Friday Fragments

it's like Crocodile Dundee meets the Pianist

♠ This past Tuesday, I finally went back to the dentist, but since over a year had elapsed, I had to do another "initial inspection" instead of a cleaning. This means that they spend twenty minutes taking X-rays so they can overcharge my insurance provider for useless procedures. As expected, they immediately harped on the time-bomb nature of my wisdom teeth and told me that I should see their oral surgeon.

♠ I then told them that, last year, their oral surgeon had said it would be too risky to have the teeth removed. Their reply was, "Oh, he's been turning down almost everyone, let's send you to a new one." If you knew that, why send me there in the first place? And why does he still work for your office?

♠ Since my X-rays look identical to the way they did last year and in 2005, I'm going to belay any further wisdom tooth exploration and add this visit to my list of times I didn't get teeth out. I'm signed up for a cleaning next week though, and I can also increment my "Cavity-Free for 28 Years" sign by 1.

♠ Speaking of "word-free" signs, here is the comments section from the day Mike (of Mike and Chompy) told his accident-free story. It's a good old read for a Friday morning at work.

♠ I miss the days where I had such a dearth of responsibilities at work that I could slack off and read things on the Internet for the entire day. Nowadays, I'm lucky to go a day without someone accidentally erasing our websites. It used to be that a good 2-3 weeks out of every year were low-key enough to get away with not doing anything, and it's during times like that that I read the entire blog archives of Dooce, Dad Gone Mad, Dating is Hell, and Debaucherous and Dishevelled. (Apparently the key to blogging success is to start your blog name with a D. In August, I plan on rebranding this site as The DURI! Zone).

♠ For the first sixteen months at this job, I was on a dead-end project that required no work whatsoever. The only work-oriented lesson I came away from that with was that content management systems that start with a V and end with "ignette" are surefire ways to destroy your company if not halted early -- treat it as you would treat things that start with a V and rhyme with "iris". However, I effectively used that time to learn JASS and triggers for coding Warcraft III maps and games under the pseudonym, ~CattleBruiser~.

♠ This weekend, I plan to sit down with Inform 7, the new "natural-language" programming language for writing Interactive Fiction that evolved during my nine-year hiatus to determine whether it's brilliant or insane. I'm not sure how I feel about coding a banana in my game by typing "A banana is a fruit. It is edible." -- it seems too touchy-feely, and not at all geeky.

♠ "Coding a banana in my game" is not a euphemism, but it does remind me that I need to pick up a copy of the new remake of The Secret of Monkey Island and enjoy it again as much as I did 19 years ago.

♠ The rest of the weekend will include a barbeque at the home of one of Rebecca's work folks, 400,000 acres of rainforest razing around the globe, and a few hours of work-work on Sunday (bringing my work hours for the past two weeks up to an even ninety hours).

♠ Have a great weekend!

Principal fired for jumping on students
Saucy sausage ads condemned
ATMs defended by pepper spray

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