amphigoric macoronical pointlessness

what a dull old monday

yet another monday. yet another broken microsuck piece of shit to fix. certificate services have chosen to commit suicide. the boss is on my case about it. only because i set it up in the first place. i didn't understand it when i first set it up, and i still don't. getting tech support help from microsoft is like extracting teeth from a rabid dog, so we're still jumping through hoops trying to get some help with it.

on the bright side it's just about to piss down with rain. been watching the impending rain heading this way. by the time anyone looks at it though it'll be long gone... actually it looks like it's fizzed out already. that just figures.

all's quiet on the eastern front

finally dragged my sorry self out of bed at around 11:30 this morning. a mate's band was playing at the local entertainment centre so i thought i'd go and watch and have a few quiet drinks.

the next thing i know a few others have turned up, and some of their friends, and some friends of friends, and we're drinking and singing and dancing and generally having a wonderful time. not the best way to recover from the flu, but it's good for the soul :-)

the rest of the weekend is going to be a lot quieter. i've only got a few weeks to go with my sister's car, so i'm making the most of it. alread been for a little 80 mile cruise this morning. nowhere special, just driving around enjoying the day.

the grots have taken off up to the gold coast to see their aunt get married. it will be an interesting trip to say the least. the two kids, their nan, her husband, in a volvo with a psychotic poodle, towing a caravan. i wonder if they'll cave in halfway through the trip, and ring up asking us to buy them plane tickets home.

so Jonah, if you see a poor kid from the south coast struggling in the surf, blame me for being a bad teacher and take pity on him :-)

but i reckon they'll have a lot of fun up there, especially when their cousins turn up and they can escape the volvo...

dell & dell tech support

friggen dell computers, seagate cheetah hard disks, and poweredge raid controllers. you all suck.
thank the gods for tech support guys who have a clue (not me, the ones we rang)

3:20 ish, we have a blackout. the building goes black. the fucken phone rings. yes the computers are out, have you noticed it's a blackout? cretin

so we mosey down to the computer room to make sure all is happy and lovely in there. ha ha fucken ha.
the battery backup units are playing their game, everything (mostly) shuts down in an orderly fashion. we're pretty much there for the look of it. and because the mail server will need a hand. in fact 20-40 mins later the power is back on and everything is back up except our mail server is still shutting down. that's ok, we get it sorted. but the fucking file server. will. not. boot. coupla dead disks. welcome to the world of dell servers. we've got 2 identical poweredge servers with external scsi raid disk arrays. all singing all dancing. whenever one of them reboots, for any reason, there's a pretty good chance a disk will die. ballerina spins off the edge of the fucking stage and crashes into the orchestra. about 4 in the past 12-18 months. today we lose 2. and one is part of the mirrored drive. the other is the fucken spare.

so wer're, like, trying different shit, and we're dying. gonig backwards. the brown midas touch. whatever we touch, turns to shit. the boss is about to try a, errr, particularly interesting method of recovery. and i'm like, how about we spend a bit of time talking to the support first.

an hour or so later and we're talking to the first line of support at dell. and every 10 mins or so he's asking if we have a backup.
yes we have a fucking backup. stop fucking asking. if i revert to backup i'm looking at a 2:00am finish at least, and if i have to recover everything, that'll finish, oh, lets say about 2:pm. on saturday. so stop fucking asking (i think quietly to myself....)

yes we have a backup. what about this, what about that, blah blah blah. finally he gets tired of asking his supervisor for answers every 2 minutes and we get to talk to the main guy with a clue.

i hope he got overtime, because i kept him at work until about 7:40. i tried to ring him back after 5:00. and ended up talking to some guy in Malaysia. i said no worries dude, i just need to talk to mr x cause he's been handling it (and he has a fucking clue and speaks english) and this guy (ok he's polite and everything but he can't put me back through to sydney, nor is he my perc-2dc guru) says he reckons that x will ring back. yeah i know that dipshit, he told me he'd ring back in 20 mins, but it's only 5 mins and i wanna get to the next stage already. been for a nervous piss, drank another coke, gibbered a bit, now i'm ready. now. now. now now now now now

x rings back and we try a few things. the prick won't boot. looks like the data is ok (thank the god of lucky friggen morons for that). i couldn't deal with a 250 GB restore. i'm not sure i can deal with just rebuilding it and restoring the main partition anyway but gotta be happy with the little gems ok? the boss is about to press the button, and commit us to an annoying restore with a 2:00am finish, and i ask x if we can reboot now, he's like, just wait i'm thinking. the boss looks at me to say "what the fuck, it's not like we've got any options" and i'm like "what the fuck, i don't reckon we've got any options either. paddling up effluent river and some arsehole who's been eating curry has just hit the fucking flush"

x says ok, try this. put in the BAD disk, fiddle fiddle, fart fart, and fuck me dead if the prick of a thing doesn't start. i'll be fucked. he's leaves us some destructions and about an hour later i'm gone. boss a and boss b have a few little chores to play with, but we're over the hump (it's humpday anyway) and should be easy fucken-peasy tomorrow. (famous last words i hope not).

dell computers. fuck em. i'm over it.

dell support. ok, i've talked to guys in india. had a good old yack to a few dudes in bangalore (supposedly now the IT capital of india they tell me), malaysia etc... but the guy who pulled my arse out of the fire was in sydney (ok and so was the lower level of support who kept asking him for answers). he kept ringing back to make sure we were happy (we weren't) and talked us through to what was fortunately not the bitter end. good on ya mate. heh, the funny thing was, despite being in aus, his accent was definitely not australian. i think he was indian. but at least he understood the fucken language and got me through.

next week, i unload on hp fucken printers :-) (and a new record, for, like, how many times i can say like. do a google search on irritainment)

friday?

back to see the quack today. he reckons that despite feeling worse, i am actually getting better. but now he's extended my antiobiotics, and prescribed me some steroids as well. he did tell me why, but i'm too fog headed to have understood or remembered.

but that's ok, i'll go from clark kent to superman and turn up on monday all pumped up like arnold swarzenegger.

so hello to another boring-as day lying in bed, trolling the net and generally feeling like shit. oh well. shit happens

can't have the kids over this weekend either, cause i don't want to infect the little buggers. it's toxic enough having it without passing it on. work is another matter. i probably got it there, so it's my solemn duty to get back as soon as possible and do my bit to keep the chain alive by infecting all the other worker ants.... :-)

oh it's all good news

the quack says i've got acute laryngitis, and bronchitis, and an ear infection. oh goody. take some antibiotics, and a strange puffer thingo and stay home bored as a nit, feeling like shit.

dragged myself out of bed for my yearly (overdue) skin cancer check, and he says i've got a couple of suspicious bits, and is recommending i use this cream that will repair the damage, while making me look like rudolf the red nosed reindeer in the meantime. i can't wait.

so i'm wasting time trolling the web. nothing too exciting. although i found a blog called My Boyfriend is a Twat which kept me amused for half an hour or so. i like the quotes, gonna see if i can remember any of them and use them at innappropriate moments.

i should be spending my time productively, tidying up the huge mess i've made in here over the past few years, but instead i think i'll troll around a bit more then go for a few more anti-flu-symptom drugs and a bit of a nap.

I stand and watch the beach,
the slow, booming surf,
a man walks out the ramp,
we greet as he passes,
balancing his malibu on his head,
he stands and considers.

I stand and watch the surf,
breaking slowly and magically,
it seems so small,
yet beckons so strong,
come to me it says, relentlessly.

I sit and watch the surf,
astride my surfboard waiting,
the sets come in,
they pass me by,
glassy and with power.

The rain pocks the glassy surface,
quietly hissing between the sets,
the grey skies,
the slight offshore breeze,
the spray hitting the surface,
behind the passing wave.

I stand and watch the surf,
the long left hand break,
trying to stay with the wave,
my surfboard at my feet.

I fumble and I fall,
yet the smooth surf carries on,
slowly, effortlessly,
no fuss and no pause.

I stand and watch the surf.

stupid flu. i'm sitting at home feeling sorry for myself. feels like i'm gargling razor blades.

apart from that it's been relatively event-less. i've been reading about other people's travels and exploits, all the while doing nothing much myself.

programmers...hah!

one of our programmers came up to me yesterday and said that whatever "i" was doing with new pc's, would "i" please stop.

i managed to work out what (in my opinion) we were doing wrong: installing any software written either in house by our own programmers, or for us by incompetent contractors. as long as no one uses any of this software their computers work just fine.

this reminds me of a joke i was sent years ago:

Subject: Theoretical Question

At a recent computer software engineering course in the US, the
participants were given an awkward question to answer:

"If you had just boarded an airliner and discovered that your
team of programmers had been responsible for the flight control
software, how many of you would disembark immediately?"

Among the ensuing forest of raised hands only one man sat
motionless. When asked what he would do, he replied that he
would be quite content to stay aboard. With his team's software,
he said, the plane was unlikely to even taxi as far as the
runway, let alone takeoff.

a belated "dad's day"

another shitty day at work. maybe it says something about me that i am so unhappy with work. i should lighten up and stuff. something to work at anyway.

squash with the kids this afternoon. i really appreciate spending time with these them. by the end of our game we are puffed and everyone has a big grin.

i drop them off at their mum's and the kids give me a father's day card:

a father's day quiz

1. are you careful what you say in front of the k-i-d-s?
- well yes

2. have you ever stayed up half the night assembling a trainset, dollhouse or bicycle?
- christmas eve. after the kids finally settle at around 10:30 because their so excited, but i've had a few drinks, then it's time to assemble the presents. after the first christmas you are prepared, tools, spare nuts, screws and above all, batteries!

3. "it's okay with me, if it's okay with your mother". does this sound familiar?
- hell yes

4. have you ever given the "go-now-if-your-have-to-because-i'm-not-stopping-until-we-get-there" speech before a trip?
- hell yes. might as well have told them to, err, insert suitably ridiculous thing to ask a kid here. no matter what you say, you add hours to any trip by taking kids. that's life. accept it and go on

5. do you exaggerate by more than 10kms the distance you had to walk to school?
- no, because they'll ask my mum and find me out. like i did to her hehehehehe

6. are you worried that you're air conditioning the whold neighboruhood each time the refrigerator door is opened?
- and i also tell them that the water level in the dam is dropping every time they brush their teeth!

anyway, the end bit of the card says that if you answered yes to one or more of these questions then you're more than a father, your a dad. happy dad's day.

little buggers. i'm feeling on top of the world now. i highly recommend kids to anyone. they are something special...

Sunday was a big day.

we woke up at 1/4 past way too fucken early for a sunday, in jindabyne, to drive up to the snow, in the rain. after a while the rain turned into snow.

it was a really beautiful sight. big snowflakes falling everywhere, the trees laden with snow etc... i got all enthusiastic and stuff. nearly forgot all the aches and pains from snow boarding the last few days. hell it was fun, but i spent a lot of time throwing myself on the ground.

unfortunately the enthusiasm worn off when we had to put these archaic poxy snow chains on the car. first they wouldn't fit properly and kept wiggling round, threating to remove paint and bits of brakes, eventually i managed to bodge one of them so it would stay on, but we couldn't get fix the other one without finally taking off the damn wheel! plus watching lunatic bus drivers. they refused to slow down for anything or anyone. i think there were two accidents involving buses. so much for professional driving...

in any case once we got going we still couldn't get through, it was just too uncontrollable, so we (and over half the people going up) turned back, and got stuck in a big lineup for an hour or so while a bus accident further down was cleared. first we filled the esky with snow, then we had snowfights and built snow men and generally annoyed everyone until we could get going. then we figured 10:00am wasn't to early for a beer, so we had a couple. we dropped off the hire equipment and headed home.

definitely a big day

the sulks

almost finished feeling sorry for myself. off to the snow for the weekend. pity my car is such a piece of shit that i have to bludge a lift. unfortunately that lift leaves at 5:00am tomorrow. could be worse though. it was going to go at 3:00am. as long as my back doesn't screw up by the time i get there i should have a more relaxing weekend.