Terrible Analogies

Whelp, it’s Friday, and I’m all tapped out.  I got nuthin’ for ya.  I’m a shell of my normal self.  Bereft of thought, mentally void, and awash in a warm calming sea of indifference.  All I can think of as I stare slack-jawed and motionless in the center of a dark room staring into the soft glow of my laptop is that it’s finally Friday, and for me that means there’s just one more work day before I can enjoy my one day off this week.  Needy computers…

I’m just glad I don’t have this announcer’s job.  I don’t think I could be witty enough to come up with enough pop culture references to fill an entire season of hockey:

But if I ever did find myself either burnt out from my job, or just simply unemployed, I guess I could channel all of my energy into finally finishing my book, studying for a doctorate, or molding myself into a Tetris god (see how wicked-fast…and invisible…it gets at the end):

Of course, if the unthinkable does happen and I become a drain on society, unable to hold down meaningful employment between hits of Mountain Dew and Twinkies, I could always download a torrent of Final Cut Studio, drop a delicate balance of uppers and downers, and create something as wonderfully twisted as this:

Or I could just take a cue from my cat and chill under the covers all day, which seems more and more like the proper path to take:

Heh…I think she has the right idea…

Through a delicate, subtile combination of psychology and extreme violence, I’ve managed to wrangle the next five days off from work.  In my head I had planned out a few days of long trail runs and hill work in preparation for my attack on Mt. Whitney, but as luck would have it, it appears that one of those “storms of the century” type deals is going to start rolling into San Diego starting Friday evening, and I’m told it will linger around through at least Monday.  Great.

But at least I won’t be sitting in front of my laptop coding some abstract program, administrating Sharepoint or our Project 2007 environment, installing an iffy change control for a developer who can’t write a coherent sentence to save his life, or resurrecting a dying server that houses a database which contains the true name of God or some other business critical app.

But hey, I guess I should be grateful that I’m employed.  I mean, that’s what the news tells me, right?  In this current economy I should just acquiesce, fall on my knees, and grovel eastwards in reverence that a nameless corporation sees fit to take advantage of my talents, milking me for all I’m worth, draining me of my soul and slowly wringing out by carefully measured increments my will to live.  

And to think, I used to be such an upbeat guy…  ;-)

If it’s Friday, and you’re sipping coffee from a styrofoam cup in front of your corporate computer dreading what the day is about to wrought all over your shocked face, take comfort in the fact that I’ll be at Disneyland with the wife, eating a big stack of pancakes in the shape of Mickey Mouse, zipping down Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, and deftly maneuvering the claw machine at the Disney arcade in a desperate attempt to pluck a stuffed fish or teddy bear for the birthday girl Karin.  

Yes….her birthday does fall on Friday the 13th.  Heap that fact on the teetering pile of innumerable reasons why I love her.  Heh…

Wherever I go I always carry around my Canon PowerShot SD770 “blackeye”.  It’s impossible to know exactly when a camera will come in handy.  Fed up with the quality of my cell phone pictures my wonderful wife surprised me with this amazing tiny camera for Christmas.  It’s subtle and far more convenient than lugging around my Nikon D200 everywhere I go.

Here is a quick overview of four pictures taken within the space of ten hours today:

Arriving at work the first thing I typically do is consume some sort of energy drink.  Today I overdid it and slammed down not just a Mana energy drink but also one of their newly released health drinks and a Monster.  Lemme tell ya, if you think it’s easy to code sober try it while woozy, shaking, and sweating from an overdose of chemicals spelled with more than 15 characters and six syllables, containing nearly 7000% the daily recommended dose of B12 , and 160 milligrams of caffeine.  Better living through chemistry…

For lunch I went to the gym, then made a quick run to the mall to pick up a tuna sandwich.  Killing a few minutes I stepped into a store where I saw this sad display of Brett Favre “action figures”.  Evidently they’re unable to unload this particular item, even with a 40% discount.  It appears that Favre’s star had fallen so hard that even Warren Moon is easily outselling the Favre figures.  QQ…

On my drive home I happened to fall in line at the metered freeway light behind this particular vehicle whose license plate was just too cool not to photograph.

Winding down for the day I managed to catch this condescending commercial that takes place in the front yard of a middle-class suburban home.  The man of the house has apparently wandered outside with a cereal box gingerly tucked in the crook of his arm, holding a bowl of said cereal floating gingerly in a pool of perfectly chilled milk, his other hand lovingly scooping with a spoon mounds of fiber goodness into his open, quivering, expectant mouth.  Meanwhile, what I can only assume is a friendly (if not over-exuberant) neighbor who, wearing a particularly distracting sweater vest and speaking in a thick Indian accent, explains in painfully detailed prose the health benefits of the cereal his now glassy-eyed neighbor with the 1000-yard stare is serenely consuming.

Outside.  In his bathrobe.  While a woman, who I can only assume is his wife, stares disdainfully at him.

In what reality does this occur, and why am I having such a difficult time wrapping my brain around these visuals?  Is it just me?