When God revealed the secret of workplace success to Bender the robot

The Planet Express crew

There is an episode of Futurama where Bender, the robot crew member of the Planet Express spaceship, is accidentally fired into deep space. As he speeds into infinity, he becomes the home to a microscopic civilisation which he inadvertently destroys after they start worshiping him as a deity.

With all the life on him wiped out, Bender continues to drift entirely alone until in a far corner of the universe he bumps into God. This gives him the opportunity to ask where he went wrong. As he sees it, when he tried to give people what they asked for, it resulted in their extinction.

I watched the episode again recently, and, as it always does, God’s reply made me laugh. He says, in a suitably booming voice full of gravitas, 

"When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all."

I actually think this is really good advice for anyone in the workplace. Work can feel a bit of a thankless task sometimes. But, actually that’s part of the point – if you are doing what you are meant to be doing then everyone around you should be experiencing work without much hassle. People who don't get noticed often don't get thanked. 

But not being noticed isn't a bad thing. Most of the time, the bumps in our experience of work are caused by people not getting things right. Inadequate planning, or delayed decision-making, or subpar delivery, or missing deadlines, all cause problems for everyone else on the team. Similarly, negative experiences of services are almost all due to things not going well - every complaint is pointing out a flaw in the experience.

But when everyone is doing their job correctly, things just happen without anyone really noticing. If the system works the way it should then people don’t notice the system. The stuff people need to do their jobs is there for them to do their jobs. The things that service users need to happen, happen.

And often, when you do everything right that you are meant to do, people won’t really know whether you have done anything at all.

November 2021 - End of Month Review

November seemed to zoom by. It was another busy month, with Cathy's birthday halfway through being the focus for several notable markers. We had our first house guest for over 2 years, as my Mum came down for Cathy's birthday weekend. We also went over to see Cathy's family in Gloucester and met up with her sister Abby for the first time since summer 2020.

A couple of days after Cathy's birthday it was our going-out-aversary - the 27th anniversary of our first proper date. (We went to the cinema and saw a long-forgotten film called Airheads.)

Mum's visit to Cardiff meant she was able to join me at a Barry Town game. As the weather is getting colder, I was delighted that she had knitted me a bobble hat in Barry's blue and yellow.

Mum proved to be a lucky mascot, as Barry edged a win in a dreadful exhibition of football. When I told my fellow fans that Mum had never seen Barry lose, they offered to buy her a season ticket.

I made it to some new football grounds, including Yate Town, where the snack bar had the most incredible range of condiments.

The atomiser is full of vinegar, which is a brilliant idea. Although I horrified my friend Steve by putting vinegar on my chips as he hates vinegar. (That meant I had all the chips to myself though bwahahaha.)

Another new ground was up the valleys at Penrhiwceiber. This was the suggestion of a fellow Barry fan called Paul, as Barry didn't have a game that day. Penrhiwceiber is a small village on the edge of Mountain Ash. Like a lot of valleys grounds, the scenery is spectacular and overshadows the football.

As it was a few days after the 11th, there was a minute's silence of remembrance. Near the end of the month, there was also a minute's silence before the game between Barry and Cardiff Metropolitan in memory of the former Wales player and manager, Gary Speed. It was the tenth anniversary of Gary Speed's passing, which seems a long time for something that still feels like it happened quite recently.  

On another note, one of Cathy's birthday presents was a mushroom-growing kit. We had this in the kitchen for a couple of weeks. 

The 'shrooms grew visibly every day. It was fascinating watching them grow. Then we harvested them and ate them in a risotto.

Entering December, we are looking forward to Christmas. Except the news that a new variant of the Sras-Cov2 virus has been discovered means nobody knows what will happen in the next month or so. The variant has been named Omicron.

This is a few weeks after Cathy and I started re-watching Futurama so "Omicron" reminds us of this guy: Lrrrrrr, Ruler of Omicron Persei 8.

I've also seen a joke that "Omicron B" is an anagram of "no Crimbo", so we will have to wait and see whether everybody's plans get messed up. I'm not too worried though, because obviously, that's not how you spell Chrimbo!

Creating new holidays

Celebration time?

I've been thinking a bit about the growth of special 'days' and more specifically, what kind of days are worth noting. You see a lot of this sort of thing on Twitter. They may be geeky jokes, but here are a few I like and think we should adopt as national holidays.

Pi Day – 3 March. 3.14 is the American way of laying out the date and also the approximation of Pi, the infinite number. Best way to celebrate: eat a pie, I guess.

The next two holidays bring to mind the confusion in Futurama between the Star Trek Wars and the Star Wars Trek.

5 April is First Contact Day, because in the Star Trek future-vision this is the date when Humans meet Vulcans for the first time, while testing a hyperdrive. The tests took place in Bozeman, Montana, which is also the place in The Big Bang Theory where Sheldon Cooper moves to after he decides Pasadena is too unsafe.

Less than a month later is of course, Star Wars Day. 4 May is a random date that relies on a pun (May the Fourth be With You). As you can see from the link, Disney are doing their best to use May the Fourth as an excuse to push merchandise. (Like they need an excuse!) In the last couple of years, the celebration has spilled over to the following day as well, now known as The Revenge of the 5th. Which looks a bit like Sith and references one of the dismal prequels.

Also slightly random is Towel Day, which is on the 25 May for convoluted reasons. Towel Day is in honour of Douglas Adams, who wrote The Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, which suggests all hitch-hikers do their utmost to have a towel on them at all times while travelling. Observing the day is very simple: Carry a towel with you all day. 25 May is also celebrated as 'Geek Pride Day' because it was the day Star Wars was first released on in 1977). It was also the date of 'Wear the Lilac Day' after the Ankh-Morpork revolution in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books, which feels more significant now that Terry Pratchett has passed away. 

Like Pi Day there is also Mole Day on 23 October, which isn't to do with the burrowing mammals, but is another maths thing.

You don't just have to have annual days. There are nine Square Root Days every century, occurring on the following dates:

• 1/1/01
• 2/2/04
• 3/3/09
• 4/4/16 - meaning there is one this year!
• 5/5/25
• 6/6/36
• 7/7/49
• 8/8/64
• 9/9/81

So, maybe we'll get together to celebrate on the ninth of September 2081, if we make it that far. I will be 105 by then, and can't promise to remember what we should be celebrating.

35

35 years young today. Many of my birthday presents reflect my maturity. A Clone Wars action figure of a teenage Boba Fett; 2 small Futurama figures; and plenty of Lego.

Cathy gave me a set of three Lego figures that she constructed herself at the hive of awesomeness that is the Lego Shop. As she was putting them together she got talking to another woman selecting Lego heads, bodies and legs to create some figures.

"How old's yours?" asked the woman. "Mine's 35!"

"Mine's 35 on Saturday," said Cathy.

See, I'm not the only one!

Slumdog Millionaire and a few other films

This is the much-touted new film from Danny Boyle, which won some Golden Globes last week and is up for loads of Baftas too. We went to see it as a team outing in appreciation of all our hard work before Christmas.

I honestly thought it couldn't live up to the hype, and yet somehow it did. The cinematography is fantastic. The storyline is a bit twee, but well-written. There's tension and drama and a happy ending which is nice. It manages to convey the sense of India as a place where extremes of wealth and poverty exist, where opportunity and cruel exploitation both occur.

But even though it all works out in the end, it doesn't glamourise the poverty of the slums, or how hard it is to escape. I thought the saddest part of the film was when the hero Jamal meets a boy he knew from the begging ring he used to belong to. This other lad was deliberately blinded because blind beggars earn more money. "You were saved," he tells Jamal, "and that's the difference between us..."

Jongudmund's rating: 9/10 Go and watch it

Some other films

Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Hmmm, they've changed the opening Star Wars music. Bad sign. It's about Anakin and his young 'spunky' sidekick. Uh oh. Jabba the Hutt has a son who's been kidnapped and looks like a cutesy slug... what is going on here?
Jongudmund's rating: 2.5/10 One for hard core fans only, and even then...

Futurama: Bender's Game
I'm not really sure where these feature length movies are going. This one turned into a spoof of Lord of the Rings, but that's been copied/parodied so many times it seems a bit lame to try and send it up again. Although the cavern full of annoying Morks was quite funny. Na noo na noo.
Jongudmund's rating: 4/10 Another one for the afficionados and no one else really

Ella Enchanted
It might just be me but I felt the idea of a girl being enchanted/cursed to be obedient to whatever anyone said disturbing and creepy. Good thing she doesn't live in the real world or she'd wind up in some pretty horrible situations, especially if she was as pretty as Anne Hathaway. The fairy who cast the obedience spell on her never really got her comeuppance either, which annoyed me.
Jongudmund's rating: 4/10. Watch 'Enchanted' instead.

What happens in Vegas
1) I've been to Vegas and it's nothing like this. 2) You can't just get married on a whim in Vegas - that's a myth. You're thinking of Reno. 3) Does anyone out there actually think Cameron Diaz is hot any more?

Actually once you get past it's premise which can't happen, this is quite funny. Some bits of it made me laugh and some made me cringe inwardly, but in a good way. Oh, and if you have nuts and you know what it's like to be whacked in them, there's an eye-watering scene just before the credits. Watch out.
Jongudmund's rating: 6/10 reasonable DVD night in

Film review catch up 2: Futurama - The Beast with a Billion Backs

Bit of an odd one this. It’s the second of the four planned feature length straight-to-DVD movies, and although it’s funny in parts, it seems to lack legs. The basic gist is a horrible monster from another universe tries to take over every human being in order to breed with them, but the plan backfires and it falls in love with humanity instead. The concept of a supra-intelligent life-form trying to woo an entire species is quite clever, but after a while the plot just runs out of steam.

Even though I’m a big fan of Futurama, I could only really recommend this to other Futurama fans. If you’re new to the programme, you’d be better off borrowing the box set of the first series, and then asking people to recommend their favourite episodes form later series. (Amazon Women in the Mood would be my tip.)

Jongudmund’s rating: 5/10 – Strictly for the fans

Little things which annoy

While in America I bought my first Hellboy merchandise, a Qee Chain Hellboy figure, and a BustUps diorama of Hellboy using the right hand of doom to punch the daylights out of a ‘bat god’. Both of them are from the Hellboy animated series, and I’m quite pleased with them. I would take them into work, but having little model demons on my desk might not go down too well in a Christian charity…

(Judge for yourself)


But anyway, one annoying thing is that the BustUps model came with a part of another model. Each of the five toys in the range had a different part of a skeletal ‘graveyard demon’, which looked just like a skeleton to me. The ploy is to make you buy all the toys, so you can assemble the bonus figure, but I’d only buy the other Hellboy ones. I’m not interested in the ‘Thunder God’ or whatever else is in the range.

Other toys do this too. I bought a Zapp Brannigan figure and he came with the Robot Devil’s arms. The idea is you buy all the Futurama figures and build the Robot Devil. Except, that would mean me buying the reissued figures I’ve already got, which I’m not going to do. So, like the Hellboy bonus, I’m left with some miscellaneous action figure body parts I’m not going to use.

The thing is if the RD was released as a figure in its own right, I would definitely want it. Making you buy all the toys to get all the parts is just annoying. In fact, it’s so irksome I’m considering not buying any more Futurama toys just on principle. And, as far as the Bust-Ups Hellboy is concerned, a skeletal foot is just a waste of time. I binned it with the box.

Another little thing which annoys me immensely is when bands release CDs with ‘hidden bonus tracks’. You know the sort of thing - there’s three minutes of silence in the last track before a random new track kicks in. I’d have thought now everyone rips their music onto a PC, this would have died out, because it completely messes up your listening when you’ve got your playlist on shuffle. But, no!

When the Killers released Sawdust last year (a compilation of their bonus tracks and oddments - well worth checking out) they added a minute of silence onto the brilliant Jacques Lu Cont remix of Mr Brightside before breaking into what sounds like a drunken rugby song recorded for a laugh. I love the remix more than the original song, but that added nonsense is so irritating.

Misc. Music Purchase

In addition to adding to my collection of Hip albums, while in the States I also bought the exclusive charity single by the Killers called Don't Shoot Me Santa.

It's probably the only Christmas-themed song which has a little break in it to sing about "the sweet Mojave rain". Otherwise it sounds very Killers-esque, although a gun-toting Santa reminds me of the Xmas Futurama episodes where Santa judges everyone to be naughty and sets out to kill them all using rockets, grenades and lasers.

Futurama feature length movie

As a massive fan of Futurama, I'm glad it's back with Bender's Big Score, and IMHO as good as ever. After the first few minutes having a go at the "Box Network" who "cancelled" their delivery contract (hem, hem) we get into the story proper. Bender downloads porn which is linked to an obedience virus which puts him under the thrall of evil nudist aliens who want to steal everything, including planet Earth. And it all spirals downhill from there...

The gags are sharp and follow each other rapidly throughout the film. It also manages to avoid the plot-dragging weakness of the Simpsons Movie (the last feature-length production from the Groening stable). One criticism of the Simpsons on the big screen was that it felt like an extended version of a TV episode, but one of the weaker episodes. This was intended to be an extended episode, and came out as one of the better ones.

My only crit would be that they try and squeeze every bit-part character into the film, many of whom will only be recognisable to ardent viewers of the TV show. Why the Robot Devil would be leading his diabolical string quartet at a wedding is never explained. And, although it's nice to see Don Bot, Joey Mousepad and Clamps fighting on the good side for once, it seems odd that they'd be fighting at all, and not cutting some kind of deal with the naughty naturists.

And as a tease to all those Matt Groening fans, see if you can spot Bongo the Rabbit taking a break from Life in Hell to cross-promote himself. And if you're a fan of delicious irony, Mark Hamill, AKA Luke Skywalker, guests as the voice of the Chanukah Zombie (don't ask), flying a TIE Fighter with a Star of David on the side. Al Gore - who shows a Futurama clip to his audience in An Inconvenient Truth - also appears a couple of times (including as a cab driver in a hybrid electric car). And then there's Hypnotoad... ALL GLORY TO HYPNOTOAD!

This is the first of four planned full-length features coming straight to DVD over the next year. I can't wait for the next one!