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Looking For Quacks In The Pavement

Month: March 2004

  • Batting .333

    This is the sort of Friday that makes you truly appreciate weekends.

    Before I arrived at work today, I had two simple tasks to accomplish: Finish the computer I was prepping, then take the computer replaced by the first computer and prep it for a new sales hire. Easy enough, especially if I’m left alone for most of the day.

    Oh, but no, it can’t be that easy. For starters, the most recent new computer I placed has turned out lemony, and not in that “fresh scent” sort of way. (It’s either bad RAM or something between the drive and the controller, not sure which, but luckily we have 1 year on-site service for these machines.) Well damn, now I had three computers to bring to life, and I lost more than an hour on troubleshooting.

    I finished up the original computer I was working on and got it placed, then took the replaced computer back to my office to begin a clean install of Windows 2000. It went well for the first couple of hours… install, patch, network, patch some more, start installing apps… and BANG. It went to lunch. I don’t know precisely how, but given that it happened less than an hour before I had to leave work to go home and mind children… argh. And in all the excitement of trying to figure out why that computer died, I couldn’t finish the replacement computer for the lemon I’d given out earlier in the week.

    Double argh.

    I’d go in this weekend to work on those machines but I already made plans to be in Seattle the entire time. I hate dropping the ball like this. On the other hand… dammit, I just don’t think I should be blamed for having two Acts of Gawd land on me in the same day. I worked my ass off today, and have almost nothing to show for it.

    Again I say, argh.

  • On my birthday…

    I was given the link below so I could discover what interesting things may have happened on my birthday (this coming Monday, if you must know).

    Wonderful. I share a birthday with Gary Numan, Mickey Dolenz and Alan “Skipper” Hale, Jr. Funny, I was just watching the MST3K of Giant Spider Invasion recently…

    Then again I also share a birthday with Lynn Redgrave, Kathy Ireland and Andrea “Miss Parker” Parker, so it’s not all bad. (So I’m a Pretender fan. Your point?)

    My birthday also seems to mark any number of nuclear tests, in addition to the last television appearance of the Marx Brothers. Hmm.

    Birthday Event Database

  • Links from Benjamin

    I’ll just run down a series of emails Ben sent me recently… because right now I’m in no (mental) condition to write anything of my own here.

    “Another gem from James Lileks, creator of the Institute of Official Cheer.”

    “Too…funny…hurts…”

    “And yes, this one is a joke.”

    And in closing,

    “I was right, civilization has collapsed and we are bacteria feeding upon its decaying corpse. The proof of this colossal philosophical and social analysis?

    “Puma Man: The Action Figure.”

  • The Ghost of SMS Past

    A few weeks ago I tried to send my friend Geoffrey a text message from my phone to his in reply to a question he’d asked. At the time I didn’t realize that I’d incorrectly entered his number into my phone’s address list, so I couldn’t understand why he never replied.

    Three weeks ago, mind you. I’ve since fixed the typo and all is right with the world. I didn’t really pay much thought to the minor issue of the poor confused soul who might have read my terse missive. Nothing came of it at the time, so it was no biggie, right?

    “Wrong!”

    I went to bed early tonight on account of sheer emotional exhaustion. For the first time in ages, I was actually asleep before midnight. Perhaps it just figures that such bliss couldn’t last…

    My phone rang at just past midnight. The caller hung up about the time I managed to answer, and while the number looked vaguely familiar I couldn’t quite place it. Had it matched anything in my address list it would’ve displayed a name along with the number, so I figured maybe it was a coworker trying to reach me about a problem at the office. I decided to wait up a few minutes to see if they’d call back.

    The caller did try again, but it wasn’t who I expected. See, this complete stranger called to ask if I’d just sent him a text message.

    Nope, I replied, I haven’t sent a text message all evening. What did it say?

    “Enemy Territory.”

    Aroo? I did send a message like that, but it was weeks ago… and oh yeah, there was a problem with having the wrong number. But… that was weeks ago!

    Turns out this gentleman had received the original message, wondered what was going on but decided to let it slide until it happened again. Here’s the weird part: It happened again. Tonight. Somehow either his carrier’s SMS got wonky or mine did, because a message I sent three weeks ago (he still had it on his phone, thus the date checking) was re-sent at midnight tonight.

    I explained this likelihood to him, and we had a good laugh. I’m fairly certain he doesn’t think I’m some sort of weirdo who likes to play pranks on random strangers via SMS, anyway.

    Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to see if I can manage to fall asleep again…

  • Well, why didn’t you say so?

    “So-and-so needs a computer, right away!”

    “So-and-so is moving into their office, and there’s no computer for them yet. That must be remedied ASAP!”

    “So-and-so doesn’t have a computer yet. That’s your top priority!”

    Fine. Who needs a standby server for the digital audio system that keeps us on the air, anyway? Here, let me spend four hours (not counting interruptions for stupid emergencies, which ballooned that time up to seven hours) prepping a computer for this so-and-so who, until I started getting the aforementioned flak, I had no idea existed and nobody accounted for when we were buying computers. Yeah.

    “Oh, that’s nice! But so-and-so is gone this week and won’t be back until Monday!”

    Urge to kill… rising…

  • Version 2. Or 5, depending.

    Why haven’t I been updating lately? It goes something like this: This past weekend, the creator of Monaural Jerk announced a new version release, the first in about two years. So of course I couldn’t resist the temptation to… upgrade!

    On the upside: The code is cleaner and neater, the admin interface is vastly improved, the stylesheets are more a part of the core layout engine, the channel management is not only more intuitive but also more useful and… did I mention the admin interface is vastly improved? Good.

    On the downside: There’s a bit of a learning curve to figure out the best way to integrate additions, and upgrading from an earlier version still has some kinks to iron out. No, really, those are the only downsides.

    I’m nearly ready (minus some stylesheet tinkering and a couple of can’t-live-without features) to replace the “main” site code with the new codebase… which will probably already have occurred if you’re reading this and didn’t come here from a link I personally sent you. Some of the old features and subsections may take a few days to bring back online, but now I know how it’s done so it won’t be a big hassle.

    Wow. This is cool. Damned cool.

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