It started about a month ago. I woke up at 6am, grabbed a Pepsi, and started checking email. After making the morning rounds of work email and attrition email, I turned to my fancy-shmancy work-issued Crackberry to clear out the inbox. On the tiny little screen, there was a name in the "From:" field: Jericho. Timestamp was about 5am local. I thought to myself, "self, this cannot be a good thing because the only Jericho I know is on a business trip in Las Vegas." I clicked on "open" and saw the following:
You have new Picture Mail!
Click Go/View to see now.
http://attrition.org/~lyger/coke/001-vegas.jpg
So I check out the picture, right? And I think to myself, "self, what the hell is he doing? is this s00p3r-s3kr3t code? what's the frequency, kenneth?" And I sat... and I looked... and I pondered. Two hours of mental masturbation later, the short glass, blue lights, and one dollar bills finally sent a signal to my brain. I sent him an email with one question: "strip club?"
His reply: "you win =)"
Fast forward to last Friday. I'm cleaning out the Crackberry again... and again, another Picture Mail. I think to myself, "self, Jericho is on another trip, this time to Boston." I open the mail and am greeted with the following:
You have new Picture Mail!
Click Go/View to see now.
http://attrition.org/~lyger/coke/002-boston.jpg
Suddenly, I see a pattern. I'm holding down the fort in the attrition NOC, putting in 16-18 hour days, and he's... travelling. Restaurantz. Foodz. And even worse... enjoying Diet Cokes in every place he can find, sending me the photographic evidence, and knowing him, snickering to himself as he sends along my torture over the freeness of the Internet.
The fucker has clearly gone insane.
The next day, another:
You have new Picture Mail!
Click Go/View to see now.
http://attrition.org/~lyger/coke/005-boston.jpg
Another. Diet. Coke. He knows no shame, has no limits, and we're rounding up the troops to get him some help before he hurts either himself or RIM. You know what I think? HE caused the RIM outage. Their network simply could not handle his madness, so it keeled over, said "wubbawubbawubba" and died. Just ponder that for a few minutes.
The thug manager in the bar glaring at him (in the back, near the middle), waiting for one wrong move before Jericho and raw tuna are spilled out onto a Boston sidewalk head-first. Willy, the self-admitted "man-whore" bartender, trying not to notice him while he wraps up Jericho's tab early. It's all too obvious...
It's been going on for weeks now. On the road in Boston, at the airport in Chicago, at home in Denver... I hear the "ding ding" of the Crackberry and cringe, wondering if it's an important email from work or yet another entry into the "diary of a madman". I can't turn off my Crackberry, just waiting for yet another "moment in time". It will come... oh, it will come again...
And it did, even as I type this...
You have new Picture Mail!
Click Go/View to see now.
http://attrition.org/~lyger/coke/006-boston.jpg
Let the serious stuff begin. Life on the road, attrition-style... because that ain't Diet Coke...
The Full Gallery... ye hath been warned!