Day: January 1, 2004 Page 1 of 2

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.

Never Seen The Tech Desk
by Robert Wynne
Music: “Never Been To Spain” by Three Dog Night
© 2004

Oh I’ve never seen the tech desk
Cause I’ve always been too lazy;
But I know a lot of folks there
They call me up and drive me crazy!
My spirit’s droopy
Cause they’re so loopy
They’re our support staff
Our tech support staff

There’s not a day goes by now
They don’t call me on the phone
And they start each conversation
With “Hey, now what’s going on?”
Is there an outage?
Or some strange problem?
We can’t define it!
No we can’t define it!”

I ask them if they’ve done their homework
And what they did to troubleshoot it
They say they’re not sure what to do next
And wonder if they should reboot it?
I say “Don’t know yet
Where you ought to go yet
What is the error?
You haven’t said the error!

I studied hard to be a SysOp
Because I thought that I would like it
I didn’t know back when I started
That you also must be psychic
I do my best, still
Hoping that the rest will
Learn from repeating
But memory is so fleeting

‘Cause the next time that my phone rings
Once the problem is resolved
and it’s the same technician calling
And a new customer’s involved.
Why can’t you see it?
I can guarantee it’s
The same thing as the last one
It’s the same damn problem!

Oh I’ve never seen the tech desk
Cause I’ve always been too lazy
But I know a lot of folks there
They call me up and drive me crazy
My spirit’s droopy
Cause they’re so loopy
They’re our support staff
Our tech support staff
I’d like to state, for the record, that I adore my support desk, and they really are good at what they do. Having said that, the sorts of things that this song details are inevitable in ANY organization where someone has to support the support folks, and that’s what I do for a living.

The song is also true in the regard that I’ve never actually set foot in our call centre, as it is located in another city and I haven’t made time to go down there. I really need to correct that some day soon.