Aaaah, the season of giving, the season of being generous... with myself.
OK, enough about Christmas.
I learned another great thing about me as a corporate... person: I can tell the future. I can predict (with a margin of error of less than 2 weeks) when my General Manager's BlackBerry breaks beyond repairing. Yes, it's when a new model comes out.
The cause of accident (quote from the receipt from service): signs of liquid submersion, melted internal connectors (and, as you'll find out, a few external ones also), some alien guano, the Windows-Blue-Screen-of-Death, the Xbox-Red-Ring-of-Death and BlackBerry-Green-Screen-Of-Agony. Yessss, such an unfortunate accident.
Of course, I have to transfer all the content to his new shiny toy (the perks of being senior sysadmin). Usually easy, but when one of the mini-USB pins is... gone, it gets a bit tricky. It's time to go for the ultimate solution, it's time for Bluetooth. Now, if you ask the people in sales, this wonderful technology makes them look sooo coool. If you ask me, I am not so happy with the 855 extra COM ports in Device Manager.
Anyway, one reboot and one Desktop Manager installation later, it's time to sync. A bit over 1GB. Watching the progress bar is an exercise of patience, boredom and pain (in this order).
Oh, I forgot to warn you folks, there is no punch line for this story, nothing funny about it. It sucks from the beginning to its very end.
28 December, 2008
30 November, 2008
Midlife crisis?
Turning 30 tomorrow. Hmmm... 15% of my life already gone.
93% left to go (I saved when the progress bar was at 7% just in case, I can reload from there).
If people ask me if I'd do things differently should I be given a chance, I answer them.
[What, you thought I'd tell you?]
Who knows, maybe I'd be a better father and husband. Maybe I'd have a better job. Maybe I'd have a nicer house. Maybe I would be a nicer person.
Father. I've got my hands on a few mating seasons -some of them not involving my hands- but no offspring so far. I'm good. No kids, no complaints; so I'm doing fine. No room for improvement here. Unless...
I could be a better Father. And better shaped, too. If I stopped eating all that candy and started giving some of it to the children I'd be way slimmer. And would have way more sex. Yes, that kind of Father. If you think it's sick (Disclaimers don't look good in the middle of the story, but yes, I think it's sick too) remember you sent your poor children to church in the first place, you dumbass. How about letting them go outside and play or maybe read instead? It's double win for everyone.
Husband. I'm single now, and not even 30 yet (that's tomorrow), no reason to hurry or get depressed now. I'm not a woman.
Better job. Suffice to say I work in IT, so there are a lot of places where I could make more money. I could be in Sales, but unfortunately I have a personality. There are a couple of things I am good at (so Marketing is not an option, either), but most of them will be obsolete in six months. I could be a successful lawyer, or I could have a career in HR, but I already mentioned I'm not into screwing people against their will.
Nicer house. A lot of room for improvement here, definitely: at least 2 bedrooms (yes, that lazy) and an extra bathroom. A yard with some trees would do nice too, thank you very much.
Nicer person. Well, if this post has offended you in any way, you're either too religious, feminist, lawyer, you have a terrible sense of humor or any combination of those. It's your fault that you don't like me, not mine. I'm a pretty nice person, really.
P.S. If you really are in HR, I could really use a better job. And a bigger house.
93% left to go (I saved when the progress bar was at 7% just in case, I can reload from there).
If people ask me if I'd do things differently should I be given a chance, I answer them.
[What, you thought I'd tell you?]
Who knows, maybe I'd be a better father and husband. Maybe I'd have a better job. Maybe I'd have a nicer house. Maybe I would be a nicer person.
Father. I've got my hands on a few mating seasons -some of them not involving my hands- but no offspring so far. I'm good. No kids, no complaints; so I'm doing fine. No room for improvement here. Unless...
I could be a better Father. And better shaped, too. If I stopped eating all that candy and started giving some of it to the children I'd be way slimmer. And would have way more sex. Yes, that kind of Father. If you think it's sick (Disclaimers don't look good in the middle of the story, but yes, I think it's sick too) remember you sent your poor children to church in the first place, you dumbass. How about letting them go outside and play or maybe read instead? It's double win for everyone.
Husband. I'm single now, and not even 30 yet (that's tomorrow), no reason to hurry or get depressed now. I'm not a woman.
Better job. Suffice to say I work in IT, so there are a lot of places where I could make more money. I could be in Sales, but unfortunately I have a personality. There are a couple of things I am good at (so Marketing is not an option, either), but most of them will be obsolete in six months. I could be a successful lawyer, or I could have a career in HR, but I already mentioned I'm not into screwing people against their will.
Nicer house. A lot of room for improvement here, definitely: at least 2 bedrooms (yes, that lazy) and an extra bathroom. A yard with some trees would do nice too, thank you very much.
Nicer person. Well, if this post has offended you in any way, you're either too religious, feminist, lawyer, you have a terrible sense of humor or any combination of those. It's your fault that you don't like me, not mine. I'm a pretty nice person, really.
P.S. If you really are in HR, I could really use a better job. And a bigger house.
30 September, 2008
The end of the world...
If Schrödinger could think outside the box he'd have probably end up making soup ads, and the paradox would have boiled to when hot water becomes soup. (It's probably when you throw in the carrots. Like in the original scenario, when, if you stuck a carrot in the the cat's ass, the it dies or enjoys it. If it's an emo cat, it enjoys it because it finally dies from it.)
On a different note, I've been on the road for a month, during which I almost missed the end of the world, because people in the country (where I spent most of that month) don't really care about the LHC (chances are you're looking the acronym up, too). They were more concerned about not being able to run Yahoo Messenger after the new and improved WAN was implemented.
Back to the city, where people are concerned about the end of the world and so they look for answers from witches on tv at prime-time.
Now that the new infrastructure in place, it's time to deploy the new ERP. I'm senior, so I get to do the more interesting part of the whole process: imaging a couple of servers (about 15 minutes watching the progress bar fill up) and, at the end, mapping the printers. 50 printers, for almost 150 users. You cannot script any of this (you could, if you are to listen to the vendor. But actually, you can't).
And you cannot get the users to read the manual. I bet I'll have to explain the same thing at least 80-90 times.
Maybe the end of the world is coming. Do you know any witch that knows how to do Remote Assistance over slow WAN links? (new and improved comes at a cost, and we're cheap.)
On a different note, I've been on the road for a month, during which I almost missed the end of the world, because people in the country (where I spent most of that month) don't really care about the LHC (chances are you're looking the acronym up, too). They were more concerned about not being able to run Yahoo Messenger after the new and improved WAN was implemented.
Back to the city, where people are concerned about the end of the world and so they look for answers from witches on tv at prime-time.
Now that the new infrastructure in place, it's time to deploy the new ERP. I'm senior, so I get to do the more interesting part of the whole process: imaging a couple of servers (about 15 minutes watching the progress bar fill up) and, at the end, mapping the printers. 50 printers, for almost 150 users. You cannot script any of this (you could, if you are to listen to the vendor. But actually, you can't).
And you cannot get the users to read the manual. I bet I'll have to explain the same thing at least 80-90 times.
Maybe the end of the world is coming. Do you know any witch that knows how to do Remote Assistance over slow WAN links? (new and improved comes at a cost, and we're cheap.)
28 July, 2008
Army clothes may look cool, but not on your fat teenager ass
Likewise, There are 10 kinds of people... t-shirts are funny, but not when worn by people that have no idea what it means (or googled for the explanation before buying) and RTFM doesn't make me laugh when I see it on a colleague who looked the acronym up from her 8-toolbars-browser.
Why don't you stick to the things you're good at? You never hear sysadmins say VAT or balance to sound cool. And when they say registry, it has a different meaning.
So, please, don't put "I'm a hacker" on your clothes when you can't even find out your own machine's IP unassisted.
If you insist on expressing your personality by having some text on your chest, at least don't steal from people you're secretly hating whenever you see "Access denied" instead of NSFW clips. Use your imagination for a change. Who knows, it may be funny or interesting. (Seriously now, we all know it won't...)
Go for "I know your salary", leave "I read your email" to guys that don't take 20 minutes to open their own mail. (And yes, they know your salary, too...)
As for me, I prefer blank t-shirts.
I have no personality and I'm cheap.
Why don't you stick to the things you're good at? You never hear sysadmins say VAT or balance to sound cool. And when they say registry, it has a different meaning.
So, please, don't put "I'm a hacker" on your clothes when you can't even find out your own machine's IP unassisted.
If you insist on expressing your personality by having some text on your chest, at least don't steal from people you're secretly hating whenever you see "Access denied" instead of NSFW clips. Use your imagination for a change. Who knows, it may be funny or interesting. (Seriously now, we all know it won't...)
Go for "I know your salary", leave "I read your email" to guys that don't take 20 minutes to open their own mail. (And yes, they know your salary, too...)
As for me, I prefer blank t-shirts.
I have no personality and I'm cheap.
12 July, 2008
Something else
If I were to have an accident that would prevent me from reading for a year or more, I'd be completely left behind at work and most likely moved from the server room to the helldesk cage. There's so much new stuff that replaces the old and not-so-good-anymore stuff, that keeping up is a job itself.
I can survive my job most of the time, but sometimes it feels it's just too much.
Should I be preparing sausages, or milking cows, I wouldn't have to learn every day about new technologies. Milk production does not double every 18 months. If you want to secure the sausages you can simply put them in the fridge or kick the dog out. Consumers aren't interested in virtualized cows, and moving from 32 to 20nm casings won't impress anybody. Not even the dog.
Also, the cows are quieter, more gentle and way more intelligent than their counterparts in the Marketing department who call all me day about "important" emails they cannot print (yes, the printer had been unplugged to make room for the cellphone charger).
Back to the topic, if there's something else I'd like to do, it would be a short cartoon series about a crap-eating super-hero dog. I have enough scripts for at least 50-60 episodes, and the whole thing would be a smash. It's got suspense, action, drama, and at the end the good prevails (she dies).
If you're an animation studio and into my idea, drop me a few lines.
If I don't answer right away, I'm probably gone to plug back that printer.
I can survive my job most of the time, but sometimes it feels it's just too much.
Should I be preparing sausages, or milking cows, I wouldn't have to learn every day about new technologies. Milk production does not double every 18 months. If you want to secure the sausages you can simply put them in the fridge or kick the dog out. Consumers aren't interested in virtualized cows, and moving from 32 to 20nm casings won't impress anybody. Not even the dog.
Also, the cows are quieter, more gentle and way more intelligent than their counterparts in the Marketing department who call all me day about "important" emails they cannot print (yes, the printer had been unplugged to make room for the cellphone charger).
Back to the topic, if there's something else I'd like to do, it would be a short cartoon series about a crap-eating super-hero dog. I have enough scripts for at least 50-60 episodes, and the whole thing would be a smash. It's got suspense, action, drama, and at the end the good prevails (she dies).
If you're an animation studio and into my idea, drop me a few lines.
If I don't answer right away, I'm probably gone to plug back that printer.
20 June, 2008
Long e-mail signatures
Does this look familiar?
"Dear best regards,
Regarding your last email, bla bla-bla bla-bla-bla blabla-bla blabla bla bla-blabla.
Best/ warm/ thanks and/ regards, blablablah.
(for originality, the regards are replaced with 'Have a fantastic weekend' on Fridays or 'Have a great week' on Mondays)
Firstname Lastname
$Department
$Title (sometimes this title can get as long as 3 lines)
$Corp (for the best visual impact, a 500 kB picture may be placed here)
$Corp address (all 3 of them)
$ReallyIntelligentCompanySlogan
$ReallyIntelligentCompanySlogan, continued
$ReallyIntelligentCompanySlogan (really intelligent slogans are really long, aren't they?)
Phone: 0099asdfsd
Fax: 009988zxczx
Cell: 00764jknf
email: firstname.lastname@$Corp.com
Secondary phone: 043dfsdcfsdf
Another Fax (for sales): 0908deskfd
Other phone: 034dfdfsfsdf
Skype ID: smart-and-funny-name-sometimes-including-the-Corpname
Windows Live ID: way-smarter-and-funnier-name-sometimes-including-the-Corpname
YahooID
TwatterID
Disclaimer: $Corp cannot be sued for the content of this email, no matter how stupid the content may be. If you received this email by accident, you must delete it and forget you ever received it. And, probably, we won't sue.
This email has been scanned with $Super-Ultra-Safe-Antivirus-and-Spam. However, if you get infected we cannot be sued (see above).
Please think of the environment before printing this email."
Indeed, you have to think twice before clicking the 'Print' button. It'll take paper from four trees for those signature and disclaimer.
You really need to write your email in your signature; where else can I find it, should I need to reply?
Well, if I cannot find your email address, it's great you gave me a list of all your 35 phone numbers, 15 faxes and 8 cell numberss. Of course, each of those 35 numbers is a robot with call waiting where I give up after 40 minutes of "music" and a seizure-inducing voice asking me to press # to hear about your latest products. And you don't have signal on any of those 8 cells.
I could send a fax or write you a letter, but I cannot decide which is more fun. And which of those 3 addresses is yours? If I send a letter to the main location, can I Cc the other two offices?
But wait, that's when the IM information comes in handy.
And that's when your corporate firewall comes in handy.
Come to think of it, you're quite unreachable these days. Good thing your cubicle is right next to mine.
If I promise not to print your email in order to save the trees, do you promiss to think twice and not waste bandwidth before clicking 'Send'?
"Dear best regards,
Regarding your last email, bla bla-bla bla-bla-bla blabla-bla blabla bla bla-blabla.
Best/ warm/ thanks and/ regards, blablablah.
(for originality, the regards are replaced with 'Have a fantastic weekend' on Fridays or 'Have a great week' on Mondays)
Firstname Lastname
$Department
$Title (sometimes this title can get as long as 3 lines)
$Corp (for the best visual impact, a 500 kB picture may be placed here)
$Corp address (all 3 of them)
$ReallyIntelligentCompanySlogan
$ReallyIntelligentCompanySlogan, continued
$ReallyIntelligentCompanySlogan (really intelligent slogans are really long, aren't they?)
Phone: 0099asdfsd
Fax: 009988zxczx
Cell: 00764jknf
email: firstname.lastname@$Corp.com
Secondary phone: 043dfsdcfsdf
Another Fax (for sales): 0908deskfd
Other phone: 034dfdfsfsdf
Skype ID: smart-and-funny-name-sometimes-including-the-Corpname
Windows Live ID: way-smarter-and-funnier-name-sometimes-including-the-Corpname
YahooID
TwatterID
Disclaimer: $Corp cannot be sued for the content of this email, no matter how stupid the content may be. If you received this email by accident, you must delete it and forget you ever received it. And, probably, we won't sue.
This email has been scanned with $Super-Ultra-Safe-Antivirus-and-Spam. However, if you get infected we cannot be sued (see above).
Please think of the environment before printing this email."
Indeed, you have to think twice before clicking the 'Print' button. It'll take paper from four trees for those signature and disclaimer.
You really need to write your email in your signature; where else can I find it, should I need to reply?
Well, if I cannot find your email address, it's great you gave me a list of all your 35 phone numbers, 15 faxes and 8 cell numberss. Of course, each of those 35 numbers is a robot with call waiting where I give up after 40 minutes of "music" and a seizure-inducing voice asking me to press # to hear about your latest products. And you don't have signal on any of those 8 cells.
I could send a fax or write you a letter, but I cannot decide which is more fun. And which of those 3 addresses is yours? If I send a letter to the main location, can I Cc the other two offices?
But wait, that's when the IM information comes in handy.
And that's when your corporate firewall comes in handy.
Come to think of it, you're quite unreachable these days. Good thing your cubicle is right next to mine.
If I promise not to print your email in order to save the trees, do you promiss to think twice and not waste bandwidth before clicking 'Send'?
18 June, 2008
Come to think of IT
I've been working in IT for almost years. More than a job, it's a passion. After such a long time dedicated to the same passion, you either get really bored or addicted. Until you get bored...
Every day you hear the Google founders are making n hundreds of thousands while they're scratching, that YourSpace or Arsebook is now buying $NewMarvelWebStartup for x million dollars, that Apple are making billions with the new iCloth and so on.
One of the jobs I had in IT happened at $Megacorp, where I was support monkey for $ExpensiveSoftware that $Megacorp bought from $Bigcorp for almost 6 billion dollars (they bought the whole $Bigcorp for this money). 6 billion is a lot of money...
A few weeks ago I read in a news Mars bought Wrigley for 23 billion. It's almost 4 times more than $ExpensiveSoftware. For chewing gum. Bought by candy. Come to think of it, it kinda puts things in perspective.
We end up thinking the things you're most fond of are the most important. Well, sometimes they are.
But most of the times they're not. The dot-com bubble doesn't stand a chance against bubble gum.
Every day you hear the Google founders are making n hundreds of thousands while they're scratching, that YourSpace or Arsebook is now buying $NewMarvelWebStartup for x million dollars, that Apple are making billions with the new iCloth and so on.
One of the jobs I had in IT happened at $Megacorp, where I was support monkey for $ExpensiveSoftware that $Megacorp bought from $Bigcorp for almost 6 billion dollars (they bought the whole $Bigcorp for this money). 6 billion is a lot of money...
A few weeks ago I read in a news Mars bought Wrigley for 23 billion. It's almost 4 times more than $ExpensiveSoftware. For chewing gum. Bought by candy. Come to think of it, it kinda puts things in perspective.
We end up thinking the things you're most fond of are the most important. Well, sometimes they are.
But most of the times they're not. The dot-com bubble doesn't stand a chance against bubble gum.
09 June, 2008
beta
I chose a dark theme because it will save 3 Watts (compared to a not-so-dark theme). Not reading this at all may add considerably more Watts saved, so think of the large number of trees saved should 100 million people not read this each month.
One of those trees may be the one that doesn't make any sound when it falls.
Real content coming soon...
One of those trees may be the one that doesn't make any sound when it falls.
Real content coming soon...
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