It's ironic that this pause happened when it did. On Friday night, my roommate broke from his self-imposed seclusion (which consists of a healthy mix of XBox 360 and World of Warcraft) and relieved his own work-related stresses by drinking. When I arrived home Saturday morning, I was prepared for the possibility of people passed out on my floor, or possibly a puke stain or two on the carpet. I opened the door and merely found one of our friends sleeping on the couch, with ESPN on the television. As I killed the TV, my roommate emerged from his room, and as I looked over my shoulder at him, he uttered only the words "rough night." I slipped into my room, shed my uniform, and crawled into my own bed to supplement the sleep I'd gotten during the duty day. A few hours later, I found out that my roommate's night included a couple of near-fights, as well as one of our friends completely blowing a good chance with a lady. In addition, I managed to anger my roommate, and then make him laugh. I posted a sign on my door - a sign when, viewed from greater than about two feet, looks like the Submersible Death Trap's logo. My roommate and friends did not like this, thinking I was trying to spike some hate. When they moved in closer, however, they noticed that the logo had been altered to more accurately reflect working conditions onboard Memphis, as well as some relevant quotes. I will not post this graphic, as widespread dissemination will almost certainly lead to reprisal from the upper chain of command.
Being as I had only about forty-four hours at home (from 0900 Saturday to 0500 Monday), I elected not to trek to Long Island. Spending ten hours in the car to achieve maybe twenty-four hours back at my ancestral home was clearly not worth it. This afternoon I bought a new set of speakers for my computer, and every sound is coming out better - even emulated 8-bit NES.
I feel like sharing this column about the contrast between the by-the-numbers strength of the economy and the American public's pessimism about it. I think it's very much on point, and I'm also buoyed by the fact that there are at least a couple of members of Congress who are seriously talking about crafting twenty-first century solutions for our twenty-first century problems.
Let's end this with a couple of quotes from last week at work - posted anonymously, of course:
On our work environment and the ensuing stress: "I want to hold someone down, and take their teeth out of their head with a pair of pliers, one at a time. I don't care who. I think it would be fun."
Someone else, after hearing a guy talk about what it was like back home: "I just took Arkansas off the list of places I'd ever want to live in. Not that it was ever on the list, but it's now banned, forever."
And one more - I don't remember what this was about: "It's like having sex with an Asian prostitute; using a condom - not required, but a really good idea."