I’m either a genius or a complete idiot.
- Your average Joe Bag ‘o Doughnuts definitely couldn’t do my job. Maybe my head is so crammed full of techie stuff, it has pushed out common sensibilities. Hence the (albeit lame) argument for genius.
- I’m not rich. I haven’t won any Nobel Prizes. There’s the idiot argument.
Taking the above factors into account, I think I’m going to have to go with complete idiot. But let me tell you why…..
I arrived home last evening with a little bit of time before I had to go to my AITP meeting, so I thought it would be a good time to sneak in a little bit of poker while listening to the new Linkin’ Park/Jay-Z collaboration at an ungodly volume. (By the way, if you like either of these artists, this collection of songs kicks a whole lot of ass) Poker and loud music were obviously NOT in my immediate future, because for some reason EVERYONE ON THE ENTIRE PLANET decided it was time to give me a call. What a pain in the ass. I hate flurries of phone calls. If I could convince my wife to go along with it, the only way you would ever be able to get a hold of me would be through email, but I digress.
Being harried from the barrage of calls and other goings on, I head out for my meeting. This is to be my first, so I know where it is, but have never actually been in the building before. It’s in the Bank of America building downtown. I get parked and head over, only to find that I can’t get in! Is this another bout of THE IDIOCY (kind of like THE DIARRHEA , only in your head), or can I really not get in? Am I unintentionally at the completely wrong place? After wandering around the building like a vagrant, trying every single door, I make a few calls to track down the number of the guy who invited me in the first place. I actually get a hold of him and get inside the building with about one minute to spare before the presentation starts.
Where’s the idiocy, you ask? Soon, soon…
The presentation was on computer forensics and was actually (and I hesitate to use this term, but in my case I can’t help it) wildly interesting. I even got to hear about some of the tools that the NSA uses and some of their capabilities. Cool Stuff.
Anyway, the presentation is a bit over an hour and a half, after which I spend about 15-20 minutes talking with some folks, then head out to my car. While heading out to the car, I do what we all do, grab for my keys. Where the hell are they? Did they walk out of my pants in search of a better home? Oh crap, don’t tell me I locked them in the car. Yup. Not only did I lock them in the car, I locked them in with the frikkin’ car RUNNING.
My car, middle of downtown, running for two straight hours. I am King of the Morons.
Time to make some more phone calls. Turns out the police can’t help you into your car anymore, thank you legions of lawyers and sue happy Americanos! Due to the recent storm my car is still being repaired, leaving me with a rental which of course doesn’t have anything even resembling OnStar. The cops let me know that the only ones in the city willing to get me into my car are one of the cab companies. Weird. Back in my day (which really wasn’t long ago AT ALL) there were multiple solutions to this problem, and now my only savior is a creepy old cabby? Gimme a break.
And of course, they don’t take any sort of cards. In fact, I actually wasted (THE IDIOCY, again) about 15 mins on the phone with the cab company lady who answered, trying to explain that on my bank card, you can run a charge through as a credit OR a debit. She couldn’t seem to fathom this wacky idea, and treated me like a transient trying to pass off counterfeit food stamps in order to steal a car from some poor, hapless senior. Cash only, so I had to call my wife to bring me some cash, as I typically don’t carry much, if any.
I did finally make it home, thanks to the cabbie who wouldn’t respond to any inquiry or nicety that I made, I guess for fear I might find out he’s a wanted man or something.
I’m not sure quite why I just wasted your time like this. Maybe Friday is random story day, and I didn’t realize it until just now. I think I’ll just blame it on lingering effects of THE IDIOCY from last night. Needless to say, no poker happened last night.
I’ll leave you with Phil’s latest bit of published dog shit. Christ, I can’t believe CardPlayer still runs anything with his name on it.
Thanks for staying with me through all of the preceding unnecessary shit. I’ll try to start Thinking Big again tomorrow where, as always, my head will be Much Bigger.
|