i don’t really feel like updating, but it’s been a week and i’ve got so many links on my desktop that things are getting crowded… 8/
massoud, majid’s brother, the so-called "networking expert", had a question for me today. he was "buying a server system for a company" (God knows who, although i think i have a fairly good idea, and God help whoever it is) and wanted to know what X and O stood for…
i shook off my first inclination, which was to say that X was kisses and O was hugs (although it took longer for me to shake it off than it would have before my injury) and asked him to show me what he was talking about. he took me to his laptop, where he showed me the following, which i have reproduced simply with HTML:
| Windows 2000 | Windows ME | Windows XP | |
| some server code | O | O | X |
| some other server code | O | X | X |
if he doesn’t know what X and O stand for, i wonder if he knows what ETH0 stands for… 8/
today pete, the other "graphic artist", asked what "operating system" i was using on the PC. i told him that PC has windows 2000 on it, but it was my impression that it and XP were enough alike that it was pretty difficult to get lost. he poked around for a few more minutes and then asked me how to get to web mail… so i showed him that web mail was already started, through firefox, which i chose from the task bar. he was somewhat taken aback and said that he had never used "those extra toolbars" (which come with firefox, not the OS) before…
he’s like my mother-in-law… doesn’t know the difference between an application and the operating system.
we’re running out of room on the web mail server, and majid’s only "solution" has been to install yet another email client to download the messages from a month ago, which he’s too anal to delete. we have three years worth of email in various places on the network because "there are times in this industry when people decide they’re not going to pay for work… we have to protect ourselves…"
we did a business card for a guy who has an office in bellevue and an office in england. the most recent set of changes came in via email this morning, which i printed and added to the job box. the email said that after a change in the phone number, they approved the job to print so that someone could pick up the finished cards on friday. i made the change and output plates for the job. later on, majid yelled at me because the phone number was different from the one on the proof copy that he found inside the box… but he hadn’t seen the change, or the new proof copy, which were stapled together and paper clipped to the work order on the outside of the job box, right in front of him!!!
i worked late today. we were doing 5 business cards for a company whose business card layout was 8 up, in spite of the fact that it could be 10 up, but majid has said that he doesn’t want me to mess around with files that already exist, and this one already existed 8 up, so i left it alone, just duplicated the layers necessary to typeset new business cards. so now the business cards have been approved to print and majid says that the layout is wrong… these cards don’t bleed, so they can be printed 10 up, so i stay late to make the changes, despite the fact that our press operator is going to be gone until monday…
meanwhile, majid, massoud and "mike the idiot" were all in my (very small and cramped) office space trying to get one of mike-the-idiot’s reformatted PCs to work – it won’t boot at all, it just keeps cycling between the POST and trying to load windoesn’t, but never quite gets there. massoud is digging through the guts of the computer on the floor while majid and mike-the-idiot have a conversation about macs and me in farsi. i don’t understand a word of farsi, but i understand when both majid and mike-the-idiot say things like "typesetter" and "graphic artist" and "bruce", all of which they are both saying with great regularity. at one point i get the very strong impression that mike-the-idiot was saying something along the lines of "majid, you’re the business owner… if you say no more macs, use windows, bruce will have to accept it, otherwise he won’t have a job."
now mind you, i don’t understand a word of farsi, so i could be way off base here, but even still… i’m in the room here guys, doing stupid stuff that you didn’t want done originally, but then changed your mind about. if you’re going to have a conversation about me, at least be polite enough take it in the other room, or have it in a language i understand! and for that matter, i hope he does say "no more macs, use windoesn’t" because that will give me the excuse i need to quit right then and there. i’d love to see his face as i punch out and walk away with no notice…
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in other news, the fremont philharmonic is playing at the wallingford wurst festival from noon until 1:15 pm, saturday. be there or be oblong.
here’s something strange… i’ve been nominated for the 8 Hunks of Hanukkah, whatever that means… go vote, or something…
moe and i went and saw The Bobs perform at the triple door last saturday. i’m still getting over seeing dan bob instead of joe bob, but moe has been a fan for almost 20 years, and she’s seen a lot more bobs come and go than i have. it was cool to see matthew bob after the show, because i work with him now, and he’s famous… 8) somebody in charge of mailing things from the bobs’ mailing list sent me a copy of the 20/20 CD, which was entirely unexpected (i already have one copy of it), but cool in a confusing sort of way.
amusing cthulhu license plate… i wonder how they got it past the virginia DMV?
bush asks condaleeza rice if he can go potty during a meeting of the UN security council…
U.S. CONCENTRATION CAMPS – FEMA AND THE REX 84 PROGRAM
"We finally cleaned up public housing in New Orleans. We couldn’t do it, but God did." quoth Rep. Baker of Baton Rouge
bushy george declared a state of emergency in louisianna before hurricane katrina hit… but he didn’t declare a state of emergency in the parishes that were hardest hit by hurricane katrina until it was all over… WTF?!?
Bush Not Aware That His Own FEMA Director No Longer Works For Him – maybe you know something i don’t… 8/
Halliburton Gets Contract To Pry Gold Fillings From New Orleans Corpses’ Teeth – which sounds a lot more shocking if you don’t realise that it’s from The Onion… 8)
i wonder why i haven’t heard of jeezis-is-lord dot com before? maybe it’s because "THIS WEBSITE IS BEING SYSTEMATICALLY BANNED!"… or maybe it’s just boring and predictable.