Camels in the Mist

So, yea. Camels are cool.

It’s not difficult to say exactly how it started, as i remember it quite clearly. I could narrow it down to the exact date it started, if i really cared, which i don’t at this point, but i may look into it in the near future and post a date.

Edit:

Spring, 2003. Simon Fraser University. The ASB. Some lounging couches along the corridor that leads from the B-Lot entrance to the southwest corner of the AQ. Three people studying furiously for a final exam that afternoon. CMPT 301, Management information systems, information management systems or something like that. Hell, i can’t even remember the name of the course, although i could probably look it up fairly quickly. I don’t much care now, and i honestly didn’t much care back then either… it was filler credit. I didn’t pay much attention in class that semester either, I had more fun watching my friend play FF4/zsnes on his laptop than i did paying attention to the lecture. As such, come finals, i realized i didn’t know a whole lot, and i was under a certain amount of crazy stress, flipping through a tiny textbook filled with the kind of bullshit business people like to use as filler to distract you as they lift your wallet.

Flip. there, on the page, was the Technology Camel. I don’t know where it came from. I don’t know how it got there. I didn’t really care. The fact was, it was sitting there, in my text book. I had paid good money for a textbook that carried this inane drawing of a camel. With it’s head, in a tent.

Perhaps I went a bit overboard at that point, but it’s understandable given that i had to learn, possibly via osmosis (ie, banging my head against said textbook) the contents of that textbook within the next couple hours, and i had barely opened it during the semester. I cracked.

My thought process, while convoluted, twisted, filled with small peices of cottage cheese and rubber bands, and otherwise something you’d rather not peer too closely at, went something like this:

1. There is a Technology Camel
2. The existance of a Technology Camel opens the mind to creatures of various natures to be representative of… well.. various technologies. and stuff.
3. While we’re on the subject of general business-related bullshit, what about this software development cycle that they keep yammering at us about?
4. Surely if there was a Software Development Camel, it would be way cooler than this lame-o Technology Camel

Passerby on the way too and from their own final exams were thusly harrangued mercilessly by a second-third year university geek as to whether or not they had heard of the Software Development Camel, what their thoughts were of it, and if, perhaps, i had been drinking too much coffee. My two friends i was studying with had the decency to look embarassed and pretend they didn’t know me. Thus, the SDC was born.

Around that time, i first adopted my camel avatar. I wrote an IRC bot that did random-y camel things. (when so activated, it also became an RPG battle bot, but that’s a different story…). Time passed. Rumors started about me and my invisible friend, but i didn’t let them get to me. The SDC was my pal.

The SDC talks to me. He/she (i have not yet determined the SDC’s gender, although i will generically refer to it as “him” rather than “it” most of the time) is my invisible friend, my constant companion. The SDC chooses or does not choose to acknowledge various people i know. The SDC wants fresh prawns from alabama. I do not know who told the SDC that there are fresh prawns from alabama to be had, but nevertheless, the SDC wants them. I had always assumed camels were herbivores, but this seems to be an exception. The SDC leads a crazy life filled with mad heroics, crazy hijinks, and tells me about it all the time, failing to ever invite me along on his excursions. I must admit, it’s mildly disenheartening.

Oh. And the SDC does not admit to the extance of the Technology Camel, and refuses to be seen together with, near, or by it. If, just by accidental happenstance they happen to show up to the same party, or perhaps at an art exhibition or the theatre, the SDC would, however, without fail, hand the Technology Camel’s ass to it. I can only assume some sordid history between the two, probably worth the telling, but when i inquire, the SDC clams up, so i guess i can’t really share it with you if i don’t know.

Time passed.

Then one day, the SDC said to me, “Hey! Xore! let’s go on an adventure! somewhere far away across the desert to a place of palm trees and plenty of hump action…<snip>

On second thought, you don’t need to hear that story.

Often people make the mistake of thinking I am a perl adept due to the fact that I associate with a camel. This couldn’t be further from the truth. While i do know a bit of perl, and have a large amount of respect for the language (inline regular expressions being nothing less than <3 ), not to mention respect for their choice of representative animals, i am not, in fact, a perl adept. I will often go by the pseudonym “Camelboy” instead of “Xore” on IRC. This does not mean i smoke, as in fact i’ve never smoked in my life. I am merely the diseased product of the imagination of a camel. That’s all there is to it.

Am i a man that dreams of being a camel, or a camel that dreams of being a man?