Priming

As my ex-roommates will all too readily corroborate, I have a penchant for overplaying music. Perhaps this began in the dog days of dial-up, when downloading a song took a day and a half. Or perhaps this is the fault of radio deejays made me feel that it was okay to play the same song a few dozen times a day.

No matter the reason, I've realized a great benefit to overplaying music as I reacquaint myself with my old enemy iTunes. Since each song represents a day or sometimes (I'm sorry, Fazle) weeks of my life, listening to a song can take me take to a particular time. Much easier than a diary--and all it took was annoying everyone.

Now we can extend this concept to smells too--which I think are far better priming stimuli. Each week light a new scented candle, set a new desktop picture. When you want to relive last Thanksgiving? Break out the candle and open up iTunes. If applicable, burn a turkey. Et voila--laissez les bons temps rouler!

Someday, I'll reminisce about this too

I don't remember when I stopped calling it "growing up" and started calling it "growing old". But if I could travel back in time to that day, I'd punch me in the face to remind him just how much growing up I'll still get to do.

Motivational Nirvana

There are two breeds of motivation: the selfish kind and the selfless kind.

The first is the kind that visits you when you're unhappy with what you've got. It will fuel your engines with the promise of whatever you want. As you're driving your '88 Civic, you will find more things to want, more fuel for your engine, and soon you'll be cruising along. What it won't provide you with, however, is a map. You'll find after years of driving that you weren't driving toward happiness at all. But hey, you traded that beat-up Honda for a BMW. You've got a boat in tow. And your trophy wife smells like that expensive pomegranate crap you bought her.

The second kind is the truly spectacular kind, but it rarely visits those who don't seek it out. You're not driven by your own desires, but by a greater cause--and what luck because there is so much wrong with the world today! The catch is, this breed only provides you with a GPS unit--you have to buy your own fuel. It's tough to get moving because you'd rather spend that cash on stuff rather than fuel. But if you can pass up on that boat, you'll find yourself cruising toward your cause.

Unless your cause was to get a boat.

String cheese philosophy

Silence your cell, put down your coffee, and pick up a string cheese. Peel the cheese like you did before you realized time was money--so thin you could barely taste it. For the next fifteen minutes, it'll just be you, your thoughts, and the cheese melting in your mouth. You'll totally thank me later.

When I drive myself, my light is found

My, my, it feels good to be back on the road again...But these last few days on the metro have given me an awful lot of time to think in peace. Today, I was patting myself on the back for my ample seating space in the first train--these fools, I thought, they were probably the ones afraid to fly after 9/11 even though the airports couldn't be safer in that period.

But as I propped my knees up on the seat in front of me school bus style, I couldn't help but feel a little uneasy--what if the train did slam into another train, rendering me a bitter parapalegic? How crappy would that be? But then I remembered how people who go blind aren't unhappier than people who don't after a few months. If I lost both my legs, I'd probably be pretty damn grateful I was still alive. As I continued to contemplate my pretend predicament, I asked myself, why should it take a horrible accident to make me grateful for what I have? No, all it takes it a metro ride and some make believe. So, I've decided, I'm going for a run tonight.

Okay, tomorrow. But I pinky swear!

Big fish

Today marked the launch of the mobile version of the Urban Outfitters website, which I had been my baby since February. Not understanding many of the difficulties of web development, I was beaming with excitement--the general public would finally be able to reap the benefits of all my hard work.

So we blasted a text message to the Urban Outfitters database--pretty soon, tens of thousands of customers eager for their 15% discount (shop up!) flooded the site. After a while, we started running out of disk space and had a veritable crisis on our hands. Thinking on our feet, me and the VP of engineering tweaked some code and made some adjustments to the server. Somewhere along the way, however, the big guy accidentally changed the ownership of all the files in the entire server, or in layman's terms, fucked shit UP. Horribly.

When a guy who is(/has) NEVER (admitted to being) wrong says, "I'm a fucking idiot" as big puppy tears well up in his nerdy eyes, you know something is seriously fucked. So for the rest of his day, I was his broad shoulder to cry on. (I sat there helpfully, asking stupid questions)

Anyways, he ended up telling me a story about he created a bombass website for his college buddy in the early 90's. The site ended up being featured on the from page of Yahoo! and blew up something fierce. Rolling Stone saw the site and offered both guys kickin' jobs in NYC.

The VP was in grad school at the time so he declined. I know what you're thinking, but the story doesn't end there. His buddy's website was bought out by a small company. At this point, he basically told this guy (but more Jewishly), "Dude, I made this fuckin' site. It ain't fair that you're making bank!" So this guy cuts him a check and dips (out of his life). The company was then bought by the almighty Microsoft, and the guy eventually ended up as a big dog at Yahoo!, presumably driving the poor company into the ground while netting himself millions.

I didn't have the heart to ask him if he regretted any of it--and to be honest, I suspect and would be glad if he's perfectly happy just where he is. But if his story and all those old people still hacking it out in college have taught me anything, it's that...

You can always get your degree. But when Rolling Stone knocks on your door, you play hard to get for a little bit, then you TAKE THE JOB. And when your friend elopes with your hard work, you beat the greed out of that asshole with a bat, then you TAKE HIS MONEY. Because otherwise, fifteen years later, you might end up a big fish drowning in a tiny puddle, wagging your tale at minnows like myself.

Change

Many years ago, I wrote the first chapter of my life "Elementary School", carefully in crayon on one those papers with the dotted line in the middle of each line to help you align your p's and j's. A few weeks ago, I hastily typed the last few sage words of Chapter 4 "College", eager to begin the next. Oh it would be an exciting (final) chapter--"REAL LIFE". Full of excitement! Double exclamation points!! And more plot twists than M. Night Shyamalan could dream up.

It begins (with a bang):
-- Went to work today. Went to work yesterday. Going to work tomorrow. And everyday after that. For the rest of my life.

And no number of exclamation marks is going to make that any more exciting.


So here are the options:

1. Get used to it. Sell my soul to various corporations and try to make enough to buy it back when I'm 65.
2. Keep my soul. Become one of those Bum 2.0s, twittering about how some asshole just dropped Canadian money in my cup. What the hell am I supposed to do with Canadian money?

Well, gosh darnit, I'm going to flip a coin. Someone give me a quarter?