... the IT man in LibraryLand
So this deferred Australia Day Holiday saw My Guitarist host a barbecue at his Southerly residence to which much of the band was invited. Of course FridgePower and Judge Mingus come as a package deal these days so it was a tad easier to get the band members various on site, however, sadly, illness (and not musical differences as reported in the papers) prevented the appearance of LittleBigGirl.
In typical drumming fashion oneself - with Salsa Girl and Hulk in tow - did not arrive until the second verse but then immediately guided the rhythm of the remainder of the afternoon as the rest of the band followed my lead and gathered around my anchoring presence - it had nothing to do with my entrancing them all with Hulk's bountiful cuteness, I swear.
Typically most of the younger generation ignored my rock star presence, not to the Scary Uncle Phill levels of the past mind you, but you would think that I would warrant more than a cursory hello from Thumper and Ball Boy seeing as I was apparently their second-favourite person in the world.
Still as they say, in the world of rock and roll, fame is fleeting.
.
Cordelia's Honor
This volume, by the esteemable Lois McMaster Bujold, encompasses the first two stories of her Vorkosigan Saga of which one had heard many mentions but had yet to dip one's toes into.
Having read - and loved - the author's Chalion fantasy series thanks to Vengeful Vic's rather effective proselytising about their greatness I was interested to see how her sci-fi stacked up.
Well thanks to the miracles of inter-library loans and the hard work of Bomber Babe I was able to have this copy expressed to me from the foreign climes of the Geelong Library service.
All in all it was an interesting read that, for me, never quite reached the outstanding level. I think it has similarities to the Honour Harrington military sci-fi series with it's main characters acting as a sort of competence porn as they so easily deal with outrageous situations while showing outstandingly inspirational leadership, judgement, and ethics.
Still a good read though and worthy of three and a half stars.
.
Having read - and loved - the author's Chalion fantasy series thanks to Vengeful Vic's rather effective proselytising about their greatness I was interested to see how her sci-fi stacked up.
Well thanks to the miracles of inter-library loans and the hard work of Bomber Babe I was able to have this copy expressed to me from the foreign climes of the Geelong Library service.
All in all it was an interesting read that, for me, never quite reached the outstanding level. I think it has similarities to the Honour Harrington military sci-fi series with it's main characters acting as a sort of competence porn as they so easily deal with outrageous situations while showing outstandingly inspirational leadership, judgement, and ethics.
Still a good read though and worthy of three and a half stars.
.
Sidekick, Week One
So I finally have my dream of a loyal sidekick watching my back as we tackle the many crimes against IT in the library.
The action has not been as instant as one imagined, and the successes have not been piling up into a mound of defeated problems (or incidents depending on your methodology paradigm).
Apparently it can be quite overwhelming to, not only be dropped into the crazy workplace that is LibraryLand, but also to have the knowledge of approximately 14 gazillion diverse library IT systems and programs crammed into one's head. It does seem a slight miracle that Sidekick has not suffered any form of explodey head syndrome.
On a brighter note, this afternoon at the commencement of his second week of servitude, did see a great success as instead of one having to spend a great deal of time problem solving a recalcitrant AV connection issue, Sidekick and I together tackled it for over an hour before stumbling across the actual issue of an unplugged converter box.
By my calculation we have already managed to halve the efficiency percentage of the Library IT Department by increasing the resourcing by a mere 1. A clear win all round!
.
The action has not been as instant as one imagined, and the successes have not been piling up into a mound of defeated problems (or incidents depending on your methodology paradigm).
Apparently it can be quite overwhelming to, not only be dropped into the crazy workplace that is LibraryLand, but also to have the knowledge of approximately 14 gazillion diverse library IT systems and programs crammed into one's head. It does seem a slight miracle that Sidekick has not suffered any form of explodey head syndrome.
On a brighter note, this afternoon at the commencement of his second week of servitude, did see a great success as instead of one having to spend a great deal of time problem solving a recalcitrant AV connection issue, Sidekick and I together tackled it for over an hour before stumbling across the actual issue of an unplugged converter box.
By my calculation we have already managed to halve the efficiency percentage of the Library IT Department by increasing the resourcing by a mere 1. A clear win all round!
.
New Year, New Publishing Schedule
So I've finally managed to fulfil that promise to myself and change my publishing schedule.
The problem seems to be that I have moved it the wrong way. Sigh - three weeks.
Still it was the feast-ive season and one did have an awful lot of feast-iveness to attend to.
The work side of things was quite the herculean task, given that one has four workplaces at which to put in a good showing and the overall council soiree.
On the home front I did have help from Salsa Girl and Hulk although I did buckle up (buckle down?) and shoulder the majority of the consummative workload - not one, nor two, but three Xmas's''''!!
And all of them part of Hulk's first Xmas, and therefore requiring extra levels of celebration.
Amongst all that was the traditional migration northward for the seeing in of the New Year. This year was seen in from bed, counting down the last seconds then promptly off with the lights and giving in to the fatigue. Thank you Hulk for that change to our partying style - one may never be the last to leave again.
Speaking of traditions, one normally does some sort of roundup of the year in gaming and the general quality of The Tales. However as one has been on gaming hiatus for several quarters now (baring some Internet ancients sparing with Young Jim) and one also failed to out post FridgePower or even pass the half-century and the fact that it has become quite late and Hulk threatens to cut short ones slumber yet again (if The Tiger does not beat her to it) one had better get to bed rather than wallow in trifling statistics.
See you all in another regularly scheduled three weeks.
.
The problem seems to be that I have moved it the wrong way. Sigh - three weeks.
Still it was the feast-ive season and one did have an awful lot of feast-iveness to attend to.
The work side of things was quite the herculean task, given that one has four workplaces at which to put in a good showing and the overall council soiree.
On the home front I did have help from Salsa Girl and Hulk although I did buckle up (buckle down?) and shoulder the majority of the consummative workload - not one, nor two, but three Xmas's''''!!
And all of them part of Hulk's first Xmas, and therefore requiring extra levels of celebration.
Amongst all that was the traditional migration northward for the seeing in of the New Year. This year was seen in from bed, counting down the last seconds then promptly off with the lights and giving in to the fatigue. Thank you Hulk for that change to our partying style - one may never be the last to leave again.
Speaking of traditions, one normally does some sort of roundup of the year in gaming and the general quality of The Tales. However as one has been on gaming hiatus for several quarters now (baring some Internet ancients sparing with Young Jim) and one also failed to out post FridgePower or even pass the half-century and the fact that it has become quite late and Hulk threatens to cut short ones slumber yet again (if The Tiger does not beat her to it) one had better get to bed rather than wallow in trifling statistics.
See you all in another regularly scheduled three weeks.
.
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