Surrealistic Pillow

So there I was, Saturday December 30th. Off work till the new year right? Except I got paged at 6 am and was sitting there, pillow on my bare legs to keep them from being shocked by the cold of the bottom of the laptop computer that was on my legs.

I had VPN'd into the network at work to look at a help ticket about a POE switch that was down. I also had just gotten off the phone with a man and then a woman who were in India. First they had tried to convince me that I had to work on this problem. Then they tried to convince me it was meant for Sydney Australia. After I convinced them that it really was for me, they said I should call AT&T because it was a network issue.

The TV was on, because it always comes on just after 7 in the morning. On Friday nights, I turn down the sound rather than reprogram the TV. It goes off in an hour on its own.

So I've got the pillow on my lap and my laptop (in its case) on the pillow and I'm calling Dave from work, to find out how to contact AT&T because I think the eVPN switch is down. As we talked and I pinged various things, we realized that it was not the eVPN but a cabinet switch at work and I'd have to go in.

Now here's the weird part. As I sat there talking to first India and then Bainbridge, NY, VPN'd in through my own wireless network I was watching satellite pictures on CNN of the last minutes of the life of Saddam Hussein. THEY GO TO COMMERCIAL! This had been happening for a while the night before as Larry King was talking about how the execution would happen ANY MINUTE. While his show was on they advertised Mercedes cars and I think, Toyota Cars. Now here as we go to commercial with the noose literally around Saddam neck, we go to a Hitachi commercial and then a commercial for some FOLDING COLANDER!

As I sit here now, I think back to when I was a kid. The space program. I imagined the future. I wanted a jet pack. I was SURE that I would have a jet pack in the future. I did not imagine that I would have a computer on my lap. I didn't imagine that I would have 'my own' computer at all. I guess I hoped I would work in a building where there was one of those big computers that takes up a whole room. I guess in a way I do!

I did not imagine Satellite TV.

In the era of Vietnam I was sure that we would never be in a prolonged war in a foreign country where we attacked first to prevent war. After I'd read 1984 I knew what an embarrassment "War for Peace" was.

I never imagined Saddam Hussein.

And I damn sure never imagined that I would watch his death while someone tried to sell me a plastic folding colander.

Could I have been dreaming?

http://www.flatfoldcolander.tv/?cid=286600