things appear to have been fucky from lunchtime, and now, they seem to be calming down.
i don't fucking get it. i realize that there is a certain aura that IS people have, as whenever we are around, whatever problem there is seems to go away.
but this is driving me up a fucking wall.
well, to quote Eric Cartman:
"SCREW YOU GUYS! I'm going home"
this is driving me FUCKING NUTS
i have a piece of advice for you all. one that i feel everyone should heed. it's a lesson i am currently emboiled in and i'm ready to kill as a result of it.
if you are going to have anything done that changes the way your network connection is handled, will be affected, supposedly going to be improved.
FOR THE LOVE OF WHATEVER GOD YOU BELIEVE IN
DON'T DO IT ON A FUCKING FRIDAY AFTERNOON!
DON'T EVEN LET THEM OFFER IT AS AN OPTION!
friday morning, fine.
but any time after lunch, tell them to take a long walk off a short pier.
a VERY long walk.
this is just another chapter in our on-going saga of moving the phones from the standard analog phone (what you plug into the wall at home currently) to the new VoIP system.
now, i realize, our network is fucked up. it's in pretty bad shape and is nothing more than a patchwork of crap. but we are trying hard with the new phone system to fix that problem, and to a degree (greater or lesser, i don't know) we have done so. new switches, snappy network speed (up from a whopping 10mb to 100mb that most people have in their offices these days)
anyways, part of that is moving our various external connections (T1) to other routers in an attempt to consolidate things, but this afternoon, they made a few changes that SHOULD have made things better.
in part, they did. browsing the web is now a little snappier. that was supposed to help (in part) with the whole phone system and the various ports in the backs of routers.
shit, i have to call someone.
ok, well the good news is that it looks as tho the phone side of things is working. i just called someone and while i was on the phone with him, i lost a network connection twice. outlook is freaking out and i'm really glad that i have frozen dinners here. a frozen dinner. and if i didn't, RB had one so i could have swiped that as i am now getting rather hungry.
anyways, back the point at hand. whatever happened has fucked up things interally.
every few minutes, we'll lose our connection to something (altho for the moment, outlook hasn't freaked out in a few mins) internally which fucks with the routing and access to various servers (like citrix, exchange) goes away and then a minute or two later, is restored.
needless to say, it's been more than mildly frustrating for me as i'm stuck here not knowing what's (oh, there it goes, outlook can't see the server) going on. by this time, CD should be home and be connected to the network in an attempt to fix whatever it is he botched in the first place.
so anyways, my point is this: don't let ANYONE fuck with your network on friday afternoon. because they sure as hell aren't thinking about whether it's going to work or not. they are working with the assumption they know what they are doing and it is going to work out of the box.
trust me.
IT WON'T WORK.
not at first at any rate, but by the time anyone realizes what happened, they are half in the bag (which i would very much like to be right now, i don't know if i'll be able to even buy beer tonight).
or lost on their way (now it's up) home, or any other (now it's down) position where they have no ability to do any work.
and tonight i was planning on doing phase one of "The Great Molius Coke Challenge"
the other week, i saw that Coke has this thing called 'Coke Zero' (outlook down)
i'm not sure what it is, but i guess it bills itself as a 0 calorie (outlook up)/0 carb/0 whatever soda.
well, plain diet coke is that too. so WHAT exactly is the difference? there are some difference chemicals in the ingredients list, but for the most part, they are identical. both use sweet and low to sweeten, so why have 2 sodas that appear to be the same?
so i decided (outlook up, connection down) that i would see what the big difference was. i bought a bottle of the following:
Classic Coke (the benchmark)
Diet Coke
Diet Coke with Splenda
Coke Zero
i'll pour a little into a glass and sample. i'll post round 1 results afterwards. round 2 will prolly happen on sunday.
well, it's looking as tho someone is actually going to have to come out here to take a look at things. which sucks even more cuz now my chances of getting beer are even lower.
fuck.
enuff for now.
M sent me a link to an article in the Globe about bringing your pet to work and i started following the links and looking thru the author's blog when i found this.
i have never cared for PETA or their tactics, but this is something i don't think many of us have realized about this "organization".
read that article and then read this blog entry. i found it rather enlightening.
kudos to Gina Spadafori and thank you.
random picture of the moment - driving into work (earlier than usual) this morning. whee... 
one of the normal sounds i hear in the morning (weekdays) is around 720 or so, the crazy-neighbor-lady who lives next door, goes to work. the door in my bedroom shares the stairway we use to get in and out. it took a little while, but a lot of the time, i just ignore it and doze off until my alarm rudely awakens me.
this morning was no different, i hear her open the door, close it, and head down the stairs. i start the doze off process and right after she steps out and i hear the door close, i hear what sounds like a gunshot, echoing thru my neighborhood.
after going over to my window (open due to nice temperatures) to attempt to determine where the sound came from, i start hearing the sounds of a contractor banging away at something. so all it was, apparently, is said contractor dropping something heavy (big stone, etc) into an empty metal dumpster.
i realize that they like to get started early, but it's just plain rude, to make such a loud noise that early in the morning. at least wait until 800. what if i had an infant that i had just put down? do you really think that they would sleep thru that? well, i spose i don't know the answer, but i'm sure someone who has had kids can answer that better than i, but my guess would be they would be mighty unhappy. maybe there should be a town ordinance that says contractors are not allowed to make loud noises (hammering nails, cutting boards, cutting down trees, dropping large debris into empty metal dumpsters, etc) until after 800am. of course, now that it is 800am, i'm not hearing the contractors making noise...
figures.
(not so) random picture of the moment. i mowed my lawn before taking the previous picture, but it doesn't look like it so here is a different angle. i generally have to mow it 2-3 times a week now.
i figured out the whole posting pictures thing. i like how i can have it use a smaller picture but then the larger one.
anyways, as you can see here, TK and i had a little fun with RB this afternoon. (i'd provide a link to the actual post, but i can't, sorry. best i can do)
it was one of those inspired moments of mischief, but we are now both on edge. fortunately, RB is an understanding soul and had a good laugh. i'll get a picture of vader tomorrow.
that was actually what started it. RB has a jar that he'll keep some sort of chocolate confection, and it was empty. so i took his burger king vader (reportedly only 5 per box of 200 toys) and placed it in the jar with a cartoon bubble saying 'NOOOOOOOOOOOOO...'
i'm not sure why it inspired such a gesture, but we had fun and the people who saw it got a kick out of it. well, all but LB who gave me a disaproving look. good thing i have a good working relationship with her.
so at least some of the time at work was productive.
on the way home, NPR mentioned that the government had reached a settlement with BJ's Wholesale Club over their security breach that resulted in thousands of customers information being stolen (credit cards, etc). it isn't so much that an agreement was reached, but all i could think of was that during my dark employment period, it was one of the companies i had applied to. and i would have been working (most likely) at their headquarters where this apparently happened. i certainly would have liked to have been working there (or anywhere at that time) but i'd hate to think what i'd be going thru when it happened.
after stopping by the ho-spice, i saw a car go flying across several lanes in my rearview mirror and the speed at which it moved, looked as tho it was a car out of control flying off the side of the road headed for a major accident. then i realized that they were flying towards the off-ramp to chez target, but for that split second, i thought i'd be a witness to a big accident in my rearview mirror. kinda freaky.
and my final thought of the moment is the whole 'what a difference a day makes'. on monday when i went out to my car to go home, at 7pm (it was a late day) it was still 90 and muggy as hell. at 630pm the following evening (another late night), it was 54 degrees. and that's where it's been since then. altho for a few moments today it was a bit nicer.
i stopped by the ho-spice this evening to drop off a few things and saw the following...
blame chris griffin for that one.
family guy was good tonight. but the best moment was when Lois got all riled up and dropped her pants and told Peter to hit her (to demonstrate how passion turns a woman on).
so Brian slaps her ass and screams 'YEAH!'
and then the awkward moment.
that was beautiful.
anyways, i'm watching The Dead Zone (new episodes FINALLY) and USA just did something that always bugs when a tv station does it.
they just ran a promo for next weeks episodes of 4400 and Dead Zone.
show the promo for the 4400, but don't show scenes from Dead Zone. at least not NEW ones...i know that this episode will wrap up and Johnny will be fine, but at this moment in time, he is being chased by the feds and Greg Stilson's goon squad, so why ruin it? it spoiled the moment. there's this background tention that is built and a little spoiler like that just pops the bubble.
i've seen other stations do it as well. at least SciFi seems to keep their ducks lined up. they tend to only run promos for the shows airing that evening and wait until the following day before showing the new promos. and it seems to be less of an issue on the majors.
oh well.
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