Yup, I'm a tool.

"That's how you do it! That's how you debate!"
- Will Ferrell as Frank Ricard in Old School

That quote came from a marvelous moment in Old School. The moment beautifully captured the sheer joy of victory effected by serendipitous inspiration. Or something. Oddly, I've seen this type of thing work itself into the workplace. In case you didn't know it, I'm a techie. I have an engineering degree and and engineering type of job. I work with computers. (Then again, who doesn't these days? I write software and develop systems for our IT group. Don't tell anyone, but I also apparently write the occasional blog post. Anyway, it's not necessarily your run-of-the-mill work with computers.) In general, this techie work isn't the type of thing that one would expect to inspire a lot of crowing or smack-talking. One's expectations might be wrong in this case, though.

Not too too long ago I was visiting the office of a couple of co-workers. I was talking to one of them while the other one was dutifully working. In the midst of the conversation, the dutiful one proclaimed, "That's how you do it! That's the way you code!" I laughed pretty hard when I heard that. I suppose it stuck somewhere in my subconscious, too.

Last night, I was lounging on the Ass Magnet with my laptop in its nominal place, tooling away at some little POS program for work. It came together pretty quickly, and when I got it working, I was a little startled to hear myself quoting the afore-mentioned, self-proclaimed archetypical coder: "That's how you do it! That's the way you code!"

I suppose that's all well and good. No big deal, right? I should feel free to do pretty much whatever I choose in the privacy of my home without having to confess to the odd and possibly disturbing behaviors I engage in there. However, my roommate's girlfriend was walking into the living room just as I made my triumphant exclamation, which not so surprisingly stopped her cold.

She wanted to know if I was talking to myself or to the computer. I told her somewhat sheepishly that it was a little of both. I feel pretty sure that she didn't quite understand. She's not a tool.

But I don't think there's any question that I am.