serinde

( I am Jack's lost five-year-old self. )

Current Music: Pink Floyd, "On the Turning Away"

While clearing out my staff account, I came across an ancient gem; to wit, a letter I composed & sent to the NYC parking authorities some ten years ago. ( I shall let it speak for itself. )

It worked, too. We never heard anything more about the matter.

More precisely, 4:30pm, and I should have known better than to start a Covad call at that time, even for a topic that should have been Wham Bam Thank You Ma'am. Instead, I missed my train and the train after it. I leave you to picture how much delight this gave me.

( And now, being charged for your execution bullet: )

The slacks I bought scarcely a month ago are now way too loose. I'm talking, "fit a party in my waistband" too loose, here. (They were not tight to begin with, mind.)

I really like them, too. Feh.

A week ago Sunday (that's the 9th, for them as don't obsessively have Google Calendar open), we went to see the Hoodoo Gurus at Maxwell's. You may not have heard of them. Because why? Because they're an Australian band from the 80s, mostly. I hadn't heard of them before moving in with Steve, Your Source For Curiously Obscure Rock. Indeed, they broke up in 1998. And what where they doing in some wee bar in Hoboken? I have no clue, and it was the sheerest serendipity that I discovered it. A timely browse of Wikipedia => their web site => Y HELO THAR, tour info!

And so we went, and it was good. No: it was Awesome. They seriously rocked the house. And at the start, Dave-the-lead-singer apologized because they were only going to play stuff from their first two albums. (I rejoiced, because those are the only ones I have. Nor did the rest of the audience seem woeful.) A small bit of sadness was that they did not play two of my favorite cuts from Stoneage Romeos ("Tojo" and "Zanzibar") but they played damn near everything else, so I can't complain.

Awesome, yes, and very likely a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. So glad I seized the chance.

ObCute: Directly in front of me were a group of some half-dozen youngish Australians, who were excitedly phoning their buds in Sydney in the "Guess what WE'RE doing right now!" fashion.

News from the home front: Suddenly, over the past week, Grandma has gone from being somewhat old-agedly losing track of conversations from time to time and forgetting where she's put stuff &c. to utterly gone behavior--paranoia, fighting (my grandma? Fighting *anyone*?!?), wandering around in the middle of the night, etc. She was taken to the hospital over the weekend, they found nothing wrong (though didn't look very hard), and now is back again, as her doctor suspects there *has* to be some physical cause to trigger this quick a downslide. Where she is refusing to eat, because "they" are trying to kill her. She recognizes Mom, but doesn't want her to stick around because "they" might get her, too.

So, yes, may need to make sudden trip to Ohio. I am not as fashed about the idea that it's Grandma's time--I mean, she's been pretty much ready since Grandpa died, and has just been patiently finishing out her shift, and I've had some while to resign myself--but I HATE HATE HATE HATE that she's not to be permitted to go with the dignity she has always possessed in life.

Pace just called me, six weeks after I applied, to ask if I could come in for an interview. Sorry lads, ya done missed the boat!

Sort of too-bad, as the locations would have made my commute less of a stinker, but I think it probably would have ended up with lower pay and not as interesting. (It may develop that the interestingness at Hunter will be of the Chinese curse variety, of course.)

Misery loving company and all, I have joined

naudia and

audiovile in embarking on South Beach again. Naturally, this means I immediately have cravings for fruit and bread.

I seem to be starting to like orange peppers, though.

As of Oct. 1, I will be starting work at Hunter College, as a "Computer Services Manager, Level 2". (Civil service titles are very unsexy. But the benefits are awe-inspiring.) Have just sent my sorrowful letter of farewell to the internal staff mailing list.

Although I've been coming to grips with this thought for a while now, I still have a certain degree of ZOMG.

(This is that "careercruiser.com" web quiz all the cool kids are doing.)

Most of these make some kind of sense, except for the first and the last. I mean, what?

1. Air Traffic Controller
2. Anthropologist
3. Archaeologist
4. GIS Specialist
5. Historian
6. Fisher
7. Arborist
8. Zookeeper
9. Psychologist
10. Automotive Painter

Current Mood: confused

Context: this particular corp. customer still gives

dariodevil snarling fits when their name is mentioned. They call weekly, on average, with some kind of mail problem that is some form of PEBKAC, usually lost passwords. (They're also the ones who asked for an "SSI certificate" for their web site.) It's almost always the same cranky old(-sounding) secretary-ish woman calling, too. Naturally she's the one who has the least grasp on these difficult new technologies.

[Wrong password, usual changing ritual, all is well until:]
Your humble correspondent: ...so that'll work within 5 minutes or so.
Madam Wahmbulance: Thank you, but I just want you to know that you're driving us crazy with this code business.
YHC: [assuming she means the alphabet soup-ism of the random generator] Well, of course you can change the password to whatever you like--
MW: NO, I mean having it at all! Why do we have to type in a code every time we want to get our mail? It's such a hassle!
YHC: ...........Because if a mail account were not password protected, anyone on the Internet would be able to read your mail?
MW: I don't care, it's ridiculous! It's driving us crazy! Thank you for the new code but this is completely unreasonable. *click*

(14:46:15)

elibalin: What do I want to eat?
(14:46:36)

syringavulgaris: Power shake!
(14:46:52)

elibalin: I did not ask what your battle cry is.
(14:48:26)

syringavulgaris: Yolato!
(14:48:44)

elibalin: I did not ask for the name of your spunky sidekick.
(14:49:04)

syringavulgaris: With a few more rounds of this we could generate a stupid webquiz.
(14:49:20)

elibalin: "Stupid webquiz" is redundant.
(14:49:48)

elibalin: WAT CONDIMENT R U LOL TAK QIZ

In the spirit of the first sign of emotional recovery in our office being someone wedging a Nerf glider in between the twin towers in our Puzz 3-D of the New York skyline, I declare a contest: Post here your suggestions for the relabeling of the eleventh of September.

I have opened the bidding with the modest contribution of "NEVAR FORGETT!!1 Day".

elibalin upped the ante with "The Feast of St. Zomg".
What've you got?

We've paid a lot more to have a far worse time at many a New York club. The main floor is Electro-Techno Dance Whatever, which I don't have much stake in, but I'm content to dance to it so that's okay. The basement, which contains the goth room, did not open until about an hour after it was supposed to (someone who works at a club was late? No!) but when it did, it was exactly what we were looking for. Also: good cooling systems. On the main floor it was starting to get a bit overmatched by 1:30 or so, but how could it not, really?

Downside: it is in Uckblech, Newark and there's no parking, so you have to park on the street. Not that I perceive anyone wanting to break into our car, but there's always that worry in the back of my head.

There was a small adventure getting home, as the ramp back onto 280 was closed, and the detour signs led you into the middle of nowhere and then vanished. Oh Newark, you so wacky. But by that point in the night, we all found it hilarious rather than tiresome, annoying, or scary.

We shall be returning! Probably often.

As threatened, we are going to attempt this Newark goth club and see if it fits our exacting standards. This will almost certainly occur Saturday night. Please to notify if you want to meet up.

ObEasilyDelighted: they also have an LJ, such as it is; and the moderator has a Watership Down icon. Excellent!

Booster Gold #1 is composed of sheer, unadulterated love and joy. I hereby unconditionally forgive Johns for letting Richard Donner poop all over Action Comics for the past year. I chortled, I laughed, I got teary-eyed, I pounded the floor screaming "YES!". (And I am not saying this on account of the last panel, either, so don't you go there with me, girlfriend.)

Teen Titans #50: Finally, we are done with Amazons Pointlessly Rampaging and can return to our regularly scheduled comic. The Bart memorial was righteous. I still do not care for Supergirl being pastede on yay, and I feel that they have not yet figured out what Cassie's current personality hooks should be other than "very touchy & short-tempered", but I believe there's a decent chance of a strong ongoing team coming out of this. Am looking forward to seeing what they make of the next arc, which it looks like is going to have to do with the narsty "Future Is Now" grown-up versions; this is likely to make it or break it for me.

Blue Beetle #18: Other half of the TT issue. Remains consistently delightful; this one even more than usual. WHY AREN'T YOU BUYING IT?

Still to come: Superman #666, The Spirit #9, Flash #231, Brave and the Bold #6, New Warriors #3. And Birds of Prey, erm, #109 I think; which is, as I already know from

scans_daily, going to piss me off a lot, at least in one spot. Dear Tony Bedard: Let me introduce you to a little concept called "fact checking". Until then, eat a dick. XOXOXO

news-xfer started randomly hanging. No indication of why in the logs. No nothing in the logs. innfeed still running. At first we thought some kind of RAID issue ("oh no, not again") but that did not seem to be so. Since the only thing that changed today was cleanfeed, I removed the local config file, and lo it was joyous again.

There were only about three defaults that'd been changed in our version of the file. So?

Whereupon I went back to the package as downloaded in the build directory and looked more closely. Oh, because the format has CHANGED COMPLETELY but is ENTIRELY UNDOCUMENTED. The README file advises you to consult the source code. I can't even justly complain because, really, what am I expecting of a package maintained by a registered BOFH? If you can't handle the tool, then put it back in the shed, am I right? Only all the upper gardeners are nowhere to be found and that leaves little ol' apprentice me.

At which point I grabbed my fork, yelled "Fuck your canoe", and edited filter_innd.pl directly which there are all sorts of ONOZ DO NOT WANT warnings about and changed the stupid 1 to a stupid 0 and now everything is doing what it should be doing and I am done.

or, INN Isn't Done With You Yet, Dearie.

cleanfeed is a perl hook for INN that does its best to ascertain if an article coming in is spam, and if so, then reject it. Life is better with it than without it, but it is not under active development any more, it's hard to find information & discussion about it, and the world has shifted past some of its assumptions. ( Therefore, adjustments need to be made... )

And now, to beat my head against Mailman.

...between "I don't feel anything" and "OH GOD MY ARM" is often of monofilament thickness in aikido, even when your partner is being careful & cautious. As often is the case when Luis is teaching, we were doing a lot of interesting, funky techniques that will Fuck Your Shit Up, and indeed my wrist is now fucked up after my hand was folded into sundry unnatural poses. It didn't feel too bad at the time, but by the time I got home last night I couldn't really grasp anything in my left hand. I applied an ice pack (by which I mean "a sack of frozen blueberries") and wrapped it and took ibuprofen, all of which helped, but it's still pretty stiff and sore.

It remains to be seen whether I will be able to hold a bokken today.

or, My Inimitable Managerial Style.

(16:42:21)

syringavulgaris: OK, update the ticket saying "According to both End User and this worklog, the FST completed the IW on 8/9. What is this dispatch for?"
(16:43:33)

elibalin: I see nothing which allows me to make an update of such a nature.
(16:44:02)

syringavulgaris: Engage in the Chat With Covad facility. It's fun!
(16:44:20)

syringavulgaris: It's our chance to torture them.
(16:44:22)

syringavulgaris: Savor it.
(16:44:47)

elibalin: Wah.
(16:45:31)

syringavulgaris: SAVOR`
(16:45:32)

syringavulgaris: !
(16:45:33)

syringavulgaris: .
(16:45:39)

elibalin: I'm gonna hate this.
(16:45:48)

syringavulgaris: Then just start typing WANG WANG WANG WANG WANG.

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Recent Entries

state of the grandma

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