Daily updates

So, my father was telling me that I should make it a point to update my blog every day. That I should force myself to get into the habit. And he's right. I should. Here's today's.

Engineering Decree

This morning, as I listened to the mellow tunes of The Phantom of the Opera on my way to work, I took pleasure in visualizing this guy at work exploding. He used to be my manager, and when I decided I was tired of his crap I went back to my previous job and let him take up the load. Since then, he has bugged me nearly constantly... "What's the master password, again? How do you plug in a monitor? Which slot takes credit cards?"

For that last question, instead of pointing out the floppy drive, I told him I had to run the card manually and now I have his credit card. teehee

Anyway, I was listening to The Phantom's Overture, my favorite song from the soundtrack, I visualized him exploding. I rewound the song a few times, so that I could see the gooshy part again. It was relaxing, and made the drive seem to fly by.

When I arrived at the office, there was an ambulance outside the building. I was elated. Finally, I thought, my quest for superpowers has come to fruition. Soon, I shall rule the world with an iron fist! But when I got upstairs, I found him still alive. Apparently, someone else had exploded, or whatever, and I was saddened. Not because someone had exploded, or whatever, but because it wasn't someone on my "list". This, of course, led to much pondering and introspection.

I mean, I have to do something for eight hours a day, right?

Eventually, I realized that it's not just me. I'm an engineer, and being an engineer means being a Harbinger of Death.

No, hear me out.

I know that human death never really bothered me, but I never stopped to think about other engineers. Who designs new guns? Engineers! Who built the first (and second) atomic bomb? Engineers.

We can peer inside the atom or build a supercomputer that fits on the head of a pin, but civil engineers don't design buildings that bend rather than collapsing during an earthquake? And those same civil engineers put skyscrapers close together in earthquake zones!

When the brakes fail on a car, who designed the faulty brakes? Automotive engineers. And don't even get me started on the number of people killed by airbags.

HIV? Genetic engineers. Assault vehicles? Mechanical engineers. Putting detergent and gasoline into a light bulb so that when the lamp is lit the mixture becomes napalm and explodes? Custodial engineers.

The list goes on.

But is all this really a sign of bad things? No, I think it's good.

No, hear me out!


In evolution, how do you get to the top of the food chain? Is it by marching for animal rights and eating vegan? No, you do it by eating the competition. The way of getting ahead in nature is to kill. It's natural, and it's right, and it feels oh, so good.

Some day, the descendants of today's engineers will be either disembodied godlike beings of pure energy or will have their essence hosted by perfect, mechanical bodies, granting them both immortality and easy cleaning. And if any of our minions try to rebel, we'll make them explode.

And we'll like it.

Single-Airity

Today, I was pondering the token single person amongst my minions... er, ummmm.... on my team. I was wondering what she does each evening after work, since she's single and doesn't have the same ties that the rest of us have. Then it occurred to me....

Aren't I single?

Having nothing better to do, I pondered why I would have lumped myself with all the married people on the team. I realized, then... I have a child. I mean, I already knew that I had a child... but I realized that because of my child, on some level, I considered myself to not be single.

I realized that although I'm single, my ambitions were skewed by the fact that my actions and choices affect someone else as much as they do me. I plan my weekends based on whether my child will be with me, and when I think about moving I think about how far I would be from my child, and for six weeks during the summer I even plan meals around my child.

Suddenly, I don't feel so single. Still, I wonder what that single lady at work does in her free time...

The True Meaning of Friendship

So, I was sitting in the living room with my roommates, and we were discussing the disposal of a human body.

No, it's not what you think.

We were watching this television show wherein a woman accidentally killed her husband's friend, and in a panic the two of them worked to get rid of the body. I might have accidentally started things off with a comment such as, "That's what marriage should be all about. Two people willing to help each other, no matter what."

I should mention that my roommates are married. To each other. I like things to work all out symetric-like.

Anyway, so male roommate, Giordi, looked at female roommate, Anna, and said, "You would help me, right? If I had a body to get rid of? You would help me throw it from a plane?"

Anna, who, for some reason, expresses concern over our (Giordi's and my) behavior, pursed her lips, thought a moment, and said, "That would depend on why the body was dead."

"What? Why? I'm your husband."

"That doesn't mean I'm gonna help you hide a body."

Well, I felt the need to come to my friend's aid. I've known Giordi for many years, and we've been through a lot together. He was there when I accidentally set the kitchen on fire while trying to learn to light candles with my mind. And I was there when he was rewriting the standard Gnu C math libraries to speed up large arithmetic so that he could write a custom Linux X/desktop applet to predict phases of the moon. We're like siblings, only without the DNA and weird personal history. So I spoke up.

"I would help you get rid of a body, no matter why the bastard died."

Anna seemed unhappy with this announcement. "What?!?"

"I would help him. I mean, partly because I'm borderline psychotic, but mostly because he's my best friend."

Giordi spoke up... "See? Even a borderline psychotic would be more helpful than you."

Suddenly, I reallized why Giordi and I have been having trouble getting into contracts that require a security clearance. And also why Anna locks the bedroom door at night. That is, why she locks my bedroom door at night.

Art imitates life, and all that...

So, some friends of mine were sitting around playing Dungeons and Dragons, each with a laptop so that they could all send each other instant messages, even though they were all in the same room. Well, this just wasn't quite nerdy enough for me, so I started poking around the Internet and stumbled across a webcomic that looked interesting.

I was looking at the cast of the comic, and found an interesting passage character description:

Ashley is the world's next great super-villain. Some day. For now, she is the little red-headed terror of a daughter to a single mom.

Now, I don't know about the rest of you, but I can't help but be creeped out by this... It's like the comic writer was peeking into my life. Kinda. I mean, when I was the apparent age this character, I didn't want to be a supervillain, but I guess I had it in me, becuase when I was a child I never had imaginary friends. I only had imaginary enemies. And I wasn't red-headed then. But my single mother was. Hrm.

Neo-politics

So, as I sat here this evening, watching my cat defend his favorite napping spot against invisible tribbles, I thought about politics.

Now, this isn't a political blog. I hate politics even more than I hate McDonald's food. But politics are on a lot of minds, right now. So I think about them.

There seem to be two main sides in most American politics: Democrats and Republicans. I've given a great deal of thought into the differences.

A Democrat is a Republican who wears pinstripe suits and believes in welfare.

A republican is a Democrat with shorter, darker hair who receives campaign donations from oil companies.

Both sides make my teeth itch.

I'm a registered podophile, and I've recently found a podcast which I enjoy listening to. It's called The Rush Limbaugh Lie of the Day. The podcaster is a rabid liberal democrat. That means that he believes everything that every democratic candidate says and wants all conservatives dead. There's a lot he says that I agree with, but there's a lot that I don't agree with. That's alright... he doesn't mind people disagreeing with him.

But the reason I like it... It's not that I can side with the Democrats. As I said, both sides make my teeth itch. But Rush Limbaugh... I hate that guy. I can't stand him. Even my cat wants him dead, and my cat is a virtual fount of love and happy wishes.

Of course, if I had to pick a side, I would pick Obama.

No, hear me out!

I don't know him... I don't know the issues, really... I know he has made some good promises, and that some of those good promises scare people who wouldn't benefit from them, but that's normal. What I do know is... He's black.

No, really, hear me out!!!

He's black. Ish. That is, I'm told he's mixed, but I guess that just means that he really is an American. But he's still black. Now, I don't consider myself a racist, so standing on its own, the fact that he has dark skin isn't an issue. The important additional detail is that my mother would die.

She always told me when I was growing up that the Bible says that if the US ever elected a black president, the world would come to an end. She honestly believed that. It should be obvious at this point that she never actually opened a Bible, but that didn't sway her... ummm... faith. Anyway, she's very, very hardcore set against a non-white man, or any kind of woman, being elected. During Kathy Whitmire's term as mayor of Houston, my mother cried almost daily, and still complains about the effects, decades later.

So if Obama is elected president, she'll just die. Maybe literally. I want him elected, so that I can call her and ask her opinion. It'll be fun.