Did anybody get the license plate of that metaphysical truck?

Cowboy’s Link Of The Day: http://thewebsiteisdown.com/

Will LOTD become a regular feature here? Probably not, but who knows? I’m wishy washy that way. Celes showed me this site last week, and it’s up there with some of the funniest stuff I’ve found on the web. I’m so gonna crack it first. One word: Karateka.

I was actually asked by a client the other day if I read Rory Blyth’s blog. I stuttered for a minute before answering, “Yeah, Neopoleon.com. Um… I’ve heard of it…” Ok, I was a bit more honest than that, but it didn’t seem in my professional best interest to proclaim that I’m The Cowboy, the guy who continually posts comments to his blog but never has anything insightful to say.

That said, I’ve been thinking about a lot of things. Things Celes said to me, things my inner voice said to me (the one with the English accent), and things I’ve learned from the Tao. I’ve been thinking about the whole arbitrary numbering system. I’m not sure I agree with Celes on that one. She’s a frighteningly insightful person, but it’s a subjective system. It’s in how you use it, I believe, and like anything can be used for good or evil. Like my superpowers. Someday I will learn to use them for good instead. In other words, for now I believe it’s good for me so I’m keeping it. Cowboy 2.6.

Get out and do something. Take that first step. I passed this along to another friend who seemed to be suffering from the same malady. I’m not sure if he did anything, but I hope so. It probably had it’s impact lessened as it came from a guy sitting in an airport terminal waiting for a delayed flight, but whatever. It’s one thing to sit in a darkened apartment coding all night. I understand that, I’m a geek. It’s entirely another thing to sit in a darkened apartment/hotel room all night because you’re bored. Think of something, get off your ass and do it. You don’t have to find anybody else to do something with. Things are always better with a friend, but if you can’t find one, go anyway. I went to the beach. The effect on my mental state was staggering.

I’ve noticed a dramatic decrease on the grouchometer lately. I’m sure lots of things factor in to this, not the least of which is a metaphysical boot to the head from my New England friend. A true friend will do that for you. Dinner by the Atlantic is good for the soul too, and is also better with a friend. Time with family is very good, especially if you’ve been separated. What continues to confound me though, much like the Arabic version of Who wants to be a Millionaire? (yes, it really does exist) is this whole Tao thing.

When I try to exert control over my destiny, things seem to fall apart. When I try to hold on loosely and let this crazy thing called life take me where it wants to, good things tend to happen. I like to think of it as the river from the Chang-tse parable, where the old man trapped in the river let it take him where it will, using the power of the river rather than fighting it, he was able to save his own life.

But now the currents seem to be pushing from all sides, and I’m not really going anywhere. Maybe it’s just a temporary eddy. Perhaps I should just be patient. Or perhaps I’ve been deluding myself all this time and I need to just take control.

Or maybe I never understood the parable at all. Using the river’s currents to your advantage is not the same as surrendering to them. What I really need right now is a metaphysical parasail.

All things are better when left in their natural state. What is the Cowboy’s natural state? I don’t know. None of us really knows, because from day one we’re bombarded with the influences of an artificially created civilization. Things are the way they are because we made them that way. We’ve all contributed to it, whether by action or by inaction.

Imagine you’re flying a kite in a field. It’s a windy, blustery day, and the wind is so strong that it blows the kite away. Rather than let it go, or try to wrestle it to the ground, you simply hold on. The kite lifts you and carries you away on a rather rough ride. Nothing that will kill you, but certainly something that might leave you feeling slightly battered afterwards. Finally the wind dies down, and you plop to the ground. You get up, dust yourself off, and rather than worrying about how you’re going to get home or back to where you started, you simply think “Where am I now?” Nothing more. All of the complex thought patterns that form your Ego are gone. You simply are, and you simply are somewhere. Perhaps you pick a direction and head off to see what’s over there. You have no motivation other than curiosity. Somewhere down that path is an adventure, and it will be fun. You don’t know what it is, but you’ll have a great time when you get there. Everything will simply work out. You don’t know how, and you don’t care how, but you know it will.

Where did the kite take you?

IM IN UR CODEZ, IGNORIN UR REQWIRMNTS

I’m at a bar in Rhode Island having a drink[s] and some snacks (which I called dinner) with a blogger friend of mine, and something that was said made me thing of an interview I had seen years ago with Grandpa Munster (or rather the actor who played him, whose name escapes me at the moment). He was probably in his late 80s at the time, and aside from being infinitely more wrinkled than he used to be, he appeared to be the same person he was back in the 60s when he played Grandpa Munster.

The quote was “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you was?”

That was worthy of Yoda, man. That’s right up there with the “what’s the sound of one tree clapping in the forest” question. I try to honestly answer that question when I ask it of myself (the first question, that is). I think right now I would have to say 17. Not because I feel young and energetic and nearing my sexual prime (however, if you happen to be Morgan Webb, all of the above is true, please call), but because I feel stupid, confused, and not sure what the hell I’m doing. Unless you’re Morgan Webb, in which case ignore that last sentence and go back to the one about being young and energetic. Really, really energetic. call me…

I think I finally get Lisa of Lisa 4.8 (formerly Lisa 4.0) or rather the self versioning system. We change as we go through this crazy life thing. It’s like the 12 Monkeys quote “The movie never changes but it seems different when we see it again because we’re different.”

Why is it whenever I get up to Cowboy 3.0 (Tao Cowboy) the OS reboots and the update gets uninstalled?

Today, I decided to jump back up to Cowboy 2.5. I decided to go see the ocean instead of sitting in my hotel room, because a smart person told me that was a stupid thing to do, and she was right.

I did see the ocean today, and that’s a cool thing for somebody that normally lives as far from an ocean as one can get. Unfortunately it was dark by the time I got there and getting there involved getting lost, parking in front of a strangers house, and driving the wrong way down a one way street in a rental car with no coverage, so all I really saw was this big black mass that I assumed was the ocean because it smelled and sounded like an ocean. Cool stuff. Then I hung out and did cool stuff in Massachusetts with one of those cool blogger type people. That’s so Cowboy 2.5. This is going to sound stupid, but I’ve had this weird fascination with Massachusetts since I was a kid, and today I can finally say “I’ve been to Massachusetts”.

So I ask you: How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you was?

Numbers

Sometimes we see numbers, and don’t really think about what they mean. I’m not intending this post to be for or against John McCain or Barack Obama.

I don’t think there are many Americans who would deny that the attack on 9/11/2001 was horrific, or that the death toll was catastrophic, or that the scope of it all traumatized our nation and changed us in a profound way.

I looked up these numbers on the Internet, therefore they may not be entirely accurate, but I believe they’re close.

The number of American lives lost as a result of the terrorist attack on 9/11/2001:

2,740

The number of American lives lost in Iraq as a result of the American invasion:

4,124

Interestingly, I also found this number. I have no idea of it’s validity.

The number of Iraqi lives lost as a result of the American invasion:

1,245,538

I suspect this number might be inflated in order to serve the anti-war movement’s point of view, however, according to an article I found on CNN, 5,800 Iraqis died in June 2006. I’m sure many, if not most of these deaths were caused by insurgents, not by the American Military, but they happened because we were there.

At this point, I feel the need to clarify that I am not disparaging the American Military. Like any other cross section of society, the military will be made up of those who are good and those who are bad, if there really is any such thing. I support the soldiers in Iraq. They’re Americans, and they’re going through a kind of Hell I can’t imagine. And they’re following orders. I only question the orders, something they aren’t allowed to do. And over 4,000 of them are dead.

I got to wondering, this is a lot of death. How many people did Hitler murder? I looked it up. Six million. That number, by the way, does not include military deaths.

What’s hard to imagine, is exactly what these numbers mean. We hear these numbers: 2900, 4000, 1.2 million, 6 million, and we think that’s horrible, but do you really think about what that means? Imagine you come home and find a dead body in your kitchen. Imagine the horror of finding a body shot to death violently in your kitchen. Hollywood has made us a little desensitized to this kind of violence, but try to imagine what it would be like in real life?

Now imagine it’s two bodies. That adds a whole new dimension to the horror.

Imagine ten. This gets harder for a sane person to imagine. Ten murdered bodies in your kitchen. Given an average of 150 pounds per person, that 1500 pounds of dead human in your kitchen.

We’re only up to 10, folks. If you can imagine 10, try to imagine that 10 more times. It takes a few minutes to really digest the horror there, doesn’t it. That’s only 100 people, and yet we can barely fathom it. 100 people would not fit in your kitchen, we’ll have to move them to the back yard. That’s 15,000 pounds of dead human. The mind really can barely grasp this kind of horror anymore, and we’re only up to 100.

Following our average of 150 pounds per person, the death toll in Iraq has resulted in 600,000 pounds of dead American bodies.

At 600,000 pounds of dead American, I want a good explanation of why we’re there.

“We believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of Mass Destruction”

We’ve [the American public] since found out that the only evidence to that effect known before invading a sovereign country in another part of the world was a single report that was out of date by years. The Soviet Union had weapons of Mass Destruction for decades, and the remnants of the Soviet Union, to the best of my knowledge, still has them. We’ve never invaded the Soviet Union, and they really didn’t like us. Nor have we invaded North Korea, and I think we be pretty sure they have them too, and probably more likely to use them on us than Saddam ever was.

Saddam Hussein didn’t like or trust Osama Bin Laden (or so I heard on CNN).

We basically had no evidence whatsoever that Iraq was linked with Al Queda and the terrorists that attacked us seven years ago. Afghanistan, on the other hand, admitted they had him and wouldn’t give him up.

Saddam Hussein defied the U.N. weapons inspectors, but he had been doing that for over a decade since the original invasion of Kuwait. Suddenly in 2003 it became a crisis that couldn’t wait for diplomacy.

We’ve lost over 4,000 American Soldiers in a war that, as far as I can tell, had nothing to do with the 9/11 attack which resulted in 2,900 American casualties.

“We have to finish the job in Iraq.”

What job? What is it we have to finish there? We declared hostilities ceased in 2005. I watched it on the news. Why are we still there? What do we have to do in Iraq which is more important than finding the man who was responsible for killing 2,900 American Citizens? Seriously, I want to know, this isn’t rhetoric.

Think about this when deciding who to vote for this November. And think about this too. Watch these, then watch anything from John McCain and/or Barack Obama, and ask yourself, who would you rather have running our country?

Henry ’08.

The Cowboy’s Guide to Life

I’ve been thinking about this for about a month now. When I was in Jr. High or so I had a list of rules, Cowboy’s Rules. I actually wrote them down. They were based on (what seemed like but really wasn’t) my vast life experience at the time. All fourteen years of it. Most of them were pretty good, well, for teenagers anyway. They were a lot of things like “Don’t date friend’s ex-girlfriends” and things like that. I had friends violate that one, and later on I violated it myself, and it never led to good things. Not once. Shocker.

For about the last month or so, I’ve been thinking of redoing it. Sortof a Cowboy’s Manifesto, if you will, just to see how it’s changed at this stage of my life. It’s still a brainchild at this point, but then Rory Blyth posted Rory’s Code of LIfe. Aside from the initial “Hey, I was gonna do that” reaction, I thought it was fucking awesome.

So there’s a few problems now.

I haven’t really thought out the new rules.
I’m not really sure I want any. It doesn’t really fit with the whole epiphany thing that happened in New York.
If I post it now, I look like I’m a lame ass who’s trying to copy everything Rory does in order emulate his massive coolness.

While that last one might be true anyway, It wasn’t the case here. Really. But I think I’ll share with you some of the reasons there is this mass of coolness that we refer to as The Cowboy.

Wu-Wei. I’ve talked about this before. It’s a Taoist concept. The closest Western equivalent is “Go with the Flow”. I always think of the Chang-tse parable where there’s an old man struggling in the river, then instead of fighting the river, he gives into it. He works within the power of the river, and it saves his life. That’s me. I don’t wait for somebody to hand things to me, but I don’t fight the universe either. It’s too big, It’ll win. I’m awesome, but not that awesome. Not even Rory is that awesome. I threw a pebble in the lake last November and rode the waves it created. It’s landed me somewhere interesting, but I’ll have to wait to expand on that.
Be Cool. For me, that’s easy. For the rest of you, maybe not so much. I’m just that awesome. Women adore me, Men want to be me, and I secretly suspect that my entire life is being filmed in a real life version of The Truman Show. Seriously, I’ve been catching myself on this lately, especially with my kids. Big Bad Parental Rules that The Man (me) used to lay down, don’t seem quite so important now. My son wants a second glass of milk at dinner, why the hell not? Why am I saying no in the first place? Giving him the second glass gets a scowl from my wife, but it gets a grin from my son. Net score in the positive, if you ask me. Small example, but that’s how The Cowboy rolls now. We’ll see where he ends up…. Hm… Referring to myself in third person now, not so cool. Kindof Bob Dole, actually…
Do things that make you happy. These are kind of in order of importance, but this one is pretty damn important. I forgot it for a long time, and now, thanks to one of those damn Virgos, I’m aware of it again. Of course, when 3 is in conflict with 2, 2 wins out. For instance, if killing random people makes you happy, you need another hobby, because that’s not cool. For me, it’s music. For years now, I’ve limited my music to involvement with the local orchestra, Puccinifest (I’m in that picture BTW), and an occasional quartet gig. There’s so much more to me, and I’ve been denying myself that. Why? Because I thought I was supposed to. Because somebody told me I was supposed to. Fuck that. What the hell kind of example is that to set for my kids? Do what makes you happy. Don’t teach your kids to be miserable, because guess what? From now on, I teach my kids how to be happy.

I want to share where all of this is going, but I can’t yet. It’s fascinating seeing Wu-Wei at work, and how everything is changing as a result. Stay tuned….

American Idiot

We’re coming home again

Sometimes platonic love is easy to confuse with romantic love. I do it all the time. Sometimes being somewhere you don’t live can unbalance you just enough to make the mistake. Alcohol adds confusion to the mix. Being really far away from home and hopelessly hammered is a recipe for fucking your head up. Guess what I did this last week.

Somebody get me out of here

I’ve been known to get contemplative after “one of those evenings” where I once again showed incredibly poor judgement, and was surrounded by great people who served as my enablers (e.g. kept buying me alcohol). Throw in a drunk Russian with a knife who wants to fight your Serbian friend, a New York police officer, approximately four Long Island Iced Teas, and the apparently suicidal impulse of wandering off on your own morbidly hammered in a town you don’t know and which tends to be a bit crime ridden, and if you got nothing else you’ve got a great story for the ride home.

You taught me how to live

Then you think back on what happened before you crossed the threshold of good judgement: The part of the evening where you clearly remember what you said and what was said by others. The part where somebody who is absolutely amazing but doesn’t know it tells you things you’ve heard before. Not things about your self-destructive tendencies, but things about how you let others hurt you.

The innocent can never last

You realize that you’ve given up something crucial about yourself that you never needed to. You’re denying who you are because it’s inconvenient for someone else. And finally the words strike home because you’re hearing it from somebody who is living it. There’s no ulterior motive, just someone who can’t possibly imagine living the way you are.

The rage and love, the story of my life

Somewhere in this whole confusing mess you make a connection with someone who is a kindred spirit. Someone more like you than anyone else you know, but more than that. Someone who actually is the way you like to think you are, but you’re not. This connection confuses you at first. You think you’re having feelings you shouldn’t be, but then you realize that you’re wrong. Somebody just became your inspiration. Somebody who will never know of their importance to you just gave you a spiritual smack upside the head.

She’s an extraordinary girl in an ordinary world

So many little things begin to fall into place. Your destination suddenly becomes clear, like you’ve been walking a road for years and just suddenly realized where you’ve been heading all this time. Now that you know where you’re going, only one thing remains unclear: how to get there.

Wake me up when September ends

You had a source of pain, one nobody knows about but you and the source of your pain. That one dirty secret you’ve never told anybody. Suddenly it no longer matters. You think you might have even confessed it to your new guardian angel in a drunken stupor. It doesn’t matter because she doesn’t remember either (at least that’s what she told you).

Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me, ’til then I’ll walk alone

Sometimes, in order to be true to yourself you have to face fears that can be paralyzing. Fears that have shaped your life until now. Fears that have brought you to a place you never wanted to be. Now you’re in a pit and need to find the exit. Maybe somebody out there will lend a helping hand, maybe you’ve got to go through this all by yourself. I’ll have to tell you how it played out when it does.

Nobody likes you everyone left you they’re all out without you having fun

Then you sit in an airport in New York with a few friends. You sit and trade drunk stories like high school kids. You’ve undergone something profound, and nobody here will understand it. You throw a bone their way and tell a drunk story or two, but slowly the realization dawns on you: You’re on your own. You can’t share what’s happening in your head with people who don’t have a common frame of reference, and you don’t know anybody who does. Suddenly that line from Star Trek IV makes more sense. You feel a bit more alone than you did before.

I don’t care if you don’t care

I’m a different person than I was at the beginning of the week. It wasn’t New York, it was this one amazing person who will never know what she did for me (or would it be to me?). A whole new adventure has opened up before me, I think I’m going to call it life.

——————————————————————-

Restored Comments

314159 said:
Cowboy,
She is an extraordinary woman. She’s helped me more than anyone (even her) will ever know as well. I wish logic didn’t dictate that it would never work between her and I. Logic sucks. But, I think I will keep my delusion.

With the weight of the hell hole we work in, I didn’t know something else was troubling you so badly. You do know that if anyone at that place we toil is a brother it is you. Think of me as a brother who isn’t at family reunions to mock whatever is troubling you. If you ever need to talk, seriously talk, I am always available. But I will also understand if you choose to return your new guardian angel for advice.

The Cowboy said:

Dude, I appreciate that, but there’s a reason I never confided this in anybody. On the other hand, toss a few Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters down my throat and I’ll apparently spill my guts about fucking anything.

I remember my brain wandering off for a bit, probably running back off to the pub for a nightcap, when it got back, it found my mouth just running off about the whole fuckin’ mess. “WHAT… THE… FUCKIN’… HELL… ARE… YOU… DOING?!?!” it said to my mouth. “Oh, hey there,” said my mouth. “I was just talking about you know what. You don’t mind, do you?” My brain attempted to beat the living shit out of my mouth at that point. It came out something like “daarrr… so where are we anyway?” My brain and my mouth are now mortal enemies. Quite frankly my mouth had it coming. He just kept drinking the alcohol despite the fact that it was causing so much damage to brain. I think they’ll get over it.

The good news is that she apparently doesn’t remember any of this. Things like this are exactly why alcohol is banned by so many major religions.

– Celes – said:
Hey Taoco,

Sorry to hear the life has become complicated, but you know… life… it happens. And even if this whole thing seemed like a big mistake, some beautiful things come out of it at least.

Great post.

Everyone needs to get hit in a head with a gold brick every now and again. But, I’m sorry that it hurt.

Know that more people know than you know. You can’t find out until you reach out. It’s horribly terrifying, painful, and yet wonderfully amazing.

But don’t get me wrong. It’s nice and cozy being safely aloof.

The Cowboy said:
Hey Celes, thanks.

Just to be clear on a couple of things, my little secret that I don’t talk about has been officially rendered moot. It’s no longer a source of pain. That’s what she did for me (that’s a good thing). I don’t talk about it because, quite honestly, there’s nothing about this story that makes me look good. We probably all have at least one story (or three) like that.

She’s given me direction and a focus as well, and that’s why the other crap no longer matters. I know this post came off kind of dark, but what’s happened is really a good thing. It might get a bit uncomfortable along the way, but it’ll all be good in the end. What happens from here on out is fair game, and will probably show up here as well. This blog just might get interesting….

Reflections on DevConnections part IV: Leaving Las Vegas

I’m actually writing this before the previous post. Sorry for the discontinuity. It shouldn’t matter too much since these will all be posted after I get back to Kansas City anyway. Still no fucking Internet. And don’t even get me started on fucking Sprint.

Las Vegas has a way of eating you up and spitting you out. The Strip does anyway. The tourists all go to the strip, the locals avoid it. Las Vegas is kind of a nice town once you get away from the strip. This is my second stay in Las Vegas and I’m noticing a pattern. There’s excitement and promise as you arrive, but disappointment and slight depression as you leave, since none of those promises were fulfilled. Perhaps it’s not like that for the rich, but for those of us that are less than wealthy, it’s sortof harsh.

There are reasons that you don’t do the things you know you’re not supposed to do. Sometimes it’s hard to see until you’ve crossed that line. That’s all I’m saying about that. Don’t ask.

Reflections on DevConnections Part II — All that damn walking

Las Vegas is big. Rather, everything in it is big. Rather, the hotels are big. We’ve been touring around checking things out, and you have to literally walk for miles. It’s that or a cab, and cabs are frikkin expensive here. There’s a few trams, but even that’s a little flawed. I was limping by Tuesday. I’m not as young as I used to be.

My sister lives in Las Vegas. I went to meet her at the Bellagio one evening. On foot, it went about like this: Walked about ¼ mile within the hotel to the tram. Took the tram to Excalibur. The free tram stops there. Walked to MGM Grand, where the not-free tram starts. There’s a big sign over the walkway that says “Monorail Entrance”. That’s a little misleading because you have to walk what must have literally been a mile to the back of the hotel (it winds around) to get to the monorail. I bought my $9 ticket thinking “the walking is finally over.” Not. “Access to the Bellagio” was the very next stop, the Bally. Walked through the Bally, and walked, and walked. The monorail goes to the back of the hotel. Did I mention they’re big? Finally thought I found a shortcut and went out of the Bally. That exit took me to a rather unused side street. Walking along that was interesting. Chalk up another ¼ mile. Walked past the crazy looking dude getting arrested, finally got back to the strip. At this point I could’ve just walked the street and it would have been faster. But it still would have been couple of miles, I’m sure. Across the street to the Bellagio and another ½ mile through the hotel. I damn near can’t walk.

A friend of mine who came with our group hurt his foot on Monday, and all the walking aggravated it till he couldn’t walk. He got a scooter. At least I haven’t gotten that bad.

Today’s Wednesday, and we leave tomorrow. My brain is full. I’ll blog some of the cool stuff I learned there later, but today I met Carl Franklin of Dot Net Rocks. Well, I shook his hand and said “love the show” anyway. I’ll bet he’s never heard that before. Way to make an impression, man! The career at Microsoft is in the bag for sure, now. I overheard Richard Campbell talking about how weird it was to have people following him into the bathroom. I decided not to ask for autographs.

I have gotten to hear many of the well known speakers that I’ve read and/or listened to on Dot Net Rocks. It’s been pretty cool. The only thing missing? Rory Blyth. He’s left Microsoft and apparently technology in general. Bummer. But I still read his blog. He’s a fascinating guy with great taste in television. And I certainly can’t fault him for his minor obsession with Jolene Blalock and Gigi Edgly. I’d lick her too, man. Rory, if you read this, two things:

1) Milla Jovovich

2) Kristanna Lokan

Take a drink, you’re gonna need it.

Reflections on DevConnections Part I – Booth Babes

I haven’t posted in a while, and there’s a reason for this. The last week of October was moving week. I signed my name so many times I’m now on the list of candidates for a bionic right arm. Move over Steve Austin. A fun side effect of moving is a complete lack of an Internet connection. Thank you Time Fucking Warner Cable. Who the fuck takes a week and a half to set up a cable/Internet connection? You guys were out in like two days when I signed up the first time. I guess that’s just for New customers. Fuckers.

The second thing occupying my time is that I went to DevConnections in Las Vegas that very weekend. Again, no fucking Internet connection. So I decided to write a few posts anyway and post them whenever I get back and Time Fucking Warner gets off their lazy asses and gives me back my connection I paying for. Fuckers.

There’s so much going on here I thought I’d break it up into a few posts on different topics that occur to me as I’m here, so here’s Reflections on DevConnections Part I: Booth Babes.

This is my first big convention, so booth babes are a new thing to me. They work, and they work well. My personal favorite is the Windows Mobile sales girls that were stationed by the escalators, especially the dark haired one. I didn’t catch their names, so I’ll call her Mary. Mary is an expert flirt. She engages you in conversation, looks you right in the eyes, and then moves just a little closer to you, just slightly closer than Casual Acquaintance Laws allow. That was so “I’m about to kiss you” distance. As a socially stunted geek my first impulse was to back away. I managed to suppress that so that I could enjoy the proximity just a little longer. Microsoft sooo has my contact information for sales purposes now. They’re good.

At some level I know that it’s all fantasy and there’s no attraction there (at least on her part), but I choose to ignore that at the conscious level. At least enough that I keep thinking about her but not so much that I engage in any activities that might be considered stalking.

Mary can’t possibly exist. She’s one of those women that are too perfect, too hot to actually exist. Nature just simply doesn’t allow it. Long flowing brown hair, beautiful face, perfect body, about 5’4” and slightly dark skin. She makes a business suit look good.

My second favorite was a shorter girl who worked at the Live Office booth. She got just a little too friendly on Monday evening after (I assume) she’d imbibed more than a vendor probably should have. I like friendly women.

Whoever thought up Booth Babes is a genius. It so works, especially at a convention populated by mostly software geeks. It’s always nice to be reminded of just how much I’m still controlled by my testosterone, and just how adept women are at manipulating that. Too bad it never works the other way around.