Chasing Pitchforks
The users are revolting. They've discovered that we are hording vast resources while doing our best to squash their prosperity. We only give them what we deem appropriate then scold them when they step foot outside those confines. It seems that one of the geeks have let it slip that were are sitting on the proverbial pile of food.Two weeks ago
"Hello? What was that?", Another threating call. "Yes! It's true! We have tons of hard drive space. No. No. No, You still can't have a file share larger than 200MB. I don't care what kind of wood your office furniture is made of! We need the extra space important things, like episodes of Firefly and Planet of The Apes. We can't just give it out to anyone!"
Apparently this was not the correct response. Once word trickled through the office that IT was hording resources for themselves and making everyone else live on a 'perceived unsustainable' amount of drive space. The rebellious mutterings became louder.
"We can take down a load of geeks!"
"It's not about strength it's about power. They control communication and the infrastructure."
"Plus you need a scan card to get into their section."
"We'll find a way."
One weeks ago
We are now under siege. The mail room makes us box up our own packages, the IT supply cabinet always seems a bit bare and recently the security guard has been 'accidentally' ticketing and towing our cars. So it seems the users have given us little choice. We will have to respond.
Three days ago
We've started up a new campaign call '/usr/bin/bad', in an attempt to beat down the masses and reassert our natural right at the top of the office heap. So far We've been randomly deleting email's marked 'urgent', and flushing vast amounts of mp3's from the user shares in an attempt to quell the uprising and bucket their morale.
Yesterday
Today, finance has changed the rules and threatened to bring in the office trebuchet. Otherwise known as 'payroll'. Things just got a whole lot uglier. I'm not sure where this is going, but they are attempting to bypass our scan card doors. Payroll is indeed a might force.
Today
As the scan panels slowly clicked from red to green in all parts of the IT section, we piled into our last bastion of security. The server room. Dawning coats and shaking our heads, our breathing is inaudible over the soothing whir and hum of our faithful masters. Many among us begin to lament their present circumstances.
"Who would have thought that a mass of users who can't even remember their own passwords from day to day would be capable of this?"
"They probably hired a consultant"
So here we were, with our hand on the button of the storage array, threating the users, if they persisted all is lost. And there they are, outside the glass window looking in, as resolute as ever for more, more, more! No matter who it hurts.
I have no idea how this will end. My only real regret is that the servers will have to watch.
Taking A Stab At Unicorns
Unicorns are a mythological creature. They are a fantasy, much in the same way as this blogs popularity is. They don't exist except in the minds of story spinners and in a few odd corners of Manhattan. For the most part people accept this and move on with their lives understanding that they will never get to see one.Others defy this logic and spend hours of their lives gluing horns on horses heads in some vein attempt to re-capture their youthful imagination, a good photo op from the local newspaper or just a good portion of someone else's hard earned money in the kitty of their traveling freak show. Some people will just never learn.
"Welcome to my unicorn farm."
"Where are their horns?"
"We cut them off every year and sell them as party hats to the tourists."
"Doesn't that hurt the Unicorns?"
"No. Don't be silly. It's just like getting a haircut."
Unicorns do exist, I rode one at the fair. That's a lie. I didn't ride it, but I did see it. No I'm kidding, I never go to the fair. That's a lie too. I love the fair, well... sometimes. Mostly though I just like to go into the hall of 'seen on TV' products and marvel at the wonders of non-stick waffle and salsa makers and wonder why everyone on Earth isn't using this amazing new whammy shammy to clean up messes! So anyway... what was I saying?
Right. Unicorns like bacon. No... that wasn't it. They do, but we weren't addressing their dietary needs. Ah yes, I recall.
Ahem...Science cannot disprove the existence of unicorns. So too bad for the folks who brought us the explanation of osmosis, the correct atomic weight of barium and my personal favorite, the inclined plane. So sorry, but with all the white lab coats in the world, not even the brave men and women of science can claim the unseen doesn't exist. Just that it's highly unlikely. And if they do, these creepy horse horned things somehow managed to avoid dying in river beds and begin covered in sedimentary rock for all these years.
Regardless people will still hold some unnatural obsession with the most boring of all these mythical beasts. The one horned horse. The white, good natured one horned horse. I'm sorry but if I'm going to believe in a myth, at least it should be slightly interesting. Like a Minotaur or a Hydra. Sure they're deadly, but hey, you always know when you've seen one.
"Was that a man with the head of a bull wielding an axe?"
"No Bob... I think your eyes are just playing tricks on you again."
20 Things I Learned From Life
Plastic Cutlery
I have nothing to type, but the same old tripe
I have seen nothing new, but I'll do as I do
And pump out more lines and waste all my time
Doing this thing that I can't seem to shake!
Sometimes I just sit at my keyboard and wonder, "Why blog?" The only answer I have is, "Because Peter, if you don't, this stuff will stay in your head. While there it will begin to crowd out the more important stuff like, 'how to wear trousers' and 'that one should never poke policemen with cutlery'. This knowledge is important, and you don't want it pushed aside by the inconsequential garbage used to fill up blog posts."
Or there you are one day, walking around town with just your underpants jabbing away at some cop with a plastic knife and then what do you have? That's right, and fractured skull and grounds for a giant lawsuit. So...
...hmmm. Anyone know where I can get some plastic cutlery and a really cushy hat?
The Kamikaze Fly
He comes! He's here!
The kamikaze fly
Right in your face
Retreat! Beware!
Invading your space
Odds against him
You're Big! He's Small!
Risking life and limb
Dive bombing nut
At full throttle!
Right into my gut
Spinning and thrashing
Swiping! Chasing!
With arms a lashing
Yet on he dives
Retreat! Retreat!
If only to survive
Peter Brown 2008
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