So today was interesting. It was a very quiet day at work today, with a lot of people either traveling on business or on vacation. We had so few people, we didn’t even do our regular “lunch buddies” today. However, that’s not to say I didn’t have a few amusing moments…
First of all, I would like to point out that the people that design digital projectors should be required to mount their own projectors and then change the bulbs in them. The bulb in the digital projector in one of our conference rooms recently burned out, and it ended up becoming a much more involved process than I had wanted. See, the manufacturer, InFocus in this case, put the access door for changing the bulb on the same side as the mounting apparatus. Thus in order to change the bulb, one must:
- Disconnect everything
- Unscrew the mounting ring from the ceiling pole
- Unscrew the mounting bracket from the projector unit using the little special tool
- Open the easy-access (how ironic) door to access the bulb
- Disconnect old bulb
- Remove old bulb
- Insert new bulb
- Connect new bulb
- Replace the access panel
- Screw the mounting bracket back onto the projector, again using the little special tool
- Re-mount the projector on the ceiling pole
- Reconnect everything
It’s a pain, that’s what it is. The little special tool just adds insult to injury. It’s bad enough that these bloody bulbs cost as much as they do (in the hundreds!). Then you have to have a special tool just to remove the mounting bracket. In the end: not fun. But I did get an amusing picture out of it:
This is what I call my I’ve-beheaded-the-projector look. Blasted thing…
Then meanwhile, I took the long way to lunch today. Usually, when I go to Metro Cafe, which is in the basement of our office complex, I take an internal route, either going through the lobby to the other building, or through the parking garage. This time, I went out the front door, around the corner, and back in the front door of the other building. Why did I do this? In order to spy. See, there’s a certain cult located in between the two buildings when going via the street, more commonly known as the Founding Church of Scientology. I wanted to see if Scientology was having another barbecue, hoping to lure unsuspecting passers-by in to eat their Xenu-burgers and drink the Xenu juice. Turns out that they weren’t cooking today. Of course, would you eat their burgers and drink their Kool-Aid? I wouldn’t go near either one, even if I was dying of hunger and thirst.
So instead, they had people in bright red Dianetics shirts trying to lure people into their (empty) building to cough up their hard-earned cash for some brainwashing. Today’s technique was an old one: free stress tests.
All I have to say is that there is nothing in that E-meter that will detect stress. I remember that during the Boston Megaraid back in May, an Anon cell had an E-meter, and I was so suppressive that they couldn’t calibrate it for me. For a real Scientologist, I wonder if it would go like on South Park, where, for that, I would be declared the reincarnation of L. Ron Hubbard and made the leader of the organization. David Miscavige would bow down to me… just before I give him his Suppressive Person declare and excomunicate him. I think I’d start by selling a few Org properties, or even flat out donating them to worthy nonprofit organizations. Then next thing I’d do would be to abolish the “fixed donation” structure and change it to an ask-nicely-but-not-require-it system.
But wait, we’re in the here and now. Enough fantasizing.
Then on the table was the Kool-Aid:
Come on, folks – at least make it a little bit challenging to find things to mock you by. This is too obvious, since I could talk about “drinking the Kool-Aid” all day, and making “Xenu Juice” jokes is also too easy.
When a man in a Dianetics shirt tried to hand me literature, I declined it, and we got into a short conversation:
“So you all aren’t cooking up the Xenu burgers today?”
“The what?”
“The Xenu burgers.”
“The what?”
“You know, Xenu, the alien in OT III who threw all the people into the volcanoes of Hawaii and blew them up with hydrogen bombs.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Obviously, you’re not high up enough on the bridge yet.”
“I’ve been in for thirty years and I’ve never heard of that.”
“Go look it up on the Internet. It’s all there without your having to pay for it.”
Yeah, I came out swinging. I thought about this later, and realized, Oh, dear, I just told him about OT III when he wasn’t ready for it. I may have just given that man a life-threatening ailment. After all, Suppressive Persons such as myself are bad for Scientologists’ health. And the Xenu story is one that, despite being written in Hubbard’s own hand and told in Hubbard’s own voice, Scientologists will deny until they’re blue in the face. Mark Bunker describes it well about how ludicrous this practice is.
They also should have something in the Scientology Tech about brushing your teeth, since this guy’s teeth were quite yellow, and he had some serious gunk in his teeth, too.
After screwing with the Scilons, I got lunch and then went back to work. Then after work, a bunch of us headed over to the Commissary, a restaurant on P Street across from Whole Foods. I ended up having two margaritas while out, and we had a great time. One thing I noticed: one of the liquor bottles at the bar looked like Mrs. Butterworth’s. You decide:
Photo at right: Kelly Stewart on Flickr
You can definitely see a family resemblance there. And that was not even all the way through my first margarita. Maybe it’s Mrs. Butterworth’s cousin. Who knows.
Otherwise, as this was also a little going-away soiree for one of our interns, we got some photos…
As you can tell, we had a fun time. And margaritas are pricey. Two margaritas cost me nine bucks! This is why I don’t go out much. It just plain costs too much money.
And now for this weekend, the question becomes, what to do, what to do…