"Dog, your training has been approved."
"Citrix? Finally??"
"No, Oracle. DBA path.
"Umm... "

Poll: Preferred database
x-posted to da brog.

Your clocks are running seven hours too fast. PLZFIXKTHXBYE!

I like my Japanese cow-orkers. I really do. Of course, I've never had any "face-time" with them which might explain this lack of animosity. But when I need to work with them I either have to be up at 3am (and sober enough to function) or I might as well send snail mail. One round-trip communication takes three days.

Poll: LOL creashunistas
x-posted to da brog.

People often ask me, "REC? Why do you drink so much? Are you trying to become an alcoholic?"

Become? Hah! Walk a mile in my moccasins, muthafuckers. Or just sit in this room and listen.

I aten't dead yet!
Drinking poll included
x-posted to da brog.

I'm in the wrong business.

In order to ingratiate myself to management and colleagues alike, right after our local data center was moved to the UK for "consolidation" I built a local file server. This held various software builds available via resumable FTP. Since Windows Exploder has never been able to move 12GB of data across even a 10 fibre channel connection, this pleased everyone.

Sunny weather poll
x-posted to da brog.

Imagine what things would be like if a major truck manufacturer -- let’s call it Peterworth – were to function like $MegaCorp. If Peterworth wanted to get into the automobile manufacturing business, it might make sense for them to purchase Maserati. It's a high profile manufacturer, a market leader in its division, and Peterworth would stand to gain valuable technology as well as aerodynamics and design engineers. However, it would be absurd for Peterworth to then insist that Maserati use the Cummins ISX engine for production vehicles.

But perhaps Peterworth’s managers might respond that the 11-liter Cummins truck engine offers 530 horsepower while Maserati’s top engine only puts out 405hp. If management’s only goal was brake horsepower and they ignored everything from design to weight to fuel usage we would at least understand the reasoning behind such a bad decision.

Snackfood poll
x-posted to da brog.

Current Location: Near a high tower
Current Mood: Murderous
Current Music: Billy Bragg - Back to Basics

So the conf call is over. I was right. Had I not had the logs beforehand we would've been completely confused and gone in the completely wrong direction based on their verbal descriptions. But just before it began...

Puppy poll
x-posted to da brog.

No, I didn't go to Donnie's Happy Place. A couple weeks of pneumonia followed by a vacation during which I caught a cold gave me enough time out of the orifice that I actually arrived today in what could almost be termed a state of "calm" (for values of boolCalm < "mania").

Inside three hours my blood pressure has returned to its usual value of astronomical-over-gargantuan.

Poll inside.
x-posted to da brog.

When people ask me what I do for a living, I automatically spit out a practiced phrase: "I work in the recovery and recycling of polycyclic organophosphanes." They leave me alone after that. Doctors understand. If people know that you really work with computers in some manner -- no matter how far removed from home PC maintenance it might be --  they figure you'll be happy to help them with their problem in your off time.

Funny how that knife so rarely cuts in both directions.

Poll: Holidays and family?
x-posted to da brog.

Two more tickets closed
I was right as usual.
Root Cause: 17.

Poll: Next entry style.

x-posted to da brog.

There are certain sorts of people you can count on to talk non-stop. Canadians, for example. All you have to do is mention hockey. Or pilots. Mention anything technical about flying to a pilot and sit back in the comfort that is knowing you won't be expected to open your mouth for the next two hours. If someone wearing chromed heel pumps walks by a gaggle of New York City women sipping lattes, no one in the vicinity will even hear sirens over the babble about Dolce & Gabbana and Jimmy Chu emanating from that table.

Mention the fucking internal process databases and my neighbour Joey will be on the phone for up to eight hours, murdering the English language at over 90dB.

Poll: I'll think of something before I hit Submit.
x-posted to da brog.

Dear Microsoft,

When I fill out your dynamic survey, and in it I specify that I'm not a manager (question #21), that I have nothing to do with corporate policy (question #25) and that my job duties entail IT and software support (question #35), do not then throw management-style idiotspeak at me in a follow-up question.

Also, unexpected job-related happiness including alcohol and boxen.

Beer poll
x-posted to da brog.

Over at Whateveresque there's a LOLCreashun thread with LOLcats-style TOAP on John Scalzi's Creationist Museum photos. While some of them are pretty good, one particular picture stands out. User "saswann" summed up my daily life.

In other news: if I catch the person who keeps throwing away my jars of mustard and mayo he's going to find out about Survival of the Evilist when I go all Darwin on his ass.

Poll: How many active boxen do you have?

x-posted to da brog, sans poll.

Our Functional Team leader knows of this blog. Being German however, he knows not of All in the Family and so may take offense at being called "Meathead", but that's going to be his name. It's not nearly as bad as his office nickname which is, more or less, "cunt".

Joseph Heller wrote the script almost 50 years ago.

x-posted to da brog.

I don't do politics here but I can't pass on this one. Lt. Col. Dr. Robert M. Bowman, (USAF, ret.) has a rather "conservative" site over at thepatriots.us. His open letter to US military commanders left me wondering just one thing: what the fuck took someone so long to write this?!

We find out early on. Dr. Bowman has terminal cancer. At the end of the two-page letter he writes how he remained silent before the US went into Iraq and that he "must not make that mistake again." Fair dinkum, but why did he remain silent? It looks like for the same reason everyone in the Pentagon who might read it has: make waves and lose your pension as well as your position on the board of a contractor once you retire. The only time for action is when you have nothing left to lose. A looming deadline, for example, and terminal cancer sure as hell gives you one of those.

Includes cola wars poll

x-posted to da brog.

The coffee's out. I just set another pot to brew.

Poll: Office plants
x-posted to da brog.

Today we received what has to be the most fuckwitted ticket we've ever received. EVAR. It puts all the screenshot people to shame. It's a special kind of fuckwittery which is in a class by itself. And it's mine.

I have experienced something worse than the fuckwits who sully my workplace, waste my bits, force me to wear out keyboard after keyboard and who have caused me to create a dent in my dense laminate desk in front of the keyboard. If you've read the Bee Guy's site, you know that the accidental importation of a pest can be absolutely devastating. In their natural habitat they can be controlled but in a new environment they can wreak havoc. So it is with Varroa in North America, so it is with cane toads in Australia, so it is with Guidos in Germany. Glub help us, they've arrived.

x-posted to da brog.

Yesterday's conf call about Citrix didn't quite go as I'd expected. A feeling of dread washed over me at ten last night as I realised that I'll once again have to build a full Citrix environment for testing, completely replacing the feeling of calm which had washed over me as I'd sipped from my glass of frightfully expensive whiskey to pass the time on that call.

The matter is now officially interesting. Fuck.

x-posted to da brog, sans poll.