"Chewy, get us outta here!"

(October 11, 2000)

This entry describes a Moment of Clarity. Topic? I know why we love Sci Fi. (You think I'd have figured this out before, but I'm sorry, I never really thought about it. Or if I did, I assumed it was the mega-tits and silver lam� body suits).

So here's the thing. Because of what transpired at a meeting I had at ten o'clock this morning, I am working now, nine hours later, to make something happen that I had no inkling needed happening nine hours ago at ten o'clock this morning. At the meeting. "Fuck!" is the sentiment that immediately sprang to mind. And "Assholes!" also did nicely, as was proven when uttered by Mindy, my co-worker and friend.

The short version is that some Dilberts somewhere in the vast halls of the gajillion dollar craphole that employs me has been taking "requirements" from all the business functions that run their entire operation using this One Particular Software Application.

MY business function runs our operation using this One Particular Software Application.

Nobody asked US nuthin'. If this were a racetrack, we'd be so far behind everyone else that we'd think we're first.

So now, quick, map a whole new business model. Sure, I'll have that done by lunchtime, and how's about I solve the energy crisis for ya before I leave tonight?

So I'm working. I'm home, on the bed which is currently known as Clean Laundry Mountain, the caves and peaks of which the cats have staked out various hairy claims to, and my laptop is heating my thighs, and I'm wrangling heaps of reports to map data elements (an excercise not quite as satisfying as, say, yanking out your nosehairs one by one).

I've got the Sci Fi channel on. Sliders. If you don't know Sliders, this is sort of a Quantum Leap-meets-Lost In Space series in which a mismatched gang of four travel--- not in time, not in space, but sort of...laterally. So from show to show they slide into a parallel universe where everything is the same...but not quite. They can only stay around twelve hours or something, before they HAVE to slide, or else they're stuck in that universe for twenty years or something.

If only. How great would this be? Keep on moving, never miss a deadline, get your ass OUT of there when it starts to suck? Which it inevitably will?

In the show, invariably this question gets asked about ten times: "How long til we slide?" And here's where they build in that oh-so-critical element of suspense: "Ten hours." And then later, "How long til we slide?" Answer, "Six hours."

Nine hours ago at ten o'clock this morning, when a big gross disgusting bomb of incompetency shit dropped onto my unsuspecting little head, I'd have given anything to turn to Mindy and ask, "How long til we slide?"

Two hours? Great, let's go see a frikkin' movie or somethin'.