Pages

Monday, July 12, 2010

What the hell's a gigawatt?!?

It takes 1.21 gigawatts to make the flux capacitor flux. Remember that in Back to the Future? For whatever reason, I think that is one of the most hilarious parts of the movie, when Christopher Lloyd runs around screaming "1.21 gigawatts? 1.21 gigawatts?" and Marty hollers, "what the hell's a gigawatt?" and runs after Doc.

This is one of the small things in my life that makes me giggle. It's just part of my teen years that have come back to haunt me lately. Okay, using the word "haunt" sounds really negative but I don't mean for it to be. I have to say, though, dating a guy- that would be ITSam- from high school is giving me some flashbacks. We rarely talk about HS and such, but occasionally we do. But what makes me smile is that he KNOWS everyone in town and remembers everyone. He has one of those bubbling personalities so people remember HIM. He introduces me to everyone (or re-introduces me to people I already knew from high school, apparently) and very few remember me, which is completely fine. (Okay I grew up here and went to school here and I swear I don't remember any of these people. Or stuff that everyone else remembers. I wonder, was I really THERE? I mean I hated high school, couldn't wait for it to be over, and was miserable during the whole ordeal. I didn't want to live in this town; I was planning my escape from the time I was about 9 years old. But you would think I could remember SOMETHING about high school.) How does he remember all this stuff?

I never thought I'd ever be living back here in Civilization on a semi- permanent basis but I am. And further more, I never thought I be dating a guy I went to high school with. I also never thought I'd be meeting people I went to high school with. Well, re-meeting.

Today I watched Back to the Future and just giggled all over again. I can just about recite the lines word for word through the entire film; I forgot about being able to do that. Just add it to the pile with of other forgotten memories.

And really, that the hell is a gigawatt, anyway?

Mags

5 comments:

Curley said...

My guess would be a whole lot of electricity? What gets me is the people from high school that back then would't give you the time of day and then you see them at a class reunion or somewhere and all of the sudden they "knew" you in high school.

Wiley said...

A billion watts. The gigawatt is the standard unit used to measure output from power stations and electricity is sold on the energy market in 'gigawatt hours'. I can go into this in waaaaay more detail, but you really don't want me to...

That aside, I think it's great you're rediscovering a whole bunch of 'forgotten' memories - memories keep us very young indeed :)

Evil Pixie said...

I am right there with you. I don't remember hardly anyone from high school, and I actually did high school well. In fact, I liked high school (well, at least my junior and senior years).

Maggie said...

Curley- hanging with ITSam I'm remeeting all sorts of people that I was right to forget in the first place!

Wiley- omg, you know this? I thought it was something made up for the movie... wow.

Evil P- Oh I did really well in school; I was a kick ass student, but I still HATED the process of high school and most of the people there. Ewwwwwww!

Wiley said...

I hesitate to admit that my first 'real' (ie, full time) job saw me negotiating power contracts. I had no idea what the hell I was doing, so I found a guy who knew all about the ins and outs of how power stations and transmission grids worked and I unashamedly stole his brain. It's amazing how often that information has come in handy since then. Or maybe I'm just a dork.

Scrap that, I know I'm a dork. A dork who likes to learn how stuff works.