Boss comes in, his left ear glowing from an hour-long conference-call.
“New job for us,” he announces, “Remember we migrated all that data out of that old database ages ago?”
We nod and mumble, not wanting to get drawn into that particular slough of despond again.
“Well, the client reckons we’ve done it wrong and they want us to check all the data for discrepancies.”
Groan. How tedious. The original work was done by a freelancer who has since retired to the Bahamas on the money we paid him.
“OK,” I sigh, “Where’s the old database hosted?”
It’s not there anymore.” Replies Boss, “They’ve deleted it.”
“Well I like a challenge. “ I quip, “How are we to communicate with this deceased database then? Clairvoyance? Ouija board - could take a while and we don't have any tumblers.”
The unexpectedly rubber edge of my rapier wit bounces harmlessly off Boss’s icy glare. “There’s a backup of it that just needs restoring.”
“OK, where’s that then?”
“It’s on the public share in Resourcing’s domain.”
I try the IP address he gives me. “Nope, no access to there from here.” I inform him.
“Never mind,” he says, “We’ll get server support to copy it for us.”
“Where’s it going then?” I say. He tells me and I try logging in there, thinking it would save a bit of time to set up folders and suchlike. “Windows could not log you on….blah, blah...” So, no access to that either then.
“I’ll get it sorted,” he says wandering off.
“The database software is on there though, right?” I call to his rapidly departing back.
“Nah, you’ll have to install it,” he replies.
"Do we have the install files?"
"No, you'll have to download them."
So.
We have the deceased remains of a database sitting on a server I can’t access, which needs to go to another server I can’t access, upon which there’s no software to run it anyway.
I start to sing quietly.
“Wake up ev’ry mornin’, same thing for breakfas’ so that every mouth can beeee…”
“And you can cut that out for a start!” he snaps.
*Sigh*.
Friday, 3 June 2011
Friday, 20 May 2011
The Hugh Laurie Song
Recently, the British actor, Hugh Laurie (of hit US TV series House fame), made an album of blues music with a whole bunch of well-regarded musicians and singers. Now, Hugh is a very gifted musician and, while not necessarily an outstanding singer, can at the very least hold of tune.
I heard the album playing in the local record shop (or what passes for one around here) and bought it – because of the music, rather than the singing, I should point out.
I brought it back into the office and, as just a few of us were in that day, we played the CD out loud.
My colleagues absolutely tore it to shreds.
According to them, it was not even remotely authentic, it was a cynical piece of self-indulgence, and it was not very good either. I think they were being a bit harsh.
But, I never pass up the opportunity for a comedy song, so I put their criticisms to music. This is a hastily-made recording of it.
The Hugh Laurie Song by DelusionsOfAdequacy
You are too middle-class to sing the blues.
Even though your only aim is to amuse.
You’ll never sound like you’re from the deep south
While that silver spoon sticking out of your mouth
That plummy accent should be reading the news.
You have no right to sing the blues.
Your home is just too fine for you to sing the blues.
That Georgian townhouse, in its secluded London mews.
Your snow white carpets, B&O, that good feng shui,
You’d never catch Robert Johnson using pot pourri.
With your designer bidets in every en suite loo.
You have no right to sing the blues.
You are just too well-fed to sing the blues
The finest Michelin-starred cuisine is yours to choose.
I bet the last time that you tasted famine
Was when Harrods ran out of smoked salmon.
If hunger’s never forced you to eat your own shoes,
You have no right to sing the blues.
Now we’re not saying white men don’t know trouble,
But, Hugh, I really hate to burst your bubble.
The Blues was born of suffering across the Atlantic
And public schoolboy, Oxbridge types are just inauthentic.
So unless you’ve pissed your life away on drugs and booze.
You have no right to sing the blues.
You’re too happy
You have no right to sing the blues.
You’re too rich
You have no right to sing the blues.
You’re well-adjusted
You have no right to sing the blues.
Ain’t.
That.
A.
Bitch!
I heard the album playing in the local record shop (or what passes for one around here) and bought it – because of the music, rather than the singing, I should point out.
I brought it back into the office and, as just a few of us were in that day, we played the CD out loud.
My colleagues absolutely tore it to shreds.
According to them, it was not even remotely authentic, it was a cynical piece of self-indulgence, and it was not very good either. I think they were being a bit harsh.
But, I never pass up the opportunity for a comedy song, so I put their criticisms to music. This is a hastily-made recording of it.
The Hugh Laurie Song by DelusionsOfAdequacy
You are too middle-class to sing the blues.
Even though your only aim is to amuse.
You’ll never sound like you’re from the deep south
While that silver spoon sticking out of your mouth
That plummy accent should be reading the news.
You have no right to sing the blues.
Your home is just too fine for you to sing the blues.
That Georgian townhouse, in its secluded London mews.
Your snow white carpets, B&O, that good feng shui,
You’d never catch Robert Johnson using pot pourri.
With your designer bidets in every en suite loo.
You have no right to sing the blues.
You are just too well-fed to sing the blues
The finest Michelin-starred cuisine is yours to choose.
I bet the last time that you tasted famine
Was when Harrods ran out of smoked salmon.
If hunger’s never forced you to eat your own shoes,
You have no right to sing the blues.
Now we’re not saying white men don’t know trouble,
But, Hugh, I really hate to burst your bubble.
The Blues was born of suffering across the Atlantic
And public schoolboy, Oxbridge types are just inauthentic.
So unless you’ve pissed your life away on drugs and booze.
You have no right to sing the blues.
You’re too happy
You have no right to sing the blues.
You’re too rich
You have no right to sing the blues.
You’re well-adjusted
You have no right to sing the blues.
Ain’t.
That.
A.
Bitch!
Tuesday, 10 May 2011
Judge Not?
A few days ago, as I was making my way through the city centre, I happened to be walking a couple of yards behind a man. As we went along, I noticed him dropping a piece of paper on to the ground. He didn’t stop to pick it up, of course.
Litterbug!
Now if there’s one thing that really gets a whole herd (if herd is the word) of my goats, it’s littering. It’s completely unnecessary - there are bins all over the place, for pity’s sake!
What to do, though?
In situations like this, I usually just seethe silently, being far, far too chicken to actually tackle the offender. I have been known to pick up litter and bin it myself. I may even have tutted loudly on occasion, but that’s as far as it goes usually.
Usually.
For some reason on this particular day, a couple of my self-preservation/embarrassment-limitation synapses must have been on the fritz, for I suddenly found myself speeding up to draw level with this terrible, ghastly, anti-social, vandal, this desecrater of public spaces, this contemptible scofflaw, this, this.... little old man.
The balloon of my righteous indignation popped. All the acerbic and, no doubt, hugely witty comments I was going to make just melted away.
Now, don’t get me wrong, little old men are not, per se, entitled to drop litter any more than anybody else is, but there was just something in the fellow’s demeanour that stopped all my windbaggery in its tracks.
Instead of, “Oy! You rotten litter lout, thanks for making the place look so nice – NOT!” I ended up saying “Excuse me, but I think you might have dropped something back there and I thought I should let you know in case it was important.”
“What? Where?” he asked, clearly a bit surprised to be spoken to by a stranger out of the blue. I indicated the fallen paper. He looked at it for a moment, then suddenly seemed to realise what it was. He grabbed it up quickly with many thanks, as though it had indeed been something of importance to him.
Now, he may have been an incredibly quick-thinking actor, able to pass off his littering ways as merely an accident, saving face in front of a stranger, but I like to think better of him than that. There was absolutely no trace of embarrassment or guilt about him (as there would be for me if I had dropped litter and caught at it) and in any case, we parted ways amicably.
What if I had simply gone ahead and berated the man for dropping litter when it had actually been an accident all along? I would have been deliberately unpleasant to someone who didn’t really deserve it – a nasty experience for him and certainly no credit to me.
As it was, I was apparently able to do someone a good turn, reuniting him with something important he might have lost.
A last-minute change in attitude on my part from outright condemnation to presumption of innocence brought about a completely different outcome.
Maybe I should try this approach more often – it’s certainly easier on the old blood-pressure.
Mind you, if I ever see some kid smashing up a phone box or spraying his ‘tag’ on a statue, I’m not sure that I won’t revert to silent seething – or even tutting.
Moral cowardice – I has it.
Litterbug!
Now if there’s one thing that really gets a whole herd (if herd is the word) of my goats, it’s littering. It’s completely unnecessary - there are bins all over the place, for pity’s sake!
What to do, though?
In situations like this, I usually just seethe silently, being far, far too chicken to actually tackle the offender. I have been known to pick up litter and bin it myself. I may even have tutted loudly on occasion, but that’s as far as it goes usually.
Usually.
For some reason on this particular day, a couple of my self-preservation/embarrassment-limitation synapses must have been on the fritz, for I suddenly found myself speeding up to draw level with this terrible, ghastly, anti-social, vandal, this desecrater of public spaces, this contemptible scofflaw, this, this.... little old man.
The balloon of my righteous indignation popped. All the acerbic and, no doubt, hugely witty comments I was going to make just melted away.
Now, don’t get me wrong, little old men are not, per se, entitled to drop litter any more than anybody else is, but there was just something in the fellow’s demeanour that stopped all my windbaggery in its tracks.
Instead of, “Oy! You rotten litter lout, thanks for making the place look so nice – NOT!” I ended up saying “Excuse me, but I think you might have dropped something back there and I thought I should let you know in case it was important.”
“What? Where?” he asked, clearly a bit surprised to be spoken to by a stranger out of the blue. I indicated the fallen paper. He looked at it for a moment, then suddenly seemed to realise what it was. He grabbed it up quickly with many thanks, as though it had indeed been something of importance to him.
Now, he may have been an incredibly quick-thinking actor, able to pass off his littering ways as merely an accident, saving face in front of a stranger, but I like to think better of him than that. There was absolutely no trace of embarrassment or guilt about him (as there would be for me if I had dropped litter and caught at it) and in any case, we parted ways amicably.
What if I had simply gone ahead and berated the man for dropping litter when it had actually been an accident all along? I would have been deliberately unpleasant to someone who didn’t really deserve it – a nasty experience for him and certainly no credit to me.
As it was, I was apparently able to do someone a good turn, reuniting him with something important he might have lost.
A last-minute change in attitude on my part from outright condemnation to presumption of innocence brought about a completely different outcome.
Maybe I should try this approach more often – it’s certainly easier on the old blood-pressure.
Mind you, if I ever see some kid smashing up a phone box or spraying his ‘tag’ on a statue, I’m not sure that I won’t revert to silent seething – or even tutting.
Moral cowardice – I has it.
Monday, 25 April 2011
Weekly Wordzzle
Hmm, it's been a few weeks since I did this last. Pesky work!
Anyway, Raven's Nest is the place to find the challenge-words for next week and other players for this. The challenge words are in bold in the pieces below.
Here's a mini I did a couple of weeks ago, but never got to publish until now.
Wine is a mocker and strong drink is raging. Well they got that right, thought Angus, as he inspected his morning-after face in the mirror. Beneath a cropped brush of bright red hair, a single bloodshot blue eye stared back at him. The other - a huge shiner of a black eye - was too swollen to open. He only dimly remembered the events of the night before, could not recall the faces of the participants in the fight (there must have been one, Angus was covered in cuts and bruises). For the life of him, he could not remember what it had been about. He caught sight of something sticking out from under the bed and stooped to haul it out into the light. His beloved clarinet! Tears sprang to his eyes as he cradled the poor broken thing in his arms. As he gently caressed the twisted keys, the splintered wood, he remembered. It had started with a few taunts, a little pushing and shoving and had escalated into a full-on pub-brawl, which had ended in the awful, awful sound of breaking wood. He was a clarinetist, for goodness' sake! What on earth had possessed him to walk alone into a saxophonists' pub?
This week's mini
I like to think of myself as a fairly pragmatic person: I don't 'do' feng shui, crystals and potpourri or any of that new age mumbo-jumbo, but when life busts a hobnailed boot through the tambourine of your hopes and ambitions, there's nothing like the serenity of a Japanese rock garden. There, you can sit in the middle of the simplicity, allowing your mind to play over the abstract flow of sand and rock. These shapes are not representative of anything, but they hint at some hidden message. You may ponder this and forget, for a while, all your shattered dreams.
This week's 10-worder.
New to Harold? Catch up here.
Moon stopped his car at the entrance to a non-descript campus on an equally unimpressive business park. A uniformed guard emerged from the little hut next to the security barrier, clip board in hand, and motioned for Moon to lower his window.
Moon turned off his car stereo, cutting off the sound of Mitch Carpenter, lead singer of Chip off the Old Block, going on about how his heart felt like it had a great big Charley Horse now all his happiness had fled because of old ladies' gossip or some such twaddle - at least that's what it had sounded like. That was one CD that was definitely going back to its lender without being copied!
He gave his name and showed his id to the guard and was waved through quickly enough.
Now that he was actually here, he could feel the excitement building inside him. The phone call last evening had been most intriguing. If the project had actually come up with some real results, he wouldn't be the only one with cause for gratitude. The implications were staggering,
Haines was waiting for him in the spartan little reception area. Moon signed in and the two men walked wordlessly to the laboratory where the demonstration was to take place.
As they entered the lab, Dr Flowers stood up behind her desk and greeted Moon warmly.
"Welcome, would you like some coffee or something before we get started?"
"No thanks, I had one just before setting out," Moon gazed around the room in bemused interest. There was a definite Heath-Robinson look to a lot of the equipment - a sort of mix and match approach, connecting all kinds of disparate bits of electrical and electronic components had been adopted, by the looks of it.
Flowers saw Moon looking.
"At this early stage, we're still trying to figure things out." she said, "Obviously, once we've refined our techniques, we can build something a little less messy-looking. Shall we start? If you take a seat here, you'll get a good view."
Haines sat down on a stool next to a large, blocky piece of equipment, encrusted with lights and dials and with numerous wires coming out of it. He then proceeded to pull onto his head what looked for all the world like a swimming cap. The cap was covered with round metal clips.
Flowers moved in and began to connect the wires from the equipment to the clips on Haines's swimming cap. When they were all connected, she flipped switches and the large box hummed to life.
"All set?" she asked.
Haines nodded.
Flowers picked up a telephone that lay next to the blinky-lights box.
"Pilkington? Switch on number three, if you please."
She replaced the handset and moved to where a lumpy shape lay under green surgical cloths on the bench.
She twitched these aside and Moon was surprised to see the body of a small monkey lying underneath.
Noticing Moon's startled reaction, Flowers smiled. "Don't worry," she said, "it's not dead, just anaesthetised." She lifted another cloth to reveal a surgical tray and instruments. Quickly donning some rubber gloves, she swabbed an area on the monkey's arm with antiseptic. It looked to Moon like a patch had been shaved in the monkey's fur. Flowers then took a scalpel from the tray and with deft precision, made a two-inch cut in the monkey's skin. Immediately, blood flowed out onto the green sheets. Flowers stepped aside and motioned to Haines, who stepped up to where Flowers had stood.
"Watch closely," said Flowers, and Moon leaned in, transfixed.
Haines reached over to where the little monkey lay and touched its arm, Moon wasn't sure, but he thought he saw the most miniscule flash or spark of blue run from Haines's finger to the animal. Haines then stepped back, a strangely euphoric look on his face.. With the blood covering the area, Moon could not see that anything had changed. He looked at Flowers with a quizzical expression. She grinned, stepped forward and swabbed the blood away.
"Amazing!" breathed Moon.
There was no sign whatsoever of the cut Flowers had just made.
Anyway, Raven's Nest is the place to find the challenge-words for next week and other players for this. The challenge words are in bold in the pieces below.
Here's a mini I did a couple of weeks ago, but never got to publish until now.
Wine is a mocker and strong drink is raging. Well they got that right, thought Angus, as he inspected his morning-after face in the mirror. Beneath a cropped brush of bright red hair, a single bloodshot blue eye stared back at him. The other - a huge shiner of a black eye - was too swollen to open. He only dimly remembered the events of the night before, could not recall the faces of the participants in the fight (there must have been one, Angus was covered in cuts and bruises). For the life of him, he could not remember what it had been about. He caught sight of something sticking out from under the bed and stooped to haul it out into the light. His beloved clarinet! Tears sprang to his eyes as he cradled the poor broken thing in his arms. As he gently caressed the twisted keys, the splintered wood, he remembered. It had started with a few taunts, a little pushing and shoving and had escalated into a full-on pub-brawl, which had ended in the awful, awful sound of breaking wood. He was a clarinetist, for goodness' sake! What on earth had possessed him to walk alone into a saxophonists' pub?
This week's mini
I like to think of myself as a fairly pragmatic person: I don't 'do' feng shui, crystals and potpourri or any of that new age mumbo-jumbo, but when life busts a hobnailed boot through the tambourine of your hopes and ambitions, there's nothing like the serenity of a Japanese rock garden. There, you can sit in the middle of the simplicity, allowing your mind to play over the abstract flow of sand and rock. These shapes are not representative of anything, but they hint at some hidden message. You may ponder this and forget, for a while, all your shattered dreams.
This week's 10-worder.
New to Harold? Catch up here.
Moon stopped his car at the entrance to a non-descript campus on an equally unimpressive business park. A uniformed guard emerged from the little hut next to the security barrier, clip board in hand, and motioned for Moon to lower his window.
Moon turned off his car stereo, cutting off the sound of Mitch Carpenter, lead singer of Chip off the Old Block, going on about how his heart felt like it had a great big Charley Horse now all his happiness had fled because of old ladies' gossip or some such twaddle - at least that's what it had sounded like. That was one CD that was definitely going back to its lender without being copied!
He gave his name and showed his id to the guard and was waved through quickly enough.
Now that he was actually here, he could feel the excitement building inside him. The phone call last evening had been most intriguing. If the project had actually come up with some real results, he wouldn't be the only one with cause for gratitude. The implications were staggering,
Haines was waiting for him in the spartan little reception area. Moon signed in and the two men walked wordlessly to the laboratory where the demonstration was to take place.
As they entered the lab, Dr Flowers stood up behind her desk and greeted Moon warmly.
"Welcome, would you like some coffee or something before we get started?"
"No thanks, I had one just before setting out," Moon gazed around the room in bemused interest. There was a definite Heath-Robinson look to a lot of the equipment - a sort of mix and match approach, connecting all kinds of disparate bits of electrical and electronic components had been adopted, by the looks of it.
Flowers saw Moon looking.
"At this early stage, we're still trying to figure things out." she said, "Obviously, once we've refined our techniques, we can build something a little less messy-looking. Shall we start? If you take a seat here, you'll get a good view."
Haines sat down on a stool next to a large, blocky piece of equipment, encrusted with lights and dials and with numerous wires coming out of it. He then proceeded to pull onto his head what looked for all the world like a swimming cap. The cap was covered with round metal clips.
Flowers moved in and began to connect the wires from the equipment to the clips on Haines's swimming cap. When they were all connected, she flipped switches and the large box hummed to life.
"All set?" she asked.
Haines nodded.
Flowers picked up a telephone that lay next to the blinky-lights box.
"Pilkington? Switch on number three, if you please."
She replaced the handset and moved to where a lumpy shape lay under green surgical cloths on the bench.
She twitched these aside and Moon was surprised to see the body of a small monkey lying underneath.
Noticing Moon's startled reaction, Flowers smiled. "Don't worry," she said, "it's not dead, just anaesthetised." She lifted another cloth to reveal a surgical tray and instruments. Quickly donning some rubber gloves, she swabbed an area on the monkey's arm with antiseptic. It looked to Moon like a patch had been shaved in the monkey's fur. Flowers then took a scalpel from the tray and with deft precision, made a two-inch cut in the monkey's skin. Immediately, blood flowed out onto the green sheets. Flowers stepped aside and motioned to Haines, who stepped up to where Flowers had stood.
"Watch closely," said Flowers, and Moon leaned in, transfixed.
Haines reached over to where the little monkey lay and touched its arm, Moon wasn't sure, but he thought he saw the most miniscule flash or spark of blue run from Haines's finger to the animal. Haines then stepped back, a strangely euphoric look on his face.. With the blood covering the area, Moon could not see that anything had changed. He looked at Flowers with a quizzical expression. She grinned, stepped forward and swabbed the blood away.
"Amazing!" breathed Moon.
There was no sign whatsoever of the cut Flowers had just made.
Sunday, 24 April 2011
A New Home in the Sky - Under African Skies
As I gaze out of the seventh floor window here at Throwback Towers, I can see herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically across the vast plains of Sainsbury's car park.
The boss comes in, he's covered in scratches and his clothes in tatters.
"What happened to you," I ask.
"Bloody lions," he grumbles, "it's about time the council did something, the Municipal park pride are getting bolder by the day. They nearly had me today!"
"Well you will insist on cycling to work through their territory." I tell him.
"But it's green to cycle!" he protests. Very big on green is my boss.
"From where I'm standing," I quip, " it looks more like red, black and blue!" He is not impressed, so I put the kettle on to cheer him up.
"Anyway," he continues, "the ring road was chock-a-block: some pillock knocked over a zebra at junction six."
"Yeah, I heard it on the news. Mind you, they have managed to get rid of those hippos that had moved into the ornamental lake at long last, so that's good."
We sip our tea thoughtfully, the silence only broken by the scream of angry baboons fighting over the bins at the back of MacDonald's.
None of this is true, of course. There aren't any giraffes either, which is a pity as I quite like them.
Some local bright spark has, however, come up with the idea of re-opening a nearby pub (formerly the haunt of bikers and drug-pushers, when it wasn't being set on fire) as, wait for it, an African-themed pub.
Now, we weren't sure what that would entail, but the advertising specifically said, and I quote: "Customers can have the full experience of Africa without the trouble of going there."
Peering through the window of the afore-mentioned pub the other day, my boss was not able to discern anything especially African about the place - no Zulu spears and shields on the wall, no witch-doctor masks, no fake zebra skins.
There was a menu consisting of just two African-sounding dishes, and they apparently serve that most African of beverages: Guinness.
So it would seem that Africa is just like a run-down manky old pub next to the railway station in a dodgy part of a post-industrial English city.
It's a good job I was able to get my money back on those Kenyan Safari tickets then.
I wonder if anybody will open a space-themed pub, I've always fancied going to space, but it seems like a lot of bother.
The boss comes in, he's covered in scratches and his clothes in tatters.
"What happened to you," I ask.
"Bloody lions," he grumbles, "it's about time the council did something, the Municipal park pride are getting bolder by the day. They nearly had me today!"
"Well you will insist on cycling to work through their territory." I tell him.
"But it's green to cycle!" he protests. Very big on green is my boss.
"From where I'm standing," I quip, " it looks more like red, black and blue!" He is not impressed, so I put the kettle on to cheer him up.
"Anyway," he continues, "the ring road was chock-a-block: some pillock knocked over a zebra at junction six."
"Yeah, I heard it on the news. Mind you, they have managed to get rid of those hippos that had moved into the ornamental lake at long last, so that's good."
We sip our tea thoughtfully, the silence only broken by the scream of angry baboons fighting over the bins at the back of MacDonald's.
None of this is true, of course. There aren't any giraffes either, which is a pity as I quite like them.
Some local bright spark has, however, come up with the idea of re-opening a nearby pub (formerly the haunt of bikers and drug-pushers, when it wasn't being set on fire) as, wait for it, an African-themed pub.
Now, we weren't sure what that would entail, but the advertising specifically said, and I quote: "Customers can have the full experience of Africa without the trouble of going there."
Peering through the window of the afore-mentioned pub the other day, my boss was not able to discern anything especially African about the place - no Zulu spears and shields on the wall, no witch-doctor masks, no fake zebra skins.
There was a menu consisting of just two African-sounding dishes, and they apparently serve that most African of beverages: Guinness.
So it would seem that Africa is just like a run-down manky old pub next to the railway station in a dodgy part of a post-industrial English city.
It's a good job I was able to get my money back on those Kenyan Safari tickets then.
I wonder if anybody will open a space-themed pub, I've always fancied going to space, but it seems like a lot of bother.
Saturday, 23 April 2011
The World Should Reflect the Data
Another cartoon that came out of a throwaway remark made by a colleague at work.
As some of you may know, my job is to support systems that provide management information (MI). One of the annoying things that happens is when someone rings up and complains that the system is not showing the figures they expect. A lot of times, this is just a case of the user not understanding what the report he/she is viewing is actually showing and is easily solved with a bit of explanation. Sometimes, though, there is a genuine fault and we have to amend the information held in the database, which can be very tricky when lots of pieces of information are dependent upon each other.
Sometimes, it'd just be easier to fix the world....
I tried out several ideas for this joke, like having someone fallng from a high window, having been pushed, or of having the IT chappie looking through the sights of a sniper's rifle about to shoot someone. I tried having IT chappie running out of the room, snatching up the rifle as he went. None of them really worked though.
In the end, I think this is more subtle and hopefully funnier (plus it was easier to draw!).
As some of you may know, my job is to support systems that provide management information (MI). One of the annoying things that happens is when someone rings up and complains that the system is not showing the figures they expect. A lot of times, this is just a case of the user not understanding what the report he/she is viewing is actually showing and is easily solved with a bit of explanation. Sometimes, though, there is a genuine fault and we have to amend the information held in the database, which can be very tricky when lots of pieces of information are dependent upon each other.
Sometimes, it'd just be easier to fix the world....
I tried out several ideas for this joke, like having someone fallng from a high window, having been pushed, or of having the IT chappie looking through the sights of a sniper's rifle about to shoot someone. I tried having IT chappie running out of the room, snatching up the rifle as he went. None of them really worked though.
In the end, I think this is more subtle and hopefully funnier (plus it was easier to draw!).
Wednesday, 13 April 2011
New Music Genre
Yes, you've heard of House Music and Garage Music. Now meet Cardboard Box Music.
This little tune had been kicking around in my head for ages until I finally backed it into a corner and got some words down.
As it's such a simple little thing, I thought I'd try recording it on GarageBand for the iPad - a cut-down version of a program that grown-up Apple Macs have. I think for £2.99, it's not bad.
The vocals and guitar have a very boxy sound to them because they were recorded in a room which is anythng but anechoic. Plus, I suspect that the iPad mic, while doing a fair job, isn't intended for high quality studio recording.
The bass part and the drums were created using the virtual instruments that come with garageBand.
Anyhoo, have a listen to as much of it as you can stand and let me know your thoughts. One thing I think the song lacks is an instrumental section to break things up a bit. Maybe in version 2....
My Name is Mud - Trimmed by DelusionsOfAdequacy
If you can't get the widget to play click here to go to SoundCloud and hear it there.
Don't worry, Watercats, your crown as blogland's premier musos is quite safe.
This little tune had been kicking around in my head for ages until I finally backed it into a corner and got some words down.
As it's such a simple little thing, I thought I'd try recording it on GarageBand for the iPad - a cut-down version of a program that grown-up Apple Macs have. I think for £2.99, it's not bad.
The vocals and guitar have a very boxy sound to them because they were recorded in a room which is anythng but anechoic. Plus, I suspect that the iPad mic, while doing a fair job, isn't intended for high quality studio recording.
The bass part and the drums were created using the virtual instruments that come with garageBand.
Anyhoo, have a listen to as much of it as you can stand and let me know your thoughts. One thing I think the song lacks is an instrumental section to break things up a bit. Maybe in version 2....
My Name is Mud - Trimmed by DelusionsOfAdequacy
If you can't get the widget to play click here to go to SoundCloud and hear it there.
Don't worry, Watercats, your crown as blogland's premier musos is quite safe.
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