Ben Galbraith's Blog

Curse You, Duke!

One of the things I enjoy about fatherhood is being, for however brief a period, somewhat of an authority on life. Well, thanks to Duke, the appearance of parental infallibility has come to an early end.

Ever since JavaOne 2006 (where I got this nice green shirt), I've had to deal with all kinds of questions from my four and two year old daughters:

Girls: "Daddy, what's that on your shirt?"

Me: "Err, that's Duke."

Girls: "What is he?"

Me: "Hmm."

Girls: "Is he a bird? I think he's a bird."

Me: "No, he's not a bird. He's, uh, a cartoon character."

Girls: "He looks like a bird."

Me: "No, he's a cartoon mascot for Java."

And now, every time I wear it, I have to deal with a variant of this conversation. Like this morning:

Girls: "Is that Duke? What is he?"

And so forth. I'm just waiting for one of them to say, "Well, what exactly do you know, daddy?" and to hear them whispering amongst themselves: "Don't bother asking daddy that, he doesn't even know what Duke is."

Why can't Java have a recognizable noun as a mascot? Like a bird? Or even a horse? Here's for Mustang shirts at next JavaOne. Actually, too bad we can't go back and have Merlin shirts made. That could have been really cool...

Comments

• that's funny! i actually bought a few duke t-shirts for my kids a couple of years ago. we did have similar discussions but i don't recall it being that painful. we spent a little time dissecting the drawing, like "where's his mouth?" i like to say it's under his nose, but you can't quite see it.

  what i remember most vividly was a situation where my son, who might have been two years old at the time, had asked me: "who's that on your shirt?" to which i replied "that's duke." i'd promptly forgotten the conversation when weeks later, he sees duke on a shirt hanging on a laundry line and draws my attention to it: "dad, look there's duke!" my astonishment won't be quickly forgotten. :-)
  

  Posted by: eitan on August 30, 2006 at 07:17 AM

• Heh... your comment about not "being that painful" made me remember I forgot to write in the beginning and end to the blog entry that I had intended... multi-tasking a bit too much this morning...

  I had the same experience with the memory. I put on the shirt for the first time in months and the kids immediately started talking about "Duke!"

  Posted by: javaben on August 30, 2006 at 07:26 AM

• Isn't he a round-cornered isosceles with hands? Start gently with triangle, then move to the more advanced geometry :)

  Posted by: kirillcool on August 30, 2006 at 09:55 AM

• I always thought that Duke looked a bit like the logo that the Enterprise crew wore on the original Star Trek...-JohnR

  Posted by: johnreynolds on August 31, 2006 at 06:10 AM

• Isn't it clear that Duke's a guitar pick?

  Posted by: habuma on November 03, 2006 at 09:31 AM

• Ha! Great story ... I've often wondered myself what exactly Duke is. Perhaps a contest should be held "What is Duke".

  ~MD

  Posted by: missdanni on November 04, 2007 at 02:55 PM

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