As our reigning Monarch probably wouldn't put it, the week has been a bit of an anus horribilis(1). The week started well with FTP access being granted to a server so I could actually do my job at a decent speed for the first time in three months. A little flurry of work, and then, I thought, leasure to read and remark.

"Ho. Ho. Ho." I can hear you thinking. "Time for a visit from the F**k-up Fairy (who is probably not Cinderbelle, as I don't think she has quite the qualifications for the job).

So, as you have probably anticipated, we had a power failure at work. When I say "we", I mean most of our part of the grid.

"But surely you have your servers on un-interuptable power supplies(3), and emergency generators to take the load." I her you cry.

We did. Half the building disappeared in a plume of smoke as the generators kicked in. The UPS kept the servers up long enough for the generators to take up the load.

So? Well, the comms stuff - being slightly less important - is not on the UPS, so we now have to untangle all the systems that are grumpy because they suddenly couldn't talk to each other. I am not going to suggest that any one piece of software was at fault, but there is a reason we call it B****y S*******e.

The only comfort is that I might be able to squeeze a story out of it...

Add to this that it is my daughter's birthday today (meal tonight, gathering at weekend, mass hysterical gardening last weekend...) and you can imagine what things are like at the moment.

As a result, my participation is more down than usual. Normal service may be resumed next week.


Chris/Manga Shoggoth.



(1) For the sake of people who don't do Latin(2) - canine or otherwise - annus horribilis means "horrible year" - a term coined by our queen to describe 1992, and a reference to annus mirabilis - wonderful year. Obviously anus horribilis doesn't mean quite the same thing...

(2) CSFB!

(3) A fancy term for Batteries.

For my part I'm in the intensive pre-game preparation for a new job starting next Monday. It's looking like I'm going to have to pare down my free time quite significantly. My options are to live with the three hours a day driving or to sleep over at my mother's place in Leeds during the week and commute from there. At the moment it's looking like the latter, which means back to dial-up internet access for me.

There is a reason I do most of this stuff from work - although the works IP access is almost as slow as narrowband...

Sharon still makes occasional attempts to talk me into gtting broadband.

On an unrelated subject, I think I have a search/replace string that will do what you want with the parodyverse links. Unfortunately I will need to rebuild my PC before I can test it as the C: drive is full again. This may take a while...

> As our reigning Monarch probably wouldn't put it, the week has been a bit of an anus horribilis(1). The week started well with FTP access being granted to a server so I could actually do my job at a decent speed for the first time in three months. A little flurry of work, and then, I thought, leasure to read and remark. > > "Ho. Ho. Ho." I can hear you thinking. "Time for a visit from the F**k-up Fairy (who is probably not Cinderbelle, as I don't think she has quite the qualifications for the job). > > So, as you have probably anticipated, we had a power failure at work. When I say "we", I mean most of our part of the grid. > > "But surely you have your servers on un-interuptable power supplies(3), and emergency generators to take the load." I her you cry. > > We did. Half the building disappeared in a plume of smoke as the generators kicked in. The UPS kept the servers up long enough for the generators to take up the load. > > So? Well, the comms stuff - being slightly less important - is not on the UPS, so we now have to untangle all the systems that are grumpy because they suddenly couldn't talk to each other. I am not going to suggest that any one piece of software was at fault, but there is a reason we call it B****y S*******e. > > The only comfort is that I might be able to squeeze a story out of it... > > Add to this that it is my daughter's birthday today (meal tonight, gathering at weekend, mass hysterical gardening last weekend...) and you can imagine what things are like at the moment. > > As a result, my participation is more down than usual. Normal service may be resumed next week. > > > Chris/Manga Shoggoth. > > > > (1) For the sake of people who don't do Latin(2) - canine or otherwise - annus horribilis means "horrible year" - a term coined by our queen to describe 1992, and a reference to annus mirabilis - wonderful year. Obviously anus horribilis doesn't mean quite the same thing... > > (2) CSFB! > > (3) A fancy term for Batteries.

> For my part I'm in the intensive pre-game preparation for a new job starting next Monday. It's looking like I'm going to have to pare down my free time quite significantly. My options are to live with the three hours a day driving or to sleep over at my mother's place in Leeds during the week and commute from there. At the moment it's looking like the latter, which means back to dial-up internet access for me.

It certainly makes life easier and the cost is coming down.


I expect to be somewhat preoccupied for a little while anyhow.