Don't feel bad. I had to "google" the name as well...

An old college roommate sent me a link to an incredibly entertaining waste of time this afternoon, and, instead of putting together my new furniture, I spent about three hours playing on a particular website.

This website (primarily used for genealogical purposes), allows you to upload a photograph with someone's face in it. The computer program on the site then scans the face using facial recognition software and tries to match the face to famous people. Of course, this new toy caused me to pore through my digital photograph collection for ones with faces of friends or family.

I came to a startling realization as the computer program scanned a photograph with faces of both my brother and I. I often think that my brother got off lucky in the genetic lottery and I got stuck with a few too many of the bad genes. This clinched it.

The program matched both my brother and I to the closest famous people in terms of our respective facial structures. My brother apparently has a facial structure quite similar to Viggo Mortensen (of Lord of the Rings fame). When the computer popped up that name, I was quite impressed and the photo comparison of facial features was quite startling in how close the two of them actually looked.

As the computer scanned my face, I kept my fingers crossed. At last, the program gave me my match. Reader(s) (do I have any actually?), your beloved author resembles none other than Linus Torvalds. The photograph of Linus was a bit unflattering, and he looked a bit like an uber-nerd with a water-retention problem. Hoping to find a bit more about him, I looked the fellow up. Apparently, Mr. Torvalds is a Finnish computer scientist who invented the Linux operating system.

Unfortunately for 'yours truly,' he looks exactly how you might expect a Bill Gates from Finland to look.

I think I need to grow my beard back out to cover the fact that I have absolutely no jaw-line. Then we'll see whether I can move up a few notches. I may not be a 'Viggo,' but heaven help me if I can't improve from a 'Linus.'