I *AM* the Black Cloud

I've seen some shit.
I've been through some shit.
The amount of shit piled up at my place now actually exceeds the interior volume of the house. It's called Quantum Shit.

You've had bad days.
I've had bad days.
This day is unprecedented in all its badness.

Most of my bad days start with computers. This makes perfect sense, as I've been in computers since high school. You know... a long time ago. My main computer was looking a little weird (as opposed to its owner, who is looking very weird), so I figured a redo was in order. Load up the dvd, reboot, and POOF, there were weird characters and it was having trouble reading the drive. The drive is solid state, plus I could see the folders, so all was not lost. I re-redid it. Weird error message. I re-re-redid it. Same weird error message. No suggested fixes worked.

Ok, main computer only has all of my stuff on it... (backed up), but I need a computer to run it on. Wife's laptop: kernel panic. For those of you not familiar, kernel panic is really bad, m'kay? It's what happens when the computer knows I'm overstressed or Just Plain Pissed, so it's terrified of me. So I tried to redo it. It was still panicked. I started to panic. It's not like there's a computer on every step on the stairs.

My phone decided it wasn't going to deal with email. This isn't an unreasonable idea, but it is for a phone. In fact, the relatively new tablet also refused to deal with email, in sympathy with the phone. I, on the other hand, had no sympathy for these devices and my neck was getting sore from shaking my head so much, out of sheer grief and aggravation.

AHA - I have a spare laptop... kinda anemic, but it'll get the mail!
Yes, I located said laptop. Unfortunately I did not locate laptop's power supply. No matter, I have 50 of them; almost one that fit, except it was missing the part that went to the electrical outlet. After digging that up, I plugged it in and it did its best impersonation of a government employee: nothing. In case you're counting at home, this is 3 computers, a phone, and a tablet.

The tears running down my face gave no indication that I would be more comfortable shooting from a tall building or mall.

Ladies and blog readers, this is just about the end of my computer inventory. Somewhere is an ancient pc with an ancient version of Ubuntu on it, but I suspect it had gone on vacation with the 3 laptops that have gone POOF over the last 3 years.

Pulling up the tablet, I ran a virus scan, because I'm like that. Halfway into the scan, POOF. The tablet shut off. I figured it was part of the Random Reboot package I paid extra for, but no, it shut down. Period. I plugged it in, hoping for some stupid reason it would work but NO. THE F&$#ING TABLET WAS HOSED. Bricked. A flat, sporty screen with nothing on it ever again. It was dead. Pushing up daisies. Gone and joined the choir invisible. Bereft of life, it rested in peace. POOF. It just died to spite me- no other reason.

Do ya see what I'm talking about? Once the excrement hits the whirling device, the only thing that happens is more excrement and more whirling devices, until I smell a bit and can't move for shit.

There was a small tablet around somewhere. Somewhere (far away look in his eyes). It disappeared, perhaps on purpose, the day the larger tablet arrived. Maybe it felt inferior. I just can't find it, in spite of the fact it only lived in one of two places, both now empty.

So I was dead in the water. Nothing. No way, no how. I couldn't get my frigging email. You know what that's like. You get the shakes, the bends, your genitals shrink, and you become even less tolerant of anyone sharing your living space.

I got a drink, sat back down, and promptly spilled most of it on my hand and pants.
I made dinner and burned myself, after I couldn't find the last ingredient of anything I wanted to make. The door fell off the pantry. The dog needed to go outside every 10 minutes, which she never does.

This is the part that's killing me: the only communicative device I had left was the work iDevice. With even more tears and a groin pull, I went about seeing if it could handle the tiny amount I needed to throw at it (not that the phone couldn't, but maybe wouldn't). I installed an email account. HALLELEUJAH! I installed a 2nd email account... well, no I didn't.. because I couldn't find the button to install a 2nd email account, including the one that said New Account. After asking my iHole friends, I learned that you don't add accounts to email through the email program - you add it in the Accounts section of the phone. Well how stupid could I be? How didn't I know this?  The only thing that really grinds my gears is that this is the only device in the known universe that has no punctuation on its keyboard. If you want a period, you have to push SPACE twice, or go to a second page of keyboard. What kind of abjectly drunk design is this? Periods are sort of common in most languages, with commas in there too. I checked the Apple Store and there were none to be found.

On the way to celebrate me, I kicked a case of soda. Not on purpose - my size 17 feet kick everything around me, whether I want them to or not. I can mistakenly kick something that's 2 feet away from me, simply because it's there while I walk by. Mostly I trip over stuff. Stuff that really isn't in the way. Every day I go into my computer room and notice the little space heater, and every day my foot hits it on the way by. It's like the device suddenly does the impossible and gets larger for half a second, while I pass by it. Or sticks out its imaginary foot.

Feeling overjoyed at something working, I went to check my mail.
Nope, I can't find the phone.
The phone I just got my email from.
It is missing.
People who don't know me and have never seen my house tell me I look organized.
Of course I look organized - if I don't put something in its place the moment I'm done with it, I will never find it again. So putting things away just looks organized.
Wait... I remember putting it on the sofa arm. Things on the sofa arm generally fall next to the sofa. Nope, not this time.
Hey - just last week I put my phone there. I found it hours later, in between the sofa cushion and the sofa end. Sure enough, this was the second one to do it.
So I put the phone in its place, after which it immediately plummeted to the ground, unassisted.

They tell me, whoever they are, that the universe is an incredibly vast place, with lots of strange real estate and even stranger furniture. Being so vast, the universe couldn't possibly care about me. Screw that - it is actively involved now, monitoring my every move and making sure nothing performs as expected. I just found a speaker I've been looking for (behind the computer desk, where all speakers go to relax). Sometimes I get the feeling that if stuff didn't go wrong for me, the entire universe would stop suddenly and disappear. I am that critical to Operations.

With nowhere else to go, I hooked up my old desktop. It booted! It did not explode. It did not have kernel panic (or kernel generalized anxiety). It did not shun me. For fun, I checked the last time it was run. Depending on file dates, alcohol, and potent pharmaceuticals, it's about 3-5 years. I remember this box kicking ass. Since I have no real memory, it's incredibly slow. After everything else is done, I have to build a new one. I'm getting too old for this shit.

The version of Xubuntu is very old. Very very old. Pre-Obama old. Depending on the version, you have to upgrade one by one, or every two versions. By next week, I'll be almost up to date!


Shopping List:

1. 2 full size mice
2. 24-ish inch monitor
3. new motherboard, processor, and RAM
4. 1 or 2 solid state drives, 1 laptop
5. a Sawzall for the next time I get mad
6. someone to follow me around and apologize for things I just said
7. Samsung tablet repair
8. sore throat drops from yelling

Not bad for a single day!

Inventions, Stats, and Outright Lies

Speaking of anniversaries, ThermionicEmissions is coming up on a big one: at the end of this month, it will be a year and a half since the last comment on the blog.  Sure, lefty, bitch at the people who are brave and nice enough to read the blog in the first place.

• Speaking of Portugal, we had a mad rush last week from Canada. Heh heh. Get it? Rush from Canada? No, seriously, lots of Canadian visitors. And one from Portugal.
• Don't ask me - I just read the stats and look at the pretty colored charts.

The Great Ant Battle of 2018 continues. They show up in weird places... you'd think they'd go after food, which is what insects (and little brothers) do. Not these ants. These guys are after something else. The only problem is that no one has any idea what it is.

Sure, they'll show up where there's food... that's easy. But we find them in the bathrooms. I found them in my office. Nothing alive or dead is in my office, with the possible exception of me. No food, no ancient dog treats, no decaying former guests, and definitely NO dessicated local tax assessors. The only organic matter in that room is occasionally ME. I hope they're not after me, like most other things in the universe.

Maybe some nefarious entity has spliced in some African Killer Bee DNA, rendering the ants nasty, with a taste for blood. A theory about assassination ants is no more strange than any other theory (especially for this blog). 

Somebody told the wife that where there's one ant, there's a ton of ants you can't see. She takes this to heart, so when she sees one, she puts on her Sherlock Holmes hat, with 2 brims, so you can't tell whether she's coming or going, and does some deteckin' work, hunting down the little $&@^ers. One day they appeared to be coming from the dishwasher. She actually spent a while tracing them back. It's a good thing the cabinets are firmly attached to the walls or I'd be even more afraid to go in the kitchen. Then she pulls out the Big Guns... an industrial size yellow gallon container of Everything Killer, with an actual pump and spray gun. It's extremely effective for killing ants. It's also extremely effective at stinking, so you need to plan your strategy carefully. Except for last night, when she found about two hundred of them, having a party in the bedroom. I don't know about you, but if I'm not having a party in the bedroom, no one else is either. She fired, ridding the place of live ants. Did I mention this was the bedroom? In which we sleep? Which was now unfit for human habitation... even Monsanto wouldn't come within a mile of the house. They know why too.

The other gun is some sort of natural ant killer which is harmless to humans, dogs, and sometimes ants. I kid - it works about as well as the yellow gallon, and somehow manages to smell almost as bad. How do natural ingredients manage to smell like chemicals? Maybe the manufacturer added a chemical scent so the customers would think it was working. And now I'm finding a few on my desk. And on my left leg only. Even natural spray isn't all that good for computers and stuff, so it can't be deployed. In some cases it would be nice to say the only interesting thing in the room is me, but not this time.

The prevailing theory is the ungodly amount of rain we've had lately. It's the prevailing theory because no one brought up another theory.  I really need to get some picture of her kills. There was the Battle of the Drying Rack, where thousands died.  The Battle of the Upstairs Bathroom, where bodies flew far and wide. The Battle of the Kitchen Molding, where hundreds were marching, on the way to some top secret target. The aforementioned Battle of the Bedroom, where the casualties were beyond counting. The most senseless slaughter happened during the Battle of the Downstairs Bathroom Molding on the Outside of the Bathroom. I may not be an ant (I'm not...really) but I can't figure out what's so wonderful about molding. You know what they say: it's not the destination, it's the journey.

The latest news involves the Battle of the Office. A favorite internet suggestion was to interrupt their reproduction, as opposed to killing them outright.  We bought a rather large box of this stuff, hoping for some relief. How in the known universe does one apply 5,000 ant condoms?

So we returned that box (Amazon is really good with returns) and went to Plan B; the Morning Before Pill. A trap is set, with micro doses of Ambien. The ants eat it, and immediately become confused, then head off to dreamland. At some point they wake up, whether they know it or not, and become so disoriented, all six legs start moving in different directions. If they manage to find their pad, they go in and stumble about for a while, eventually passing out in their little ant beds. Or on the floor. When they finally arise, the Ambien has rendered them sterile so no more ants. The moral of the story is to stay away from Ambien, lest you become confused and sterile.

• How to stop your smart tv from tracking you. This goes over how to stop your information from leaking, featuring instructions covering several brands.

Work

So I'm enjoying the hell out of my new job, which is exactly like my old job, only with a different name on the checks.  This is a job in which a brain comes in handy. Rarely is any day like any other. But no matter how hard or different the job is, nothing comes close to the overwhelm and sheer terror of benefits selections. There are more health insurances than I've ever seen. With all sorts of bizarre names, having nothing to do with anything identifiable. I made a point of asking if they cover pets, hoping that I'd be employed after asking. No, they do not. How many times have you had to decide between a lot of insurers? It took four days to get up the steam to start looking at them. Wife asked me why I was shaking my head. Apparently I do that when I'm disgusted. Don't ask me - I can't see me when I'm doing it. If you have a shortcut to making this less of a herculean task, please share it with us. Otherwise you have to go through each insurance and figure out what they cover. There's a compare button online, that lets you compare up to three insurers. Three. You still have to figure out if they will cover your specific needs. After what felt like four weeks, but was in fact three weeks, I made a selection. I should have done this weeks ago. I closed my eyes and pointed to a spot on the screen, choosing the insurance under my index finger. Statistically this produces better results than making huge spreadsheets, especially when you can't remember all the shortcuts and commands for spreadsheets. Of course I'm kidding.. I asked my coworker what he has and selected that. 

I have a great dental plan. In fact I've had a great dental plan at the last three jobs, but don't use it because I'm terrified to go there. Since I'm telling on myself, I might as well admit I don't go to the doctor either. I'm not terrified of the doctor, so I have no idea why I don't go. It definitely doesn't have anything to do with the serious lack of very attractive medical assistants, no sir. I can even let them take blood without passing out (me, hopefully not them). Maybe I'm just ridiculously healthy and my body knows it, keeping me from wasting time (and that nice doctor with the gloved finger...at least he says he's a doctor). Ok, ok, I'll go this year; I promise. I've had the same blood slip for five years. I should ask for a new one...the labs probably stopped doing some of those tests. And I ain't letting no one near my cervix until I find out what a cervix is.

Please don't make me look at the life insurance or whatever the hell those other forms are for. Maybe I'll ask Benefits to pick them for me and buy the department some pizza.

It's a nice place to work, provided you don't have any computer problems. I've been in computers for all of my life, so I'm somewhat familiar with them. They're large purple things, the size of a trailer park. Very Smart People set up these computers so the users can't mess with them. This scheme has saved the company millions in User Assisted Screwups and viruses. Unfortunately, anything that goes wrong requires someone with the correct permissions to assist you. The only people with the correct permissions are the good people at the service desk. But you have to put in a service ticket first. The service desk has four hours to contact you. They forgot to put the 2 in front of the 4. Every time something breaks, we do the Service Dance. I put in a service ticket, then email, call, and text them. They always get back to me within 72 hours. Right about 72 hours every time, during which I am working with a broken or seriously disabled computer. I asked my boss about this one day. He didn't seem at all surprised about this. Apparently it's institutional. Not getting my work done is also institutional, judging from some of my coworkers. I'm old school - I don't get this. Plus I used to do this work.

I don't want to get down on the department; I had enough of that when I did it. The techs are all nice and helpful. This points to Manglement. Perhaps gross understaffing. I really don't care - I just want my friggin computer fixed (jackass). After waiting 72 hours, they managed to fix it. For damn near an hour. I called, phoned, and texted them to let them know. Expecting another 72 hours, they pleasantly surprised me by only making me wait 24 hours. This also failed to fix the problem. They're going to try again tomorrow. Or at least that's what they told me.  Maybe it's their fault after all... they have this 24/7 party/orgy happening, which they leave every 6 hours to take a call and promise something they have no intention of delivering. Sure - we'll get with you first thing in the morning and get you all fixed up. Yesterday, first thing in the morning was 1pm. The thing that upsets me most is not getting invited to their parties.

• We received another card from the vet. A donation has been made In Marshall's name to the University of Pennsylvania's Animal Hospital and teaching facility; number one in the area.
• his spirit, personality, and fight touched a lot of people.

We're on a list for another rescue dog, because we didn't learn the first time. Or the second time. Or even the third time. The house is so empty. If we don't do something now, this blog truly will document my journey into madness, as joked about earlier.

Way way back, before any of us were born, cocker spaniels split off into American cockers and English cockers. Americans are the smallest sporting breed, at up to 28 lbs or so. They have short snouts and a merry temperament. English cockers are larger, taller, and more broad, with a longer snout and the same merry temperament. We're on the list for an English cocker. I had one when I was a little terror. Looked almost exactly like this guy:

English cocker in "blue roan"

young American cocker in black

Airport Facts

A fascinating program I saw a bit of was on people moving in airports. Apparently someone sat in airports and observed people. On coming across people walking at them, Asians move to the right and Europeans move to the left. If they're coming at each other, they crash.

They also went into signage. The fellow in charge of signs said "Less is more".
From my two years of high school math:

If less=more then more=less
More air over the plane wing causes less pressure = lift
Plane lift = flying
Flying = cramped seating with screaming infants and a little bastard kicking the back of your seat
Cramped seating = a bad experience, possibly involving cramps
A bad experience = a worse experience picking up your baggage
Difficulty picking up your bags = hostility to airport personnel
Therefore: less=more creates airport personnel fatalities, so keep the food and souvenirs at affordable prices.


The average human hands carry 100 species of bacteria, requiring a war against disease outbreaks.

The runway's biggest problem is birds, which can cause fatal outcomes if they get sucked into the plane's engines, not to mention what the bird feels when shredded by a humongous Rolls Royce airplane engine.  Remember Sully, the pilot who landed his plane in the Hudson River? He had no engines because of bird strikes. My solution: use imprisoned gang members to shoot at them. It's a win-win and a much better shot (sorry) at criminal rehabilitation. It would also be less expensive than designing a laser-guided bird annihilator, assuming the military doesn't already have one.

Or they could rid the place of mice, which attract foxes and birds, which hunt the little $&#ers.

• As if the food weren't enough to keep you away, fast food restaurants are using facial recognition 'to remember how you like your burger'. It's almost everywhere, even in Walmart's parking lots. Mall stores are also using surveillance techniques, whether they're detecting your phone or your face combined with your purchase.
• The main need for remembering who you are is so the restaurant can remember how to screw up your order uniformly.
• Facial recognition software isn't all that accurate, especially on black people. So if you go anywhere with this software, make sure you identify as black.

Note to Attractive Females

Ladies, your MIS department wants you to know that we're available for all of your computer and phone needs.  While we know that it is 2012 and no one has a valid excuse for computer illiteracy, we also want you to know we're here for you.

Has something happened to you home computer?  Give us a ring - we'll take a look.
Do you need your Stuff transferred from your old phone to your new phone?  That's what we're here for.

We will keep going above and beyond the call of duty for you, provided you keep those `private' pictures loaded on the computers and cell phones.  Not only are you computer and phone illiterate - you're not bright enough to keep your naked pictures where no one can see them.


MIS - we're here for you.