{slurp}
In honor of my friend Drew (the origional coffee muser), I've decided to post his musings here. I found them through a nice little website called Web Archive (http://web.archive.org). While this isn't all the musings he wrote, it gives you a good idea where I get my warped ideas from. I hope you enjoy them, he is the inspiration for my own musings!
=======================
March 9, 1999
=======================
Good morning, all.
I've arrived at work, 10 mins late, comme l'usuelle, and am sipping at
my morning coffee, typing at my laptop. I've decided that I'm going to
begin mailing everyone each morning, in one fell swoop, telling everyone
what's happening in my life. Ambitious? Yes. Careless? Yes.
Precocious? Yes.
There's something precocious in the use of "precocious" in a sentence
this early in the morning - it smacks of auld englishe style (we're not
exactly part of the proletariat though, now are we darling?). It gives
me a comfortable buzz up near my frontal lobes -- some synapses strongly
object to the very ideals of saying "precocious", while roughly half of
the remainder are screaming for me to burst into showtunes from "Mary
Poppins". I like being ADD.
*sluuurp*.
So, yes, I was late again this morning. I was 10 mins in arrears
yesterday, due to the untimely demise of the electrical system along 7th
Ave SW. My source tells me that there was intermittant power outages
along the C-Train route, causing unending unpleasantries for the
underpaid operators (and their underlings). I don't think I would have
wanted to be a C-Train operator yesterday.
As for this morning - I can place part of the blame on my other half.
I awoke, as usual, to the melodic screeching of my radio alarm clock --
one of those $17.99 WalMart jobbies with only two real alarm settings -
"radio-ish static" and "staccato banshee". This, as usual, went off at
6:30am, howling the coming of morning. My significant other, giving in
to primal instincts of sleep preservation, TURNED IT OFF.
A tiny corner of my mind had achieved conciousness (where
"conciousness", or "X", was directly proportional to the number of cups
of coffee I had consumed at midnight the previous night subtracted from
the five hours of sleep I had, or "Y", to leave us with the hypothesis
that I was X=(Y-7), or "surprisingly incoherent"). I tried to the best
of my abilities to reset the alarm for 6:32am.
I failed, and was late for work.
Anticlimatic, no?
*sluuurp*.
Something new about home life - it's just myself and ONE roommate now.
Darren and I have finally rid ourselves of the multitudes of houseguests
and roommates that have plagued us for over a year. We finally live in
a two-bedroom apartment, with only two people. This is a Good
Thing(tm).
Alan Milner (from NB) and John Something-I-Forget (obviously native,
with a last name like that) have moved into the apartment below ours.
This is good, for obvious networking reasons - running cat5 to an
apartment directly below our own is far easier than, say, an apartment
in Toronto. Much lower costs for cabling, much less data loss around
the Great Lakes, much less trading of .MP3's of Stompin' Tom's "Sudbury
Saturday Night". It should be good.
In fact, the network in general should be good. We now have uncovered
geeks in many different apartments (see the 1-hour special on Fox,
"Nerds, Geeks and Computer Freaks -- Uncovering a Subculture", this
Thursday at 10pm). We have to find some method of running cables to
apartments 902, 1103, 1207, 1407, 1601 and 1603 - not to mention geeks
in the other two buildings. *sigh*.
But I digress.
And I recaffienate. :)
*sluuurp*.
Nevertheless, I suppose I should do something vaguely resembling work.
Cheers,
- Drew.
=======================
March 10, 1999
=======================
Good Morning, fellow heathens!
I've decided today that I'm going to embrace the fact that I'm a
heathen. Yes, folks, I have no religion to speak of, and of that I'm
proud. Proud doesn't begin to explain it; I'm ecstatic. I have no idea
where I'm going with this, but I'll rant on.
Work decided to give me a Palm Pilot yesterday. I like my job - I
spent the afternoon looking for interesting software to install onto
it. I now have a Star Trek "TriCorder", a security-concious "thumb
scan', a tech-support excuse generator, a copy of "Digi-Guppie, your
personal Palm-fish", and a screen saver. I spent the morning looking
for a port of "MacJesus, your saviour on a floppy" (for those who
weren't compu-philes back in the days when MacJesus was popular, it's a
scripture-spouting image of Jesus that absolves your sins
electronically) - I can't find it anywhere. I think this is why I'm
embracing my heathenism today.
*sluuurp*.
The coffee this mid-morning isn't as bad as I thought it would be.
There was a mixup with the machine this morning, and the decaf pot was
accidentally brewed caffienated. This caused a minor panic among the
administration, who, for reasons unknown, prefer decaf. After hearing
about this, I did my part for the social structure of the office and
took it upon myself to help rid the caffienated decaf pot of all that
resembled chemically-induced awakenness.
Therein lay the problem.
My third cup, I noticed that the pot was almost exactly as full as it
had been when I snatched my second cup. It was only after drinking half
of the cup that I was informed that the caffienated scourge had been
usurped -- the remains of the life-giving substance had been poured down
the sink to make way for uncaffienated liquids to calm the agitated
management. I was very nearly ill -- coffee was created (I prefer
"invented") to wake people; not for sheer enjoyment -- at least not
office coffee.
Which brings us to the topic of inventions. Who invented coffee? This
could almost spawn a theological discussion, but I prefer to think it
was someone with a good heart and a bad night's sleep. In reality, I've
found on the net that coffee was "discovered" by a shepherd in Israel,
who noticed that his sheep were more active after eating the berries
from a common plant. He tried a few himself, was violently ill, and
learned his lesson. One might think that the train of thought would
lead him towards "being sick makes me wake up!" -- but conventional
wisdom tells us that being sick leads to sleep. Anyone who's ever
stumbled home from a bar late at night will back me on this one.
The internet gave me another question this morning -- "Who invented
water?"
We're not entirely sure, but we're certain it wasn't a fish.
Cheers,
- Drew.
=======================
March 11, 1999
=======================
Good morning, folks.
Gah! I'm on the third cup today - it's been a wierd day so far.
It started last night - I fell asleep around 7pm and slept through
'till around 10pm. At 10 I awoke and sat with everyone for about a
half-hour, then went back to sleep until morning. Now, basic math
skills will tell us that 11pm-6:30am is roughly 7 1/2 hours, plus 3
hours previous, giving me a total of 10 1/2 hours sleep. Can someone
explain why I'm tired today?!?
*sluuurp*.
So this morning, I'm tired, I'm stumbling, I'm puffy and
undercaffienated -- getting ready for work, I can't find my keys or my
lighter. Now, the fact that I don't have any cigarettes today would
normally negate a need for a lighter, but keys are usually helpful. I
crashed around, waking the Significant Other (whom, by the way, has yet
to figure out how my alarm clock actually works, and had been woken up
every 9 1/2 minutes since 6:30am. I finally turned off the alarm at
7:30am, but I flatly refuse to teach her how - I feel that any
electronic device with less than 100 buttons is below me.), and failing
miserably to find them. To distract myself, I packed a lunch.
Pretty much an average morning, no?
But no - there was more to come. Darren called to me that it was time
to leave, and pressed the button for the elevator. I dashed around
frantically looking for my keys one last time, then finally realized
that it wasn't to be. I boarded the elevator with Darren.
The door closed.
We began the descent.
I didn't bring my lunch.
The elevator stopped on the eleventh floor - I dashed out, back up the
stairs, and went to unlock the door to our apartment.
I had no keys.
Do you see the beginnings of a trend here?
Banging on the door was to no avail - I had turned off the alarm,
allowing the Significant Other to fall into a deeper sleep. I reboarded
the elevator and went back down to the ground floor to find Darren
waiting for me - I explained the situation, we resigned ourselves to
lateness and ascended once again. I grabbed my lunch - I didn't tempt
fate by looking for my keys anymore; there's only so far you can go
before a higher power decides you're "pushing it".
Nevertheless, I was 10 minutes late again. I've ceased to bother
explaining myself at work.
*sluuurp*. (Blech. Cold. Refill.)
*sluuurp*. (Much better.)
The Palm Pilot is turning out fine - however, I'm starting to realize
that it's going to be a bit more difficult to use under Linux. For
those of you without the benefit of exposure to this wonderful toy, a
Palm Pilot is a 4"x5"x1/2" portable computer. The most useful feature
is the ability to "HotSync", or to non-techies, "drop the little
thingamajig with the screen into the little cradle-whoosit attached to
the big computer, hit the little button, and have all the stuff you've
recently scratched into the thingamajig update the programs on the big
computer" (or something to that extent). It's not quite so simple when
you don't use Microsoft products out of sheer pathological hatred of
monopolies.
On that note - I've discovered that not only do I hate monopolies, I
hate Monopoly. The venerable Parker Brothers have quite a repetoire of
decent board games, but this is not one of them - but I digress.
Today, as well as preparing the office for the Impending Date of Doom
(or "Y2K" for those of you that haven't heard this term quite enough to
shudder instinctively on seeing or hearing it), I have to get the Palm
Pilot to talk to the ThinkPad on which I'm typing this letter.
I'd love to begin a rant on the Impending Date of Doom - but I think
that's a longer rant than is necessary, and this Musing is already
becoming semi-long. I'll continue it tomorrow.
Cheers,
- Drew.
=======================
March 12, 1999
=======================
Good morning, folks.
Well, it's been a pretty good morning so far.
This morning, I awoke, as usual, to the neurotic screeching of the
alarm clock. I showered, woke the Significant Other, and headed down
the steps to the apartment directly below ours. John cooked breakfast
for us all today. :)
Yesterday I said I'd rant about the Impending Date of Doom, so that's
what I'm going to do. I've been working myself up to a good rant for
the last twenty-odd hours, so I'm going to release it all into the
ether. Good thing, too, as holding in rants can cause many symptoms of
illness - coughing, irritability, headaches (actually, withholding of
rants is often misdiagnosed as neural syphillus, but fortunately
penicillin isn't overly dangerous), rickets, and, over time, prostate
cancer. This explains the high incidence of prostate cancer in men -
it's sometimes difficult to get men to rant, but it's very seldom that
women refrain from ranting rauciously.
Goodness. I'm ranting about ranting.
Nevertheless, I can't think of any topic more worthy of a good rant
than the Impending Date of Doom. I'm really, REALLY getting sick of
this, folks - everywhere I look, it seems I see "Y2K this...", or "YTK
that...". For chrissakes - it's a NUMBER! It's not THAT big a deal.
How many of you have read "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"?
(Quick rundown of a subplot -- the earth was created by
super-intelligent white mice, as a colossal "organic computer". A
previous project, on the same scale, was created to find the Ultimate
Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything -- and after 40,000 years
of calculation, returned the answer "42". This confused the mice, even
though they were super-intelligent, so they created the earth to
calculate the Ultimate Question.)
I think that this has interesting ties to religion. If you think about
it - perhaps Douglas Adams is just another prophet, on the same scale as
Nostrademus. Perhaps a bit more in touch with modern methods of
communication and PR, but on the same scale. Picture Nostrademus,
somehow in contact with the white mice, predicting the end of
civilization around the same time as the end of the millenium - was it
that this huge, organic computer wasn't properly programmed to handle
dates after 1999?
Crashing the earth. This amuses me.
So maybe Jesus was nothing more than a technician? Feh.
Nevertheless, it's Friday. I like Fridays, in that I can wear
less-formal clothes to work, and in that everyone gathers at the Penguin
Pub (on 6th Ave and 1st Street SW) for drinks after 5:30pm. I like the
fact that I can leave work, get mildly intoxicated, and stumble onto a
C-Train that takes me directly to my front door. I like the fact that,
if so inclined, I can drink myself into a thorough stupor, and verbally
harass passers-by from my balcony. I like the fact that I can pass out
on my couch and suffer through a hangover the next day, because I don't
have to work in the morning.
Last night was interesting. Ivan swung by for caffienation, and we
watched more of the single "Robotech" tape that Darren rented. We've
watched it three times now, each time saying "Hey, tomorrow night, we
should rent another Robotech tape, with different episodes!". We still
haven't. Tonite is moot, nothing productive ever gets done on a
Saturday night.
Interesting thought, that. Friday afternoons, nothing really
productive ever gets done. Everyone plans out their respective weekends
and gives themself a stern talking to about how everything they've
slacked on that afternoon will be taken care of "...First thing Monday
morning!".
Nothing ever gets done on a Monday morning.
Why is this? What is this idiosyncracy of human psyche that causes us
to write off a Friday afternoon with an excuse that, though we've
thoroughly blocked it from our minds, we KNOW is complete garbage? It
doesn't strike me that this is the best way to go about things.
Nevertheless, I have to go and do some actual work - I know it won't be
completed today, but I'll be sure to finish it all up first thing Monday
morning.
Cheers,
- Drew.
=======================
March 15, 1999
=======================
Good morning, all...
Feh.
My head hurts.
Just finished having morning coffee with Ian, the sub-president of the
company. Somewhere in the conversation (about skiing and snowboarding,
natch - more on this later), the caffeine managed to rear up and kick me
square in the sinuses. Nasty feeling, hopefully it'll pass in a few
mins.
Wonderful weekend - went to Nakiska with Darren and shredded the hill
into ribbons for five hours. I've rediscovered why I started
snowboarding - what a beautiful hill, with matching beautiful weather,
and attractive end tables and color-coordinated wall-to-wall carpeting
and complementary artwork.
Sorry, somewhere in that last paragraph I left Nakiska and ended up in
Ikea.
A few months ago, we all went to a house party at Erin Yulka's
apartment. Perhaps this made it an apartment party, but since the
apartment is the bottom half of a house, and the top half was added to
the party around 11pm, we can call it a house party if it will make
anyone feel better. During the course of this party, we met a rather
silly girl who's name eludes me - she was talking about the wonderful
new artwork she'd purchased. Being artsy-types, we asked for details -
it seems she picked up a print at Ikea. We were not impressed, and
harassed her for a few minutes about the sheer nonsense of buying ART at
IKEA. Think about it -- buying ART from the same place you buy
disposable swedish furniture? I think not.
Probably matched her carpeting very nicely though.
There's definitely a rant in there somewhere - or at least a human
behaviorism thesis. I think I'll go with the rant -- art ceases to be
art when it becomes artwork.
This was disputed the other day by the people I work with - does it
cheapen a print of a great work to have it posterized, framed, and
mass-produced for sale at WalMart? An example - the feeling one can get
from seeing an art museum exhibit of "The Scream" by Edward Munch -- is
the same feeling elicited by rack upon rack of posters of the print,
glued to matte-colored waferboard with bevelled edges and a metal hanger
on the back, wrapped in cellophane with an "Everyday Low Prices!"
sticker (in florescent orange, natch) stuck to the top right corner?
A strange rant - was poor Edward Munch referred to as "Eddie" by
shopkeepers in his town? Did he get a glimpse of a bizarre future when
they handed him the change for his 2-foot sausage and loaf of french
bread, and said in a germanic accent "Thank you Eddie Munch!"?
(For those of you that just don't understand the last paragraph, try
saying "Thank you Eddie Munch" in a minority-Quickie-Mart-employee
accent. See the way my brain works on Mondays?)
Nevertheless - had a conference call with IBM about our Impending Date
of Doom readiness, and I've been delegated to make sure the photocopier
and coffee machine are Y2K Compliant(tm). I think I'll go and test my
theory that the coffee machine will be juuuuuust fine. :)
Cheers,
- Drew.
=======================
March 16, 1999
=======================
Good morning, folks.
9:42am. Third cup. Not so good today.
I'm very tired - I'm not really sure why, as I went to sleep by 1am
last night. This is pretty much the usual hour I end up crashing, and
yesterday I didn't have any trouble at all getting up. Actually,
yesterday, by comparison, I nearly sprang out of bed - the alarm
screeched a maximum of four times before my finely honed instincts
caused me to pounce on it and stab viciously at the snooze bar with a
rigid forefinger. Today, the Significant Other tells me it went off
twice before she realized that, though I was responding, I was not
conscious. She finally woke me enough to make me realize that I'd have
to have a very uncomfortable shower if I didn't want to be late for
work.
I wasn't late, however - Darren drives in this direction each morning,
so I thankfully caught a ride with him. It's scary how the true evil of
the C-Train can only be seen from the outside - every time I get on a
C-Train, I think about how nice it is that we have public
transportation. Then I happily take my seat next to a pair of
overweight siamese twins and one of the extras from the cast of
"Deliverance", and join the rest of the passengers in a hymn of praise
for the Calgary Transit Authority. I revel in the sights, sounds, and
smells of my morning 10-minute ride down 7th Ave, smiling to myself as
the elderly native gentleman sitting behind me coughs a lump of
*something* into my hair. What better way to start a day?
Evil, evil, evil public transit.
*sluuuurp*.
I've been thinking again. Normally, this can be a Bad Thing, but
today, I think I'll let my ADD run it's course and play with my mind for
a little while. I'll give you all another insight into the Way Drew's
Brain Works.
I've been thinking about holidays. Not "time off work", not weekends,
not Christmas or Hanukkah or the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed
Virgin Mary -- holidays as dictated by Hallmark and lesser powers in the
greeting card industry.
Where does Hallmark get the power to randomly declare that
I think this is rather pompous, that somehow they've garnered the power
to spontaneously charge a date with the international recognition of a
social figure. Mother's Day -- yes; appreciate your Mother, buy her a
card. Secretary's Day -- yes; appreciate your secretary, buy her a
card. Where does this tie into any other industry? No other company
has managed to exert SUCH FORCE on the marketplace that just by saying
"It's
millions of dollars to be poured from consumers pockets into those in
the executive suites of the companies in question.
Imagine the chaos if it was another industry that declared this sort of
thing. Computer sales? ("International Buy-Your-Sibling-A-Modem Day"?)
Oil and Natural Gas? ("International
Fill-Up-A-Stranger's-Tank-With-Premium-Unleaded Day"?) Perhaps this is
a bit too broad -- greeting cards are more of a niche market that the
world could live without. Perhaps the "Specialty Meats" market could
grab this opportunity and run with it? I could live with
"Buy-Your-Neighbor-Some-Bratwurst Day". I don't know if I could handle
40 "special days" per year, but the consumer in me would definitely be
willing to shell out $10 in the interests of spreading happiness and
processed meat products to my fellow Canadians.
But no, I'm far to greedy for this. I think it's time we started
declaring our own "special days". With probably 50 "special days"
revolving around the workplace, and one main one focused on
relationships, I think we should declare a "National Break-up Day",
where one can break up a relationship that just isn't working and have
complete amnesty from any ill-will the other might carry towards the
party in question.
But personally, this doesn't satisfy my greed. I'm perfectly happy in
my current relationship and feel I'd get no real benefit from declaring
"National Break-up Day" - perhaps something along the lines of
"Be-Mean-To-Ex-Girlfriends Day" -- on which everyone sends a nasty email
to a past flame telling them exactly how bad they were in bed.
Or perhaps something with less social value. Something to appeal to a
specific age group and target market. Something that will offer
absolutely no meaning or value, that just smacks of general "fun" for
the groups of geeks and losers that hang around with nothing better to
do than rent videocassettes of 1980's anime and drink really great
coffee.
With that introduction, I formally propose that we declare the first
Saturday in April, yearly, to be "International
Be-Arrogant-To-Inanimate-Objects Day". On this day, I encourage -- no,
I EXPECT you all to be positively snarky to your everyday household
objects. Be evil to your oven; look down on your loofah. Be
reproachful to your refrigerator, and talk down to your toaster. We're
the top of the food chain; it's time the common carpet knew about it.
With that, I'll leave you. I have to go buy some bratwurst for the
elderly oriental woman in apartment 1408.
Cheers,
- Drew.
=======================
March 17, 1999
=======================
Good morning, folks...
Ok, so it's more difficult to muse than usual today. I'm sitting in
the "Alberta Room" of the Palliser Hotel in Calgary, attending a Cisco
seminar entitled "Building Intelligent New World Networks". Sounds like
it's going to be relatively interesting -- whoah, mic test just produced
an excruciating feedback whine; relatively insensitive for this hour of
the morning -- it will have some interesting discussions on building
voice/video/data networks.
So, regardless, I'm typing this on my ThinkPad whilst drinking Cisco
Salespitch Blend out of uncomfortably tiny teacups and eating a
complementary bagel from the continental breakfast. It's not
particularly *bad* coffee, but it's also not particularly *good*. I
think there's probably some sort of marketing ploy involved - some idea
thought up by a particularly bright suit back at Cisco World
Headquarters in Capital City, that the exact blend and strength of
coffee might promote sales of Cisco products.
"Hey, we've just met at this conference, but the coffee's not
particularly great, and there's a place across the street. Why don't we
go there and discuss your giving me obscene amounts of money to play
with your computer?"
"That sounds like a great idea! Let's buy Cisco products to do it
with!"
Feh.
This room is filled with geeks, but they're all of the 30-50 age
group. The mic-tester guy keeps saying "Testing, one-two, testing
one-two" into the mic again and again and again. There are women here,
and even a couple of semi-cute geek chicks, but not enough that they're
not completely overcome with overweight overachievers in Obermeier
three-piece suits. I'm nonplussed.
Ivan tells me that we need to get more chicks into networking. This,
in essence, is the solution to just about all the problems facing the
modern geek - but, while a solution is always desireable, anyone that's
ever worked in the computer industry knows there's NO SUCH THING as a
SOLUTION. There's problems - oh, yes, problems abound - but there's
never a solution for any problem. There's always just a series of
hacks, work-arounds, kludges, temporary fixes, etc - but no problem is
ever truly solved.
This is why I feel that there is no such thing as a "problem".
"Oh," you say. "It's all so much clearer to me now!". Allow me to
continue.
"Problems", by definition, have solutions - but we've already discussed
the non-existance of solutions. Later, we'll discuss the non-existance
of leprechauns, but for now, I'll continue on this thread.
Yes. We'll take the CADVision route and refer to all problems as
"issues". You see - problems require solutions, whereas ISSUES can be
"worked through".
I'm now bored of this thread, and want to talk about St. Patricks Day.
I'm wearing absolutely nothing green, with the possible exception of
the stripe on my left sock, which is an earthtone vaguely ressembling a
light olive. The stripe on my right sock is definitely black. This
tells me that I really should turn the light on in my bedroom BEFORE
getting dressed in the morning.
Tonight, we're all going to the James Joyce Pub. I'm not sure what's
involved in the thought process of a person named James Joyce to go out,
start a pub, and decide that, since he's so intolerably personable and
good-looking that everyone will most likely want to come to his pub if
he names it after himself. I think it's actually pretty vain, but Ivan
tells me that they server Guinness at three different temperatures (on
purpose) and that's usually enough to swing me towards a pub. Hell,
after seven or eight Guinness, I might even be convinced to swing
towards James Joyce himself. He is, after all, a pretty popular guy.
Stupid tiny teacups. By Real World Measurements(tm), these are about
1/4 of a regular cup of coffee - by direct results, I'm now on
thimblefull number seven, and need more.
Re: leprechauns. I'm thoroughly annoyed at this facet of Irish
folklore. There's much better things that Joe Irish Townsperson could
have been telling his children - "Hey kids, go to bed or vicious
maurauders from the next town will slaughter our livestock, burn our
farm, and rape your mother and I!". Strike some FEAR in to their young
Irish hearts!
But of course, not all children's stories should be used to make
children respect and obey their elders; physical abuse is also pretty
effective. No, some stories are there to relax the children to the
point that they'll cease their caterwauling (<-- sounds Irish, no? I'm
trying for ambience here) and fall gently to sleep. I think leprechauns
fell into this category.
Interestingly enough, valium falls easily enough into the same slot -
but you don't hear about this nearly enough - I want a childrens' folk
tale in which you find a magical pot of valium at the end of the
rainbow. Or more for the modern child, in which you find a loaded
wallet at the end of the sidewalk after chasing a mildly disabled dwarf
up the street with his own cane.
Nevertheless, I'll not be able to send this untill I can hook the
ThinkPad to some sort of transport medium (or "plug it into the
network", for those who are comp.sys.illiterate), so I'll sign off
before my batteries go kaput and I lose my musing.
Besides, they're almost ready to start the salespitch.
Cheers,
- Drew.
*** Footnote: I just got home, so I'm sending it now - it's 4:45 pm.
=======================
March 18, 1999
=======================
Good morning, folks.
Gah.
Well, the seminar was terrible. I'm completely disappointed in Cisco -
they spent incredible amounts of money on extremely attractive binders
and folders and pens for the seminar - when they should have spent time
making the CONTENT worthwhile. I'd have rather they gave out four
sheets of looseleaf and a #2 HB , with bad decanter coffee in cheap
styrofoam cups -- mind you, I appreciated the free bagels and danish,
but I'd have given it ALL UP for some content worth listening to.
We assumed the seminar would be something along the lines of "This is
an overview of a conventional problem. This is the conventional problem
in more detail. These are the conventional solutions. These are the
new-thinking solutions. This is how Cisco can help you."
Unfortunately, it was a bit more like "This is an overview of a
conventional problem. This is the Cisco box that you buy to solve the
problem. This is the Cisco box from another angle. This is a list of
optional features the box comes with. This is the set of steak knives
you get if you buy this box right NOW!".
I was nonplussed.
Nevertheless, we left a scathing commentary on the seminar evaluation
sheet, and left early -- neither I nor Ivan had the several thousand
dollars necessary to puchase any Cisco products.
So, I neglected to mention yesterday that I bought a hub. For the
comp.sci.illiterate, a hub is a box with loads of blinky lights that
allows you to connect many computers together - before buying this I
still had many computers linked together, but it was with coaxial
cable. For a graphic explaination of the difference between coaxial and
twisted-pair networking, try the following at home.
For this activity, you'll need:
10 children, aged between 5 and 12
10 skipping ropes (preferably those rubber-plastic ones in bright
colors)
5 handkerchiefs (preferably large, red-checkered, and well used)
A fairly wide-open space
Valium, one bottle
To begin, politely ask for the childrens' attention. When this fails,
use five of the skipping ropes to tie five of the children into a
tangled mess that will take them at least an hour to escape from. At
least one will need to go to the bathroom at this time, and another will
begin crying. To save our sanity, gag the five bound children with the
handkerchiefs; we'll untie and use them later.
Now - remember that game in which everyone stands in a circle and
passes a message around by whispering into each other's ears? This is
quite similar.
Manipulate the five unbound children into a rough line, and give each
one a skipping rope to hold between them and the child next to them.
Now - explain to them that they are only allowed to talk or listen to
the person holding the other end of their skipping rope. It should look
roughly like this.
Mikey---Betty---Davey---Ralph---Timmy
Now - try as patiently as possible to make them understand that Mikey
can only talk to Timmy if he gives a message to Betty, who tells it to
Davey, who tells it to Ralph, who probably has to go to the washroom by
now. Failing this, forget about it, because this exercise is for YOUR
benefit, not theirs.
This is very similar to coaxial networking, in that you set up the
computers in a chain. It's often referred to as a "bus" topology, but
don't worry about this, because if you say "bus topology" aloud, the
children are sure to tell you exactly what they think it means, and this
will only confuse you more. Bus topology is useful in some situations,
but not always.
For the second part of the exercise, convince the children to stand in
a rough circle around you. Give each one a skipping-rope end, and hold
all of the ends in your right hand. Now, attempt to explain that if
anyone wants to talk to anyone else, they have to give YOU the message,
and you'll relay it to the child (or workstation) to which it's
directed.
Of course, at least one of the children will either have a harelip or
some other hereditary speech impediment, or perhaps will be eating
something sticky, so you'll just have to try and relate the message as
best you understand. It will probably sound like "A hah-ta tee kai
oh-loo ha-unh?", which, tho you might be tempted to translate from
Furbish, will actually mean "I feel a need to urinate, may I please go
to the washroom?". You will relay it as "A hah-ta tee kai oh-loo
ha-unh?", to which the other child will respond as if you'd said
something extrememly witty. This is called "packet loss".
This is much like twisted-pair networking, or "star" topology. It's
referred to as "star" topology because it was originally proposed in
the internet request-for-comment RFC-1419 by international film
sensation Richard Gere, who thought it was a pretty nifty idea. Other
internet people, out of respect for Richard's successful acting career,
decided to honor him with his own type of network topology, and threw in
another two Grammys to boot.
Now, the benefits of star topology will be revealed. Untie a few of
the children, and let the ones who need to go to the washroom. You
should be left with two extraneous children, each with skipping ropes.
Grab one of the ends of each of the two ropes, and the children become
part of your star.
When the two extra children come back from the washroom (Yes, there WAS
three. One is sure to get lost. Watch the evening news, children go
missing all the time.) they'll probably all want to skip. Show that
you're a benevolent adult and continue holding the other ends while the
children frolic around you, having learned absolutely nothing from our
exercise, and being much happier for that.
Class is over, kids, I've got some work to do...
Cheers,
- Drew.
=======================
March 19, 1999
=======================
Good morning, folks.
Well. It's been a different sort of day so far.
This morning, as usual, I woke to the electronic screech of the alarm,
and realized that I should have gone to bed earlier. Somehow, it's
similar to the Friday Anomaly, in which everyone tells themselves that
work uncompleted today will be finished "first thing Monday morning",
only it never really happens, and Monday is slack. Yes, I wake every
morning and my brain gives me a stern talking-to in regards to our
sleeping habits. I know I should go to bed around 10 or 11 pm, and I
realize this every morning at 6:30 when the alarm begins it's daily
serenade to the rising sun. However, at 10 pm, I'm wild, I'm reckless,
and I tell my brain "Heck, yesterday we went to bed at 1 am, and just
look! We're fine right now!", to which my brain can find no reasonable
argument, and we share another cup of coffee.
*sigh*.
*sluuurp*.
In today's installation of the Ramblings of the Venerable Muse, we
shall continue in the thread of introducing to the comp.sci.illiterati
some of the more difficult concepts in computing, and discuss the care
and feeding of your home computer.
But first, I must bring to your attention the term "illiterati" - this
is in reference to the comp.sci.illiterate, which are polar opposites to
the comp.sci.illuminati. My general feeling is that people will be more
accepting of the term illiterati, mostly because it sounds pretty cool,
and acceptance by the illiterati is a crucial step in my quest for total
world domination. Computer illiterates are ever-so-much less likely to
take offense to this term, as opposed to my original "Burn The Stupid"
conquest slogan.
However, in the interest of allowing smart-but-computer-illiterate
people to survive my eventual domination, I shall continue on our
text-based "Magic Schoolbus" emulation.
If you look in front of you right now, you will see a computer - at
least, I hope so. If you're reading this on paper, you're completely
missing the point of email. Regardless.
A computer is a complex piece of machinery, comprised of a myriad of
different components with arcane and scary-sounding names, like
"processor", or "modulator/demodulator", or "psi-boson dequadulator", or
even "RAM" (the underlying connotations of which I refuse to discuss in
a family-oriented email).
I personally find it silly that the designers of computer components
have such pathetic social lives that they must make up for it by looking
as dashing as possible in the eyes of other computer designers by
creating a new process and naming it in the most obfuscated manner
possible.
"Hey, Jim - look what I built!"
"What is it, Phil?"
"It's a trans-meta freon converter!"
"Wow, Phil, you are somehow much more attractive in my eyes! What does
it do?"
"It makes ice cubes!"
Silliness. The designers of the Commodore "Amiga" series of computers
had a different view on the subject. Imagine, for a moment, that you
are a chip designer, and you've just completed your project of the past
three years, a chip that accelerates the display of graphics on the
screen by twice the rate, and allows many times more colors than ever
before. By conventional thinking, you MUST name it with a name that
exudes power, and speed, and geekiness - something marketable, that will
make a geek drool as he sits alone in his basement on a Friday night.
Perhaps "Chromium GX-3", or "Liquid X.545 v6", or "99384447288.878" (the
final one is realistic - geeks LOVE to refer to equipment by serial
number).
But no - the Amiga designer who made this chip decided to name it
Agnes, who (if I remember correctly) was his great-aunt. Other chips
in the same machine had names like Denise, and Phil, and RockLobster.
For once in my life, I'm not making this up.
However - barring the possibility that the display in front of you is
actually made of processed, bleached trees and requires no external
power source - you probably aren't sitting in front of anything like an
Amiga. So, without further ado, we'll continue in our learning.
Since the computer is such an advanced piece of machinery, today we
will discuss only the repairation of the keyboard. For today's
exercise, you will need:
An IBM model 101 keyboard ("clacky" style - you'll recognize it by the
fact that every time you hit a key, it responds with a "CLICK!" loud
enough to wake people sleeping in the next building)
A can of McCains' Frozen Berry Punch Concentrate, thawed.
A can opener
A midsize towel
A small child, aged 5-12
A room with carpeting you really don't care about.
An 8-ounce glass
6 cups (1.5L) of cold water
A 2L jug, suitable for juice
A pair of rubber dishwashing gloves.
First, demonstrate to the child that the keyboard is capable of making
really nifty noises when you press your fingers on the keyboard. He or
she will immediately want to play with it, so explain to them gently
that a keyboard is an extremely delicate piece of hardware. This will
make the child want to play with it even more, and, depending solely on
the age of the child, may cause them to look extremely dejected in hopes
that you will reassess the situation and allow them to play with it. Do
not let him or her play with it - that will come soon.
Send the child to the washroom, which surely will be a pressing need at
this time. Into the room, leave the water, the juice mix, the juice
jug, the can opener, the 8-ounce glass, and the keyboard. Retrieve the
child from the washroom, and allow them into the room. Explain to them
that they are to make juice. Leave the room and shut the door.
Wait for exactly thirty-five seconds. Put on the rubber gloves and
reenter the room.
You will see the child (and most of the room, natch) covered in a red
syrupy substance that you will recognize as the juice. The keyboard
will be lying in a puddle of water, covered in red syrupy goo, and
clacking noisily from the child jumping up and down on it gleefully.
Remove the child and gently pick up and examine the keyboard. It's
broken, isn't it? You didn't use an IBM "clacky", did you? You used
any old keyboard and didn't expect that it would make any difference,
didn't you? Throw away the keyboard and start again from the beginning
with the proper materials.
Once you've gotten this far with the IBM 101, look carefully at it. It
is stained with red juice mix (as is the carpet, the walls, the child,
and, by now, very probably yourself as well), but generally in working
condition.
Fill the bathtub with warm, soapy water. Place the keyboard gently
into the bathtub, and watch an episode of "Barney and Friends". This
will make the keyboard clean, the child quiet, and you nauseous. Finish
the show, destroy something to regain your sanity, and return to the
washroom. Replace the bathtubbed keyboard with the sticky child, give
the child a facecloth, dry the keyboard roughly with the towel, and go
watch an episode of Seinfeld. Remove the child from the bathtub and
allow both child and keyboard to dry.
You know will have the knowledge required to rescue any keyboard from
any extreme situation involving children, provided the keyboard is an
indestructible IBM model 101. Congratulations! You are now well on your
way to becoming a computer technician, or a parent.
Be advised that computer technicians have much longer life expectancies
than parents.
Cheers,
- Drew.
=======================
March 22, 1999
=======================
'Morning, everyone...
Feh - a few new things this morning. Those of you with sharpened
geek-skills may have noticed that I've changed the naming convention of
the musings, effective today. Before the change, I had locked myself
into a corner, naming them "v0.1" through "v0.9", leaving me with
absolutely no choice but to continue into "v1.0". Rather than make the
same mistake twice, I've decided to go with a more open convention, so
that if these musings continue for an extended period of time, there
will be no more naming issues.
*sluuurp*.
Nevertheless - woke up this morning to the staccato banshee, as usual.
The Significant Other *still* hasn't quite grasped the concept of the
alarm; as it screeched away, I heard her move, then that satisfying
*clik* of the snooze button being depressed (funny that, how something
being "depressed" can make me so happy) - then another click, as she
TURNED OFF THE ALARM. This negated the alarm resounding in another 10
mins, and didn't help my mood much. I reached over, set the alarm two
minutes ahead, and gave her a short instructional tutorial on the care
and feeding of a WalMart alarm.
This, fortunately, worked, and I was woken properly two
snooze-depresses later, only to discover that the alarm clock is
actually set fifteen minutes fast, so I had enough time to have a good
long shower before leaving for work.
Today should be interesting. Today is the first day of the AIX
Advanced System Administration course. Unfortunately, it starts in
about 15 minutes, in another building, so I'll have to cut this
reasonably short.
I need help from someone on a rant that I'm working on - I've totalled
it up - I imbibe roughly 4500mg of caffeine on any given week. Can
someone tell me exactly what size mammal that would kill if taken all in
one dose? Is it enough to actually KILL a horse, or just make one very,
very skittish?
Word of the day: Toxic Amblyopia. This is what you get from TOO much
caffeine. You shake and hallucinate, and they really ought to pump your
stomach, so keep the cups to a minimum today, kids.
Nevertheless - I have so much I want to rant about, but I don't have
time today! I'll do tomorrow's ranting tonight (over coffee), so you'll
all have rants in your mailboxes early.
Cheers,
- Drew.
=======================
March 23, 1999
=======================
Good mornin - er - evening, folks.
Welp - for the rest of the week, musings aren't going to be written
first thing in the morning, as I'm back in school for the time being.
Don't get me wrong; I'm happy to be learning from IBM themselves (yay!),
but it's a little intensive by comparison to my usual lifestyle. So,
here I am, 11:30 at night, caffeinated by any scale, writing you all to
try to both give you an insight into my mind and help you have a more
tolerable Tuesday.
The concepts and/or issues that they bring up in class aren't
difficult; they're all very graspable. The problem lies in the AMOUNT
of them - by god, have any of you ever had the opportunity to pick
something complex apart from a very, very base level, when you've had
little to no applicable previous experience with it? It's fun, but I'm
definitely loaded down with stuff to do and learn.
Patty Dykeman was wonderful to me! She sent me the most interesting
information about caffeine toxicity! I'll quote it, 'cause she says it
really well.
> Hi!
> Me, being educated, actually learn useless things like the toxicity of
> caffeine.
> The acute mammalian toxicity (ie: 1 big dose enuff to kill you) is
> 200mg per kg of body weight. Do the math yourself :)
> This compares to salt at 4000mg/kg, and nicotine at 50 mg/kg.
> (1 drop of pure nicotine in your system can drop you dead in you r
> tracks)
> there's a little happiness to brighten your day :)
> luvs ya,
> Patty :)
This completely made my day. With a little calculation on Darren's
part, we've discovered that I would have to imbibe over 13,000mg of
caffeine at once to kill myself. This, with a little more math, means
that I'll have to drink roughly 86 cups of coffee in quick succession to
actually kill myself with caffeine. So, if I become severely depressed
(visions of snooze bars dance through my head), I can drink myself to
death in a way that very few people have done. I'll probably die of
haemorragic ulcers long before the caffeine actually kicks in (and/or
kicks *me*), though, so don't pencil it into your daytimers just yet.
So, since I haven't the perl skills to put a caffeine-to-death
converter page online just yet, here's the procedure for finding out how
much coffee it would take to kill you!
Step one: Find your body weight. This will probably be in pounds,
since most of us were taught the Imperial system by fascist moralists
with no view of the future. Silly American thinking. The conversion
from pounds to kilograms is 2.21 pounds per kilogram, so, take your
Win95 calculator (Start Button => Programs => Accessories =>
Calculator), put in your weight in pounds, and divide by 2.21. I
seriously hope I'm right on this one - I'm getting my numbers directly
from the Significant Other, so if they're wrong, blame both her and my
lack of any real recollection of physics in High School. I got a 60%,
by the way.
Step two: Assume that your cup of java contains 100mg of caffeine.
For every kilogram, you need two cups of coffee - so, multiply the first
number by two.
Step three: Attempt to kill yourself with caffeine.
*sigh* - I've had way too much coffee for midnight. Oh well.
It is now a new day; it just passed the hour of twelve. In military
time, it's now zero-o'clock - which makes me wonder if this means that
the day actually starts now. Why do people naturally assume that the
dawn signifies the start of the day? I suppose - by definition, "day"
means "light" (hence, "daylight", but I digress). This just sucks - I
personally think night is ever so much more fun. I think it's probably
best to go with "It's not a new day until you've slept" - but this would
cause those of us who regularly miss nights to be on a completely
different calendar than those of you with steady sleep habits. It could
get really confusing around Christmas. Perhaps I can just live if
people STOP CALLING ME AT 8AM SUNDAY MORNING!!
I wonder what "perspicacity" means. I've opened the discussion up to
Erin and Ivan, but they're not sure whether it's a real word, or whether
I made it up on the fly. I may well have, but I'm sure I've seen it
somewhere. Nevertheless.
Feh. I'm going to go to bed soon. Beginning to come down from my
raging caffeine buzz, and I have to be at IBM for 8:30 am.
Gah! I'm obsessing now. I have no idea what "perspicacity" means, and
I don't have a dictionary in the house! I refuse to use online
dictionaries, because I think they negate the whole reason to have a
dictionary around. A dictionary should be an oversized tome that holds
the rest of the books on the shelf. It should be large enough and heavy
enough to pose a threat to other members of the household - if so
needed, should be available for home defense, leaf-pressing, levelling
of really, REALLY off-kilter washing machines, and the other 1001 (or
"myriad"? No. Gratuitous use of the word "myriad" annoys me.) uses for
a large block of leaf'd wood pulp. Going to a dictionary should be a
production worthy of the stopping of a seriously good game of Scrabble,
the education of a less-cultured person ("What do you mean,
"smegma-head?" "Go look it up, smegma-head!"), or the solution to
life-long quarrels about the pronunciation of "Linux". Unfortunately,
"Linux" isn't in any of the tomes I have had the honor to own over the
years, all of which, coincidentally, are in my basement in New
Brunswick.
Feh.
Nevertheless, I'm off to bed. My eyelids are starting to droop, and I
know from experience that this means I'll soon go to bed regardless, and
probably forget to brush my teeth. So, by going now, I'll have fresh
breath for the next 6 hours, which will do me absolutely no good, as my
breath will be rotten again by morning. *sigh*.
Cheers,
- Drew.
=======================
March 24, 1999
=======================
Good morning, people.
*sigh*
It's almost 1 am.
I really need sleep.
I will be crashing fairly soon, but first I'll impart some more of my
usual ramblings on you all. It's officially Wednesday, so I'll describe
last night in some detail.
Last night, I meant to get some sleep. I'll spoil it for you - I'm
still awake at 1 am, writing musings for you all. I came home from work
at around 5:30, and headed directly to the couch to finish my book and
take a nap. I did finish my book, but the Significant Other arrived
exactly as I started the final chapter, so I didn't get a chance to
sleep. This isn't necessarily a bad thing; I thoroughly enjoyed the
company, but I really should have seized the opportunity to take the
nap.
Ivan showed up around 9-ish, and grumbled vaguely about the lack of
food in his diet. M sister showed up, complaining of the same. The
significant other bailed for coffee with her Mother, and Heather, Ivan
and I were left sitting on the couch contemplating life, the universe,
and everything.
After everyone got back, we decided to go and track down some
comestibles. We went to a small cafe called "Karma".
*sigh*
Sorry, folks - the brain just isn't up to this right now. Need sleep.
I'll try and make a supplemental today around noon, if I can find the
time...
Cheers,
- Drew.
=======================
March 25, 1999
=======================
Good morning, people!
Gah! Long, LONG day yesterday. Went to work-slash-school for 8am, got
home at roughly 8:30pm, without the benefit of nourishment for over 12
hours. Subsisting on coffee and OJ, though for some reason enhancing my
concentration, isn't helping my quality-of-life levels. I'll be SO glad
when this week is over!
Today at school, we learned all about crashing IBM mainframes on
purpose, then taking the dumped crash logs, and extracting necessary
information about WHY they crashed. One might think this
counter-productive, but I guess it was a good way to learn how to figure
out why a system crashed when you DIDN'T cause it. Strange, that - I've
yet to see one crash by accident. Incidentally, the program used to
CAUSE the system to crash is called "crash". I'm not even going to
comment on this one.
Along the same lines - it was announced a few weeks back, and verified
by Evil Incarnate himself, that there is a bug in Windows 95 that causes
any Win95 system to crash after being up and running for 47.5 days. I
first wondered why it wasn't discovered previous, but realistically, the
scenario had never really arisen before - nobody had ever had a Win95
box up that long! Scary, when you think about it - the systems I play
with at work are built to be delivered, set up, configured, and
forgotten. One of the systems I saw the other day, attached to a UPS
(Uninterruptable Power Supply - kind of a shoebox-sized emergency
battery with electrical outlets, for the comp.sci.illiterati), had been
running without fail for just over 5 years! That's a lot of
Christmases, kids - the reason we were there was to take it away and put
in a newer, faster computer with the same programs. Truly frightening
to think of exactly where the home-computing market has gone.
Quote for the day; from "Dr. Dobbs Journal" (a fairly famous computer
magazine).
"Imagine if you tied your shoes exactly the same way, only every
alternate Thursday, they exploded. This happens to us all the time with
computers, and nobody thinks to question it."
Probably not quite word-for-word, but I know I've quoted the spirit of
it, if not the exact diction.
I've got my weekend planned - I'm floccinaucininihilipilificating as we
speak.
Yes, kids, I've brought you another word-of-the-day! It's an actual
word, and I've used it properly in a sentence. It's officially the
longest word in the English language, according to Websters as of a few
years' prior. Yes, it originally was "antidisestablishmentarianism",
but now it's floccinaucininihilipilification.
Some origins: the word was actually the fruit of three solid days'
labour by a handful of English professors hired by Websters to find the
longest word. Imagine this as a contract - three days, all expenses
paid, locked in a room with several of your peers, as the finest off
your profession, to research and create the longest word imaginable!
It means "the act of planning to do something completely useless".
Ironic, isn't it?
I had my first experience with potatoes-as-pizza-topping tonight.
Heather decided to order pizza from the penultimate of the pizza
profession; that purveyor of plush pies, the pusher of potato'd
pleasures -- the Wicked Wedge. It was actually better than I'd
expected, but then again, my second choice for supper was two blueberry
Eggo's wrapped around some peanut butter in sort of a sandwichy
fashion. I don't hold any claim to an ability to cook. Hell, McDonalds
even FIRED me, years ago! (Note: I was young, foolish, and needed the
money.)
So Erin and Kim and the crowd have gone to Gotham in search of alcohol
and music. I would have loved to join them, only lack of necessary
fundage and severe need of rest dictate that I stay home alone and read
tonight. Not necessarily a bad thing, I haven't had time to myself in a
while. It's only taken about two hours for me to crave companionship
again, so I think I'll throw in a tape of some good progressive acid
trance, and retreat to dreamland in preparation for school tomorrow.
Nevertheless, sleep beckons.
Cheers,
- Drew.
=======================
March 26, 1999
=======================
Good morning everyone...
Welp, it's almost 8 am, but I don't have to be at work until 8:30
today, so that leaves me with about 10 minutes to muse at you before I
have to run screaming towards the C-Train and bang dejectedly on the
side of it as it pulls away from the station without me. Feh.
So last night, we went to Vicious Circle with some friends for food and
caffeination. Not a bad thing, but there was some serious fluff sitting
at the next table over. Horrible stuff - very attractive, in that 90210
way, but very, VERY plastic.
The Significant Other and friends have decided to classify different
types of girls according to letters of the alphabet - cool girls become
vowels, while boring people become consonants. I agree with this line
of thought - we need a good mix of vowels and consonants. If all girls
were cool and interesting, the world would speak Hawaiian.
The girls sitting at the next table were an M, a P, and a W,
respectively.
Todd is leaving now, heading for home. He says he's going to go home
to bed right after visiting the vet. I suggested that most people
actually see doctors. He's annoyed at this.
Nevertheless - I can't must much today, I must get to school - today is
the last day! Yay! No more school for two days, then back to my daily
grind, with much more knowledge and billable skills. Work will like me
more now. :)
Cheers,
- Drew.
=======================
March 29, 1999
=======================
Good morning, people.
Ok, first off, something to get out of the way.
My sister Heather, who is the best sister a guy could ever wish for,
bought me pizza last Thursday. She is wonderful and intelligent and
tall and deserves a wonderful, intelligent, handsome guy who is taller
than her and has all his own teeth.
Allow me to explain.
Heather bought me pizza, and, as usual, expected that I return the
favor - she didn't tell me HOW she wanted me to reciprocate. I wrongly
assumed that I would do this by buying HER pizza sometime in the near
future, after I receive a paycheque (which, in fact, should be today or
tomorrow). I was wrong - she, in standard Don't-tell-Drew wisdom,
expected me to extoll her virtues to the followers of the Morning Muse
in hopes of sparking romantic interest in one or more of the readers,
and was more than mildly annoyed that I didn't so much as mention it in
the muse the following day. I have since realized this, and am
publishing this formal apology to the list in hopes of appeasing the
powers that be.
Along the lines of appeasement, it should be noted that today is the
feast day of Saint Folgers, patron of morning. To properly show your
respects for this holiest-of-holy saint, you must drink at least one cup
of coffee before noon, and allow your day to become better for it. If
you're reading this, and it is already past noon, there is still hope -
for Saint Folgers is a benevolent saint - just drink one cup of black
coffee at your earliest possibility. "Why black, sir?" I hear you say
in a bad English accent. "Why must we drink it black?". Really now.
What kind of atonement is cream and sugar? You DID, after all, miss an
important religious holiday! You must SUFFER for this sin!
I'm going to leave this thread before I rant about holidays again.
It's 9:30 am, and I've been here since 8 am, learning Perl again. My
course is now completed; I have all the skills and knowledge that the
"AIX Advanced System Administration" course professed to impart. I
should really write the exam sometime soon, but I think I'd rather read
the course textbooks again before I write it. I'd rather absolutely ace
the exam than walk in thinking I know everything and failing the exam.
This puts me well on my way to certification as an IBM Advanced
Technical Expert. Sounds pretty official, no? I'm happy with that idea
- so much better than becoming a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer,
or MCSE - I've been hearing that you can actually take MCSE training as
an elective course in High School in Ontario now. That begins to scare
me - an MCSE entering the workplace in the US can expect between
$50-$80,000/year to start - there is a shortage of them. Where's the
industry going to go when EVERYONE has their MCSE? Fer chrissakes, the
longest MCSE "training" courses I've seen are four months, and those
longer courses tend to be geared towards those with no previous computer
experience. *sigh*.
Well, yesterday sucked. It was Sunday, of course, and I spent all of
Saturday rebuilding Gibson, my main desktop computer at home. Short
version: I blew yet ANOTHER monitor yesterday, leaving me with a grand
total of none. I'm unhappy.
Long version:
Once upon a time, there were two young men who had just moved to
Calgary from a small town in New Brunswick; we'll call them Darren and
Drew.
Darren and Drew were fresh-faced young go-getters with rosy cheeks and
marvelous work ethics. They ran around downtown Calgary desperately
searching for employment for the first two weeks' worth of their Calgary
residency, and found jobs with minimal trouble.
While sitting at their new jobs (which happened to be at the same
company), Drew found a posting on the Calgary Bargain Finder (a local
paper for buying and selling used tripe) listing 17" computer monitors
for a fantastically low price. Drew excitedly showed this to Darren,
and after calling the number, they jumped into Darren's car and drove
far into the northeast to pick up their new monitors.
For a total of $450, Darren and Drew bought four of these large
monitors, three of which worked. Drew used two of them, and Darren used
one. The fourth become a permanent fixture in the hall closet.
A few months later, Drew tried using some software called "Scitech
Display Doctor for Linux". It was wonderful software, which caused the
monitor to reach it's maximum potential. Actually, it exceeded it's
maximum potential, and consequently died an unpleasant death. Drew was
unhappy, but he still had his second 17" monitor, and even a 14" monitor
to spare.
Several months after that, Drew woke up one morning to find that his
second 17" monitor had peacefully died in it's sleep. He mourned it
appropriately and moved both of the now-dead monitors off of his desk,
down to the end of the couch, where, when moved together appropriately,
they became an attractive end-table on which to place a lamp, and
occasionally, beverages or delicious snacks for visitors.
Time passed yet again, with much happening in the lives of Darren and
Drew, but very little of interest happening to the monitors, who, we're
sure, were convinced that life in the apartment was either heaven, hell,
or retirement.* One day, Drew was attempting to vacuum the apartment
when a horrible accident occurred - the first monitor, the one who came
to the apartment pre-dead, fell from the top of the closet, narrowly
missing Drew's foot and making a tremendous crash, followed by a hissing
sound. Drew was horrified at this desecration of the final resting
place of a respected monitor, and promptly made amends by giving the
monitor a proper funeral, leaving it in the alleyway behind the
apartment with his best wishes and a piece of masking tape marked "DEAD"
stuck to the screen.
Then, one fateful day, the third and final working monitor passed away
in the night, granting credit to the theory that the apartment was
nothing more than a retirement home for aged computer hardware.**
(*: Portrayals of non-human objects having human characteristics is a
literary device known as "personification", used by many noted authors
throughout history. By using personification in this text, we gain
credibility as an actual story, rather than the simple blatherings of a
caffeine-hyped geek with a laptop.)
(**: That's pronounced "AY-jed", kids.)
Feh.
This gives you an idea of what happened to all the monitors. Now, if
you've been counting, I still should have one monitor left - the 14"
painted black with silver flames? Yes - technically I still have that
monitor. No, it's no longer working. Yesterday morning, I awoke, set
for a long day of graffiking alone in the apartment. I checked my
email, turned away to talk to the Significant Other for all of TEN
SECONDS, turned back and the monitor was dead. It's not technically
DEAD, in the traditional sense. It displays the screen at full width,
only about an inch tall, in ultra-white. Personified, this is something
akin to a stroke, only monitors can't re-learn to talk. Imagine a
stroke victim talking loudly and really, really quickly, but only having
a vocabulary of fifteen or so words, and no ability to learn more. No,
my monitor is not technically dead, but it certainly has a lifetime in a
mental institution to look forward to. At least I still have the
ThinkPad.
*sigh*
I suppose I should do some work.
Cheers,
- Drew.
Good morning, people.
Ok, first off, something to get out of the way.
My sister Heather, who is the best sister a guy could ever wish for,
bought me pizza last Thursday. She is wonderful and intelligent and
tall and deserves a wonderful, intelligent, handsome guy who is taller
than her and has all his own teeth.
Allow me to explain.
Heather bought me pizza, and, as usual, expected that I return the
favor - she didn't tell me HOW she wanted me to reciprocate. I wrongly
assumed that I would do this by buying HER pizza sometime in the near
future, after I receive a paycheque (which, in fact, should be today or
tomorrow). I was wrong - she, in standard Don't-tell-Drew wisdom,
expected me to extoll her virtues to the followers of the Morning Muse
in hopes of sparking romantic interest in one or more of the readers,
and was more than mildly annoyed that I didn't so much as mention it in
the muse the following day. I have since realized this, and am
publishing this formal apology to the list in hopes of appeasing the
powers that be.
Along the lines of appeasement, it should be noted that today is the
feast day of Saint Folgers, patron of morning. To properly show your
respects for this holiest-of-holy saint, you must drink at least one cup
of coffee before noon, and allow your day to become better for it. If
you're reading this, and it is already past noon, there is still hope -
for Saint Folgers is a benevolent saint - just drink one cup of black
coffee at your earliest possibility. "Why black, sir?" I hear you say
in a bad English accent. "Why must we drink it black?". Really now.
What kind of atonement is cream and sugar? You DID, after all, miss an
important religious holiday! You must SUFFER for this sin!
I'm going to leave this thread before I rant about holidays again.
It's 9:30 am, and I've been here since 8 am, learning Perl again. My
course is now completed; I have all the skills and knowledge that the
"AIX Advanced System Administration" course professed to impart. I
should really write the exam sometime soon, but I think I'd rather read
the course textbooks again before I write it. I'd rather absolutely ace
the exam than walk in thinking I know everything and failing the exam.
This puts me well on my way to certification as an IBM Advanced
Technical Expert. Sounds pretty official, no? I'm happy with that idea
- so much better than becoming a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer,
or MCSE - I've been hearing that you can actually take MCSE training as
an elective course in High School in Ontario now. That begins to scare
me - an MCSE entering the workplace in the US can expect between
$50-$80,000/year to start - there is a shortage of them. Where's the
industry going to go when EVERYONE has their MCSE? Fer chrissakes, the
longest MCSE "training" courses I've seen are four months, and those
longer courses tend to be geared towards those with no previous computer
experience. *sigh*.
Well, yesterday sucked. It was Sunday, of course, and I spent all of
Saturday rebuilding Gibson, my main desktop computer at home. Short
version: I blew yet ANOTHER monitor yesterday, leaving me with a grand
total of none. I'm unhappy.
Long version:
Once upon a time, there were two young men who had just moved to
Calgary from a small town in New Brunswick; we'll call them Darren and
Drew.
Darren and Drew were fresh-faced young go-getters with rosy cheeks and
marvelous work ethics. They ran around downtown Calgary desperately
searching for employment for the first two weeks' worth of their Calgary
residency, and found jobs with minimal trouble.
While sitting at their new jobs (which happened to be at the same
company), Drew found a posting on the Calgary Bargain Finder (a local
paper for buying and selling used tripe) listing 17" computer monitors
for a fantastically low price. Drew excitedly showed this to Darren,
and after calling the number, they jumped into Darren's car and drove
far into the northeast to pick up their new monitors.
For a total of $450, Darren and Drew bought four of these large
monitors, three of which worked. Drew used two of them, and Darren used
one. The fourth become a permanent fixture in the hall closet.
A few months later, Drew tried using some software called "Scitech
Display Doctor for Linux". It was wonderful software, which caused the
monitor to reach it's maximum potential. Actually, it exceeded it's
maximum potential, and consequently died an unpleasant death. Drew was
unhappy, but he still had his second 17" monitor, and even a 14" monitor
to spare.
Several months after that, Drew woke up one morning to find that his
second 17" monitor had peacefully died in it's sleep. He mourned it
appropriately and moved both of the now-dead monitors off of his desk,
down to the end of the couch, where, when moved together appropriately,
they became an attractive end-table on which to place a lamp, and
occasionally, beverages or delicious snacks for visitors.
Time passed yet again, with much happening in the lives of Darren and
Drew, but very little of interest happening to the monitors, who, we're
sure, were convinced that life in the apartment was either heaven, hell,
or retirement.* One day, Drew was attempting to vacuum the apartment
when a horrible accident occurred - the first monitor, the one who came
to the apartment pre-dead, fell from the top of the closet, narrowly
missing Drew's foot and making a tremendous crash, followed by a hissing
sound. Drew was horrified at this desecration of the final resting
place of a respected monitor, and promptly made amends by giving the
monitor a proper funeral, leaving it in the alleyway behind the
apartment with his best wishes and a piece of masking tape marked "DEAD"
stuck to the screen.
Then, one fateful day, the third and final working monitor passed away
in the night, granting credit to the theory that the apartment was
nothing more than a retirement home for aged computer hardware.**
(*: Portrayals of non-human objects having human characteristics is a
literary device known as "personification", used by many noted authors
throughout history. By using personification in this text, we gain
credibility as an actual story, rather than the simple blatherings of a
caffeine-hyped geek with a laptop.)
(**: That's pronounced "AY-jed", kids.)
Feh.
This gives you an idea of what happened to all the monitors. Now, if
you've been counting, I still should have one monitor left - the 14"
painted black with silver flames? Yes - technically I still have that
monitor. No, it's no longer working. Yesterday morning, I awoke, set
for a long day of graffiking alone in the apartment. I checked my
email, turned away to talk to the Significant Other for all of TEN
SECONDS, turned back and the monitor was dead. It's not technically
DEAD, in the traditional sense. It displays the screen at full width,
only about an inch tall, in ultra-white. Personified, this is something
akin to a stroke, only monitors can't re-learn to talk. Imagine a
stroke victim talking loudly and really, really quickly, but only having
a vocabulary of fifteen or so words, and no ability to learn more. No,
my monitor is not technically dead, but it certainly has a lifetime in a
mental institution to look forward to. At least I still have the
ThinkPad.
*sigh*
I suppose I should do some work.
Cheers,
- Drew.
=======================
March 30, 1999
=======================
Mornin', all!
Feh!
It's 8:50 am, and I'm happily settled into my first mug of caffeinated
joy at my desk. It's 8:50 am, and 500,000 Kosovo refugees are probably
having supper out of disposable flatware in a dirty shelter somewhere.
It's 8:50 am, which makes it 11:50 am in New Brunswick, and 200,000
businessmen and businesswomen are idly contemplating where to "do
lunch". It's 8:50 am, do you know where your children are?
Well, in roughly two hours, we will have yet another example of
unnecessary media hype on channel 36. "Montel" today will feature "Y2K
Extremists"! This I'd love to see - the commercial showed a man's
houseboat, fully outfitted for the coming apocalypse, strewn with
plants, and we assume, two of every species of local wildlife. The
ominous voice-over: "The coming of the Year 2000 - the biggest computer
bug in history. Will everything just 'shut down', or is it the end of
the world (ominous strings)? We talk to some people with extreme views"
(cue clip of bearded nutcase saying "There's only ONE person I can
depend on - me!").
*sigh*
Ok, I really don't have anything AGAINST being prepared. I was, after
all, a boy scout. Some of this is ingrained, but I'm not about to go
and buy a houseboat in which to huddle for New Year's Eve -- it'd have
to have a pretty well-stocked bar fridge, and several hundred of my
closest friends. The people on this show seem convinced that the
apocalypse is on the near horizon, and choose to be fully prepared for
it.
Strangely enough, they didn't appear (at first glance) much like your
usual garden-variety white trash. (For a good example of "white trash",
watch "WWF RAW" and keep your eyes on the audience. They're the best
actors in the place anyway.). No, these people were wearing suits that
didn't look like they'd been on a hanger since the Reagan
administration. They had combed hair (with the exception of the guy
with the beard - he was just feral), and seemed to own a toothbrush.
I would have loved to record the show, but to be perfectly honest, I
can't figure out how to program my VCR. Machines with less than a
hundred buttons confuse the hell out of me.
Strange question: If you could hold on to one object from your
bathroom and survive the coming apocalypse, what would that object be?
A roll of toilet paper? Your deodorant? The mirror? Perhaps a towel,
the most valuable item in the universe, at least according to Douglas
Adams (They're called "books", kids. Try reading one.).
Myself, I think I'd bring my toothbrush. California would be off the
map, of course - some say Australia would go "down under" the water as
well. North America will be pretty much destroyed from massive
earthquakes and tidal waves, incredible windstorms and quite possibly a
nuclear winter caused by ash from the scores of volcanic eruptions.
It's not going to be very easy to find a dentist. Even if you could
find one, after a few months of survival by eating pretty much whatever
you can find, you'll have horrible breath. If I were a dentist after
the apocalypse, I think I'd start some form of "Dentists' Commune",
where I and like others could practice our dark arts of dentistry, train
neophyte dental assistants, and live in harmony with our sister group,
the Hygienists. Our services would be sought after by all of the
survivors of the holocaust, in time - nobody will rape and pillage and
burn our commune if they realize that they'll have to extract that
abscessed tooth by themselves in a few weeks.
After the apocalypse, life will be the pursuit of peace, love, and job
security.
Not overly unlike life before the apocalypse.
Back up your hard drives and buy a shotgun, kids. The Impending Date
of Doom is upon us.
Cheers,
- Drew.
=======================
March 31, 1999
=======================
Good morning, folks.
Welp, the company made an interesting announcement yesterday. Mainland
has landed the contract to be the new sales and service company for all
of western Canada for Silicon Graphics. What does this mean? This
means that Drew now works not only on big IBM mainframes, but also on
sleek, sexy high-end graphics workstations; these things cost big bucks,
but are mostly what Hollywood uses for computer graphics and FX. Note
to the comp.sci.illuminati reading: this means I also get wholesale
pricing and financing for my SGI Visual Workstation! *drool*, I should
be ordering it within a few months.
This also means that Drew gets off work early today to go and drink
beer with the SGI reps for western Canada today. I get off at 4 pm and
am expected to show up at their office (along with most of the denizens
of the tech pit) for a "mixer", to get to know our new associates.
But enough of serious work stuff.
I've been putting some thought into the concept of Post-Apocalyptic Job
Security - the words alone elicit an interesting tingle behind my right
ear. I'm thinking of taking a crash course, or at least some night
classes, in Dental Medicine.
For those of you just joining us (who haven't yet realized that all the
musings are posted at http://www.riotnrrd.com/musings), my current train
of thought circles around what professions will have the most job
security after the apocalypse. Seeing whereas the end is fast
approaching (cue strings fugue. DREW appears from the left wearing a
sandwich board on which is written "THE END OF THE WORLD IS COMING"), I
figure we should be paying close attention to what skills we bring to
the brave new inhospitable world, and I feel that dentistry will be
necessary skill, sought after by most of the survivors. Everyone is
welcome to join me as I start a buddhist-monastery-like commune; a mecca
for the dental profession, with Zen rock gardens, rice-paper walls and
little bonsai-like bushes everywhere.
A quick public service announcement, fifty years from now, on whatever
new video media we manage to scrounge from the remains of the 20th
century.
(*Quick interjection: Will "20th Century Fox" change their name next
year?)
Title: Post-Apocalyptic Dentists
Date: March 31st, 2003
SETTING: Post-apocalyptic Earth, looking like a massive garbage dump.
The remains of the world are in huge piles, bits of wood and brick stick
out everywhere. The sky is cloudy and dark, and a wind is blowing.
Camera pans to the half-destroyed head of a ceramic doll, only one eye
remains, and dirt is falling out of the hole in it's head. Camera pulls
back, and some debris rolls onto the screen from above. The camera
shifts to show DENNIS coming over a small rise, stumbling. DENNIS is
dressed in rags, his feet a tangle of fabric and duct-tape. An old,
three-sizes-too-large army coat is the bulk of his clothing, and a large
backpack is painfully empty on his back. He sets down a beat-up rifle
and holds his jaw with his hand tenderly.
FX: Wind on the wasteland blows lightly but steadily; a single violin
plays a dirge.
DENNIS: (sighs) Why now?
FX: Music fades in over the wind, and a VOICEOVER speaks.
VOICEOVER: (energetically) Your solution is only a few short kilometers
away!
DENNIS looks up, surprised to hear a disembodied voice in the
wasteland. He looks around apprehensively, looking for the source.
VOICEOVER: (apologetically) Don't worry, I'm just a disembodied voice
in the wasteland. But hey, I bet you could really use a dentist!
DENNIS looks up at the sound of the voice and nods, still looking
perplexed, but interested now. He sneaks a glance at an old car door
leaning against some boxes, and moves it suddenly, jumping back as if
expecting something behind it.
VOICEOVER: You don't know what "disembodied" means, do you.
DENNIS shakes his head no.
VOICEOVER: (sighs) Nevermind. But the help you need is just over the
horizon!
FX: Music switches to a faster light-rock beat with strings and bass.
Switch to clip of DENNIS entering the gates of the Dental Commune,
greeted by smiling HYGIENISTS wearing robes and paper slippers, their
ceremonial surgical masks hanging down on their chests. The camera
follows as the HYGIENISTS lead him into the commune, sitting him in a
dental chair next to a stream. The camera switches to a view of a
willow tree, seen from a horizontal position. The DENTIST leans in over
the camera, and pulls a dental light into view. The DENTIST reaches
towards the camera with some tools. Camera switches to a side view with
DENNIS in the chair.
VOICEOVER: Cheap, painless post-apocalyptic dental service - available
three kilometers north of the remains of Boulder, Colorado. Our
appointment waiting queue is now only three weeks! Come and see us
today!
FX: Music builds to a climax and ends on a high note. Fade out
quickly.
Ok, I've pretty much grown bored of that topic. I would, however, like
to know of any other jobs that will still have a secure spot after the
apocalypse. Now, saying that - DON'T email me saying "Undertakers will
always have business!". Of course they will. Who's going to pay them?
Billions killed, bodies everywhere - do you REALLY think that someone's
going to pay for proper funeral service when every single member of
their family was killed in the firestorms (except for poor cousin Timmy,
messily decapitated by a flying hubcap. Sad, really sad.)? Yes,
undertakers will eventually be a thriving business, but for the first
few years, dying people will probably just drop where they stand and
decompose until the sun bleaches their bones white. Nevertheless, send
me mail at musings@riotnrrd.com if you think of any.
Have you ever thought much about nudity? Like, really thought about
it? I've decided that there are reasons that we wear clothes, and none
of them really revolve around warmth and protection from the elements.
If it was just for warmth and protection, would we really need to be
clothed to go to the mall? (However, a good part of malling is shopping
for clothes, so in the interests of getting on with my rant, I'd
appreciate it if you'd just let that point go.)
No, I think the main reason is that we are all pretty much ugly, and
want to hide ourselves. "But no," you say. "I'm not ugly in the
slightest!".
Well.
You're wrong, by the way. As a challenge, I'd like all those who
believe that they have something to offer as naked people to try
something this evening. Now, it doesn't have to be THIS evening, but
sometime in the near future, before you forget and something
accidentally reminds you, and you go "Oh yeah, there was that thing Drew
wanted me to try...", and people look at you funny because you're
standing in line in a drugstore holding a box of condoms, and an elderly
woman with purple-tinged hair hits you with her purse and calls you a
pervert.
Tonight (see above), I'd like everyone to strip completely naked and go
about their normal evening. Watch the news. Have supper. Talk
amicably with your spouse and (if applicable) children. Then, rent a
movie. You have my permission to do this part clothed, in the interests
of not getting yourself arrested.
Watch the movie, naked.
Now, get up quickly and go to a mirror. Turn around.
LOOK at your butt! You think your skin only absorbs wrinkles when you
sleep on your keyboard, and wake up with "jkl;'" imprinted in your right
cheek? No, cheeks are VERY susceptible to the taking-on of texture from
whatever it was you were pressing them against, which we'll see when you
notice the lovely canvas-like texture your butt has acquired.
Kids, we don't wear clothes 'cause they're comfortable. We wear
clothes 'cause it makes OTHER people comfortable.
From Mark's balcony last night, we saw an extremely obese man cleaning
his apartment wearing nothing but a smile and what appeared to be
"Speedos". This made me realize just how ugly the human body can be,
and I put on an extra sweater, just to be even more shapeless. In my
case, it's more like hanging a very thin dress shirt on a wire hanger -
it's painfully obvious that, regardless of the quality of the shirt,
you're using a wire hanger, and if you get it wet it'll rust and stain
the shirt. That's exactly how I feel - except the rust part.
Nevertheless, I actually have work to do.
Cheers,
- Drew.
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