CAN I BE OF ASSISTANCE?

Blurgle

Achoo! Achoo! Cough cough. Achoo!

Too much blood in my antihistamine stream again.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:46 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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Eaten By Mice

I had a wonderful essay to post here, but the little edit box was too small to contain it.

That's my story, anyway.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:59 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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Brrr!

Well, they fixed the air conditioning at work. And then some. It was a balmy 31 degrees today (that's real degrees, so 88 of your puny American degrees), which I doubt the computers would have enjoyed. Naturally on such a warm day I didn't bring a jumper or a jacket or anything... So they decided to switch the air conditioning from Ineffectual to Antarctic.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:44 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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Happy Birthday to Meeee!

It's my birthday!* This afternoon I'm going to see Finding Nemo with my family, then maybe dinner at a non-Thai restaurant.

I wonder if I'll get any presents? I've been a little... slack in the present-giving department this year, what with my three full-time jobs and all. Maybe my nephew will give me a present, since I gave him six boxes of Lego last weekend.

* 25. Though not necessarily in base-10.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 07:51 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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Just One Of Those Days

See you tomorrow.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:03 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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Urk

How did I end up with two full time jobs instead of one part time job?

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 06:18 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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Magic

I spent the day at my brother's house celebrating my nephew's second birthday. While he likes the Lego I bought him, his favourite present by far was the Wiggles Safari DVD (the Wiggles meet Steve Irwin, Crocodile Hunter).

As soon as he had it unwrapped, he grabbed the DVD, trotted into the living room, and -

Well, he doesn't quite have this down pat. He put the DVD on the shelf under the TV, grabbed the remote control, and started pushing buttons. After all, the DVD player is too high up for him to reach, so it's worth a try.

At two, he's realised that if you put the shiny round thing in the silver rectangular thing and push the little buttons on the small grey oblong thing, pictures and music come from the square black thing and you can dance along - which at that age consists of spinning in circles until you fall over.

Unfortunately, the DVD was warped, and in the middle of Wobbly Camel the picture and sound broke up and it swiftly became unwatchable. We found that only the first two and last three of fifteen or so songs played properly.

Which kind of ruined the magic...

What I'd like to do here is write a Whittleian essay about how what engineers really want to do is magic - build machines that work so well that the very workings that they laboured so hard to create are effectively invisible to the user. You do this and that happens, every time, without any noise or smoke or heat. You don't need to pull it apart twice a year to grease the flanges or re-tune the interociter. You don't need to prime it with margarine before starting it when the weather's below freezing.

It just works.

I guess I went into computers because it's the closest useful field we have to magic. You move this thing until that thing points to this other thing, then you push on this thing and music! Movies! Books! Your printer springs to life and prints out a newspaper, or you send a letter to your friend on the other side of the world (and it arrives in a matter of seconds.)

Bugs are the mis-aligned gears and dry solder joints in the engineering magic of programming. When you run into a bug, it reveals the workings you've tried so hard to hide. The magic is ruined, though we're used to it and we usually manage to pick ourselves up and move on.

(Like, say, when my ADSL connection drops out and destroys the illusion that the internet is "just there".)

One recent failed spell has reduced Tuning Spork to speaking in tongues in a most amusing way, but usually the results are just a bloody nuisance.

I have no idea where this post is going, though, so I'll stop here. If you do happen to know, please tell me and I'll do my best to finish it.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 06:25 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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Scarcity Abounds

I may be somewhat scarce on mu.nu this weekend - I have books to read, programs to write, presents to buy, parties to attend (yay!) - so there will be bloggage after, but perhaps not so much bloggage during.

In the meantime, why is it taking so darn long to grep this file? It's only, um, five gigabytes. It's not like it's particularly big or anything...

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:46 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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This Comes As No Surprise

To anyone who knows me:

My inner child is six years old!

Look what I can do! I can walk, I can run, I can
read! I like to do stuff, and there's a whole
big world out there to do it in. Just so long
as I can take my blankie and my Mommy and my
three best friends with me, of course.

How Old is Your Inner Child?
brought to you by Quizilla

Where the heck is my blankie, anyway?

(Thanks to Cherry)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 11:50 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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Sticky Is As Sticky Does

I bought a Sara Lee sticky date pudding for dessert. Of course, when I tried to open it, I found that the lid was stuck to the pudding. Stuck so firmly that when I finally pried it off, all of the icing/sauce/whatever it is came with it. So I had to scrape it all off the lid and spread it back on the pudding.

In other news, the garage of my apartment building got broken into. Again. Four times in four years.

I hate thieves. They probably vote Democrat.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:13 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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