I realized something new about myself recently.

"What's that, Mike?"

My brain is completely uninterested in song lyrics. It pays no attention to them and dedicates zero space to storing them. It could not give any less of a crap.

There are many songs that I can sing along to, but if you take away the melody, I'm completely unable to recall the words. It's as though my ears have hidden the lyrics to the song in some place that's unavailable to my brain, like maybe my nuts, and whenever the song plays, my mouth retrieves the lyrics (yes, from my nuts) and sings along. The brain is both surprised and unimpressed.

It's like the words are just another musical instrument with no meaningful value of their own. Consequently, I don't believe I can tell you the meaning of a single song I've ever heard. Ok, maybe "Happy Birthday". I'm pretty sure that I've managed to absorb the wisdom in that ditty. There are probably a handful of others, but they would be the exception by far.

What's "Jailhouse Rock" about? People in jail rocking out?

How about "Stairway to Heaven"? Man, no clue. Something about a stairway though. To heaven, I think.

Admittedly, my analysis of those two songs was aided by astute readings of their titles. Otherwise, I'd be totally lost without actually finding the lyrics and studying them.

The other day I printed out the lyrics to "Ana Ng" by They Might Be Giants for my daughter. I perused them and they were completely unfamiliar to me even though I've heard that song well over a hundred times in the last decade. It was bizarre reading the words, as though I had discovered some secret and surprising aspect to the song that had been hidden all along. It was surprising like finding out that my car can make sculpture, or that a book could dance the lambada (assuming it weren't forbidden). It makes me say, "Really? Damn. That's nifty," and then I move on and that's that. I'll probably forget those lyrics until the next time I hear the song, and my mouth kicks in, with only my ears and nuts to thank.

Is it just me?

Two Moments In Parenting

1) My wife took a cool picture of our daughter in the bathtub. Daisy was lying almost entirely submerged in the tub, with her hair floating and flowing around her head. It was all arty and crap. We showed the picture to a friend.

"Oh, Daisy, you look like a mermaid!" our friend exclaimed, "Are you going to grow up to be a mermaid?"

Daisy rolled her eyes back into her head. They may have done a loop or flip. "No! Could a kitten grow up to be a kangeroo?

BAM! In your face, friend! You've been out-logic'ed by our six year-old daughter. I'm so proud of Daisy for constructing an argument by taking a premise to its absurd conclusion. Just like her old man! She'll stymie her enemies and frustrate her friends. My heart swelled with pride.

2) The wife was reading bedtime stories to our daughter the other night. I came in to say goodnight, then closed her bedroom door on my way out. I started down the stairs in my socks and suddenly slipped. I landed hard on my butt and my elbow and slid down a few steps. It made an awful racket.

My wife called out from the bedroom, "Is everything ok?"

"Don't mind me," I replied, sheepishly collecting myself.

My daughter then busted up.

“Oh, mommy! This is going to be SO hilarious! Daddy is going to keep making that noise, and then keep saying, 'Don't mind me! Don't mind me!'"

My only hope is that my eventual demise will be suitably slapsticky to elicit some hearty guffaws from my daughter.

Thanksgiving really could be much much worse. Between spending an entire day with family, and an unappealing menu, it has all the makings of a torturous day. Let's score the holiday to see how it does:

Entertainment: Normally Thanksgiving rates very poorly in this category. We've all exchanged our family-safe stories a hundred times before, so there's not much new ground to cover. How many times can we hear my mother tell about the time I choked on a piece of banana? (My mother then held me upside down and shook me. Presumably this predates common knowledge of the Heimlich maneuver.) Daisy, however, had a great time with her cousins. Also, this year a family friend dropped by and she brought her genius 12 year-old son along. He entertained us with a fairly impressive yoyo demonstration. He practices 4 hours a day when he's not doing taking courses at the local college, so the boy has some mad skills. He also had some good yoyo-patter down. Any master yoyo-ist will tell you that a top performance has to include good yoyo patter. SCORE: B-

Deliciousness: Ugh. The Thanksgiving menu is virtually without merit. It's filled with dry meat (eww), orange vegetables (eww), sweet entrees (eww) and other bland mushy substances (eww). Stuffing is yummy, but that's the sole saving grace. Had the pilgrims never heard of Kung Pao chicken? Would it have killed the native Americans to share their recipe for chocolate mousse cake? I heard that the turkey almost became our national bird. That would have been awesome, saving many millions of people from choking out a forced, "Moist!" I'll bet bald eagle is delicious with gravy. SCORE: F+

Presents: None! SCORE: A+

Effort: Thanksgiving is a HUGE amount of cooking and cleaning effort. America spends 3 times the amount of time on Thanksgiving each year than they have on the entire Iraq war. The icing on the cake (oh that there were cake) is that Thanksgiving is only marginally more successful. I made up that statistic, but the score stands. SCORE: F-

And that's what I'm thankful for.

I spent some time the last couple days writing a post about religion. I tried to make insightful comments about raising a child in a religion-free home, but after some contemplation (and feedback), I've determined that everything I have to say on the matter is either trite or offensive. Normally that combination of attributes means that I've hit the I Am Prepared to Give Up at Any Time sweet spot, but I just don't have it in me this week. Instead, this week, in honor of Thanksgiving, I'm going for smarmy rather than trite and offensive.

So, Happy Thanksgiving, all. Make sure your turkey isn't infested with avian flu. That's holiday buzzkill for sure.

Which type of blog post is more cliche, the ones that are a mere list of weekend activities, loosely tied together with a thread-thin, self-deprecating theme, or the ones where the "writer" adopts a curmudgeonly tone, expressing disdain for all? Christ, I hate them both.

My wife recently ordered a bunch of new games for us to play with the kid. She got Clue, Battleship, Stratego, and some new-fangled game called Blokus. The Blokus box is covered with "Mensa" and "Best Game To Make Up For Lackluster Parenting 2005!" stickers and crap like that. Our daughter, Daisy, has no interest in playing it, but we're pretty sure that its mere presence makes her smarter.

I have fond memories of all the other games from my childhood. I didn't own any of them, so I only played them at friends' houses, and consequently never got sick of them. Stratego was my favorite and I was pleased to have the opportunity to play it with my daughter this weekend.

I am proud to report that I CRUSHED her! She plays like a freakin' six year-old! I've left behind the days when I used to let her win games half the time. Maybe a better parent would manage their child's self esteem more carefully, but it's not like I'm getting paid for parenting.

Speaking of bad parenting, earlier today I looked out front and saw the rope swing that some neighborhood kids had tied to our tree. There's no tire or seat at the bottom, just a noose-like loop for your foot. Laying next to the noose was my daughter's pogo-stick. I guess if I had covered the ground in rusty knives and gasoline and lit the whole are on fire, then it would have been more dangerous. Trial and error, my friends.

Come to think of it, the whole weekend was an exercise in crappy parenting (ok, fathering). Yesterday at the pizza party for my daughter's soccer team, I ordered her a dairy-free pizza (due to her dairy allergies). It had goat cheese instead of mozzarella, and since she's not crazy about tomato sauce, I asked for pesto. I slapped it down in front of Daisy and wandered off to hang with the wife.

"Hey, they've got good Daisy-friendly pizza options here. I got one with goat cheese and pesto," I proudly bragged.

"I already pre-ordered her a pizza. And, she can't have pesto. That has dairy in it." my wife patiently explained.

My wife was unaware that Daisy was currently eating the pizza, so I smiled and slowly backed out of view. Once I had rounded the corner, I rushed over to Daisy's table to find her grimacing and furiously rubbing her lips.

"Daddy! My mouth itches! REALLY BAD!!"

I plucked the pizza from her hands and explained that I had screwed up and given her food that she was allergic to. When she gasped at my stupidity I saw that her bottom lip had swelled up to huge proportions.

"Daddy! IT ITCHES!!"

I had never seen dairy make her swell up before. Usually she just gets a rash. I found the cheeseless pizza my wife had ordered, and thrust this at Daisy. I then went back outside, to explain to my wife what was going on. She took the information in stride, examined Daisy, and then went off to a drugstore to buy some Benadryl. That seemed to help.

Today Daisy is at a friend's house and is safe from my parenting. Thank goodness. I took the time to go prune the weeds. It's similar to mowing the lawn, but you only have to do it a couple times a year.

I did something weird today.

At lunch, I went... uh...jeez, what's the word? Crap, it's the opposite for staying in the house all day long, for days at a time. Hang on, googling... (See, Sergey and Larry? More plugs like that if only you'll hire me.)

Outside! That's it! At lunch I went outside. I was totally nonchalant about it too. I completely fooled all those people pretending not to notice me. They were all thinking, "Hey, look at that cool guy! Totally nonchalant! Hardly atrophied either!"

I was pretty slick, not at all frightened by the giant glowing ball of fire in the sky. What is that thing anyway? It made me kind of sweaty. I stared at it for a good long time.

The moral of the story is: Don't be afraid to spend 3 consecutive days inside, despite perfect health and rare glorious November San Francisco weather.

I'm inspired now. If Steve Genard's mom can find this blog out of the 1.0 × 10¹⁰⁰ pages on the web, then maybe other important people from my life can find it too.

1) Mimi. I don't remember your last name, sorry, but I'm pretty sure you were born around 1970 and you briefly dated a guy named Mike (me!) in the beginning of your freshman year of high school. This was shortly before you dated a guy named Kevin (coincidentally, Mike's best friend). I just want you to know why I was such a crappy kisser. You were the first girl I ever kissed on the lips! Anyway, you totally screwed up because I'm a complete hunk now, just ripped with muscles up and down my...uh...muscley bod. Also, I'm totally not a computer programmer. Very muscley. Hah!

2) Hey there Angelina Jolie! Hi! I want you to know that this marriage thing I have with Hank is not serious at all. Angelina Jolie-Ogblay! Email me! :) :) :) :) <3 <3 <3 <3 !!!!!!

3) George Walker Bush. What is wrong with you? You're all uptight about things that shouldn't bother you (e.g. Gay Marriage) and completely unconcerned about other major issues (e.g. that teeny weeny deficit of ours). Did the Silver Fox drop you on your head as a baby? No offense.

4) Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Hire me! I have a lot of very good ideas about computer things (Mimi, I'm kidding. I don't do computers (Larry and Sergey, ignore that!)). Also, I will totally give your company a plug on my blog if you hire me.

Ok, Angelina, Mimi, George, Larry, and Sergey! I've done my part here. Meet me half way!

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In all seriousness, have you ever wondered if you're real? Have you ever had a moment when you were truly honest with yourself and wondered if you were merely a figment of someone else's imagination?

Me either.

My six year old daughter, however, is very concerned by it. She's worried that she's just a picture or a movie or an image created by another person. She's been asking how she can know she's real and not just a picture drawn by someone else.

Um... Apparently I did not pay enough attention during Lamaze classes because I am totally unprepared for these questions. I remember birthing videos, and putting diapers on a dolly, and instructions to not shake the baby. I have no recollection of the lesson on Raising Your Postmodern Child.

Thankfully these questions have all been lobbed at my wife, who is probably better equipped to handle philosophical crises than I am. I'm more adept at handling the type of crisis where the solution is inscrutable logic, or a fistful of chocolate, or maybe a fart joke. We all play to our strengths in this family.

My daughter voiced these concerns after several days of complaining that she felt something was missing from her life.

I know what's missing from your life, babe. BEING A SIX YEAR OLD! That's what's missing. No fair having existential angst at six. Save that crap for college or at least your sullen teenage years. When we baby-proofed the house we put the cleaning fluids and the knives out of reach, but apparently we left the Sartre within easy grasp. (Note: I've never read Sartre. Does my reference work?)

My wife asked her what would make her feel more real. My daughter suggested that cleaning the earth would be satisfying. Or maybe playing with friends.

Those aren't bad answers. I would have been slightly more relieved if she had merely asked for some candy or maybe extra TV time, but I can settle for "playing with friends". Additionally, if she does really clean the earth, that's a bonus for us all.

She's a good kid.

Today has been a pretty low-key day, which is a nice change for a Sunday. Right now I've got blogging and a beer. Not bad! My weekends usually tend to get filled up with errands, chores, social engagements, and those damn runs.

Yesterday, for example, I went a on good 90 minute run with my running club. I spent most of those minutes jogging with the coach and another guy. So, there we were, 3 men from in their late 30's, living in cultured and cosmopolitan San Francisco, running together for over an hour. What did we discuss? Schwarzenegger's latest political follies? Theater? Using exercise as part of a holistic life?

Nope. Vaginas. We pretty much just discussed vaginas. I'm trying really hard to develop my "jock" persona (to go with the "itch"), so it's important to get down some good vagina patter. I don't want to give away any jock secrets, but I can tell you that rule #1 is to never use the word "vagina".

Afterwards I went to go watch my daughter's soccer team. The games are pretty low-key and often hilarious. I have, however, noticed a bit of improvement in Daisy's game.

In general, she shies away from the ball. If no one else is near it, she'll give it a tentative kick, but there's no follow-through. The concept of dribbling down the field is only mastered by a few kids on the field.

Last week, one kid accidentally booted the ball straight into some girl's face. She stopped, stunned for a second, and then began to bawl. Action on the field ceased and the referee ran over to see if she was ok (she was). My daughter, however, was oblivious to this development and merely saw the ball lying on the grass by itself. She ran over and began DRIBBLING THE BALL DOWNFIELD. She dribbled all the way near to the opposing goal and gave the ball a good boot right at the goalie. No goal was scored, but Daisy was ecstatic and inspired by her trip downfield. All the parents on the sidelines were howling with laughter at the timing of Daisy's boldness.

Since that moment, in the last week, she has found other opportunities to try and dribble down field. No goals yet, but it's been fun to watch her develop a wee bit of skill. Maybe, one day, a goalie will get injured and Daisy will get her chance to score.

The final festivity of the day was taking Daisy to a birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. Have you ever tried to order a pizza for someone who is allergic to cheese at a place with "cheese" in the title? It ain't easy. Our first attempt came with EXTRA cheese on it The second attempt was technically more successful, but you can't really declare "success" when the result is a miserable platter of dough, dotted with bland tomato sauce and meager toppings. Even Daisy could recognize it as a crappy meal. Nothing that an hour of mindless skeeball couldn't fix, mind you.

Meanwhile I made smalltalk with the birthday girl's parents. This is always awkard for me because I don't want to offend my daughter's friend's parents, yet many people find me quite offensive. So, I'm tasked with the challenging goal of making interesting smalltalk while simultaneously castrating all interesting parts of my personality. I mostly just asked a lot of questions.

Well, my beer is about empty. Outty.

One of the charming byproducts of having 80 smallish wounds on your body is that they all scab up and get itchy at the same time. Oh, what a marvelous slice of heaven this is.

I'm no stranger to itchy though. I've documented my love-hate relationship with itchy before. So, really, 80 itchy scabs can be viewed as 80 scratching opportunities. The scab is half-full, grasshopper! I can scratch my left hand or my right hand (front or back!), my right arm, my right leg, and my new personal favorite: my right ass cheek. I think less of evolution and more of intelligent design each time I scratch that baby.

If you scratch a scab a teeny bit often enough, a funny thing happens. It starts to loosen up a scooch. Soon, you've got a scab with one corner peeking up. Really, it's not so much peeking as calling out to me. "Mike!" it pesters, "Yooo hooooooooooo, Mikey!"

"Shhhhh!" I admonish, "I'm busy scratching right ass cheek."

"Pick at me!" it demands satanically.

I am powerless to resist. So, I pick at the arm scab, and the hand scab, and the knee scab, and the shin scab, and plenty of their demonic little friends, and it is deeply satisfying. I'm awash in raw pink skin, punctuated by little bits of less demanding scablets. I am, in a word, pretty.

My wife, for reasons that are undiscernable, finds this joyous activity of mine to be...man, what is word I'm looking for. Let me ask her right now.....

"Disgusting"

Thanks, Hank!

Anyway, I'm cool with that. We don't have to share all our activities. I'm not into beading or volunteering at my daughter's school. Similarly, I would not demand she pick at her scabs, and I certainly have no desire for her to pick at my scabs. They're all mine, baby!

It's been an uninspiring week, blog-wise.

Work has been soul-sucking, although not amusingly so. I haven't attended any parties where I was the only person in costume. Nor have I traveled to semi-far-away lands to eagerly squander my daughter's college fund on blackjack. Just a humdrum week without even any offkey humming or white-boy rhythm drumming.

Where are my amusing anecdotes? Maybe you can help me find them. Here's a breakdown of a typical day for me:

6:40am - Wake up, stagger to computer to check email and blog stats. Despair that I'm not a blogging superstar.

Funny? No. Depressing? Screw you.

6:50am - 7:40am : Coax daughter into school readiness. Make and eat breakfast. make coffee.

Funny? Not yet. Mind-numbing, perhaps.

7:40am - 7:45am : Befoul crapper.

Totally the most amusing thing so far. Humor points for bowel regularity. Bonus points for when I plug up the toilet.

7:45am - 8:00ish : Read various web things while easing into workday.

Shhh!

8:00ish - noon : Work!

No humor here. Just relentless productivity punctuated by Instant Messages about who the biggest bitch is, me or my coworkers (them!).

Noon - 1:00ish : Lunchtime! Maybe go exercise. Maybe blog. Cram some food into the ol' cry-hole for sure.

The word "cryhole" is mildly amusing, but lunch itself is devoid of humor unless I'm eating something spoiled.

1:00ish to 5:30ish : Work!

No humor here. Just machine-like efficiency. And the porn hour.

5:30pm - 7:45pm : Dinner, kitchen clean-up, tormenting the child.

Not as funny as it sounds. I mean, it's impressive that I can exasperate my six year-old by making the same jokes over and over, but it's not really a blog post. Ok, maybe ONE blog post.

7:45pm - 8:00pm : Get kid ready for bed.

This is really just a bunch of unhilarious nagging.

8:00pm - 9:00pm : Work or blog or make online Scrabble moves or sumpin computery.

Truly a laugh riot. Maybe I'll blog about the hilarious scrabble moves I can make with the Q. Or, maybe not.

9:00pm - 10:00ish: Hang with the wife. Probably watch some teeeeveeee.

Oh, that reminds me. Arrested Development just got canceled. People are dumb.

10:00ish: Go to bed. Read, etc.

Not funny.

That's it! See? Where's the funny? I guess there's a blog post about my schedule-adhering bowels in there. And maybe one about how I like repetitious jokes even more than a small child. That's about it though.

I need a blog muse. Or maybe I suck it up and blog with the jokes I have and not the jokes I want.

Amidst minimal fanfare, and a spirited discussion, the Great Media Swap has dribbled to an end.

About four weeks ago I switched news sources with a conservative coworker of mine. I stopped reading the San Francisco Chronicle, the New York Times, CNN, and Salon. I also stopped listening to NPR. Instead, I got my news from his sources, which were Yahoo News and KSFO, a local talk radio station that features Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.

The goal of the Swap was to see if a month-long immersion in news from the "other" side would help us gain a less partisan view. Today, for no good reason, we unceremoniously ended the experiment.

So, what did I learn? I learned this:

1) My coworker, Bubba, needs more news sources. Talk radio, of any political persuasion, is a crappy source of news

2) It's really hard to get unbiased news. I got conservative perspective on the Valerie Plame issue that I would not have received from my usual sources. It was interesting hearing how KSFO folks talked about the prosecutor, Fitzgerald. They painted the same rabid-dog picture that my liberal sources used to paint about Ken Starr. A person would have to be very vigilant and dedicate a lot of time to try and get a full view of political issues.

3) Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity are asses. For every good point they make, they spend an hour launching mean-spirited attacks against "those liberals". Any perceived confirmation of their viewpoint is accompanied by pompous chest-beating and endless self-congratulations. Nice work, boys.

4) Despite myself, I seem to have come out of this with a greater distaste for Clinton. Hearing these guys hammer on him day after day (and I'd be very surprised if an hour of their shows went by without a mention of Clinton) seems to have made an impact on me. We should be able to do better than Clinton. (We haven't with Bush, mind you, but we should be able to.)

Bubba urged me to express any insights I had gained into the conservative mind. That was a more challenging task. I don't know that my week with Rush, Hannity, and Dr. Laura really taught me anything about conservatism at large, but I did my best to express my opinion of it.

I said that on the majority of issues (e.g. fiscal, gun control, welfare, immigration, etc), the unifying theme seemed to be one of self-responsibility. It's an I'll-take-care-of-myself viewpoint taken to it's logical (or absurd) conclusion which means that I surely won't be responsible for you. On the rest of the issues (e.g. abortion, gay marriage, etc), the conservative viewpoint seems to be based on religion.

Bubba liked the first part of my theory, but objected to the latter. This brought us to his new theory on liberalism vs conservatism.

Let me preface this by saying that Bubba is one of the smarter and more-grounded people that I know. Aside from his flirtations with conspiracy theories, he makes a lot of sense. Now then, sit down.

Bubba is working on the theory, thanks in part to our media swap, that the battle between liberalism and conservatism is directly related to the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

Yeah, that's where he lost me too.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics mostly speaks to the tendency of the universe to move towards randomness (entropy). Without us expending energy to organize something, it will tend to become disordered. That's not a very technical description, but it will do.

Bubba argues that conservatism is an effort to fight entropy and create order. Liberalism, however, is apparently an oh-molecules-will-be-molecules approach and moves us towards disorder. We got into a pretty heated debate about whether gay marriage increases or decreases randomness in the universe before we shelved the discussion to do actual work.

I'm going to need to do some drugs before I can comment coherently on this, but I'm inclined to think that you can't fight Mother Nature.

On a final note, where did all the funny go? Who the hell came here for simplistic and incomprehensible political discussion? Not you.

Here's where the funny went. And here.

There's a local group that puts on sadistic trail runs once a month. The group consists of a married couple who are ga-ga for ultra-marathoning, which is the technical running term for idiocy. They plan these events, seemingly, by looking for the biggest hills and mountains around, and then designing a course that runs up and down the hills with no apparent regard for moderation or sanity.

There are a slew of reasons why I should not participate in these events:

1) Hard. Me no like hard.

2) Treacherous. I am a very clumsy man and should not be running on trails. They're pokey.

3) Confusing. I have no sense of direction and get lost frequently on trail runs.

Often when I go on trail runs with friends, they remark about the beautiful views or the sunlight filtering through the blah blah blah. I never see any of that. My attention is always focused about five feet in front of me, ensuring that I trip over as few rocks and roots as possible. You could line the trail with candy, naked breasts, and iPod Nanos, and I wouldn't notice.

Anyway, I threw caution and common sense to the wind, and ran one of these damn runs this weekend. As usual, the event offered races of various lengths: 8 km, 20km, 30km, and 50km. I chose the 20km flavor because I'm not confident enough in my masculinity to choose the wussiest option. The elevation chart for the run looked like this:

The first 2.5 km were brutal, climbing steadily and steeply. The experience was made even less pleasant by the knowledge that the next hill was nearly as high. I struggled up the hill, walking when the trail turned to staircase, and eventually made it to the top. The way up is always exhausting, but the way down is always dangerous for me.

Sure enough, at around the 5km mark, I was cruising downhill, when I tripped over some tiny little hazard. It was probably a pebble, or maybe an ant. BLAM! I flew forward, landing mostly on my palms, skidding to a stop on the dirt and gravel trail. I got up after a few stunned seconds, verified that nothing was broken, and kept on running. By the time I got to the aid station near the 6km mark, I was fairly bloody.

(In fact, I just now counted the number of scrapes on my body. It's well over 80. Only two of them were deep enough to really get oozy and gross during the last couple days of healing, but they're all scratchy and annoying. Impressively, I managed to scratch up both the front and back of my right hand. I guess I flipped it over, mid-skid, for maximum coverage.)

At the aid station I realized that turning around and walking back to the start wouldn't be any faster than continuing the run, so after daintily dabbing at my wounds, I launched up the next hill. Although I managed to stay upright during this portion of the race, I did get fairly lost. One of the trail markers had disappeared and a bunch of us ran aimlessly back and forth for a while until someone spotted the right path. I was annoyed that I had gotten lost, but at least I wasn't alone.

The rest of the run was fairly uneventful, but long. It was with great relief when I rounded one of the final turns and saw the finish line on the other side of a beach, about half a mile away. It wasn't until I came to a near standstill while trying to run through the sand that I realized the full extent of the run's organizer's sadism. So rude! Sand running sucks.

I did, however, manage to finish, and astonishingly I came in 2nd place. This isn't terribly impressive when you take into account that less than 30 people ran the race, but still.

The true pain of the day came into focus when I got home and stepped into the shower. I let loose with a manly torrent of squeals, grunts, squeals, moans, and tears. Those 80 cuts? They don't like hot water. I spent a loooooong time in there, trying to scrub out the gravel and dirt that had dug itself under my skin. Owies suck.

That evening I went to the grocery store to buy the biggest band-aids I could find. I filled my basket with gauze pads, tape, neosporin, and band-aids. The guy in front of me at the checkout counter had a six-pack of beer, and two bottles of wine in his. It wasn't hard to imagine who was going to have the more fun evening.

My wounds are starting to heal, but they're getting itchy. I always knew I'd end up itchy palms, but I never thought this would be why.

I just came back from our semi-annual coworker trip to Reno. I learned a little something.

I learned that if you start drinking booze in the middle of the afternoon and you keep that up for 9 straight hours, you will feel like a big pile of crap the next day.

Knowledge is power, my friends.

We always drink a lot during these trips, but it usually takes quite a while to get drunk at the blackjack tables. Between the small size of the glasses, the watered-down nature of the drinks, and the erratic refills by the cocktail waitresses, the alcohol enters your system in a fairly restrained and measured fashion. On our last trip, however, some fellow gambler scoffed at our tiny drinks and told us the secret casino booze code word. That word is "bucket". Or maybe "barrel". My recollection is a bit hazy for mysterious reasons.

This time around we decided to try it out. One of my coworkers bravely ordered "a bucket of something fun! Or a barrel of it!". "Me too!" I quickly chimed in.

Sure enough, when the cocktail waitress came back with our drinks, they were served in manly-sized vessels instead of the usual itty-bitty glasses. They weren't actual buckets or barrels, but it was a generous helping of hooch.

Nine hours drinking buckets of booze. That's healthy living, folks.

I've been working with the same group of guys for more than 5 years. It's a pretty good group, both socially and productivity-wise. I've known one of them as a friend and colleague for more than 15 years (since college). Today, that little bastard resigned to find greener corporate pastures.

But this blog post isn't about him, the little bastard. It's about me. His resignation from our company made me think about my career. I've realized that if I needed to find a new job, I'd be pretty screwed. I've been doing software for about 15 years, and exclusively Java for the last 4 or so. Technically speaking, this means that I'm a one-trick pony, and it's not the sort of trick that leaves you satisfied or craving a cigarette. Unfortunately, it is the sort of trick that you can get a guy to India to do for about 1/10th my salary, if that floats your boat.

So that left me wondering if there are any other career choices for me that don't involve programming a computer. I mean, I'm a smart guy with a college degree. I can communicate reasonably well. I should be employable, right?

I'm not sure what this mythical job would be, but if I were to pursue a non-programming career, I'd need some sort of resume. I haven't written one of those in over a decade. Allow me to take a crack at it here:

Mike xxxxxxxxx
San Francisco, CA
(415) 555-3825
ogblayay atay gmailay dotay comay

Objective: To obtain a job NOT programming a computer, preferably one where I can work from home. Must earn unwarranted salary.

Education: Degree in Electrical Engineering. Unused! Still in original packaging. Like new (sort of). Spacious!!!

Experience: Mostly irrelevant to my current goal of obtaining a job NOT programming a computer.

• 1983 - Wendy's: Made square burgers.
  
  
• 1984 - 1990 : Various: blah blah blah
  
  
• 1991 - present: Various: Programmed computers

Skills

• Resume writing
• Scrabble
• Making with the smarminess
• Programming computers

After my bar mitzvah, I added up all the checks and cash I was given and it came to about $1200. That was a crapload of money for a boy in the early 1980's who generally spent his allowance on candy. My parents cautiously suggested that I had earned the money and I could decide what to do with it.

Me: I want an Atari!

The Atari 2600 was the video game system to have. One of my friends had one and we had wasted countless precious hours playing Combat, Space Invaders, Pitfall, and a handful of other treasures.

Dad: Video games? Can't you think of something better?
Me: Nope.
Dad: That's a shame. This is a lot of money. I think you should pick something more substantive.
Me: I want an Atari!
Dad: How about a computer? You can play games on a computer. And do lots of other things!
Me: Really? A com-pu-ter?
Dad: Yes. I think that would be a smart choice.
Me: You're sure they have games?
Dad: Of course!

And so, 25 years ago, I bought an Apple II+ for about $1200. It had 16K of memory, no hard drive or disk drive of any kind, and no ability to process complex things like lowercase letters. We hooked it up to a 13" black and white TV and it was my computer. It came with one game, which was a single-player version of Pong called Little Brickout.

With no disk drive and no modem, there was really no way to get more games onto the thing. We hooked up a cassette tape player from Sears up to it, but by then tape-based games were nearly unavailable. I was stuck and only then did the genius of my father's plan come into focus.

If I wanted more games I was forced to program them myself.

So, I started with Tic Tac Toe, and eventually I built my own version of space invaders. I ended up learning almost everything there was to know about the Apple II+. It was a fine machine. Little did I know that it would be the last computer I'd buy from Apple for over 25 years.

Until earlier this month.

For the last few days I've been doing much of my computing on this darling little Mac Mini. It's shiny and pretty on the outside (physically and operating systemly) and rock solid on the inside (operating systemly at the very least). And, we bought it by accident.

I have been ogling Macs for about as long as OSX has been out. I kept saying that my next computer would be a Mac, but I was unable to convince myself that I actually needed a new computer. But then, my wife was purchasing a computer for her sister a couple weeks ago. Mysteriously, 2 boxes from Apple arrived. They both contained identical Mac Minis. It was a sign from the computer gods. This was miraculous like Hanukkah. Although we had thought we were only purchasing enough computing for one person, miraculously, it was going to be enough for TWO people.

I wasn't sure if I'd keep the extra computer until it became obvious that it was meant to be. I asked my friend Jay, who is a longtime Mac owner, if I'd be able to find a good VI emulator that I could download somewhere for the Mac (apologies for the total geek-out here). Jay stared at me as you'd stare at someone who had just asked where to find their own asshole.

"Mike, it's Unix!"

Right. Me dumb. (Again, apologies for the geek factor in this post.)

Anyway, I'm not 100% sold yet, but it does seem pretty slick (and shiny!). Widgets soar across my screen, and icons leap into view at the merest suggestion. And, as the little girl in Jurassic Park once famously said, "This is a Unix system! I know this!". Now, if I could only enable the flying simulator browser...