Seeing as I only just started this blog but have been an active nerd for over four years, I have a lot of nerdy adventures to catch up on. The first took place around Halloween of 2008. After rejecting my skanky high school costumes (a French maid and a belly dancer), I was in need of something to wear. Finally, after reading the xkcd comic "Candy Button Paper", I landed on the perfect costume: a Turing machine. I dressed in black leggings and a black sweater and wrapped myself from head to foot in candy button paper. I then drew a state transition diagram and pinned it to my back. I already have a head, so I didn't need to create one of those.
My costume created quite a stir. One grad student asked if he could "traverse my states". A professor said he wouldn't speak to me because I wasn't dressed as the lambda-calculus. But the best part of all was the department costume contest. I wasn't aware that there was one at all, but a tiger, a zebra, a male slutty nurse and countless others apparently knew. I decided to try my luck and told all my friends to vote for me.
A few days later I received an email from someone in the CS department. They wanted to know, was I the girl who had dressed up as a Turing machine? I had won the costume contest by an overwhelming margin, but no one seemed to know my name. Everyone had just written "Turing machine girl" on the ballot. I had a new identity. And $20 on amazon.com.
I have only one disappointment from that Halloween. If you send Randall Munroe a picture of yourself dressed as one of his comics, shouldn't he write back?
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