Still Not Important

People are funny. They want help with stuff they don't understand, but sometimes (and some people), prefer to talk to one specific person about their ills, no matter the knowledge of whoever else is available. I admit to being guilty of this as well, and it's a comfort level or personality compatibility. As soon as you have to step outside your comfort zone, you want to shut down before you find an answer.

Of course, what some people don't realize is how they come off to the other guy. You know, the one who likely could answer the question as well as the person they were looking for to begin with. Such is the case between myself and Optimus Prime. Prime was out today taking care of a bunch of personal business, and I was left to tend the fort. I have no problem doing this, and it's made for a very busy day to where I am totally losing track of time.

But what keeps happening is people walk over to his cube and look in. When they find he's not here, they huff and ask me if he's out today. I tell them he is, and they stomp off, clearly ticked that he dared to take time off. Nevermind that if they have an issue, I'm perfectly capable of- oh look, they sent me an email.

The second version of this same idea is when they come over and look into his cube. They stare for a good long moment just to make sure that if he is invisible, he might notice them and materialize. Upset that the invisible Optimus refuses to materialize, they turn around and look at me. I watch them as they stand there for a very long moment pondering as to whether I'll bite or not. Note, I'm not doing anything as they do this; my headset is planted on my desk next to my phone, and I'm listening to my iPod in one ear.

"You tell me your Commodore is really neat-o.
What kind of chip you got in there? A Dorito?" <-- I still get a kick out of that song

Finally, they summon up the courage to step forward and ask, "Are you on the phone?" Did I mention my headset sitting next to me? I'm also not talking, and I'm looking at them. No, not on the phone. Then they start with the disclaimer, "I don't know if you can help me with this or know anything about it, but..." then proceed to ask me a very basic question. Well, basic to me and Optimus, anyway. I answer, they're grateful. And in my other ear, I hear, "You're just about as useless as jpegs to Helen Keller."

Optimus tells me this happened to him as well. You see, before us there was an entity we refer to as "The BM." The BM is the guy who helped to program, test, and implement the product we currently support. He's still a go-to for assistance on it, and continues to watch it and tweak it, though he doesn't do near as much as he used to on it. Optimus told me that when he started, it always bugged him that people would want to confirm everything he said with The BM, or worse yet, ask him to check with The BM to be sure.

If I don't know, I will check to be sure. If I do know, you will get no hesitation as to the answer. Doesn't change the fact that occasionally, I'd like to control-alt-delete some people if possible...

It's All About The Pentiums

This is a knock-off song by Weird Al Yankovic, but it's so geeky in nature that I had to post the lyrics to it. The first time I heard it, I cracked up instead of just rolling my eyes. As the post title suggests, it's called "All About The Pentiums."

It's all about the Pentiums, baby
Uhh, uh-huh, yeah
Uhh, uh-huh, yeah
It's all about the Pentiums, baby
It's all about the Pentiums, baby
It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
Yeah

What y'all wanna do?
Wanna be hackers? Code crackers? Slackers
Wastin' time with all the chatroom yakkers?
9 to 5, chillin' at Hewlett Packard?
Workin' at a desk with a dumb little placard?
Yeah, payin' the bills with my mad programming skills
Defraggin' my hard drive for thrills
I got me a hundred gigabytes of RAM
I never feed trolls and I don't read spam
Installed a T1 line in my house
Always at my PC, double-clickin' on my mizouse
Upgrade my system at least twice a day
I'm strictly plug-and-play, I ain't afraid of Y2K
I'm down with Bill Gates, I call him "Money" for short
I phone him up at home and I make him do my tech support
It's all about the Pentiums, what?
You've gotta be the dumbest newbie I've ever seen
You've got white-out all over your screen
You think your Commodore 64 is really neato
What kinda chip you got in there, a Dorito?
You're usin' a 286? Don't make me laugh
Your Windows boots up in what, a day and a half?
You could back up your whole hard drive on a floppy diskette
You're the biggest joke on the Internet
Your database is a disaster
You're waxin' your modem, tryin' to make it go faster
Hey fella, I bet you're still livin' in your parents' cellar
Downloadin' pictures of Sarah Michelle Gellar
And postin' "Me too!" like some brain-dead AOL-er
I should do the world a favor and cap you like Old Yeller
You're just about as useless as jpegs to Hellen Keller

It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)

Now, what y'all wanna do?
Wanna be hackers? Code crackers? Slackers
Wastin' time with all the chatroom yakkers?
9 to 5, chillin' at Hewlett Packard?

Uh, uh, loggin' in now
Wanna run wit my crew, hah?
Rule cyberspace and crunch numbers like I do?
They call me the king of the spreadsheets
Got 'em printed out on my bedsheets
My new computer's got the clocks, it rocks
But it was obsolete before I opened the box
You say you've had your desktop for over a week?
Throw that junk away, man, it's an antique
Your laptop is a month old? Well that's great
If you could use a nice, heavy paperweight
My digital media is write-protected
Every file inspected, no viruses detected
I beta tested every operation system
Gave props to some, and others? I dissed 'em
While your computer's crashin', mine's multitaskin'
It does all my work without me even askin'
Got a flat-screen monitor forty inches wide wide
I believe that your says "Etch-A-Sketch" on the side
In a 32-bit world, you're a 2-bit user
You've got your own newsgroup, "alt.total-loser"
Your motherboard melts when you try to send a fax
Where'd you get your CPU, in a box of Cracker Jacks?
Play me online? Well, you know that I'll beat you
If I ever meet you I'll control-alt-delete you
What? What? What? What? What?

It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
It's all about the Pentiums! (It's all about the Pentiums, baby)
Now, what y'all wanna do?
Wanna be hackers? Code crackers? Slackers
Wastin' time with all the chatroom yakkers?
9 to 5, chillin' at Hewlett Packard?
What??

Grimlock and the Happy Camper

I've mentioned Optimus Prime before, but while he may have wanted to change his name to Optimus before, his real favorite Transformer is the character of Grimlock. I know he's used Grimlock in one form or another for passwords, he's got mini versions, and talks about how cool the new version in the animated series is. He's gone on about the history and the different versions of Grimlock before as well, so he's well versed in Grimlock history (well, he's well versed in all the Transformers' stories), and even relates to the brute in his own way.

In a nutshell, Grimlock is the leader of the Dinobots and transforms into a Tyrannosaurus Rex. The original animated series had Grimlock, along with two other dinobots, created by the human, Spike, along with the Autobot Medic/Mechanics, Wheeljack and Ratchet, giving them simple personalities but remarkably strong contructions to where they were stronger in their dinosaur form than their robot form. Another timeline places the dinobots having landed on Earth chasing a Deception leader, Shockwave. Since dinosaurs are the indigenous life form when they arrive, they take on those forms. They defeat Shockwave, but end up in a tarpit until the modern Autobots find them.

The new animated series of Transformers produced a new line of toys, and Optimus comments once about how much he liked the new design of Grimlock, since the creators redesigned the majority of the Transformers for the new series. I guess the Walther P-38 was no longer an acceptable toy for Megatron.



Can't think why this would be a problem.

Anyway, last night while we were doing our grocery shopping at Walmart, we ran across the new animated series toy version of Grimlock. I tried to call him, but got no answer. I figured if there ever was a character I could proactively grab for him, it would be this Grimlock. I snapped a couple of pics and then tossed him in the basket. I figured I've show him the pictures (lovingly referred to as "toy porn"), and gauge whether he had him or not.



So this morning, I showed him the pics, and it took him a moment to figure out what I was showing him. Finally, he gasped and said, "which Wal-Mart was this at?" I said, "the one behind my PC, and for $15 it can be yours." I scooted back and tossed him the bag containing the Grimlock. His mouth dropped as he held the wrapped box. Slowly, he peeled the bags away and viewed the toy right there in his hands. His mouth remained open as he gazed at his beloved favorite character. Finally, he managed to get out, "oh yeah, that's totally worth it."

I've seen him in a good mood before, but never be as happily enraptured as I saw him today. I don't even think he looked that way after he got his house. But one thing is certain: my instincts were right on this time. I did a good thing.