Open Thread

A month ago I was one of several people presenting at a division meeting at work. A senior administrator came in to observe, which was kind of rare. Afterward the moderator asked for volunteers to have their presentations filmed for our company website. I volunteered along with several others.

I helped the moderator set up a backdrop and then she went to get the camera. I finalized the setup, turned around, took my place, waited for the red record light, and repeated my presentation, better than before. The senior administrator I could tell was looking at me like, “Isn’t he going to rehearse or prepare?” Everyone was supposed to memorize the presentation but I was the only one who did.

Today I get an email from the senior admin, asking me to present at our annual end of the year meeting, our most important one of the year.

Friday night I played poker with a group of guys from my old neighborhood. I had a bad night – I lost $60. I lost it for two reasons: a)I was tired and couldn’t concentrate and b) my friends were joshing me most of the night. The reason is that at the beginning of the night I told them that in my next life I want to be a Navy Seal. Then, soon after I said this, we played a game of “5-card no peek with a spit card”. I pulled up a pair of deuces, but folded, announcing that “I have no balls to see it through”. It turns out that the spit card was a deuce, and I would have won the hand.

Well, much of the rest of the night consisted of rolling jokes about “Benson as a Navy Seal”. Example: Benson right before the Bin Laden mission – “Fellas, could you hold the helicopter for a minute, I’ve got the runs”.

Right bxgrl, but those are just different manifestations of the same human subspecies. LARPers, goths, Emos, steampunkers, gamers, etc. You take off one outfit and put on another but you don’t have to change friends!

Contrast that with other off-the-shelf prepackaged subcultures, like harley riders. If you want to switch from being a harley rider to being a gamer you also have to switch friends.

There is also the whole feminist / vegan / peace protester / etc thing. You can switch pretty easily among those groups without having to switch friends.

bxgrl, of course not, but the system needs enough young people to keep it going. The U.S. population is in better balance because of immigration, compounded by the fact that immigrants tend to have more children.