Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2014-09-13 07:25 am
azurelunatic) wrote2014-09-13 07:25 am
Our new game, in the courtyard.
It was, yet again, beer bash day. I don't much care for beer. I have a large box of hard hard lemonade left over from OS Bridge, which I'm slowly making my way through. Having done the same once previous, to excellent success, I decided that I was not going to count on the sangria being drinkable, and unceremoniously grabbed carefully brought two random flavors out of the box, to spend some time in my work fridge before bash.
After being advised by Gaff himself that not having yet watched Blade Runner was a Fault, I asked around a bit about who else might be interested in a movie night. And it turned out that the Dean was interested in making it happen. Plus he knows which meeting room has the best sound system.
In search of some better information than those punks at the helpdesk were capable of giving me, I tried googling some of the information I wanted to know about the helpdesk software. This turned up the manufacturer's wiki. I'd been there before, but a little less well armed with information about how the system was specifically failing me. It turns out that sometimes you can trace my progress through various web pages and tasks by the shape of my swearing. I came away with a new appreciation of some of the properties of the thingy-via-email than I'd had before, and some ideas for testing concepts.
My manager is not super chuffed about some of the other new SaaS they're giving us, as part of some initiative which includes dumping some terrible stuff foisted off on us by Oracle probably ten years ago and not upgraded since. There's this whole initiative about the upgrade (well, we're switching vendors to somethings made in this decade), which has been given its own name, branding, and an advertising budget. So far, my manager rates the parts of it she's used about as ugly and hard to use as the helpdesk software. This is not an encouraging start. They dumped some paper and chocolate on our desks, trying to sell us on how awesome and easy to use it was. (Hint: if you need a double-sided 8.5x11 card as a cheat sheet, it still has the chance of being awesome, but it's probably not easy to use.) I took a red pen to mine. Purple pointed out that there was one place where it just said "<Add URL>" -- and it went to the printer like that. I'd missed that. Also, it said (on the paper) that you were supposed to click on this with your phone. Purple tapped his not-so-smart phone against the card. "Click ... click ... click? Nothing's happening?" (Best Purple.)
Sadly, the first date that the Dean proposed for Blade Runner Night is up against something else. He's thinking again about it.
The beer bashes are often themed. Today's beer bash was themed for that SaaS upgrade initiative. The name, of course, has nothing apparent in common with the actual effects. We wandered out to find that there were piles and piles of branded bottle openers on all the tables. Sort of nicely themed for a beer bash, but we actually don't have beer bottles at the beer bash (having long since reached the keg stage) so it all seemed a little futile. I grabbed some nachos and sat primly down at an "I don't know you personally but I'm sort of with your group at lunch and we nod and say hi in the halls" distance from some of Purple's teammates. There was a band, but they weren't amplified past hear-myself-think stage.
Purple and lb emerged and spotted me. They went after refreshments. As I sat there waiting, I saw the Dean. I had been mulling over a few more thoughts, and felt I should share. So I headed over to where he was, and pitched: "You Haven't Seen This Yet?!?!!" -- the movie night series. Just then Purple showed up over one shoulder and lb showed up over the other, for all the world like an angel and a devil. (Purple gives me the bad ideas, so he was appropriately on my left.) And there was useful and fun chatter.
I spotted the table right nearby being abandoned, and claimed it in the name of #cupcake. phone joined us, and we looked around for Mr. Zune (over thattaway with team). R had been super-invisible all day, and remained super-invisible. Alas. There was various discussion about how we should do dinner at some nebulous near-future point, and introduce #cupcake to phone's significant other. phone does not know StPatience (yet); lb keeps thinking they know each other because they have so many random things in common/similar tastes.
When you are the space cowboy, but some people call you "More respect!", there is a test to see whether you should be playing this song. That test is: can you actually make your guitar wolf-whistle? If not, then perhaps you should either not play this song, or find another instrument for that sound effect.
Purple's rule for me has become an in-joke: No more blowing bees in the courtyard! (It was not that I was previously actually allowed to blow bees in any location, courtyard included, but that now there has to be a specific rule about it.)
lb likes to program language games. And "no more" "blowing bees" "in the courtyard" has somewhat the same ring of "Brad" "with BML" "in his dorm room" -- the savour of a really satisfying Clue answer. He's going to toss the idea around in his brain for a bit and see if it's possible to come up with a three-card mix-and-match form of shenanigans which involves a modifier of some sort, an action, and a location, or things that swap in and out well enough.
A navy-blue shape snapped my brain's attention, and I pointed my chin across the party. There was That Security Guard. The guys looked. I moved nearer Purple. lb: "How about that local sports team?" I unwound a little in the presence of trusted friends.
The party cleared out some. The band ceased performing and began to clean up. Things got more quiet.
Everybody had been playing with the piles of bottle openers from the start. Purple stared at the stack on our table, and aired a thought which had clearly been nagging at him all evening: WTF does a person in today's world need with that many bottle openers anyway; are there really THAT MANY BOTTLES TO OPEN IN THIS MODERN WORLD??!!?
-- And because sometimes life is just really that great and presents opportunities that great, I reach my hand in my tote bag and slam a hard hard lemonade down on the table in front of him. Everybody cracks up.
lb: "I don't drink things I can't screw off with my hand."
Azz: "In the courtyard." (again with the laughter)
Purple reads the bottle: "HARD Blood Orange", and that reminds lb of a certain Japanese celebrity. Pro wrestling characters are wacky and arguably embarrassment-squick when doing Reality TV Stunts in every culture! ~Hoooooo!!!!
Eventually it was time to go. Purple stopped by my cube and we headed for the parking lot. This time the chatter was mostly about our respective levels of general functionality in the morning, and how he'd set off to drive to the dentist but found himself well on his way to work, and thus had to turn around and go back in the dentist direction. Neither of us does particularly well with phone calls on which we have to be functional waking us up (as don't most people, but ... various eugh). For Purple, it's a lot of brain-pain, and then a bad day.
As for me -- I started attempting to explain, and then noticed with a certain amount of detachment that I had in fact started to stutter. Huh. Apparently I have discovered an insufficiently desensitized pathway to Terrible Tuesday. Good to know, that. Purple looked concerned when I started to stutter, and suggested a subject change when I mentioned that Shawn was involved. Good man. I felt it would be helpful if I tried to bash on those pathways just a little bit while in trusted company, so I mused about how perhaps a little less bullshit would have been snuck under my radar if he hadn't been doing it while I was still so groggy. And that I was in a vulnerable position anyway, because that was when I was sufficiently sick from swimmer's ear in both ears that I could not in fact close my jaw far enough to chew.
Despite having heard that part of it before, Purple stared at me with deep concern, and ordered me that I am not to have that happen again. I was torn between various demonstrative responses, but went cat and leaned the top of my head against his reassuringly solid presence. (Apparently he's allowed to issue me ridiculous orders for my own health and safety. It's not a thing I commonly allow.) (I do allow sensible orders for my health and safety from a wider range of people, but "you're not allowed to get sick" is a thing that's gone very, very badly in the past, especially when applied to something specific that I would basically do anything to be able to avoid, but no matter what I do, it happens anyway. So in that circumstance it came off sort of like "You have been placed against your will in a tent full of mosquitoes. I order you not to get bitten" and that was bad because it put me in the position of inevitably violating an order to not do something I had no control over and didn't want to do anyway. But apparently this one, with the ears, is unlikely enough that it doesn't hit that button.)
I now know what I want to be for Halloween. This is a change from the previous several years, where it was a last-minute effort. This one is going to involve a shawl, a necklace, a hat, and a whole bunch of white buttons.
After being advised by Gaff himself that not having yet watched Blade Runner was a Fault, I asked around a bit about who else might be interested in a movie night. And it turned out that the Dean was interested in making it happen. Plus he knows which meeting room has the best sound system.
In search of some better information than those punks at the helpdesk were capable of giving me, I tried googling some of the information I wanted to know about the helpdesk software. This turned up the manufacturer's wiki. I'd been there before, but a little less well armed with information about how the system was specifically failing me. It turns out that sometimes you can trace my progress through various web pages and tasks by the shape of my swearing. I came away with a new appreciation of some of the properties of the thingy-via-email than I'd had before, and some ideas for testing concepts.
My manager is not super chuffed about some of the other new SaaS they're giving us, as part of some initiative which includes dumping some terrible stuff foisted off on us by Oracle probably ten years ago and not upgraded since. There's this whole initiative about the upgrade (well, we're switching vendors to somethings made in this decade), which has been given its own name, branding, and an advertising budget. So far, my manager rates the parts of it she's used about as ugly and hard to use as the helpdesk software. This is not an encouraging start. They dumped some paper and chocolate on our desks, trying to sell us on how awesome and easy to use it was. (Hint: if you need a double-sided 8.5x11 card as a cheat sheet, it still has the chance of being awesome, but it's probably not easy to use.) I took a red pen to mine. Purple pointed out that there was one place where it just said "<Add URL>" -- and it went to the printer like that. I'd missed that. Also, it said (on the paper) that you were supposed to click on this with your phone. Purple tapped his not-so-smart phone against the card. "Click ... click ... click? Nothing's happening?" (Best Purple.)
Sadly, the first date that the Dean proposed for Blade Runner Night is up against something else. He's thinking again about it.
The beer bashes are often themed. Today's beer bash was themed for that SaaS upgrade initiative. The name, of course, has nothing apparent in common with the actual effects. We wandered out to find that there were piles and piles of branded bottle openers on all the tables. Sort of nicely themed for a beer bash, but we actually don't have beer bottles at the beer bash (having long since reached the keg stage) so it all seemed a little futile. I grabbed some nachos and sat primly down at an "I don't know you personally but I'm sort of with your group at lunch and we nod and say hi in the halls" distance from some of Purple's teammates. There was a band, but they weren't amplified past hear-myself-think stage.
Purple and lb emerged and spotted me. They went after refreshments. As I sat there waiting, I saw the Dean. I had been mulling over a few more thoughts, and felt I should share. So I headed over to where he was, and pitched: "You Haven't Seen This Yet?!?!!" -- the movie night series. Just then Purple showed up over one shoulder and lb showed up over the other, for all the world like an angel and a devil. (Purple gives me the bad ideas, so he was appropriately on my left.) And there was useful and fun chatter.
I spotted the table right nearby being abandoned, and claimed it in the name of #cupcake. phone joined us, and we looked around for Mr. Zune (over thattaway with team). R had been super-invisible all day, and remained super-invisible. Alas. There was various discussion about how we should do dinner at some nebulous near-future point, and introduce #cupcake to phone's significant other. phone does not know StPatience (yet); lb keeps thinking they know each other because they have so many random things in common/similar tastes.
When you are the space cowboy, but some people call you "More respect!", there is a test to see whether you should be playing this song. That test is: can you actually make your guitar wolf-whistle? If not, then perhaps you should either not play this song, or find another instrument for that sound effect.
Purple's rule for me has become an in-joke: No more blowing bees in the courtyard! (It was not that I was previously actually allowed to blow bees in any location, courtyard included, but that now there has to be a specific rule about it.)
lb likes to program language games. And "no more" "blowing bees" "in the courtyard" has somewhat the same ring of "Brad" "with BML" "in his dorm room" -- the savour of a really satisfying Clue answer. He's going to toss the idea around in his brain for a bit and see if it's possible to come up with a three-card mix-and-match form of shenanigans which involves a modifier of some sort, an action, and a location, or things that swap in and out well enough.
A navy-blue shape snapped my brain's attention, and I pointed my chin across the party. There was That Security Guard. The guys looked. I moved nearer Purple. lb: "How about that local sports team?" I unwound a little in the presence of trusted friends.
The party cleared out some. The band ceased performing and began to clean up. Things got more quiet.
Everybody had been playing with the piles of bottle openers from the start. Purple stared at the stack on our table, and aired a thought which had clearly been nagging at him all evening: WTF does a person in today's world need with that many bottle openers anyway; are there really THAT MANY BOTTLES TO OPEN IN THIS MODERN WORLD??!!?
-- And because sometimes life is just really that great and presents opportunities that great, I reach my hand in my tote bag and slam a hard hard lemonade down on the table in front of him. Everybody cracks up.
lb: "I don't drink things I can't screw off with my hand."
Azz: "In the courtyard." (again with the laughter)
Purple reads the bottle: "HARD Blood Orange", and that reminds lb of a certain Japanese celebrity. Pro wrestling characters are wacky and arguably embarrassment-squick when doing Reality TV Stunts in every culture! ~Hoooooo!!!!
Eventually it was time to go. Purple stopped by my cube and we headed for the parking lot. This time the chatter was mostly about our respective levels of general functionality in the morning, and how he'd set off to drive to the dentist but found himself well on his way to work, and thus had to turn around and go back in the dentist direction. Neither of us does particularly well with phone calls on which we have to be functional waking us up (as don't most people, but ... various eugh). For Purple, it's a lot of brain-pain, and then a bad day.
As for me -- I started attempting to explain, and then noticed with a certain amount of detachment that I had in fact started to stutter. Huh. Apparently I have discovered an insufficiently desensitized pathway to Terrible Tuesday. Good to know, that. Purple looked concerned when I started to stutter, and suggested a subject change when I mentioned that Shawn was involved. Good man. I felt it would be helpful if I tried to bash on those pathways just a little bit while in trusted company, so I mused about how perhaps a little less bullshit would have been snuck under my radar if he hadn't been doing it while I was still so groggy. And that I was in a vulnerable position anyway, because that was when I was sufficiently sick from swimmer's ear in both ears that I could not in fact close my jaw far enough to chew.
Despite having heard that part of it before, Purple stared at me with deep concern, and ordered me that I am not to have that happen again. I was torn between various demonstrative responses, but went cat and leaned the top of my head against his reassuringly solid presence. (Apparently he's allowed to issue me ridiculous orders for my own health and safety. It's not a thing I commonly allow.) (I do allow sensible orders for my health and safety from a wider range of people, but "you're not allowed to get sick" is a thing that's gone very, very badly in the past, especially when applied to something specific that I would basically do anything to be able to avoid, but no matter what I do, it happens anyway. So in that circumstance it came off sort of like "You have been placed against your will in a tent full of mosquitoes. I order you not to get bitten" and that was bad because it put me in the position of inevitably violating an order to not do something I had no control over and didn't want to do anyway. But apparently this one, with the ears, is unlikely enough that it doesn't hit that button.)
I now know what I want to be for Halloween. This is a change from the previous several years, where it was a last-minute effort. This one is going to involve a shawl, a necklace, a hat, and a whole bunch of white buttons.
no subject
no subject
My colleague in a physically adjacent, but far more back-end department, Mr. Zune, was poking at the new travel thing, and was impressed by how not-terrible it was, while I'm looking at the thing and I see that the same workflow for two operations which should be exquisitely parallel is different at nearly every step, and I'm wondering what sort of clown-shod barrel of monkeys made this thing.