The Open Source Mullet Revisited

Well it's been a few months and I have to say the Open Source Mullet is no longer the bleeting, sinister Linux zealot he was just months ago, and is now a valuable asset to our company. Things have certainly changed since I last wrote about him and I felt it was time to set the record straight. His nostrils no longer flare, and he no longer swears (as often as he used to), and the references to Open Source software have declined by a huge amount. I'd like to detail these changes in an effort to show the progress of a man reforming.

First off, he's stopped talking about Open Source solutions. No more mentions of the GIMP (I think my boss buying me Photoshop 6 did the trick there), no more talk of Linux on our $40,000 Sun box, no more bitching about Windows 2000 crashing (I think he finally realized that Windows 2000 drivers are a better choice than Windows NT 3.1 drivers under Windows 2000). This is such a refreshing pace, considering that there was an average of 6 Open Source/GNU options mentioned or discussed a day by my neck-blanketed hippie coworker.

Another factor in the calming of the Open Source Mullet is that my boss let him have an old PC under his cublicle to run Linux on. I think he may have promised to let Open Source Mullet run a proxy on Linux or something. It's a 200MHz non-MMX Pentium with 64 megs of RAM. Probly has a gigabyte hard drive too. So of course that quells his straining heart, and so his flared nostrils and Tourrette's-like outbursts, fueled spurts of testosterone and adrenaline, are a thing of the past. This is only a good thing.

Another factor in the calming of the Open Source Mullet is the downturn of his caffeine habit: when we worked downtown, we had an unlimited supply of coffee. He averaged 12 cups a day, often imbibed double-fisted. Since we moved to our current office, however, he has to ration himself to 8 cups a day so others can share in the java. Just that 2000mg of caffeine makes a huge difference in his disposition. No longer does he stand and exercise in the middle of the office (yes, he did this for quite a time). He now sits placidly in his chair, hunkered down over his laptop, all day long.

All in all I'd say the Open Source Mullet went from a knuckle-scraping, schwag-smoking, psychadelic Open Source hippie (Homo Sapiens Linucis) to a fine, obedient, slightly eccentric code-monkey (Homo Sapiens Eccentricis). To my boss goes the highest of kudos for manualy evolving the Open Source Mullet.