I won't even try to hide it. I got a huge kick out of the penguin characters in the animated movie, Madagascar. For those who don't know, they're trying to escape the zoo, but are trying to hide that from anyone discovering it. So, they put up a front, "Smile and wave boys. Smile and wave." Still makes me giggle.

I was at dinner with a few coworkers. We were moaning about a few things at work. Yes, I work for a great company that treats me far better than I deserve. I truly love my job. However, it is still a job. There are bits of it that are something of a pain. When Ryan Booz said "Just smile and wave boys" about a situation, I think I may have snorted some wine through my nose. It was a perfect response.

It also reminded me of how often, in my family, we'll reference other movies as a shorthand for communicating a thought, feeling, or emotion. It gets to the point where we'll reference something in front of others, we'll all giggle, and then we have to explain: "No, no, it's from this movie. What? You've never seen it? Well in this scene...."

Which also then brought to mind how we likely do the same thing when talking about technology. Those of us who are older, and have a longer history inside Microsoft SQL Server, surely remember service packs. The really old among us remember the time that there was a service pack released for SQL Server 6.5, Service Pack 5. The unfortunate among us (hi, my name is Grant), who put it too quickly into production (I was young) hurt our servers because within days, Service Pack 5a was released, because SP5 was broken. So I could tell someone when asked about an upgrade "Not as bad as SP5" and they would get it. Now, for most of you, that's a lost language.

I think we need these types of touchstones, short hands, references, as a way to communicate sometimes. But we should be ever mindful that to others, it can sound like "Darmak and Jalad at Tenagra." IYKYK.