Mother Is ALIVE?!

Oh, relax. I'll chill out on McCain and his hot, hot, hot pick for Vice President in a little while. (Seriously, Sarah Palin is a different kind of smokin' hot. She almost makes me say, "Obama Girl who?" Almost. She's Obama Girl, for cryin' out loud, don't go expecting miracles or anything.) Actually, how about now? Well, not totally. But partially!

Look, I like John McCain's sense of humor just as much as the next person who can actually bring themselves to admit that the guy is freaking funny. (I'm not on the McCain bandwagon. I'm not on any wagon. Wagons are uncomfortable. I'm just saying the guy is funny.) Like before he announced he had chosen Gov. Palin to be his running mate and some reporter asked him who he had chosen. McCain deadpans back to the reporter, "Wilford Brimley." Come on, that is funny!

But I have to draw the line somewhere. And I'm drawing it here. This is something, no matter how funny he might think it is, that John McCain should never, ever do: fake a heart attack while you're out campaigning or shaking hands or doing anything, really. DON'T DO IT. Behold! The guy that might be the oldest President of the United States ever elected pretending as if he's having a heart attack!

Seriously. That's not good. And it's not good for several reasons. Some (most) of which are obvious. The most blatantly obvious one being that Grandpa John McCain is old. But come on, people, it's not like he's Methuselah or anything like that. The man just turned 72, not 102! Is 72 really thought of as that old? I mean, everyone is doing all of the "old jokes", so I guess it must seem old to a lot of people, but I guess it just doesn't seem like it's that old to me. (My Dad lived to be 82 and that didn't seem old at all. Then again, he's my Dad, so it could have been 102 and it wouldn't have been long enough for me.)

Maybe it's just perspective. Well, no, that can't be it because David Letterman (who has crafted some of the finest "He looks like the guy who...." jokes in all the land) is 61. 61 is a lot closer to 72 than it's, um, not closer to 72. Now, eleven years younger than 61 is 50 and that age difference sounds about the same as the difference between 61 and 72. But Jay Leno is 58. See, 58, which is 14 less than 72, sounds a heck of a lot younger than 72. And if you go 14 years younger than 58 and compare 44 years old to 58 years old, it still sounds a heck of a lot younger than 58. So I'm OK with Jay and anyone younger than him making the McCain-is-old jokes. But you're 61, Dave, so 72 is not THAT old. The two of you could call each other up to remind the other one that Wheel of Fortune is coming on, your ages seem that close together. (What am I talking about? Those "He looks like the guy who...." jokes are hil-arious. Keep making those, just knock off the other ones, maybe? Geez. Sorry about that. Lost my head there.)

If McCain wants to get rid of his old image, I have a suggestion or two for him. The first of which would be to stop making that old man sigh/grunt at the end of sentences. You know what I mean. It's the sound that old men make and it doesn't matter what they've just said, the old-man-sentence-ender completely negates any feeling that you were trying to convey with what you've just said and instantly transforms your spoken word into something that feels oddly hopeless. It's like this: "And we will WIN this war on TERROR! (pause 1 second) (low mumble, going slowly from a medium pitch to a lower pitch that trails off at the end) nnneeehhhhhhh......" It's very Grandpa Simpson-esque. And it's not good. All it does is scream, "I'm old! Get off of my lawn!"

But here's the clincher. Show a picture of John McCain next to his mother. Oh, stop it! His mother is still ALIVE! Yes! I swear. Roberta McCain is alive and well and seems to be doing just fine. Oh, and she's ninety freaking five, by the way. Behold! The ninety five year old mother of John McCain who was born in (Holy cow!) 1913!

Holy American Gothic. Really, is she what you picture when you think of someone who is ninety five? Of course she isn't. You're picturing someone like Mark Felt:

Or Senator Robert Byrd:

Or even the beloved Grandpa Simpson:

You're not picturing Roberta McCain:

John McCain might be 72, but I have a feeling that he isn't going to be going anywhere for a while. Especially not if his Mom is any indication of how things go in that family. (Holy canoli, 95? Are we sure about that?) Oh, and by the way...Wilford Brimley? Seventy THREE. McCain isn't looking so old NOW is he? I didn't think so. But Obama Girl is still looking pretty hot.

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