Wyrmlog

I have finally, after a good twenty months of profitable employment, done a very stupid thing to the database…

One of the first things you soon realise working in the IT industry, is that when used properly, computers and the net are remarkably effective efficiency tools, allowing the user to fit much more work into their already packed day at the office. Can you imagine what it was like before the information revolution? You’d have to write a letter to a client on a typewriter! Then stick in in an envelope and post it! And then wait at least 24 hours for them to get it! Insane no?

The downside of these wonderfully efficient tools is that if you’re not paying attention they make it incrediably easy to not only shoot yourself in the foot, but blow off your entire leg. As I did on Friday afternoon when I got confused between single and double quotes in a database statement and erased one of the fields in about, oh, I don’t know 15,000 of our products!

Happily that particular field is only used on about 30 of our sites, and a tape backup was done last Tuesday, but it’s still pretty damn embarrasing. And it will probably have a rather disruptive effect on my plans to take some leave in about two months time. Hmmmm.

Well, it turns out I’ve been surfing the net for the last two years via a corroded 1950’s copper cable, stripped of it’s insulation by years of under-house weather conditions and rat nibbling, the wires slowly snapping one by one, until late Friday night the final one went, leaving me with no net access for the entire weekend.

However several sweaty hours of work by Telstra engineers has resulted in the installation of a brand new, shiny modern cable, which will carry my signals at blinding speed, until they arrive at the 1950’s junction box out front, where they will slow to the velocity of an arthritic dog.

I did notice however while waiting on the Telstra faults queue on Saturday morning for ten minutes (amazingly swift service, on weekdays it takes at least forty, if you must have line faults try and arrange them for the weekend) just how much the Telstra theme song (“Making it easier to share” c’mon you know the words!) sounds like a Sergeant Pepper era Beatles song. Penny Lane in particular. I don’t know if this is an impressive testement to the taste of the souless muzak engineer who put the tune together, or a depressing symptom of the continuing abuse of some of the best music of the 20th Century musical cannon. I suppose it depends how long you’re on hold for.

Things you do not want to hear while waiting for a dental examination number 1….

CLANG!! WOOOOOOOOOOOSHHHH!!!!!!!

Dentist: What did you do!?!?!?
Dental Nurse: I was just….
Dentist: You have to turn off the valve first!!
Dental Nurse: I did!!!
Dentist: You CAN’T have!!
Dental Nurse: I DID!!! That valve! There!
Dentist: *assorted muttered obscenities*

EARTH SHATTERING BANG ON DOOR TO EXAMINATION ROOM

silence

Dentist: (poking head around door) We’re ready to see you now!

Well I haven’t made any entries over the last few days because I’ve been pretty busy coding a computer game that infringes on any number of of well established MTV copyrights. Under the thrall of white hot burning creative obsession I’ve been sitting up late, typing away with little regard for time, the TV (“Armageddon” was on, so it’s not like I missed much apart from some fairly dodgy astrophysics), or my biological need for 10 hours sleep a night.

I’m only writing now because my severely sleep deprived state this morning caused me to consume a whole 600ml of a certain caffinated beverage. Then I consumed another 600ml on top of some paracetemol. This may not sound like much, but when you don’t actually drink tea or coffee, and only consume said caffinated beverage about once a month, it can have a surprisingly stimulating effect on your metabolism. By which I mean twitching, grunting and gibbering. But at least I contributed 400 points to Bevan’s scheme to buy a mouse.

Tomorrow I’ll probably start on the Red Bull.

If I ever actually get the aforementioned game finished it will be something of an achievement, as every other game I’ve attempted to program has collapsed in a fit of apathy and spaghetti code. However even if I do manage to get it into some kind of playable state I will derive very little in return for my valiant efforts as…

1. It’s chock-a-load full of copyrighted images and concepts, meaning that even if I release it as freeware MTV lawyers shall descend upon my head like the pigeons of hell, waving cease and desist orders and crying for vengeance.
2. It’s a really sucky and pointless game.

But hey, when white hot burning creative obsession calls, you gotta accept the charges.

Well basically this is just another test of the log system. I’m going to be doing a fair bit of this over the next week, getting the archiving sorted out, making sure the entries appear in the right order, that kind of thing.

While I’m here though I might as well vent my spleen about the disgusting display on channel nine last night. Who cares if Rafter is playing the Wimbledon final, on a Monday I want my “Friends” and “Malcolm in the Middle”! Bastards!

Oh yeah, I need to test the image capabilities of this thing, and some of you are probably wandering exactly who Dale is, so there you go. Behold.

Well, I finally have a weblog. Obviously.

This is all down to my earstwhile employers, GTP iCommerce (go on, click the icon over there to the right, keep Dale happy), who have kindly let me subvert our news and website maintenance program for my own nefrarious ends. This of course has the disadvantage that I won’t be able to say anything bad about the company or my workmates, but hey, I wasn’t planning on doing that anyway. Well apart from the fact that

GTP IS GOOD!
GTP IS ALMIGHTY!
YOU WILL PURCHASE GTP iCOMMERCE!

with a bucket!

So anyhoo from now on make sure to click the WEBLOG link on the homepage to catch up on the latest news, updates and enraged rants about things I’ve seen on TV. When I get the time to write that is, since I seem to spend most of my time at the office these days working like a

GTP IS KIND TO IT’S EMPLOYEES!
GTP HAS A NEW MICROWAVE OVEN!
GTP HAS A PROFIT SHARING SCHEME!
YOU NEED GTP iCONTACT!

penalty pay!

That is all.