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Month: January 2004 Page 1 of 2

But not a *real* green dress, that’s cruel!

By

On January 30, 2004

In Blog

You’ve just one a million dollars, tax free!

1. Who do you call first?

kitanzi, of course!

2. What is the first thing you buy for yourself?

If it actually happened *today*? Two first class tickets to London for the filkcon next week.

Aside from that, I’d pay off all the bills and credit cards and so forth, and then probably look at buying a house.

3. What is the first thing you buy for someone else?

Depends on what she wants.

4. Do you give any away? If yes, to whom?

Eventually. See #5.

5. Do you invest any?

After everything’s paid for, including the house, whatever’s left goes into low-risk investments, with the intent of using the interest to supplement income. (Just $1 million isn’t enough to quit my job, so I’ll just use it to be even more comfortable, and be able to help my friends who need help when they do.

More quizzage

By

On January 30, 2004

In Blog

So telynor pointed me at this page. I found a lot of the questions rather annoying, as they a) assume monogamy, and b) occaisionally offered an either-or question to which the answer was in the middle. I was particular put off by:

A Relationship requires compromise. Whose?
a. Yours
b. Theirs

The correct answer is, to my mind, “both”.

Anyway, here’s the result if anyone’s actually interested:

The Gentleman
Deliberate Gentle Love Master

Steady & mature. You are The Gentleman.

For anyone looking for an even-keeled, considerate lover, you’re their man. You’re sophisticated. You know what you want both in a relationship and outside of it. You have a substantial romantic side, and you’re experienced enough sexually to handle yourself in that arena, too. Your future relationships will be long-lasting; you’re classic “marrying material,” a prize in the eyes of many.

It’s possible that behind it all, you’re a bit of a male slut. Your best friends know that in relationships you’re fundamentally sex-driven. You’re a safe, reliable guy, who does get laid. In a lot of ways, you’re like a well-worn, comfortable pair of socks. Did you ever jack off into one of those? All the time.

Your exact opposite:
The Last Man on Earth

Your ideal mate is NOT a nut-job. She is giving and loving, like you, but also experienced. Avoid the The Battleaxe at all fucking costs.

By

On January 27, 2004

In Blog


create your own visited states map
or write about it on the open travel guide

I *did* count states I’ve driven through (the only reason New York graces this map, for instance), but that’s only because I felt so inadequate compared to the rest of you. 🙂 In fairness, I only really began to travel outside of the southeast in the last few years, for various reasons that no longer seem very good.

Have to get out west soon. Never been out west.

If you’ve a little to spare

By

On January 22, 2004

In Blog

You may have seen this already in other journals. No matter. I’ve been through what this family is going through, and I know all the small horrors that come with it. I’ve already cross-checked with enough people I know to be trustworthy to know that this is legitimate, so if you have something to spare, please consider directing it this way.

http://www.relevantpink.com/rebeccafire/

Away too long

By

On January 21, 2004

In Blog

Whew. It’s been a busy time here since the start of the year, between various houseguests, and GaFilk, and general sickness around the house. I keep thinking “Boy, I need to catch up on LJ”, and then I think about how much there is to write, and I think “Maybe later.” So, without further ado, let’s go back to just before GaFilk weekend and see if we can’t get caught up. 🙂

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NEW SONG: Never Seen The Tech Desk

By

On January 5, 2004

In Blog

First, a disclaimer: yeah, this is inspired by my own work experiences, but to be fair, every single place where one tier of people had to support another, lower tier of support folks, this has been true. I’ve even been the clueless git on the other end of this song, so believe me that this is all in good fun.

This song is dedicated to anyone who has ever had to work in ANY sort of help desk environment, and especially for the SysOps who have to support THEM.

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Beginning a New Year

By

On January 5, 2004

In Blog

kitanzi and I spent a quiet New Years Day just enjoying each other’s company while our house guests spent the day with Bill and ladyat at Bedlam House. telynor brought them over about 5pm, and we made plans to go out to eat.

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Medieval Tofu Warfare

By

On January 2, 2004

In Blog

Discuss.

Thirteen Ways of Looking At A Cicada

By

On January 1, 2004

In Songs

Thirteen Ways of Looking At A Cicada
by Robert Wynne
Music: Various tunes (see note below)
© 2004

I.
If you like squishing cicadas
getting caught in the rain

II.
Oh cicadas, you’re breaking my heart
You’re all on my lawn and I hate you
Oh cicadas, please please go away
For seventeen years i won’t miss you

III.
I’m gonna kill the bugs next door
Ain’t gonna chirp anymore
They’re underground for seventeen years
Then they come up and drink all my beer
Gonna squash em with my boots
How i wish i had a gun that shoots
Gonna kill kill kill kill kill kill kill those bugs

IV.
Cicada blues
You make me cry
I don’t wanna lose this feeling
And if i choose for you to die
You would be in your grave

V.
You walk across the lawn and they will crawl up on your pants
Shake them off your shoes and you do a little dance
Worst of all you find their shells are stuck to all your plants
Hey, they’re cicadas!

VI.
I squashed cicadas
But i did not squish the ladybugs

VII.
Wasting away again here in Cicadaville
Searching for a safe path I can walk

VIII.
I walked out on my lawn
To face my fears
The last time they were here
Seventeen years
It’s cicadas
They climb on everything
Nowhere to sit
I wish they’d go away
I must admit
Damn cicadas

IX.
One day, bugs will rain out
From beneath the rainspout
And then you will hear ci-
cadas come and chirp the night away

X.
Cold rain on the front lawn has softened the grounds
For seventeen years they have slept in their mounds
But now they have surfaced; the night rings with sound
Cicada’s will rise with the moon

XI.
They are very noisy bugs
Cicadas chirp outside your bedroom
They go away for seventeen years then they come back
And they get in everything

Those bugs are pretty nasty
(That bug’s a Cicada!)
The kind of bugs you read about
(In science magazines!)
They haven’t left my lawn yet
(The bugs are cicadas)
I think I’m gonna squish them
(Everywhere I step)
They’re not right! They’re not right!
These bugs are not for me!

They are cicadas! Cicadas!
I hate Cicadas!

XII.
Little cicadas
Crawling everywhere
You’re pretty sure they’re even crawling in your hair
Where did they come from
Underneath the ground
Seventeen years past and not one could be found

XIII.
Guess who just got back today
Those little bugs that had been away
Everywhere, cicadas in your way
And if the bugs wanna chirp, you better let ’em

Cicadas were much in the news in 2004, because of the arrival of the once-every-seventeen-years emergence from hibernation cycle. The idea for this came from a conversation I was having in a chat room about the subject.

The thirteen tunes are, in order: (1) “Escape (The Pina Colada Song)” by Rupert Holmes, (2) “Cecilia” by Simon & Garfunkel, (3) “Gonna Kill The Dog Next Door” by The Arrogant Worms, (4) “Bell Bottom Blues” by Derek and the Dominos, (5) “Macarena” by Los del Rio, (6) “I Shot The Sherriff” by Bob Marley, (7) “Margaritaville” by Jimmy Buffett, (8) “And I Love Her” by the Beatles, (9) “Open Arms (Worlds Apart” by Journey, (10) “Giant” by Stan Rogers, (11) “Superfreak” by Rick James, (12) “Lady Madonna” by the Beatles, and (13) “The Boys are Back in Town” by Thin Lizzie.

The entire thing is a meta-parody of Wallace Stevens’s poem “Thirteen Ways of Looking At A Blackbird”

Somewhere On The Windows Server

By

On January 1, 2004

In Songs

Somewhere On The Windows Server
by Robert Wynne and Jeffrey Williams
Music: “Somewhere Down The Crazy River” by Robbie Robertson
© 2004

Yeah, I can see it now
The flashing green link light shimmered in the dark
I was feeling like a user on a strange site
You know, where people play games on the net?
God, it was too slow to post
I followed the link to an mp3 site from somewhere out in Asia
All of a sudden, I could hear someone whispering from right behind me
I turned around and she said “Why do you always end up on the chat room page?
I said “I don’t know, the links just kind of led me this way.”
She said “Hang the proc”

Dump the blue screen
Errors never seen before
Look for me
Somewhere on the Windows server
(Somewhere on the Windows Server)
Dump the blue screen
All the way down to the core
You can find me
Somewhere on the Windows server
(Somewhere on the Windows server)

Grab a jpg of this
The machine room is empty, abandoned 486 server
Sitting at the console listening to Little Billy Gates
Yeah, that’s when your apps stood still
Y’know, I’m gonna go down to the CompuShak
And let ’em build my box
She said “That UNIX stuff don’t do nothing for me

I’m a man who needs virus protection
I’m a man with a broadband connection
You load the line
You slow the net
I can find my files yet

Dump the blue screen
Errors never seen before
Look for me
Somewhere on the Windows server
(Somewhere on the Windows Server)
Dump the blue screen
All the way down to the core
You can find me
Somewhere on the Windows server
(Somewhere on the Windows server)

Wait, did you see that?
Man, this is stirring up some errors for me
She said “There’s one thing you gotta learn
Is how to keep rebooting it.”
I said “No, I hate it. I hate it, it sucks.”
She said, “You hate it now, but you’ll learn to loathe it later.”

Dump the blue screen
Errors never seen before
Look for me
Somewhere on the Windows server
(Somewhere on the Windows Server)
Dump the blue screen
All the way down to the core
You can find me
Somewhere on the Windows server
(Somewhere on the Windows server)

I’ve been coredumped — failing the trace
I’ve been coredumped — failing the trace
Log on the system — disks and mem’ry
I’ve been coredumped — somewhere on the Windows server
This is another case of Jeff and me being silly in conversation and having it lead to a pretty nifty song. Both of us have been big fans of Robbie Robertson for years, and especially of the moody jazz noir of “Somewhere Down the Crazy River”. If I can figure out a way to recreate the accompaniment to this, I’d love to actualyl perform it someday, or see someone else do so. It’s such a cool tune, it’d have to be done “right” for it to work.

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