The C-Games

I watched a little bit of the X-Games on TV last night. Other than the veritable tidal waves of commercials every ten minutes and the incessant jabbering of the PA announcer, it was pretty fun. The color commentary was the most amusing aspect of the whole thing: "That's a very nice one-foot 540 off-side fade," the color guy says, and everyone nods in sage agreement.

It struck me that we should also have the C-Games, the Cubicle Games, and they should have the same kind of florid, jargon-intensive color commentary as the X-Games. It won't improve productivity, but it would make the day go by faster, and that's definitely good.

So let's work out some terminology. On side = with your dominant hand. Off side = with your non-dominant hand. Diddle = using the mouse. Keyslap = using the keyboard. Valdez = doing something with coffee ("Earl" for the tea-drinkers among us). Slider = getting something out of a file drawer. Flipper = getting something out of a flipper cabinet. Tail-slide = slumping. Rump-riser = sitting up. Alexander = using the phone. Stoned Programmer = staring at the monitor.

So let's imagine what the color commentary might be like:

"He's starting with a Stoned Programmer. Very solid, and then he's adding an on-side diddler. Pretty basic, but you have to have the fundamentals down. Okay, here's a good off-side Valdez, and look at that, he's holding the on-side diddler! Very nice! Oh, he's really busting out the tricks now, that's an off-side slider cellulograb with a no-look on-side keyslapper with a full 180 tail-swerve and a really nice tail-slide! And a diddler! Look at the control! And now straight into a full two-hand no-look keyslapper with a shoulder-pinch Alexander and a sharp, sharp Lindsey Lohan eyeroll! Righteous! Okay, it looks like he's setting up for an off-side Valdez and a rump-riser flipper roulette and - Oh no, he can't stick the flipper and it's a paperwork tsunami! What a disappointment!"