Cal Jacobson’s Blog

Those were the words that came from my six-year-old after we finished watching Meet the Robinsons tonight.

After my wife and I finished laughing, I had to break the news to him that he wouldn’t get the chance.  My better half then asked me when she would be adopted, and I told her that it would happen shortly after I was adopted.

“I’ll get adopted by somebody rich, like Bill Gates,” I said, and then tried to reassure her with “oh don’t worry, I’ll take you with me.”

She wasn’t buying it.  Come on, Mr. Gates — dad – you’ve got room in your house for a few more, right?

(Note to self: if my wife gets adopted by Bill Gates, that makes her my sister.  Not good: I need to think these things through a bit more.)

I was a bit surprised to find that I enjoyed the movie — other than Pixar’s stuff I’ve found most Disney movies to be God-awful, saccharine ordeals.  Maybe because Pixar alum John Lasseter had a hand in things, they avoided churning out the same “coming of age” pablum which had become Disney’s staple for the last couple of decades.

Seriously, Bambi II?   Cinderella III?  You’d think that if some company had the resources and budget to crank out a quality production, it would be The Mouse.

Maybe a potential strike in Hollywood might not be so bad.  I bet the handful of talented writers could probably get picked up by sympathetic sponsors outside of California.  Maybe even Bill Gates would adopt a couple.

I never saw The Departed, but thanks to somebody’s clever editing skills we can all enjoy a “Cliff Notes” summary of what is surely a cinematic masterpiece. (Probably NSFW simply because of language)

Every once in a great while, the adventurous part of my brain pipes up with “hey, wouldn’t it be fun to try a rollercoaster again?”

Then I see something like this, and all I can think about are the minimum-wage guys in charge of maintenance.

I’ll stick with the Merry-Go-Round and bumper cars, thanks. After all, somebody has to hold on to my wife’s purse.

My family and I were in Best Buy this weekend, purchasing a digital video camera. On our way out, I noticed a couple of young men wearing white shirts and black clip-on ties: kind of like the Blues Brothers only without the hats, rhythm or good grooming. It took me a second to realize that these guys were “members” of the Geek Squad, most likely returning to home base.

I was reminded of this when I came across Sean Alexander’s chilling Geek Squad Halloween Tale this morning. I had been aware of the somewhat negative opinion online geekitude (the O.G., yo) had of this organization, but I didn’t know things were quite this bad.

Now I realize that everybody has to start somewhere. Hell, I did tech support too once upon a time (though it was for the U.S. Department of Defense and I didn’t have to wear a tie). But I have to wonder: is a job where you’re providing technical support and you’re officially called a geek and you’ve got to adhere to a rejected corporate dress code from the 1950s and you may be required to drive a clearly-marked nerdy vehicle as part of your job quite possibly the lowest rung on the Information Technology career ladder?

If so, it may explain Sean’s story.

Other career fields have similar rungs; for example, in the Culinary world I imagine the equivalent is either being a pizza delivery boy or a McDonald’s employee. In Consulting, it’s the guy who runs the mailroom. In Sales, it’s the person who works in the shoe store. In Broadcasting, it’s the disk jockey. In I.T., I’m assuming it’s the Geek Squad guys and the tiny fellows who have to run Cat-5 cable through ventilation ducts in large buildings on weekends.

Am I wrong here? Does anybody have a good experience to report with Geek Squad, aside from Larry King and Vanilla Ice?