Measure the clothes you own against your books. This is the vanity- intellect ratio.

A friend of mine was complaining that every disappearing bookstore in his city (Paris) is replaced by a clothes shop. When people advertise this ratio on their homepage, they make a statement against this. Also a kind of vanity in itself.

Personally I don't care much about bookstores, I buy books online and clothes in shops.
-- rrr, Nov 27 2003

Halfbakery t-shirt http://www.halfbake...Halfbakery t-shirt
http://www.halfbakery.com/editorial/merchandise.html [rrr, Oct 04 2004]

What measurement do you take in order to make the comparison? Volume, cost, number-of-fastenings vs number of pages? You could expand this and add other items into the count such as make-up, shoes, mirrors, hair-products etc on the vanity side, but it's less clear what (other than books) you could add to the intellect side? Classical Music CDs? The only obvious sign of huge intellect is of course, number of + votes on the HB so here's one more for you.
-- dobtabulous, Nov 27 2003


I have 1 meter 50 of clothes and 8 meters of books (crammed into two IKEA BILLY). So it's 1:5,33.

I guess my walk-in closet makes more volume of my clothes. A nerd who rakes his StarWars and LinuxWorld t- shirts on a pile with his other pair of jeans as a topping will have a more compact volume.

I wonder what a healthy books- clothes equilibrium would be... What is yours?
-- rrr, Nov 27 2003


Shouldn't it depend on what the books are? You could have a room filled with Enid Blyton or Mills and Boon books but I don't know if that would say anything about your intellect.
-- hazel, Nov 27 2003


Or computer manuals. I don't know about books by Blyton, Mills, Boon and so on. There are also people who collect all the editions of the Yellow Pages...
-- rrr, Nov 27 2003


Aye. I could own a single pair of crusty knickers with only a hint of elastic left to them and every MAD magazine since 1967 but you'd have me as a bloody genius.
-- phoenix, Nov 28 2003


...or a book where all the pages where mirrored or a t-shirt with some insightful text thereon would also upset the scales...
-- ed le mong, Nov 28 2003


I've got two pairs of wearable trousers, two sweatshirts than I can wear without looking like a tramp, and a collection of books that's probably killed a small forest.

So - if I'm supposedly so clever by this reckoning, how come I have such bad fashion sense?
-- lostdog, Nov 28 2003


We're going in the right direction with this idea, it's just more complex than books vs clothing.

Factor in videos vs books, hardcovers vs softcovers, and ratio clothes as coats:shoes:tshirts:buttonfronts.

Don't forget to count pieces of technology and antiques.

This would make for an interesting date-matching service....I'd like to know if she's got any books, before I buy her dinner.Does she read out loud on the first date? Now I'm excited.........
-- normzone, Nov 28 2003


//Does she read out loud on the first date? Now I'm excited//

So long as she isn't reading in bed on the first date. Any way you look at it, that would be wrong.

I'm thinking a minimum number of clothes must be achieved before the factoration can be considered appropriate... unless you live in a nudist area.
-- ye_river_xiv, Aug 24 2006


Does InStyle magazine count as a book?
-- jellydoughnut, Aug 25 2006



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