Wirld’s Mightiest Programmer competition demands brains and brawn

A strongman competition for computer programmers might sound a bit like the beginning of a hypothetical doomsday scenario, but terrifyingly enough, there are enough muscle-bound coders and IT professionals in the Wirld’s Mightiest Programmer (WiMP) competition this Saturday at Fireman’s Park in Middleton to convince us that the nerds have finally spliced their DNA with jocks to force their will on us all. To slow their inevitable dominance over the entire human race, we assessed the best Madison figures we could muster to determine who possessed enough nerd cred and physical prowess to save us from the super nerds (even though registration ended May 1).

Contender: Governor Scott Walker
Training regimen: One of the most controversial political figures in Wisconsin history stands at a bit of a disadvantage in a contest of muscular nerds. When it comes to languages, he’ll likely assume that C++ is a crack at his grade point average before dropping out of Marquette. Plus, a diet of several thousand ham and cheese sandwiches a year probably hasn’t done much to build up his muscle mass. But he shouldn’t be counted out completely—being the child of a Baptist preacher and a bookkeeper forged him into a Republican übermensch, a ruthless competitor whose few losses in the political arena mean he won’t accept losing in a contest to a pack of geeks.
Key event: Server Drag-And-Carry
Walker’s only experience with a server involved lifting one into the paper shredder before the Associated Press and the Isthmus could read the e-mails inside—that should make lifting and dragging a server fairly familiar for him. Besides, dragging 500 pounds of cement-filled electronics is nothing compared to dragging thousands of public employees kicking and screaming into Walker’s right-to-work Wisconsin.

Contender: Squarewave’s Jeff Jagielo
Training regimen: Jagielo’s indie rocker résumé in bands like Squarewave and Ivory Library belies his beginnings as a humble A.V. geek—he started out as an engineer at the dearly departed Smart Studios on East Washington Avenue. That should give him a big leg up in the nerd department, with the possible bonus of a physique bulked from years of hauling gear. He might even be able to get into a few of the competitors heads by hinting that he managed to obtain a master of a Nirvana demo session when the studio closed, inciting some music nerd jealousy that could throw them off their lifting game.
Key event: Monitor Toss
Assuming playing at the Frequency the Friday night before—as part of a CD release party for fellow studio nerd Brian Daly’s Sunshine For The Blind—won’t conflict with competing, the Monitor Toss should be Jagielo’s event to win. Combining equal parts rock ’n’ roll destruction and nerd rage, competing over who can chuck a monitor the furthest should be right up his alley.

Contender: Mayor Paul Soglin
Training regimen: It’s hard to dispute that Soglin is a tough dude. Listen while watching the PBS documentary Two Days In October and you might be able to hear the thwack of a billy club connecting with Soglin’s skull after he joined the protest of Dow Chemical on the UW campus in 1967. Fortunately, that beating didn’t dumb him down—he’s a double Badger with undergraduate and law degrees obtained between rallies. Unfortunately, his degrees also pre-date the Apple II. The fact that Soglin blogs hints that he’s made efforts to keep up with the digital times, but it seems doubtful that he’ll be dropping object-oriented knowledge on strongman programmers anytime soon.
Key event: Bit Flip
Soglin’s political maneuvering this year makes his ideal event the Bit Flip, an event that involves flipping between the “0” and “1” state of a 600-pound bit that looks suspiciously like a heavy-ass tire. Soglin flipped from political veteran to a fresh-faced newcomer with ease, and flipped his position on taming Madison’s party epidemic on Halloween and Mifflin in an instant. Flipping a giant tire is just another quick reversal.

Contender: Little Red Wolf’s Emily Mills
Training regimen: Somewhere in between rocking out with Little Red Wolf (as she will be this weekend’s at the WORT Block Party), writing a column for the Isthmus, and working with Rob Matsushita on the bloody Chapel web series, Mills found time to live-tweet nearly every newsworthy event during the union protests. She might not be able to read Java source code (or maybe she can, who knows), but it’s safe to say she knows her way around the social web, giving her bona fide nerd credentials. And anyone who questions her ability to deliver or receive a beating probably hasn’t seen her turn as a badass drug dealer in Chapel.
Key event: Event Log
This programmer-flavored log lift might be an imposing upper body workout, but assuming Mills kept up her Chapel prison weightlifting routine, she shouldn’t have a problem kicking ass. She’ll probably be tweeting her domination as it happens.