Post by Goblin King on Mar 2, 2006 17:46:09 GMT
Posted this in my Live Journal but I realised I want to inflict it upon some of you who don't follow my live-journal religiously. 
(also it's hidden on my LJ)
I reserve the right to move it to VP - I reserve the right to check my spelling later ...
Humour me okay?
Crikey, weird day. Glad to be home and it's only 4.30 pm.
Reverse order:
There was a beaten up Securicor van in town. Incredibly loud alarm - with a message which ran "Securior Driver Requires Assistance - Please Call the Police" Later the area was cordonned off. Four or five police cars. Policemen peering into the van. Alarm still blaring. It was clear that the police couldn't get in. The implication being that some poor guy was still in the van. Those things are like mobile tombs. No idea if there had been a robbery - or the driver had just passed out because of diabetes or something.
I'm now thinking of Lou Reed: "You're going to read about just what you saw" (strangeness)
The noise and situation was disorientating - so much so I think I may have lost £10 at the cash machine. Fk it. Kind of feeling that there's no point getting worked up about that. Spilt milk and all that.
Just angry with self for acting like such a penshioner sometimes in town, fiddling with change, handling crowds and queues badly. Also I felt numb about the situation - too many cooks already checking out that broth. That alarm had being going on for ages, and no amount of police, police-dogs and police tape seemed to make any difference. I see that a lot in this town, the police doing a sort shrug "well, what can you do?" Stupid town, fking useless handful of police.
The meeting at the Project for the new online forum went well (ish). I get the feeling this is going to take a long time to get off the ground - even the people who have email aren't even clicking on the link we've sent. But hey, not my problem, I'll admin and moderate - I can't create content for them as well. Need to relax and wait for the sugggestions. The good news is that a certain freakishly paranoid personality or was at risk of saboutaging everything was not present. I'll be damned if I have to defend the very concept of the Web. It's a long and short story, depending upon my mood.
What was funny was we've appointed a member-volunteer "moderator" status on the forum (ooooh). He looked positively shocked at the idea that he might have to delete upsetting posts - like he would be challenging people to a fight, or passing judgement on them. This chap, pleasant enough, often sits in the corner of the room, with the one LINUX machine (we've quarrentined LINUX at the project ) staring at a scrolling command line which might as well be a Matrix screen-saving for all we know. He used to program satelittes for ESA. And here he is agog at the apparent complexity of a bulletin board, and the unfathomable enormous responsability of deleting porn or offensive language from a forum. Blue wire, green wire, blue wire, blue wire, or is it the red? Oh sweet Jesus, how many people will die today!? 
I say all this because he is seen as senior to me in volunteer terms and I think he's put off helping clients because of prolonged exposure to GUI (and a Bill Gates one at that). A mouse? A pointer? A window? No!!!! Oh well, horses for courses and all that. Of course, today of all days, I'm dismissing the command line just a little too quickly ...
This morning I managed to stress myself just a little. I was trying to help a person with a laptop they had brought in (a good thing too because the project was really quiet today) - I keep forgetting the absolute basics, and then somehow I screwed up the BIOS on one of the other computers. It was very nearly humiliating - and I had to swallow my pride a little later on, when having to turn to a proper tekky-dude (different guy from the one above - he was visiting today) who knew every magically combination of keys at start-up. Strange voodoo hand gestures ...
But at least now we have some boot disks - I always forget to make boot disks ... (this was Windows 98(a) by the way, oh just kill me and lose the drivers...). You have to realise that absolutely nothing in the room is first-hand - it's all cobbled together, and system disks are worth their weight in gold. Gold I say! *Beats man to death for a working set of DOS 6.2 disks, whilst next door Windows XP upgrades itself and registers our muslim members with the Pentagon*
I'm still trying to find that balance - that male-competivity in presense of computers. When I was growing up this was the way men talked about cars, and the women would gracefully pretend not to know anything (when in fact they probably knew enough), sometimes it's like that with computers (well in a small town anyway ...) Generally, most people are modest about knowledge, it's good manners or something ... (sigh)
Again I may end up going off on one - with generalisations founded in nothing.
Actually after the past the few months with my up and and down luck with computers, it all verged on hysteria today - very funny - in that desperate way. I just hate "killing" computers, I take it very personally.
Thou shalt not even look upon the BIOS. Stare not into the face of GOD!
Okay, said enough. May be have a nap. Still have errands to do ...
bugger it.
Crash out, eat food, play games.
Never underestimate the little things.
Must remember to check the local news "You're going to read about just what you saw" (God I hate the local news ...).
(also it's hidden on my LJ)I reserve the right to move it to VP - I reserve the right to check my spelling later ...
Humour me okay?
Crikey, weird day. Glad to be home and it's only 4.30 pm.
Reverse order:
There was a beaten up Securicor van in town. Incredibly loud alarm - with a message which ran "Securior Driver Requires Assistance - Please Call the Police" Later the area was cordonned off. Four or five police cars. Policemen peering into the van. Alarm still blaring. It was clear that the police couldn't get in. The implication being that some poor guy was still in the van. Those things are like mobile tombs. No idea if there had been a robbery - or the driver had just passed out because of diabetes or something.
I'm now thinking of Lou Reed: "You're going to read about just what you saw" (strangeness)
The noise and situation was disorientating - so much so I think I may have lost £10 at the cash machine. Fk it. Kind of feeling that there's no point getting worked up about that. Spilt milk and all that.
Just angry with self for acting like such a penshioner sometimes in town, fiddling with change, handling crowds and queues badly. Also I felt numb about the situation - too many cooks already checking out that broth. That alarm had being going on for ages, and no amount of police, police-dogs and police tape seemed to make any difference. I see that a lot in this town, the police doing a sort shrug "well, what can you do?" Stupid town, fking useless handful of police.The meeting at the Project for the new online forum went well (ish). I get the feeling this is going to take a long time to get off the ground - even the people who have email aren't even clicking on the link we've sent. But hey, not my problem, I'll admin and moderate - I can't create content for them as well. Need to relax and wait for the sugggestions. The good news is that a certain freakishly paranoid personality or was at risk of saboutaging everything was not present. I'll be damned if I have to defend the very concept of the Web. It's a long and short story, depending upon my mood.
What was funny was we've appointed a member-volunteer "moderator" status on the forum (ooooh). He looked positively shocked at the idea that he might have to delete upsetting posts - like he would be challenging people to a fight, or passing judgement on them. This chap, pleasant enough, often sits in the corner of the room, with the one LINUX machine (we've quarrentined LINUX at the project
) staring at a scrolling command line which might as well be a Matrix screen-saving for all we know. He used to program satelittes for ESA. And here he is agog at the apparent complexity of a bulletin board, and the unfathomable enormous responsability of deleting porn or offensive language from a forum. Blue wire, green wire, blue wire, blue wire, or is it the red? Oh sweet Jesus, how many people will die today!? 
I say all this because he is seen as senior to me in volunteer terms and I think he's put off helping clients because of prolonged exposure to GUI (and a Bill Gates one at that). A mouse? A pointer? A window? No!!!! Oh well, horses for courses and all that. Of course, today of all days, I'm dismissing the command line just a little too quickly ...This morning I managed to stress myself just a little. I was trying to help a person with a laptop they had brought in (a good thing too because the project was really quiet today) - I keep forgetting the absolute basics, and then somehow I screwed up the BIOS on one of the other computers. It was very nearly humiliating - and I had to swallow my pride a little later on, when having to turn to a proper tekky-dude (different guy from the one above - he was visiting today) who knew every magically combination of keys at start-up. Strange voodoo hand gestures ...
But at least now we have some boot disks - I always forget to make boot disks ... (this was Windows 98(a) by the way, oh just kill me and lose the drivers...). You have to realise that absolutely nothing in the room is first-hand - it's all cobbled together, and system disks are worth their weight in gold. Gold I say! *Beats man to death for a working set of DOS 6.2 disks, whilst next door Windows XP upgrades itself and registers our muslim members with the Pentagon*
I'm still trying to find that balance - that male-competivity in presense of computers. When I was growing up this was the way men talked about cars, and the women would gracefully pretend not to know anything (when in fact they probably knew enough), sometimes it's like that with computers (well in a small town anyway ...) Generally, most people are modest about knowledge, it's good manners or something ... (sigh)
Again I may end up going off on one - with generalisations founded in nothing.
Actually after the past the few months with my up and and down luck with computers, it all verged on hysteria today - very funny - in that desperate way. I just hate "killing" computers, I take it very personally.
Thou shalt not even look upon the BIOS. Stare not into the face of GOD!
Okay, said enough. May be have a nap. Still have errands to do ...
bugger it.
Crash out, eat food, play games.
Never underestimate the little things.
Must remember to check the local news "You're going to read about just what you saw" (God I hate the local news ...).
hope your day gets better Will.
