Bend in the Weather (Entries tagged as humour)

Innocent Farmville hostage.

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 11:23:00 +1100

It would appear that even whilst I don't use either Twitter or Facebook -- I happen to be held hostage often to Farmville.

I have elected not to join either two communities for several reasons:

I seriously spend far too many hours a day on a computer (12-18 hours a day). I don't need something else to add to the hours.
I like keeping some level of personal privacy. I really don't have a need to post what I ate for breakfast, what my favourite book/movie/music/clothing is. (You really want to know my favourite music is -- follow me on last.fm). I also have a blog where I can write down my thoughts/opinions/frustrations already.
I have multiple methods to keep in touch with those I elect to already. (Email, IM, Telephone, SMS). I seriously couldn't give a flying razoo about people I went to primary/high school/Uni with. I haven't seen them for over 20 years, and I don't have the desire to kindle the relationship due to the mere fact we attended the same education institution (and for the majority of that time -- compulsory; I'm sure neither of us wanted to be there!)

Having said that -- I don't object to others that do use the services. Each to their own I say. (But don't expect me to accept invites for either -- both are duly ignored!)

Pauline is a Facebook user, she enjoys it... she catches up with a lot of old friends via it. She has put off joining Farmville for months, but finally caved to the constant barrage of invites and joined.

I now seems our daily life resolves around 'harvest time'... a classic case of seeing the Farmville Alarm come into effect. An often quoted phrase at present is

'Ohh, I have to go harvest X .... gimme 10 mins.'

This can happen at the most inconvenient times.

So at present, I feel I'm affectively a Farmville hostage. I'm wanting a virtual world-war to break out so that bombers blow up the fields. I might get a bit of normality back in my life.

Teddy bear moments

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:15:00 +1100

I think we can all attest to the phenomenon known as the Teddy Bear troubleshooting.

I think we all probably need our own Teddy Bears in each of our ~~human office box~~ cubicles or work desks.

So next time you need to do some serious troubleshooting or some heavy lifting when debugging - try pulling out the Teddy Bear.
Even better, you can hug something after it's solved!

tzdata changelog

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 08:40:00 +1100

Often changelogs have important information on why a package was updated. Other times, they are just humorous:

tzdata (2009n-0ubuntu0.9.04.1) jaunty-proposed; urgency=low

* Add argentinas-dst-2009.diff: Disable DST switch for Argentina tomorrow,
as the Argentina government decided yesterday. Careful planning is boring.
Thanks to Margarita Manterola for the patch! (LP: #453165)

-- Martin Pitt Sat, 17 Oct 2009 14:22:39 +0200

Presenting Pr0n.

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Fri, 15 May 2009 02:49:00 +1000

I read Jacinta's post and have to agree with the statements she made.
I'm a red blooded male with crazy hormones running around my body like the next person, yet I know there is a time and a place for such things.

Let's put it in clear context. "Pr0n has no place in a technical conference presentation."

One wouldn't show pr0n related images to their own grandmother or a stranger in the street.
Use this 'stranger in the street' or 'my own grandmother' as a general guide if you are unsure.

If you feel the need to resort to showing such images, you need to ask why.
Is your presentation that dull you need to distract your audience?
Are your presentation skills that poor you need to resort to cheap stunts to keep your audience interested?
Is your knowledge on the given topic limited and needs attention to be misdirected away from the main discussion point?
Are you sure all your audience is of legal age? Being a technical conference doesn't mean there aren't minors present. Keep this in mind.
As a parent, I would be outraged if my teenage child attended such a conference to be subjected to pornographic images.

Playing the 'pr0n card' in a presentation shows a lack of maturity and disregard for your audiences intelligence.
It really isn't 'witty' at all and quite offensive.

Feel free to use humour in your presentation to liven it up, but keep it on a neutral topic and not one that is controversial.
Remember - your presentation is supposed to educate people to your point of view. You won't do this if it polarises your audience!

You would expect a backlash to your presentation if it contained anti-semitic or a white supremacist suggestions... expect the same with anything controversial.

If in doubt, why not run your presentation prior to the conference via the organisers. It's much easier cleaning up the slides prior to the presentation rather than the egg you'll have on your face.

Strange IRC messages from across the Indian Ocean

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 20:34:00 +1100

Leave your IRC client set to away for a day, and then check your private chats later that night.

It's amazing some of the strange banter you get:

[someuser] hi..
[someuser] yesterday we completed the network config change in all servers, and now network part is clear
[someuser] ;P
[someuser] ;P
[someuser] :p
[someuser] please ignore above 3 lines

For the record, I was helping a fellow admin out with configuring a series of bonded interfaces for a server (7 connections - 3 bonded, one not).

I take it the first two lines of the message tells me it's been completed.
The next 3 lines were meant for someone else, whilst the last the user recognised what they had done.

The lesson for today: Check which window you're in before typing.

Generation Y

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 03:13:00 +1100

This was Emailed to me. It made me laugh so much I had to post it.

Generation Y. It all makes sense now!

twitcher updates for Wed 4th June

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 15:43:00 +1000

(06:34) Someone set the alarm far too early. Jumped out of bed in a panic & twisted ankle. #

(06:44) Jumped in the shower. I missed, landed on the soap. Other ankle now throbbing. #

(07:09) Walked out front door to grab morning newspaper. #

(07:10) Eyelid meet bee. Eye now swelling. #

(07:11) Bastard paperboy has got the paper in the damn bird bath again. #

(07:15) The same someone who fiddled with the alarm clock has now set the toaster to the 'burn like a crisp' setting. #

(07:16) Forgot to buy coffee, will have to settle for water. #

(07:20) Toothbrush is now black from the charcoaled toast. #

(07:25) Where the hell are my keys? #

(07:29) Tackled dog rugby style after chasing him around the coffee table. Have managed to recover them, albeit full of dog saliva. #

(07:30) Apparently keyless entry into your car doesn't work after being chewed into a black ball of plastic. #

(07:31) Hit head when entering car. Maybe this is why keyless entry was invented? #

(07:43) If you are going to have a road-rage episode, choose wisely. Now sporting a growing fat lip to match my bug bee-eye. Note to self: Don't abuse a boxer. #

(08:17) All car-parks now taken due to the time lost with the boxer. Have to park 4 blocks further away from the office. A great workout for sore and swollen ankles. #

(08:33) Remember the umbrella even if the weather report says there is little chance of rain. #

(08:53) Finally in at work. #

(08:56) The company provided International Roast is a poor substitute for coffee. #

(09:05) Coffeeeeee annnndddd keeeyboardddddds donnnnn't mix. #