Friday, April 14, 2006

Friday Fragments

Because bullets and stream of consciousness make everything better

  • No one is at work this morning. Not even the clowns that wake up earlier than I do and roll in at 5:00 or 5:30. I guess that's what makes it a good Friday.

  • According to MONEY magazine, I have the #1 job in America: Software Engineer . The article does a good job of outlining the pros and cons of being one, although I'd argue that software engineering doesn't necessarily cause eyestrain and back, hand and wrist problems -- the type of person that makes a good software engineer is probably going to be spending hours at his computer getting carpal tunnel every day regardless, so they might as well get paid for it. If I were to grade my own job (at a small company), I'd give it an A- for stress, an A for flexibility, and a B for creativity. I can't judge "ease of entry" because I've been working here for so long that they probably have my baby shoes on file in HR.

  • Looking at the other nine jobs in the top ten list, there really aren't any that I'd rather be. Far too many of them involving constant, forced interaction with other people which I would probably hate very quickly. It might be fun, though, to be a psychologist for a month and just make up advice about my patients' mothers. It's always your mother's fault. Your face is your mother's fault too.

  • I would also get a kick out of being a criminal psychologist, the kind that works for the FBI and generates profiles of serial killers and the like, because I'm fascinated by how messed up people can get and what made them that way. I just finished reading In Cold Blood which was interesting enough if a little long-winded. I probably wouldn't have been as intrigued by it had I not seen the movie, Capote.

  • The reason I couldn't be a criminal profiler is that I probably wouldn't do well with all the gory, gruesome parts. I could take the cases that have not yet devolved into gore -- like tracking down a fourteen-year-old who's tearing the heads off all the Peeps in CVS before he ups the ante to live chickens. Or maybe the juvenile delinquent who ritually defaces all the boxes of Captain Crunch (he's a cereal killer, you see!)

  • I never understood the draw of Captain Crunch. It didn't taste that great, and if you left it in the milk for too long it became an unappetizing Admiral Flaccid. If I'm going to eat a cereal that's going to slice up the inside of my mouth, I'd rather just eat a box of Cookie Crisp and call it a day.

  • Best cereals from my youth (in no particular order): Fruity Pebbles, Honey Nut Cheerios, Corn Chex, Sugar sprinkled with Rice Krispies. Worst cereals from my youth: Any foul concoction purported to be Cocoa-flavoured or with a Monster on the front, or both, Fruit Loops, Nintendo Cereal.

  • Yes, I actually had Nintendo cereal, because you could cut out the Proofs of Purchase and send them in for some useless knick-knack. I also had a subscription to Nintendo Power magazine, a fifty page monthly advertisement for really bad video games hiding under the guise of a strategy guide. I should have learned my lesson when Howard Phillips gave Milon's Secret Castle two thumbs up.

  • I beat Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time for the Gameboy DS this week. It wasn't particularly difficult, but was entertaining and laugh-provoking throughout. This game is proof positive that Mario doesn't have to be in a 3D world and constantly fall off moving ledges to be entertaining. My Nintendog, Tuba, just learned how to sit. I still have my eye on the DS Lite (due out in May or June) just because it's so sleek and sophisticated looking. It has a ridiculously bright screen too. You could probably use it for illumination if you ended up with a flat tire in the middle of the Arizona desert during a new moon and didn't have a flashlight. Plus, it's tiny.

  • I recently saw an iPod Nano up close -- those things are crazy-tiny. I'd be afraid that I'd break it if I ever owned one. I'll never own an MP3 player because between my computers and my XM Radio, I'm very rarely in a location where I can't listen to my tunes.

  • Tomorrow is Angela Oh's birthday, which I will celebrate by doing yard work, unless these thunderstorms actual happen. I should really start poker back up, but I guess that can wait until next month. Have a good weekend!

  • How to tell that your daughter needs a hobby
    Some people watch NASCAR for the hillbilly wife fights
    Some people buy lawn gnomes...

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