A smile for your afternoon

Katie was lost… and then she was found.

(hat tip to Laura’s sidebar at FM²)

The Tech in Black

This little fun tidbit crossed my Twitter Timeline, courtesy of Friend o’ the Hive Sheila O’Malley:

My Help Desk guy’s name is Johnny Cash. I can’t help but say his first/last name. “Johnny Cash, hey, something’s up with my Outlook …”

So of course, fun things encourage playing along…

Well, my boss left the company when I got hired
Gave me a cubicle and then retired
My training was a stack of post-its in a drawer
Now I don’t blame him that he run and hid
But perhaps the meanest thing he did
Was before he left, he hung “IT” on my door

I never knew a thing about computer stuff,
So a lot of folks made it mighty tough
It seems I’ve had to fight the whole day through
Somebody would giggle when the printer jammed
Some fool would crash the network with Porn on Demand
Lemme tell you, life ain’t easy for an IT dude

I learned PCs and I grew a thick skin
You’ll get it fixed when I say when
As I roam from floor to floor to repair the probs
And I made me a vow to the moon and stars
That I’d search the chat rooms, Twitter, and blogs
And kill that man that gave me this awful job

Now you might wonder why I didn’t quit
But times were too hard to spit the bit
So I worked hard to learn all about PCs
And then one night, working overtime
From the corner of my eye, who comes online
But the mangy dog who made me work IT

I knew right away it was my old boss
From the IP address he used, of course,
And his avatar was the same from times gone by
He was crude and loud and a snobbish scold
So I logged in quick, and my blood rUn cold
And I Twittered – “How you be? I work IT! NOW UR GONNA DIE! #revenge”

So I blocked his feed before he could hide
And his email went down, but to my surprise
He come right up with a DoS attack
I rebooted and hacked him live
Crashed through the firewall and into the hard drive
Coding and uploading till both our screens went black

I tell you that I’ve fought tougher hacks
Though I can’t remember that far back -
He phished like a pro and spammed like a Nigerian Prince
I saw him LOL and I saw him WTF
Went for his antivirus, but I booted mine first
And after a minute, I saw “colon-parenthesis”

“Kid,” he texted, “Times are rough
If you want to make it you’ve got to be tough
And I knew a typical degree wouldn’t last you long
So I give you a tech job and said good luck
I knew you’d grow unique skills or bust
And it’s those l33t skilz that’s helped to make you strong!”

“Now I know ur h8in, but why you mad?
It’s not the worst job you’ve ever had
And if you want to you could brick my PC
But you ought to thank me before you do
For your HTML and coding-fu
‘Cause I’m the lousy cuss who put you in IT”

What could I do? I got choked up, shut down my hack
Erased the virus and gave his passwords back
And I come away with a different way to see
And I think about him, here and there,
When I squash some bug or scrub malware
And if I hire a guy, I think I’ll…
SEND HIM TO MARKETING! I STILL HATE THIS JOB!

Snippets

§ Insty reports a new wine in town.

On May 24, 1976, the British wine merchant Steven Spurrier organized a blind tasting of French and Californian wines. … The results shocked the wine world. According to the judges, the best Cabernet at the tasting was a 1973 bottle from Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars in Napa Valley. When the tasting was repeated a few years later—some judges insisted that the French wines had been drunk too young—Stag’s Leap was once again declared the winner, followed by three other California Cabernets. These blind tastings (now widely known as the Judgment of Paris) helped to legitimate Napa vineyards.

But now, in an even more surprising turn of events, another American wine region has performed far better than expected in a blind tasting against the finest French châteaus. Ready for the punch line? The wines were from New Jersey.

Bingley has been way ahead of the curve on this, apparently.  Even I, who imbibeth but a little, have enjoyed the occasional winery tour-and-taste.  Cream Ridge Winery is a good spot for that sort of thing if you’re visiting the Garden State.

So, that’s what traffic looks like

So last night one of my old posts got about 100 hits.  New one-day record at Hive 2.0.  It’s gotten another 53 today, too.

As it turns out, this largess is courtesy of Harvey at IMAO.  Somehow he found the old post and I wound up with a lot of unexpected guests.  Many thanks to him, and to all of you!

Thank you kindly

New blogroll addee Borepatch has returned the favor.  In addition, it seems to have led to a new commenter.  I thank both of them, and concur with BP’s warning to the readers – I have been known to go on at length.

He also offered a bit of advice.  Well, I hate to disappoint in a friendly request, but since the Mrs. Nightfly is allergic to cats, I have none of my own to post pictures of.  In a neighborly spirit, however, I offer this shot of the Official Dog.

Swag

Chez Nightfly tends to be a little over-the-top at Christmastime.

Both Ladybug and I have family tradition to uphold, I suppose.  And we are careful.  We start budgeting for things early because we have numerous cousins and close friends we like not to neglect.  And then there’s always that “oh, they would LOVE this” overrun, but we set ourselves strict guidelines.  (They have to be strict in order to keep violations small and manageable.)

Lately I’ve tried to set myself to a new tradition as well, that of giving away something for every new thing that shows up under the tree or in a stocking.  When you reckon up the various numerous cousins and close friends sending swag back in the other direction, this becomes an admitted challenge, but it’s worth doing.  I even got a head start this year with a few items that I discovered with tags still on from last Christmas.  (If I never missed it, others certainly need it more than I do.)

Sometimes it surprises me that my wife and I live in a house we pay for ourselves… I get old throwback suspicions that someone’s parents are somehow footing the tab.  When stuff starts showing up from other people?  Well, then I suspect that I’ve bamboozled the world, and that it’s really meant for some other, nicer person who looks like me, and of whom I am doing only a cut-rate impersonation.

So far I’ve only discovered two antidotes.

The first is gratitude.  Plenty is a blessing, and privation is a handicap; unless one is choosing hardship for a greater good, it doesn’t help to forego a gift.  It tends in fact to backfire, and looks like pride or snobbery (if not actually becoming so), and makes others feel miserable for trying to be nice.  Better to be happy in receiving as well as giving.

The second is watching others be happy.  My younger relatives are a delight as they tear into wrapped gifts and see what’s inside – half the fun is the discovery, and the other half is the excitement of everyone together laughing and enjoying themselves.  It takes a little while for them to really realize that the gifts are theirs to keep and enjoy all the year.

I think that this year my impersonation may have improved.  The time we all spent together was lovely.  I hope that you and yours also had a fine Christmas together.

More happiness wishes, and a quick blog note

First the note – I have the Idol recap written, but events have taken precedence.  To wit:

Wednesday’s Happiness Wish is very personal to me.  One of my longest and dearest friends, whom I’ve known since college, suffered the loss of his youngest child over the weekend.  She was born with Trisomy 18, so it wasn’t entirely unexpected, but it still tears one up to hear of it.  So so sad for him and his wife.  They have two older children as well to think of, both of an age to be aware and form lasting memories of this hard time.  My Wednesday wish is for them, for healing and consolation.

For Thursday, my wish is happier.  We have a number of mothers who work in my building, and one was picked up here by her   husband, and her two young daughters came rattling through.  They were sunshine in dresses – happy, curious, friendly.  They borrowed some dry-erase markers from a few people around the office, and when I left they were in one of the conference rooms, doodling on the big board while Mom finished up her tasks.  I wish them happiness.

Today - how can it be anything but the terribly-suffering people of Japan?  The aftershocks from the quake are approaching 7.0 on the Richter Scale, with the main quake last night (our time) hitting 8.9.  The video has been wrenching.  I’m stretching the premise here because happiness is not the proper wish, but I wish them well – I wish their safety and protection and that their loved ones will be found alive and unhurt when it’s over.

All this wishing has had one good tangible effect thus far.  I came into the office this morning and found that the two girls had returned my dry-erase marker.  To be honest, I would probably not have missed it for a while, nor blamed them if in their excitement they left it in the conference room.  That’s what kids often do; their minds fill quickly with the immediate, with the next exciting thing, and they lose what was just past.  It was somehow so dear to find the marker back in its place, and it really made my morning.

More of Happiness Month, and a blog note

First, the note: I added a page to the top menu, right next to “About.”  It handles a few things that I neglected earlier, or weren’t useful to talk about until now.

On to Happiness Month, which suffered a serious blow over the weekend, as I didn’t get around to Friday’s wish until Saturday, and neither of the other wishes happened at all.  That leaves me two wishes in arrears and a third wish for the day.  And I really wanted each wish to have its own unique post, it’s own turn in the sun, if you will.

Since the wishing of happiness is not about me, I will not spend time here being angry with myself for this state of affairs – I note only that I am, in fact, quite angry, and that it helps nobody, and that’s that.  On to wishes:

Saturday’s wish is meant for the family and friends of that poor young man, Wes Leonard, who made the winning shot to complete a 20-0 season for his high school basketball team, but collapsed while being carried off the court in truimph.  He died at aged 16.  That’s just incredibly sad and I hope that his town and his loved ones find solace in the weeks and months to come, remembering him happy and successful, doing what he so loved to do.

Sunday’s wish is for Sheila, who lost a very dear friend last week, too young as is usually the case.  Lately I see a lot of people I know dealing with bad times and the deaths of loved ones, and I know how terrible this always is; how little everything else seems to matter, how small the things we all say in comfort; and yet how much small kindnesses can mean in such times.  Happiness is not the right wish here, so please consider this wish for peace and healing, and for grief to work as it needs to for your lasting benefit.

And since that’s a lot of heaviness – my friends adopted a rescue cat last week.  They probably don’t need the help since pets are living happiness, but I wish them many happy years together with kitteh.

Didn’t forget! Wish Happiness Month continues

It’s Brett Loewenstern, American Idol contestant.  He’s so endearingly geeky and odd.  America sent Brett to the Toadstools of Shame because his cover of Light My Fire was… well, they agreed with me.  It wasn’t really that good.  Terrible song choice.  He didn’t really sing it like he could have, nor how Jim Morrison did.  Kind of between two stools; not bad, but just weird.  In a normal year, it would have been enough to survive the cut from 24 to 20.  This year, cutting directly down from 24 to 12?  Nope.

(Top three guys, for me, were Scott McCreery, Casey Abrams, and James Durbin.  I’m a little sad for Ralph Macchio – er, Robbie Rosen – he was pretty good but lost in the vast middle.)

I have to say that thus far, I think America’s done well identifying a good top ten.  Jordan Dorsey, for example – big voice, bigger tool.  He’s on the outs so far.  Clint “Jun” Gamboa – Kinda bleah cover of “Superstition.” Goofy, pitchy – he’s out.  The girl with the humongous soul-crushers? Her poor suffering ears have a toadstool each to spread out on.  (Seriously, those earrings are hubcaps with tassels on them.  She’s wearing dreamcatchers on her head and it’s bizarre.)  And then, there’s Brett.

Brett was the very last of the 24 to get in, and he did so over two very good singers.  It’s possible that he has no chance in the wild card round… will he even be one of the three boys out of seven that the judges will hear?  At this point I don’t know.  I’m watching the first guy, Stefano, sing his wild card song now.  He’s nailing it.  But that’s not the point. Brett’s endearing even if he’s not a top-12 talent.  And you don’t have to be the next American Idol to sing for a living, or to be happy doing something else for a living.  You can enjoy yourself without a talent show imprimatur.

So Brett – I wish you happiness, little bro.  I wish you freedom forever from those pinheads who tormented you in school for your gifts and your gentleness.  I wish you the strength to deal with the careless cruelties of life, to be above them and beyond them.  Be happy, kiddo.

Happiness Month

An off-hand comment in Tracey’s Snarktacular Oscars 2011 liveblog has made me think.

We were talking about the usual topics: the jowls of Tom Hanks, the presenters being way more comfortable than the official hosts, the awful awful writing, Best Sound vs. Best Sound Editing, bored snipers, the Best Foreign-Language Boobins, and the vain hope that Billy Crystal or Sandra Bullock or ANYONE would quietly assume command from the overmatched James Franco and Anne Hathaway.  And then Tracey said it…

I loved Reese’s Brigitte Bardot ponytail. She looked fabulous. It sounds corny to say, but she just kind of warms my heart. I find myself wishing happiness for her. I’m a sap.

And you know what?  That’s not corny – or it shouldn’t be.  It’s sweet.  Frankly, we need more saps.  So that’s what this is about.  I am officially declaring March to be Happiness Month.  To join, all you have to do is wish happiness for one person per day throughout March – via Twitter, your own blogs, and (this is best) your prayers if you are inclined to it.

First off – I wish happiness to Charlie Sheen.  Yeah, you, Charlie.  You may be bitchen and winning and all of that, but this really isn’t funny.  I mean… look at the two “goddesses” the ”Vatican assassin warlock” has been palling around with:*

The older of these girls looks 17.  The other girl probably has an 3-ring binder with geometry homework and “Mrs. Charlie Sheen” inside.

If you were actually happy, you wouldn’t be chasing it so hard.  You wouldn’t make such a public and determined spectacle of your own behavior, as if you had to prove to the world how good you have it.  You wouldn’t be so violently rejecting everything that you suspected might help you be a stronger and healthier man, who no longer needed everything you’re accustomed to prop you up. Above all, you wouldn’t be so furiously on the attack against everyone else.  You wouldn’t claim in that interview to love and support and thank your fans, and then forty seconds later dismiss their concerns with “It’s sad for them” and “Get a job, anyone?”  (It starts at 7:50 of the clip linked above the picture.)

You share what you’ve got in this world.  Happy people naturally leave happiness in their wake; miserable people spread misery.  It’s all they’ve got to share.  So Charlie Sheen, you are my first wish.  All snark aside – be happy.

* edit, 3/02/11 – Sheen called HIMSELF the Vatican assassin warlock, not the “goddesses.” In my defense, I can only quote the man himself: I can’t process Charlie Sheen with my normal brain.