Good News!

Something positive for a change…

Hollis Hawthorne is back on deck!

Maybe now she can pay back that money I sent her… (joke! joke! I swear!!) 😀

On the work front I sent the boss a long email yesterday explaining why I can’t continue to do the job I find myself doing. I’m not quitting the company – I’m just divesting myself (or trying to divest myself) of some of the responsibilities I’ve been wrestling with for the last year or so.

I realised over the weekend that the reason I’ve been feeling so wrung out for months is because I’m simply not up to the task allocated to me, and the stress of trying to carry it out has been eating away at me 24/7. This is why my apartment looks like a tip, why I’m not sleeping properly and why I’ve been increasingly anti-social of late. So I’m kicking it to the curb and going back to being a simple programmer again. I hope.

I’m still waiting for a reply. Wish me luck…

Bleeeech

Hufflepuffs are excellent finders!

Ack. I have all kinds of things I want to blog about (a run down of the improv game I ran on the weekend, why the core premise of Bryron Hall’s rebuttal to the famous rpg.net F.A.T.A.L review is invalid, just what is a true Hufflepuff anyway) but work is stressing me out so much that at the end of the day I just don’t have the energy to be creative. The best I can do is fill in a few more simple articles on the FreakWiki and collapse into bed.

But I don’t like to end on a down note, so here are some songs…

Come to Australia – It’s all true!
I’m on a Boat! – Metal Style!
Sweet Caroline – Tripod!

Trials of Web Design

I’m a doctor not a gardener

Me: Hi [client]. Before I complete the booking form I need to know if more than one type of accommodation can be reserved per booking. In the meantime you can view the incomplete version of the form here [link], but please note that several sections have not yet been programmed.

Client: Hi [me]. Only one kind of accommodation can be reserved per booking. Thanks for the link to the form but we’re concerned that several important sections are missing.

1: Cancellation details: None of these are included. Please see original text and include all the paragraphs.

2: The booking dates are incorrect and should be June and July not January and February

3: Accommodation options for apartments/cottages and Backpackers are not yet included.

4: The total payment does not seem to include accommodation fees.

Please amend these urgently.

Me: What did I #@%&@*% say!!!?!!?

OK, I didn’t really email that back, but I sure would have liked to. A general inability to read what’s written in emails seems to be a common trait among web design clients and there are times you would really like to give them a serve. But, for the good of the company you swallow your rage and carry on.

Of course if you’re really good you can come up with a subtle, passive-aggressive reply that’s nice and polite on the surface but between the lines points out what illiterate morons they are.

We have to be Sssssssneaky!

Big surprise…

Here’s something interesting that’s come my way. Senator for Censorship Stephen Conroy has a blog, located at http://www.minister.dbcde.gov.au/. As is fashionable in these upstart, youngster blogs it has a tag cloud – over on the right – which displays the most common words and phrases used in said blog. All well and good.

Except you have a look at the source code. Here can be found a chunk of Javascript that generates the tag cloud, and which has a very interesting addition.

First up is a long string of phrases that can appear in the cloud. I won’t copy this in because it’s huge, but in the middle is the phrase “ISP Filtering” – the Government’s euphemism for their ridiculous net filter proposal. Further down is the code that adds up the totals for each keyword and prints out the 15 highest ranked…

for(var i=0; i<=15/*<-Important! increase this value by 1 everytime a keyword is excluded below*/; i++)
{
var z=0;
for(var j=0; j<split.length; j++)=”” {=””>
if (unique[i]==split[j]) {
z=z+1;
}
counts[i] = z;
}
var size = getTagClass(z);
//Customise the tag-cloud to display what shows up
if (unique[i] == “ISP Filtering”)
{
continue;
}
document.write(‘<a class=”‘+size+'” href=”%5C%22http://www.minister.dbcde.gov.au/search?q=%27+unique[i]+%27%22″>’+unique[i]+'</a> ‘);
}
document.write(‘</split.length;></p>’);
document.write(‘</div>’);
}

There, do you see that bit in red? That’s a neat little patch that prevents the phrase “ISP Filtering” from ever coming up in the cloud.

Fascinating no? The Government is filtering their own sites to prevent mention of their own web filter. Great work everybody!

Calling all Crabs

Ramblings and complaints

Well, we’re battening down the hatches for a major heatwave – just in time for my birthday. Oh joy! Temperatures are expected to range between 37° and 42° C until Sunday, after which they’ll drop down to a merely hellish 36° for a few days. I love this city but I hate this weather.

My work email account keeps getting spammed by the “Ruby Royale” online casino. Some strange part of my brain continually misinterprets this as “Ruby Rose”, so every morning when I come in and start sorting through the spam I get a sudden jolt of irrational excitement before sanity kicks back in. Damn spammers.

Finally I know it’s neither new or clever to make fun of Emos, but sometimes they make it so damn easy!

Pearls Before Swine

It’s lyrics time. Again.

Went out and got the Swine Flu shot today. The Government’s subsidising it to build up herd immunity, so I figured I’d better pitch in and do my bit. I feel a bit ill now, but that could just be because I went out and walked around the city for a few hours afterwards taking photos in the blazing sun (the results are up on my Flickr account).

On another subject entirely I (for some reason) was trying to remember the lyrics of TISM’s Strictly Loungeroom. There was one bit I couldn’t remember so I looked online. As usual the only lyrics available seem to have been transcribed by drunken lemurs, so I figured I’d better correct the situation….

Strictly Loungeroom

If your Luke Perry sideburns just won’t grow; that’s dancin!
If you can’t seem to dress like they do in Cosmo; that’s dancin!
You admit that you don’t like the taste of alcohol,
If you think that mull was a Paul McCartney song,

If you bough Stussy a month too late; that’s dancin!
If your parents are together and you don’t hate ’em; that’s dancin!
If you always bought a ticket for the train,
If you think that graffiti all looks the same,

Don’t give us none of your aggravation,
We’ve had it with your discipline,
Saturday night’s alright for fighting,
‘Cept when you have to stay in,
Strictly loungeroom!
Strictly loungeroom!

Then you know it’s time to get the razor blades out; that’s dancin!
Step into that noose and swing; that’s dancin!
When it’s Saturday night and you’re all by yourself,
Watching reruns of That’s Dancing,

Don’t give us none of your aggravation,
We’ve had it with your discipline,
Saturday night’s alright for fighting,
‘Cept when you have to stay in,
Strictly loungeroom!
Strictly loungeroom!

Strictly loungeroom!
Strictly loungeroom! Yeah!

That’s dancin’, yeah!
That’s dancin’, yeah!

There’s a party going on at the local church hall,
You know people going, all you gotta do is call,
Leave your empty room get out, seize the day,
But you put on ABC and foxtrot your chance away…

Enough said.

Introverts are Coming Out

5, 4, 3, 2, 1!

Continuing the theme of outing myself as an introvert from a few weeks back, a commenter on Boing Boing (you know, Boing Boing? You don’t? What’s wrong with you!) has happened to provide a link to the following article – which although it seems a little harsh on extroverts (most of my friends are extroverts and are nowhere near as annoying as the article suggests 😉 is an excellent overview on the subject…

The Atlantic – Caring for your Introvert

As the Sirius Cybernetics Electro-Sensa-Book Division would say, Read and Enjoy!

I Hate Cwazy People!

That’s why I’ll never have your brother around for dinner, he would parallel park outside my house for ten minutes, TEN MINUTES, he’s clearly insane…

About 12:30 today one of our guys at the office received a rather confusing phone call about a shipping container and where to email the appropriate documentation to. Not sure what it was about (but assuming it might be something to do with one of the boss’s side projects) he provided our support email address.

Shortly thereafter we received a shipping docket for a company we’ve never heard of. Realising that the initial phone call was a wrong number we emailed them back. The following emails illustrate the fun and games that ensued…

(All names and phone numbers have been changed to protect the innocent…)

Hi Jan,

Looks like you’re looking for Polecat Patios [website address]. It’s not us.

Kind Regards

Hello,

I called them and they asked me to send all the docs to your email address.

Can you please forward all the docs to them?

Thanks & Regards

Jan,

You didn’t actually call them at all, you called us (presumably you dialled the wrong number) and the person you spoke to – unsure about what the call was concerned with – provided our support email address.

We have never had any dealings with Polecat Pations and prior to Googling their business name today have never even heard of them.

I’d suggest it would be better if you determined the correct contact details and resent the email from your end, rather than them receiving their documents via a random third party company they have never even heard of.

Kind Regards

Hi,

I called 555 826 533 and this is the number from the white page for POLECAT PATIOS. And the staff asked me to email all the docs for you.

If 555 826 533 is your company’s telephone number then it is the mistake from the white page.

Thanks & Regards

Jan,

Our number is 555 826 833. You must have hit the 8 rather than the 5 when dialling. I was personally sitting next to the person who received your initial call and who was quite confused at the mention of a shipping container.

Kind regards

I am pretty sure the number I called is the one from the white page. Anyway I will call the below number again. Please disregard all the docs if they are not for you.

Regards

Oh yes. It’s much more likely that sunspots or something caused the Telstra exchange to connect you to the wrong number that you simply misdialed a single digit. Sheeze!

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