Long time no talk…

So a lot’s been happening lately. We moved to a new apartment (in a relatively new city) and I got a new job. That’s what I want to talk about today.

So somehow I’ve become a programmer. Not the concertgoing / special event-planning kind but rather the computer, lightsaber-wielding, codemonkey kind.

I love the job. It’s actually pretty fun. I always thought that programmers slaved all day over lines of code, just picking out little ones and zeros and giggling about it to themselves as they went home for dinner with mom.

Well… most of that is still true, sans the mom part. Except there’s a lot more to it than that, and that’s pretty comforting. There are more pictures than I expected (good, good), and the programming part is actually kind of like playing a detective game. Like Carmen Sandiego. Except instead of Carmen you have UNIX. And instead of Rockapella you have COBOL.

But the part I’m having the hardest time with is the culture. I feel that now that I work with computers to such a large extent I need to kind of adopt the geek culture a little bit more. It shouldn’t be too hard, I thought; I already have one foot in that grave.

But–man–there’s more to it than meets the eye. Just go over to thinkgeek and tell me if you understand every single t-shirt they sell. There’s no way. But there always seems to be a few war horses that travel from cubicle to cubicle who recall working with assembly language in the same way that Vietnam War vets recall the Viet Cong.  What do you say to that? There’s some people who almost can talk in binary. That’s the ones and zeros I was talking about earlier, Holmes.

I guess what I need to do is compensate for my immediate lack of technical skills and pick up some more fringe characteristics of the community. I’m going to need someone to knit me a Harry Potter robe, stat.

For those who just can’t drive themselves into dependency faster: Inhalable Caffeine.

http://www.thinkgeek.com/stuff/41/surgestix.shtm

The sucker that I am, I will be buying some promptly.

Jamion

This website can be scary or awesome, maybe both:

http://cassiegermsheid.com/2007/03/23/you-grew-up-in-the-80s-if/

Jamion

Dun dun duunn

On this edition of Reediculous Monday we have Jerry Falwell, who I saw last night on–guess what–Daystar promoting his new lecture series which supposedly “debunks” the “myth” of global warming.

I won’t say too much about this–his website says enough–but even if global warming wasn’t a big deal (which it is), I would think that becoming a more eco-friendly, sustainable culture would have almost no downside. Falwell’s biggest point is that the American economy will suffer… but besides making the mistake of equating the Christian lifestyle with American Economical Success, there are also the tiny tiny issues of money not being as important as being good stewards of our environment and, well, breathing.

Anybody else remember in Spaceballs where the whole planet had to breathe from soda cans of fresh air?

Jamion

In a blatant copy (absolute posing, actually) of how my friend Brian writes on his blog, I bring to you the first installment of Reediculous Monday, a segment devoted to ridiculous things.

Tonight Randi and I were bored, flipping through our handful of basic cable channels, when we found the Daystar Television Network, a Christian television station devoted to faith-based programming. Now, while the fact that Daystar exists isn’t surprising–at least eight of our twenty channels are devoted to church somehow–the absolute crap that was on tonight was amazing.

Pastor Mike Murdock was on tonight’s “Sharathon”, and, in exchange for giving 58 dollars to his ministry, he was promising everything short of the Presidency. In the 10 minutes that I watched, he promised that at least one of the following “blessings” would happen–in the next 58 days–to every person that pledged close to 60 bucks a month for the next year:

1) Credit card debt will disappear, completely. Especially if the 58 dollars is charged to the credit card in question. Only applies to American Express, Discover, and “Visamastercard”.

2) 600 dollars of blessings will befall the donor. Apparently this is in addition to everything else.

3) Your car will be miraculously fixed.

4) Something about prosperity. There was a vocal tic in the middle of this sentence.

5) Rapid, otherworldly healing.

…Mike had a bunch of people on his show, too, who made a few of these promises for him, so credit where credit’s due. What really got me, though, was this quote he made during an especially passionate anecdote:

“Now, this one lady, she called in… and she said, that she didn’t have 58 dollars. I asked her, well, do you know anyone who will give you 58 dollars? …and she said ‘no’. Now [laughing in background], I understand someone being poor… but poor and stupid [more laughing]?! …so I asked her, now, I have in my garage a new, shiny, really nice black Jaguar. Would you find 58 dollars for that [more laughing in the background]?”

Jamion