Tuesday, November 21, 2017

Godzilla

It's come to my attention that the actor who played Godzilla in the first dozen movies passed away earlier this year. I wonder if it isn't just a little bit of Japanese sentimentality that would have them hosting Trump so soon after the passing of Haruo Nakajima. A crazy green lizard with little hands and a radioactive mouth is gone so they golf with a crazy orange monster with little hands and a radioactive mouth in remembrance. Or maybe it's just a wacky coincidence.

Thanks.

So it’s that week of the year again, where I’m repeatedly hearing the “what are you thankful for” question. And I agree that it’s good to periodically spend a little time reflecting on your life, but I’m not really sure how to answer the question.
When I used to teach programming I used to get some confusing questions that just didn’t make sense. I mean stuff that was totally random or unrelated to anything. I used to have a stock answer of “fish” for all those questions.
Why is my certificate not properly chained? Fish.
Where’s my input? Fish ate it.
What’s the data structure for that thing Greg was talking about last week? Object.Fish
I kind of want to use that old stock answer for this “what are you thankful for" question. Because I mean I am thankful for fish. It’s delicious. But appreciating something and being thankful for something aren’t necessarily the same thing. I appreciate a good steak and a glass of Lagavulin, but I’m fine with a burger and a coke. I guess I am thankful to have food. There’s a lot of people who don’t. Of course the last time I got a physical my cholesterol was a little higher than my doctor wanted and I could stand to lose about 40 pounds, but I spend about twelve hours a day in front of a monitor so standing at all seems somewhat laughable.
Am I thankful to have a job? I mean, yeah, but the pay isn’t exactly commensurate with either the crazy hours or the myriad responsibilities, so I’m thankful in the same way that I appreciate Starbucks’ burnt coffee. I’ll begrudgingly accept it as a positive even if objectively it’s not that great.
I am thankful for my health. To the best of my knowledge I don’t have any terminal cancer at the moment. No polio or smallpox or anthrax either. But that’s really more like being thankful for science than it is ‘health’. I’d have lost my vision entirely about twenty years ago if not for science. That’s health related but not entirely health’s doing. Plus I messed up my back about a month ago trying to lift to two servers at the same time and it’s been messing with me which doesn’t seem particularly healthy. So I guess that’s kind of a wash.
Home, health, job, family, blah, blah, blah. That just seems so boring. So what am I thankful for? I guess I already have a kid, so I don’t know…anal?