Ben Galbraith's Blog

August 2006 Archives

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...

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