(Thanks go to ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
jenndolari for the image. If you don’t get it, try and find a synopsis for “The Parting of the Ways”, which is the Doctor Who season finale. :-) )
Headache overwhelming…
Bleh.
I’ve got a splitting headache right now, I need caffeine, and I’m running on less sleep than usual. Truly, this is not one of my better days. Hell, it wasn’t one of my better weekends. Dave and I got the video from Louie’s party finished, and the three of us went to P.F. Chang’s for dinner Saturday. That and seeing the season finale of Doctor Who were about the only things that went right this weekend. Otherwise… bah.
It all started Friday night, when I decided to do an update to the web/proxy server at the office. I hadn’t done it in a while, and figured it needed doing. Problem was, it was one of those things you have to wait to do after hours. So, I ran the update… and by the time 3:30 AM rolled around, I said to hell with it and went to bed, intending on restarting the updated services when I woke up and letting it finish while I slept. At 7 AM, I woke up, got the box rebooted… and found to my horror that the proxy server was now broken. After an hour or two of frantic testing and researching, I found that the only fix I could do was upgrade the server to a more recent Linux version. *grumble* So, seeing as I already had plans Saturday, I went to the colocation on Sunday and spent a couple of hours wiping and reloading the box. Then, this morning, I had to spend time finishing fixing the timeserver implementation as well.
And if all that didn’t annoy me enough, I got into work late because of horrific traffic (which seems to have affected everyone)… and found that the Coke machine was stealing coins and not accepting dollar bills. I ended up doing a run to the Texaco station at the corner for a Diet Coke. (It was either that or coffee, and I’m not a big fan of coffee.) AND, I find I have to run to Cypress today to uninstall and reinstall SmarTeam on an engineering workstation.
*sigh* Why me?
Anyway, that’s enough ranting out of me…time to check the new NTP server install here and make sure it’s still working properly. Fun fun…
Faith in humanity == 0
*sigh*
Yesterday probably would have been a fairly uneventful day at the office, had it not been for one thing that happened in the afternoon. I’m still reeling somewhat over the whole damn thing.
I was sitting quietly at my desk, checking up on a couple of issues, when the president of one of the OU’s at our company came into my office, and asked if there was any way we could change the hold music on our phone system. It’s easy enough, really… we had a Muzak system installed here about a month and a half ago. I asked why, and he told me had been getting complaints about it from his customers. Apparently a couple of his customers had called it *ahem* music, and another said it sounded like an *ahem* funeral.
(Replace *ahem* with a very derogatory racial slur.)
I wish I could really be surprised at the use of the term, but the fact is that the industry I work in tends to lean towards either a “good ol’ boy” and/or a redneck mentality. What caused me to blink was when I went into the phone room to change the Muzak station. It was set to “Light Classical”. Since when was J.S. Bach *ahem* music?
*sigh* I’ve switched it to “Country Currents”. If anyone else complains, though, I’m going to switch it to “Kid Tunes” and let them suffer.
How would you rate the Almighty’s service?
Sometimes, one has to acknowledge that there is more out there than what we know…
I know the subject sounds very spiritual… unfortunately, this is going to be a rant that deals more with technology and ignorance of same than anything else. If you’re expecting a deep discussion, bypass this entry. :-)
That said…
Among the entries on my links page is a webcomic called Ctrl+Alt+Del. For the most part, I find it amusing and enjoy reading it. However, I came to a realization after reading Wednesday’s comic: Tim Buckley, the author, really has no concept of the world outside of gaming. For reference, I present the comic:
http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/?t=archives&date=2005-06-08
Frankly, if I didn’t think the email would be lost among whatever juvenile flames would be sent his way, I’d send him something along these lines:
“I read your comic on Wednesday, and I was kind of troubled by the attitude you take towards Macs. Make no mistake, I use Windows, myself. My main PC at home runs Windows XP Professional. I use it for playing around and gaming. I’m at work right now, as a systems/networking administrator and support person. I also do news reporting and sysadmin work for Mortal Kombat Online, the net’s top MK fansite. I currently have terminal sessions going to four different Linux and Windows servers I’m administrating. I often find myself working out shell scripting on this machine. Image and video manipulation for MK Online is quite common. This laptop also fairly seamlessly integrates into the network here at my office, for both file and printer sharing. It is, in short, the best laptop I’ve ever used for work purposes.
“It’s a Powerbook G4 running Mac OS X 10.3.
“I also have other friends who use Powerbooks for their work duties; I’ve also read that the Powerbook is becoming the laptop of choice for sysadmins due to Mac OS X’s UNIX underpinnings. I guess what I’m getting at is that when I want to play around, I use Windows XP. When I want to get work done, whether at the office or on MK Online (especially when at Gamer’s Day or E3), I rely on my Mac.
“So, in my particular case… which is the toy OS again?”
Oh… my…
http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/Music/06/12/pink.floyd.reut/index.html
LONDON, England (Reuters) — Four members of seminal British rock band Pink Floyd will play together for the first time in 24 years at London’s Live 8 charity concert for Africa on July 2, publicists for the event said on Sunday.
Guitarist David Gilmour, drummer Nick Mason and keyboard player Richard Wright will be on stage with bassist Roger Waters for their first public performance since they played at London’s Earls Court in 1981.
The rock legends will join a star-studded line-up including Coldplay, Elton John and Paul McCartney at the Live 8 concert in Hyde Park, organized by activist rocker Bob Geldof to pressure rich nations to ease African poverty.
“Like most people I want to do everything I can to persuade the G8 leaders to make huge commitments to the relief of poverty and increased aid to the third world,” said Gilmour.
“Any squabbles Roger and the band have had in the past are so petty in this context, and if reforming for this concert will help focus attention then it’s got to be worthwhile.”
:-D
I was actually expecting the Ninth…
You are the seventh Doctor! Warm and friendly to
those around you, your manner can take a dark
turn at times. Those who cross your path have
significant reason to fear, as your morality is
a bit more liquid then might make some
comfortable. However, you are not human, and
behind those clever eyes a new scheme is
brewing. The responsibility of protecting the
universe lies on your shoulders. How can you
help it if no one understands?
Which Doctor (from Doctor Who) Are You?
brought to you by Quizilla
On the forefront of modern technology?
I seem to have become the technology testbed for the CIO where I work.
Some months back, he bought a Microsoft Optical Notebook Mouse a day or so after seeing me work with mine. A month or two ago, he came into my office to show me his MP3 player, and I showed him my iPod. Sure enough, a couple of days later he had bought himself an iPod Photo and was asking me questions on how to set it up.
Anyway, yesterday I showed him my AirPort Express, which is a portable wireless access point and router that’s about the size of a deck of cards. When I went to E3, four of us with laptops shared one room’s network connection using the AirPort Express. I’ve also started taking it with me on business trips to act as a hardware firewall. Well, last night, Adam went to the Galleria to eat at the Cheesecake Factory, and while there stopped in the Apple Store. As an impulse buy, he went ahead and bought an AirPort Express. The end result is that he’s so impressed with it that not only is he going to arrange for all the IT guys to have one, he’s going to allow me to expense mine even though I bought it a month and a half ago.
I’m not going to gripe. :-) What can I say… it’s nice sometimes to be thought of as being at the cutting edge of today’s technologies. :-)
The War of the War of the Worlds – The Aftermath
Last September, I wrote in my LiveJournal about the fact that there were two adaptations of The War of the Worlds in development. One is the one done by Steven Spielberg that everyone knows about. The other was done by a British company that aimed at making the movie accurate to the book. For reference, you can read my original posting here.
In any event, I wasn’t aware the British version had already been released by this time, until I was reading Harry’s DVD Picks for June on Ain’t It Cool News. Turns out it’ll be out on Region 1 DVD later this month… and it doesn’t look good.
You can go here to see Amazon’s page on it, but the fact that it only has one and a half stars out of five doesn’t bode well. Apparently both the acting and the FX are horrid beyond belief.
I’ll pass this one by. Now I just need to see how the Spielberg/Cruise version turns out…
… and again, I can’t make stuff like this up.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/somerset/4077698.stm
Dalek ‘kidnappers’ demand Doctor
“Kidnappers” who stole a Dalek from a Somerset tourist attraction have sent its owners a ransom note – and the alien’s amputated plunger.
The 5ft model, believed to be an original from the cult BBC Dr Who series, was taken from Wookey Hole Caves near Wells on Monday.
On Thursday, staff found the plunger arm and a ransom note on a doorstep.
The note read: “We are holding the Dalek captive. We demand further instructions from the Doctor.”
The group, signing themselves Guardians of the Planet Earth, added: “For the safety of the human race we have disarmed and removed its destructive mechanism.”