... the IT man in LibraryLand
An "anonymous" comment on my previous post about Supervisor Grand Chief K's "accident" has brought to my attention an apparently minor incident that occurred earlier in the evening.
As SGCK was leaving the library to prepare for the evening Big J bid her adieu with "Break a Leg!" followed by a knowing evil cackling laugh.
Now there are those who would say that Big J's usual mode of laughter is in the knowing evil cackling style but I can see the deeper truth shining through.
In other events Handy Dad's "69 Dude!" dinner on Saturday night went well although I did, once again, have to earn my free dinner by performing IT support on Freeloading Mum's ADSL connection. Said support did leave me with a terrible headache though and I had to jump straight into bed at the un-Phill-like hour of 10pm.
Yesterday's Farewell gaming day for ElfBoy also went well with enough gaming taking place to see him through until his imminent spawn will allow him to leave the house for fun again.
... A Trio of Triumphant Returns
The Man in the Corporate Castle
The first triumphant return was my week at the corporate centre in the IT department hanging out with SoccerBuddy - my first time there for a very long time.
I was preparing new PCs for various library branches and making sure that the abundance of morning teas about the centre did not go to waste.
Facing the Field Again
The second triumphant return was my once again taking to the soccer field. It wasn't quite as triumphant as it could have been if I'd scored a goal but the field was crowded requiring little running and the knee held up well - on the night at least, it's been a little stiff since then but as the footy parlance goes "he pulled up sore after the game but will be playing next week".
The Jumper Redeemeth Itself
A last minute phone call from The Great Sandro had me dashing home last night and rushing off to the footy to see Collingwood and Geelong clash. As I expected to be beaten I wore my Collingwood jumper as I figured it couldn't do any harm.
Well...
what ensued was an amazing performance of pressure from the pies, that led to a thrashing of the cats - and more importantly the curse on my jumper has been lifted so I can freely wear it everywhere now (I can't wait to attend my next wedding).
The first triumphant return was my week at the corporate centre in the IT department hanging out with SoccerBuddy - my first time there for a very long time.
I was preparing new PCs for various library branches and making sure that the abundance of morning teas about the centre did not go to waste.
Facing the Field Again
The second triumphant return was my once again taking to the soccer field. It wasn't quite as triumphant as it could have been if I'd scored a goal but the field was crowded requiring little running and the knee held up well - on the night at least, it's been a little stiff since then but as the footy parlance goes "he pulled up sore after the game but will be playing next week".
The Jumper Redeemeth Itself
A last minute phone call from The Great Sandro had me dashing home last night and rushing off to the footy to see Collingwood and Geelong clash. As I expected to be beaten I wore my Collingwood jumper as I figured it couldn't do any harm.
Well...
what ensued was an amazing performance of pressure from the pies, that led to a thrashing of the cats - and more importantly the curse on my jumper has been lifted so I can freely wear it everywhere now (I can't wait to attend my next wedding).
... The Night Torchwood Drove Old K Down
Well I don't like to big note myself but my suspicions about Torchwood were vindicated last night.
It was launch night for the Bayside Literary Festival - a little event that has been organised in the background while important things like new printers have been happening.
It will, however, be forever known as the night Torchwood made her grab for power.
She and Supervisor Grand Chief K were preparing for the launch when SGCK "accidentally" slipped on Torchwood's wet bathroom tiles, had the towel rack come off the wall in her hands and tore her hamstring, leaving her unable to host the evening or play football for a few months. I believe that Mr Torchwood was seen in the vicinity with a screwdriver and a bucket suspiciously empty of water shortly before the incident.
The evening itself went quite well although the nibbles didn't circulate in my direction nearly often enough and "the incident" had deprived me of my expected drinking party The Flibberty Gibbet who had gone to play nursemaid to SGCK. I had to make do with Beeby, who drank himself stupid and embarrassed us both.
Afterwards a bunch of us went for a drink or coffee at the nearby drinking establishment and, without SGCK there as an enabler, we all left and were home at a sensible hour.
Other than that my week has been consumed with all things printery and left me little time to frivel. One shining bright light has been getting the okay from the Physio to play in next weeks soccer game - which is a good thing as SGCK has stolen my injury limelight and I won't be getting any more sympathy.
It was launch night for the Bayside Literary Festival - a little event that has been organised in the background while important things like new printers have been happening.
It will, however, be forever known as the night Torchwood made her grab for power.
She and Supervisor Grand Chief K were preparing for the launch when SGCK "accidentally" slipped on Torchwood's wet bathroom tiles, had the towel rack come off the wall in her hands and tore her hamstring, leaving her unable to host the evening or play football for a few months. I believe that Mr Torchwood was seen in the vicinity with a screwdriver and a bucket suspiciously empty of water shortly before the incident.
The evening itself went quite well although the nibbles didn't circulate in my direction nearly often enough and "the incident" had deprived me of my expected drinking party The Flibberty Gibbet who had gone to play nursemaid to SGCK. I had to make do with Beeby, who drank himself stupid and embarrassed us both.
Afterwards a bunch of us went for a drink or coffee at the nearby drinking establishment and, without SGCK there as an enabler, we all left and were home at a sensible hour.
Other than that my week has been consumed with all things printery and left me little time to frivel. One shining bright light has been getting the okay from the Physio to play in next weeks soccer game - which is a good thing as SGCK has stolen my injury limelight and I won't be getting any more sympathy.
... People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks
Rugrat Twin lent me Alecto's copy of this one to me to read and since it had 37 reserves on it I decided not to read the library copy.
I've been chipping away at it in between printer rollout disasters and finally knocked of the last chunk on Sunday morning.
I really enjoyed the opening half (all set in SvetlanaLand's region) but the second half began to lose me as it became more and more a thin veneer of history covering a gooshy melodramatic story. Plus all the stuff about printer failure was pretty jarring - although maybe I'm conflating my reading and my real life...
Still it had many interesting bits and her writing's not hard to read so it gets a three star rating from me.
In other news I battled through an hour long help desk call on Freeloading Mum's behalf - missing out on a lot of the lunch that I'd had to pay for! After jumping through lot's of inane plugging and unplugging tests to prove the problem wasn't at our end I finally got them make some changes at their ADSL Exchange and tada! Freeloading Mum has working ADSL again. Bloody IT people.
I've been chipping away at it in between printer rollout disasters and finally knocked of the last chunk on Sunday morning.
I really enjoyed the opening half (all set in SvetlanaLand's region) but the second half began to lose me as it became more and more a thin veneer of history covering a gooshy melodramatic story. Plus all the stuff about printer failure was pretty jarring - although maybe I'm conflating my reading and my real life...
Still it had many interesting bits and her writing's not hard to read so it gets a three star rating from me.
In other news I battled through an hour long help desk call on Freeloading Mum's behalf - missing out on a lot of the lunch that I'd had to pay for! After jumping through lot's of inane plugging and unplugging tests to prove the problem wasn't at our end I finally got them make some changes at their ADSL Exchange and tada! Freeloading Mum has working ADSL again. Bloody IT people.
... Too Many Ten-Hour Days
This week has been a hectic mess.
After a relatively relaxing May the 4th Be With You gaming day on Sunday (in which Badger won every one of the Star Wars focused games) I dived head first into early starts and late finishes as the printer rollout went live. Well at first it went half-live and then it went live-with-problems and finally it went live-with-only-minor-glitches.
On Monday I went from branch to branch and back again setting everything up and eventually left to arrive a couple of hours late for my new game at The Viking Hat GM's where I was able to unwind for a few hours playing an upper-class twit.
Tuesday, aka Go-Live Day #1, was going smoothly until our new printing system people hit me with this doozy - "only 10,000 of your 48,000 printing accounts were brought across".
For reasons unfathomable they didn't consider it was necessary to inform me of this interesting fact until I inquired of them as to why only a fifth of our borrowers where able to access the new printing system that they'd said was ready to go live.
Suffice to say by Wednesday afternoon the missing records had been moved across to the new printing system. The extra records won't work with the new computer bookings system coming along in a few weeks - the reason they didn't import them - but I'll cross that bridge when we come to it, or maybe I'll take some annual leave.
Late Wednesday night I finished up some signage for the coin-machines and printers and toodled home to collapse.
Back bright and early Thursday I created the final signage - well final until Torchwood casts her evil marketing eye over it - and deployed across all the branches in a series of flying visits.
A most magnificent side-effect of visiting all branches was that I was able to participate in the biggest morning tea at three of them - indulging to my stomachs content in some of the best brownies, sc-own-es, cakes and slices that librarians can produce.
Sadly leaving the Beaumaris cakes behind I had to make a lightning raid on The Professor's lab, a way down South, to collect some Top Secret Stuff.
Hurtling back North I hoped to be home in time to catch a train so that I could attend a girlie film preview gifted to me by Sister Serials. Alas I was able to see the train on the crossing as I approached my domicile. This lead to me rushing to catch a connecting train to minimise my lateness. Interestingly I found that I can now jog with my injured knee.
After all of that franticness I arrived mere minutes before Rugrat Twin, also running late, only to discover that we were attending the worst organised film preview ever.
It turns out that when the exclusive preview flyer says:
Oh well. In the end we took up the venues generous offer to see another movie for free and I was spared from girlie romance. The replacement we chose was Moliere. It was an enjoyable film and a worthy replacement - although it did still have a touch of the girlie about it.
Friday morning was a relaxed morning which became a little more frantic until I managed to use the new printing system's admin program to correct a charging error - despite the system suppliers claiming it was a problem with the printers themselves. The rest of the day was a series of glitch fixing jobs before I could finally head home and relax at the end of a very long week.
Today I have: slept in, finally read some more of my latest book, taken my knee for a long walk and switched on the home computer again, to see what I missed while I was off in printer land.
Tonight I shall spend relaxing as I will be heading off to tackle Freeloading Mum's ADSL problem in the morning.
After a relatively relaxing May the 4th Be With You gaming day on Sunday (in which Badger won every one of the Star Wars focused games) I dived head first into early starts and late finishes as the printer rollout went live. Well at first it went half-live and then it went live-with-problems and finally it went live-with-only-minor-glitches.
On Monday I went from branch to branch and back again setting everything up and eventually left to arrive a couple of hours late for my new game at The Viking Hat GM's where I was able to unwind for a few hours playing an upper-class twit.
Tuesday, aka Go-Live Day #1, was going smoothly until our new printing system people hit me with this doozy - "only 10,000 of your 48,000 printing accounts were brought across".
For reasons unfathomable they didn't consider it was necessary to inform me of this interesting fact until I inquired of them as to why only a fifth of our borrowers where able to access the new printing system that they'd said was ready to go live.
Suffice to say by Wednesday afternoon the missing records had been moved across to the new printing system. The extra records won't work with the new computer bookings system coming along in a few weeks - the reason they didn't import them - but I'll cross that bridge when we come to it, or maybe I'll take some annual leave.
Late Wednesday night I finished up some signage for the coin-machines and printers and toodled home to collapse.
Back bright and early Thursday I created the final signage - well final until Torchwood casts her evil marketing eye over it - and deployed across all the branches in a series of flying visits.
A most magnificent side-effect of visiting all branches was that I was able to participate in the biggest morning tea at three of them - indulging to my stomachs content in some of the best brownies, sc-own-es, cakes and slices that librarians can produce.
Sadly leaving the Beaumaris cakes behind I had to make a lightning raid on The Professor's lab, a way down South, to collect some Top Secret Stuff.
Hurtling back North I hoped to be home in time to catch a train so that I could attend a girlie film preview gifted to me by Sister Serials. Alas I was able to see the train on the crossing as I approached my domicile. This lead to me rushing to catch a connecting train to minimise my lateness. Interestingly I found that I can now jog with my injured knee.
After all of that franticness I arrived mere minutes before Rugrat Twin, also running late, only to discover that we were attending the worst organised film preview ever.
It turns out that when the exclusive preview flyer says:
To attend the screening in your capital city, RSVP is essential. Simply email your name ... and your name will be added to the guest list ... note only successful RSVPs will be notified until capacity is reached.And your reply email says:
Thank you for your email. Two free seats will be reserved under your name...The event can still be drastically overbooked?!? Thank you Hopscotch films.
Oh well. In the end we took up the venues generous offer to see another movie for free and I was spared from girlie romance. The replacement we chose was Moliere. It was an enjoyable film and a worthy replacement - although it did still have a touch of the girlie about it.
Friday morning was a relaxed morning which became a little more frantic until I managed to use the new printing system's admin program to correct a charging error - despite the system suppliers claiming it was a problem with the printers themselves. The rest of the day was a series of glitch fixing jobs before I could finally head home and relax at the end of a very long week.
Today I have: slept in, finally read some more of my latest book, taken my knee for a long walk and switched on the home computer again, to see what I missed while I was off in printer land.
Tonight I shall spend relaxing as I will be heading off to tackle Freeloading Mum's ADSL problem in the morning.
... A Serious Lack of Tales Time
Things have just been crowding my calendar and leaving me with no time to scrawl another missive.
Here is an abbreviated list to tide you over and get me back on track.
Watchmen by Alan Moore
Read this again in preparation for the upcoming film. Once again I found it good but not great.
Finishing Watchmen was interrupted by printing problems at all my branches (I hate printers) that had me struggling to remotely fix them all day and then giving up and having a pajama day.
Being sick of computers by the evening I chose to watch House of the Flying Daggers a beautiful Chinese action/romance movie rather than do any blogging.
Sunday was coffee with Rugrat Twin at the market followed by a dash out to St Andrews pub for lunch with The Fungi Lady and friends. Followed by a dash back home for a hair-colour maintenance session with Rugrat Twin.
Monday was hours of server room printer fixing (I hate printers) where the air-con in the server room may just have brought about the return of the Man-Cold. The afternoon was all about installing new coin boxes for the new printers.
In the evening I started my story-arc stint at the Gamecircle game at The Viking Hat GM's.
Tuesday started with some good knee news - it's getting better and should be fine in a few weeks as long as I exercise. I also had some free cakes at a demo of some new software thing
Wednesday I struggled with the printer setup at Hampton until quite late as it refused to work (I hate printers) .
Thursday I started early to install printers at Brighton (I hate printers) before having yet another meeting. Followed by another meeting but this one was better as it came with a free lunch afterwards.
Friday was a change of pace as I started early to do printer installing at Sandringham (I hate printers). Of course it didn't work, and it stuffed one of the public PCs so I had to spend many hours rebuilding the PC. Again I was late home.
Yesterday I visited FridgePower and Judge Mingus to deliver the good work of Agent Smith. After suffering through severe chastisement from FridgePower for not posting enough - and excellent free hot chocolate from Judge Mingus - I headed off to Freeloading Mum's to try to get her ADSL working. I was successful and had a lovely free dinner but couldn't get the internet to happen.
And now we are all caught up and I can return to my more regular posting frequency.
Here is an abbreviated list to tide you over and get me back on track.
Watchmen by Alan Moore
Read this again in preparation for the upcoming film. Once again I found it good but not great.
Finishing Watchmen was interrupted by printing problems at all my branches (I hate printers) that had me struggling to remotely fix them all day and then giving up and having a pajama day.
Being sick of computers by the evening I chose to watch House of the Flying Daggers a beautiful Chinese action/romance movie rather than do any blogging.
Sunday was coffee with Rugrat Twin at the market followed by a dash out to St Andrews pub for lunch with The Fungi Lady and friends. Followed by a dash back home for a hair-colour maintenance session with Rugrat Twin.
Monday was hours of server room printer fixing (I hate printers) where the air-con in the server room may just have brought about the return of the Man-Cold. The afternoon was all about installing new coin boxes for the new printers.
In the evening I started my story-arc stint at the Gamecircle game at The Viking Hat GM's.
Tuesday started with some good knee news - it's getting better and should be fine in a few weeks as long as I exercise. I also had some free cakes at a demo of some new software thing
Wednesday I struggled with the printer setup at Hampton until quite late as it refused to work (I hate printers) .
Thursday I started early to install printers at Brighton (I hate printers) before having yet another meeting. Followed by another meeting but this one was better as it came with a free lunch afterwards.
Friday was a change of pace as I started early to do printer installing at Sandringham (I hate printers). Of course it didn't work, and it stuffed one of the public PCs so I had to spend many hours rebuilding the PC. Again I was late home.
Yesterday I visited FridgePower and Judge Mingus to deliver the good work of Agent Smith. After suffering through severe chastisement from FridgePower for not posting enough - and excellent free hot chocolate from Judge Mingus - I headed off to Freeloading Mum's to try to get her ADSL working. I was successful and had a lovely free dinner but couldn't get the internet to happen.
And now we are all caught up and I can return to my more regular posting frequency.
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