My wife likes to make fun of me because I’m a routine-oriented guy. I go to sleep at the same time, I wake up at the same time. I eat eggs and peanut butter sandwiches all the time. I always blog on Wednesday’s and Friday’s. I have a lot of the same daily routines at work.

On the one hand, she thinks it makes me boring, which she’s right about. If you ever meet me at BitterCon, or BlogFest in person, you would be meeting the most milquetoast person ever. I have RBF (Resting Bitter Face), and I don’t talk much unless it’s something I care about, like Transformers, video games or writing. If it’s not something I care about, I’m completely disengaged. I wouldn’t say that out loud, but my Bitter Face isn’t hard to read.

On the other hand, I’m easily predictable. My wife knows when I’m at the gym, she knows I won’t pick up my phone or text during certain hours, and she knows I’ll be awake at certain times so I can pick our son for his late night escapades. She can count on me, which really sucks, despite my bitterness about everything.

She’s lucky, because she COULD be continually wondering where I am, or have to pick up the slack, because I wasn’t contributing in some way. And what if I liked camping, fishing or hiking? She would either have to go with me (which I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t) or I would always be gone. I may be boring, but I’m deBendable. Speaking of deBendable, I tell all the same dad jokes, so she (and my daughter) know not to laugh at them anymore or to give me a courtesy laugh, so I will stop.

Variety is the spice of life, but remember, salt and pepper are considered spices. If I didn’t go to the gym five days a week at the same time and do the same routine, I’d still be 50 pounds heavier and a not deBendable person to run errands. If it wasn’t for my routine of going to work every day, we’d have no house, no car, and our kids would be living on the streets. (I wouldn’t, but you know, if they contributed a little more, I wouldn’t have to work.)

My family should consider themselves lucky that I have this routine where I take a breath, and then release it, every 5-10 seconds. If not for that, then I would be unalive, unless I was in the Matrix, and the machines would breathe for me. If we are in the Matrix, maybe I was an action hero in the real world, so the Matrix had to make me this boring person inside the Matrix, so they could control me.

Speaking of the Matrix, which is a simulated world, many people believe we are in a simulation. They believe that someone (either a machine or a God-like figure) is putting us in the simulation to test things that they don’t want to try. They want to see how we react in tough situations. And based on how we do, they use it to create things or avoid doing things.

If we are living in a simulation, the game masters are probably a lot like us. A little lazy and probably prone to reusing a lot of the code. IE create routines. If I were in charge of the simulation, I would be using a lot of copy/paste. Would I want to create every single character as an original? Would I want every single day to be unique? Or would I, like an efficient coder, try to reuse code whenever I could? You bitter believe I would. I copy/paste whenever I’m doing excel sheets, so why wouldn’t I do that if I was creating a character in a game? You know, create a bunch of routines. And a bunch of NPC’s (non-playable characters) that do and say the same thing every day.

If the simulation theory holds, that means a lot of us are NPC’s in other people’s world’s. And vice versa. If I’m the protagonist (or am I the antagonist?) character of my game, then most people in my world are NPC’s as well. The followers and readers of this blog, my family and a few friends are definitely on the IMBD page of my movie, but there are a whole lot of people in my movie that are just background characters. Mall walkers, people I drive by all the time, and Blue Shirt guy that works at the bank. All NPC’s, which is now an actual term that kids started using a while ago and now us oldies are starting to use.

After I write this blog, which the simulation is having me write, it’s going to program me to do my normal Friday routine of Bitter Friday Giftures. Then I’ll pretend to work on a report for the rest of the day, and go home and eat pizza. Tonight, when I go to sleep, they’ll download my weekend programming (it might allow me to get a haircut on Saturday!).

I might even accidentally perform some background work for some new people this week. My wife will probably send me to the mall or grocery store to get something. Something I say, do or think will spur someone to become the next Neo or Trinity to get out of the simulation. But probably not. The simulation got a little lazy with me and reuse a lot of the same code for me.

Yesterday was Star Wars day for most people…

My wife loves making fun of my routine…

Crazy routines like going to work…

She also makes fun of the other routine I have…

She even laughs at me because I keep doing the routine…

On the other hand, she can easily predict…

She also knows exactly when to…

On the other hand…

We’re probably plugged into a simulation…

Maybe in my real life…

And since they couldn’t control me…

And turned me into…

Just a little brain exercise to think about this Bitter Friday morning while you are settling into your morning routine. I would stay and talk to you about it more, but I have to go do some NPC duties for some other people’s stories. I can’t wait for your NPC comments my fellow human people! sldfkjdf

I think I’m supposed to say…ARRRRGGGGHHHHHH…here

Bitter Fill in the title of the Blog Post Bitter Code Reuse Ben