... The Upgrade Week

Since last we spoke the bulk of my time has been taken up with a library system upgrade which has, unfortunately, involved scads of work from yours truly despite my every effort to have it fix itself.

Of course this hasn't stopped a multitude of other events occurring in my tumultuous life. Amongst them are:

• Corporate get-togethers replete with morning tea and lunch
• a footy trip with The Great Sandro including a magnificent 40 minute wait at our usual meeting point as he thought I may just still be home at our scheduled meeting time. This caused me to skip dinner in order to get into the game ASAP. Of course there was then a 10 minute delay on entry - missing us the beginning of the match. Further insult was added at half time when only every second nourishment dispensing station was open causing 30 metre queues and late our return to our seats.
• a gaming Sunday which helped me to relax somewhat in preparation for the onslaught of the upgrade week ahead (The Tiger hissing like a cobra at the presence of MatrixMan's offspring was a little counter to stress relief though)
  
• a visit to a knee specialist with an oddly detached and alien manner - and not the cool hunt you down one by one type of alien. Anyway it looks like the ACL may have been the culprit all along and reconstruction may be the only option for improvement. An MRI is in the works to get a better idea of what's happening in front of my knee-pit.
• a tortuous desk shift serving the public
• a tortuous return to gaming with The Viking Hat GM and Co.
• a mad dash home to find that I had inadvertently avenged myself upon The Great Sandro by leaving him waiting on my stoop, only to have him pull the master-stroke and demand pre-game doughnuts. Said doughnuts caused us to be 2 people from the front of the queue when the match sold-out and the window closed. Needless to say one disgruntled doughnut-eating train trip later we were ensconced in my warm comfortable lounge room watching the pies performance on the tele-o-vision instead of being crushed into the icy arena as we'd intended.
• some sedate buck's night drinks for the benefit of Sir Clive Pitbull
• an irrefusable invite to an afternoon birthday drink for Amoeba at which the suns warmth had me down to a t-shirt on a winters afternoon wasting away time I could have spent on upgrade preparation
  
• a long, lonely afternoon and evening of preparing the libraries for this weeks days of reduced catalogue access - with only my overtime to keep me warm
• a day of near-perfect "not much to do" without the main computer "stuff" accessible - although I was forced to get some other work done

All in all quite the busy time for Phill and the rest of the week looks likely to continue the pattern so don't wait up for my next missive.
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... The Ten Thousand Dollar Woman

No this post is not about me having forsaken romance and decided to purchase myself an Internet mail-order bride - surely you know I would go for the $12,000 deluxe model with the extra safety features?

The title for this post actually refers to the second of two unusual events that occurred last Tuesday whilst I was making a short visit to the local banking establishment.
The first happened as I joined the queue and the two people in front of me both took mobile phone calls in quick succession. My first thought was "it only needs my phone to go off to complete the picture of the entire queue being on their mobiles". Lo and behold, my phone rang that very second with an urgent request from Ms Magpie - the embarrassment level at joining my queue-mates was almost the equal of being forced to exclaim into one's phone "I'm on the train" whilst travelling on said public transport.

The second incident was when the woman just before me stepped up to the counter. She stated that she wanted to pay 10,000 dollars off from her credit card. She then opened her purse, pulled out a wad of notes, counted ten 100's out, returned those to her purse and plonked the remainding brick of 100 dollar notes onto the counter. Unfortunately I was called up to make my transactions by the other teller before I could observe the conclusion of her transaction.


The unusual banking activities almost put me off the completion of my reading of Genesis by Bernard Becket. This was another teen-read recommendation from The Hellenic Hoofer. And by recommendation I mean thrust into my hands during one of my infrequent visits to his home branch. It was quite an interesting examination of what it means to be conscious and if it's possible for a robot to be a conscious being.


Rounding out my mid-week hijinks was another nerd gathering organised by The Viking Hat GM as a way of trapping new players for his latest game. The Mad Magyar and others had fallen for it but I was there merely for the drink and conversation and there is absolutely no chance that I will be involved in their game next week, honest.
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... The Ahnold Afternoon

My day began with a quickish coffee catch-up with Rugrat Twin - newly ensconced across the other side of town. Much chat was had in the limited time available before the two of us had to go our separate ways for the remains of the day.

Upon returning home I soon found out - through the miracle of the internet - that a proposed afternoon of Arnie film watching was indeed on the cards.

Organised by The Viking Hat GM as a form of welcome back event for The Mad Magyar who has only recently returned from the old country. Also in attendance was Exploding Ninja Pony which made the whole thing have a feeling of "getting the band back together". Suitably armed with snacks and a cynical attitude we commenced our cinematic endeavour.

Our first film was the classic masterpiece Predator. I think it was still thoroughly enjoyed all around for it's over the top macho characters in an exciting action movie that moves along at a reasonable pace. Still holds up well after 20 years.

Our second film was chosen because Exploding Ninja Pony had never seen it before.
It was Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.
The plot itself suffers from a little coincidence overload as everyone happens to just run into each other a few times too many however our running commentary on the flaws and "what the" moments of the film made it quite an enjoyable experience. Plus finishing up on the set of Beneath the Planet of the Apes earns it many many bonus points in this reviewers opinion.

With many other Arnie movies to explore within our particular group dynamic I suspect that there may well be several further Ahnold Afternoon in the offing.
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... The Dresden Files 1: Storm Front by Jim Butcher

After hearing about these books for a while - as both books and also an upcoming roleplaying game - I finally borrowed a copy a few months back and eventually got around to reading it over the past few weeks in between bouts of stressful systems upgrade syndrome.

I found it to be a great little detective noir story with the downtrodden magician private-eye carrying the story with his attitude and narration. Harry Dresden reminded me a little of Burke from the Burke novels by Andrew Vachss.

All in all I recommend it and I'm sure I'll read more of the series just as soon as I clear my pile of "to be read" books.
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... The Amulet of Samurkand by Jonathan Stroud

Here's one I knocked of more than a week ago after the training allowed me copious reading time on the train.

While it is a junior book it is quite a good read and the glimpses into the modern world with magicians running things was quite intriguing. I enjoyed it and The Hellenic Hoofer was quite right to recommend it on the basis of the character of the narky djinni Bartimaeus.

Phill says: If you're only going to read one 'young wizard' book make it The Amulet of Samurkand.
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... The Bemusing Blood-pressure

So I had an appointment this morning to further the cause of knee repair and whilst I was there the doctor decided that, given the four year gap between my medicals, it was best to have a go at my blood pressure.

The result was some strange sounding fraction that was actually quite good - and also almost identical to the one from my previous test of the aforementioned four years ago.

I find it very hard to believe that the past four years of extreme libraryland stress have had no effect on my blood pressure so I'm thinking of suing for malpractice.

I mean really, cast your eyes over this list of stress triggers I have had to deal with and make your own mind up:

2.0, Adversary, Agent Smith, Alecto, Alltogether Heather, Amoeba, AntagonisticAl, ArchEnemy, Badger, beeb, Beeby, BestFriendSincePrep, Big J, BigBen, Blind Willie, Bomber Babe, Books Read, BrotherStealer, Camo Spice, Caution, CC, chanlib, Comrade Treasurer, Country Girl, Cousin Dave, Days of our Libraries, Devil's Advocate, Doom, Dubrovnik Hater, Easy Em, Easy-Going Em, ElfBoy, Evil Twin, excursion bag, Exploding Ninja Pony, Facebook, Fantomas, Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum, Fifi, footy, Freeloading Mum, FridgePower, Gaming, Gavman, Geisha Girl, Genealogy Jane, Groovy Spirits, Handy Dad, Hector the Nazi, Hemy, Illuminated G, Imposter Phil, Innocent Em, Judge Mingus, Juzzy J, Kiwi Nick, Kiwichick, Legion, Librarian Idol, LibraryThing, LittleBigGirl, Lord of the Small Fries, Madame President, Madmog, MAMILS, MatrixMan, Mechwarrior Wayne, Miss Amanda, Movies, Mr Magpie (no relation), Mr Prada, Mr Torchwood, MrRogers, Mrs Football, Ms Magpie, My Guitarist, Nurse Janet, Pirate Dave, Polish Chris, Redneck Ben, RFID, Rugrat Twin, Scary Adam, Scully, Seditious Sam, Sergeant PoodlenaThePoodle, Shirl, Simmone, Sir Clive Pitbull, Sister Serials, Skeptic L, Soccer, SoccerBuddy, Sonja Roster Queen, Spare Legion, SpawnOfBestFriendSincePrep, StumpyRudolph, Supervisor Grand Chief K, Supervisor S, Svetlana, Swing, The Administrator, The Bastard, The Beaumaris Ballerina, The Beer Drinking Machine, The Blithe Bogan, The Composer, The Doctor, The Electric Tiger, The Ex-President, The Flibberty Gibbet, The Fungi Lady, The Great Sandro, The Guide, The J Monster, The Mad Magyar, The Maple Maverick, The Marketing Marvel, The New IT Geek, The Polster, The Pragmatist, The Professor, The Puppies, The Real Greg Dean, The Tiger, The Valkyrie, The Viking Hat GM, The Warden, Tooticky, Torchwood, Training, Travel, TT, Tuck, Vikki, wireless, writing, Zombie Monkey
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... The Maverik's Mad Mixer

After a long and tiring week catching up on all the work I so gleefully avoided whilst at my training last week I found myself finally able to relax at the farewell do for The Maple Maverick as he is about to forsake Libraryland for Mapleland.


I was a little late to the party and not for my usual fashionable grand entrance reasons. This time it was due to Sister Serials, ever a thorn in my side, discovering a slight flaw in my latest brilliant system tweak which made it impossible for her to complete her usual workflow. I fail to understand the issue as not having to do your job sounds like every workers dream to me. Nevertheless I soldiered on badgering away at the problem until eventually, with the call of the pub ringing in my ears I managed to decide to use the old IT standby "maybe it'll fix itself over the weekend".


Upon arrival at the venue I found out it was also yet another farewell for Adversary, who just won't stay away for good.
Anyway, The Maverick had gathered quite a mix of staff from across the branches and many tall tales and tall drinks were had before I tore myself away in order to rush home to catch the remains of the footy on tv - which, given how easily we dealt with Beeby's boys was quite the relaxing end to the week that I had been after all along.
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