Bleh.

It’s been an annoying and underwhelming week. I don’t know if I can lay it all at the feet of the new moon which is chucking all sorts of amusing energies around the place, a case of partial malnutrition due to a lack of money (and — obviously — food), a terrible spot to sit at work (right beside a major highway), the weird weather (last week, freaking freezing, this week, mid twenties), the constant chatter of geeks around me getting on my goat, Sysadmin buggering around with my computer or Microsoft products.

I’ll take the twin powdery lines of least resistance.

Last week we had the “new product launch” thing here at work, and my desktop image was hijacked by Sysadmin. Their reasoning was that Marketing should have checked it with everyone, but all I found was that it was irritating to have something changed on me without telling me, and — goddamn it — I don’t like being advertised at.

So I trolled the interweb for a hack, and managed to get into my own registry (as it had been disabled by the aforementioned twonks in Sysadmin) and dug through layer-upon-layer of MS contortionistic bollocks until I found the particular key; which I changed.

I had to keep changing it daily because those wacky Sysadmin guys had worked out that the easiest way to piss me off was to push updates through to the computer when no-one was looking.

Fortunately, they weren’t able to stick advertising on my desktop, as — thanks to the help of a co-worker — I’d disabled sysadmin access to the folder on the local computer which acted as suppository for said marketing crap.

But that, unfortunately, isn’t what’s annoying me.

Today I had to fight with a WindoZe 2003 Server. That was fun.

It’s hosting the TWiki instance which I’m working with, madly converting existing and creating new user documents for the happy little proles in the call-centers. I don’t know if they’re happy, I’m making that part up. They could be mad as a dozen jihadists on a party line; they could be as nutty as a conkertree, what do I know?

Anyway, I was finding the computer was running morbidly slow.. the sort of slow that indicates something is about to go “ping” within the black svelte Dell — Hell — plastic box. So I wandered over to it…

…I haven’t said that I dont’ work ON the server physically. I link to it through a web connection and through a Run window if necessary to do Jiggery-Pokery…

… and found there was no keyboard or mouse.

Fucking thieves.

So I tromped downstairs, found the guy who has a box full of keyboards and mice and asked if I could get one of each, please.

These items of dross thus obtained, I returned and plugged them into the server machine, to be greeted with two messages asking if it was okay to restart the computer because new software had been installed.

I restarted.

Then, while the Dual processors churned away happily, with all the expertise of a cheesemaker in a particularly well lit barn, and the dulcet tones of another worker’s music trilled away happily in his absence (what’s wrong with bloody headphones? What IS it with people?!), I waited for the machine to restart.

So I got in, and the frigging change password message came on.

Now, there’s a lot of things which are irritating and boring, and one of them is this sodding message.

Your password will expire in 14 days. Do you want to change it now

Fourteen fucking days? Half a bleeding month? What the F*ck is that all about.

Oh, again, it’s the wacky fun-loving guys in Sysadmin having fun with everyone.

No, I said, and clicked the appropriate button; then waited for another few minutes while the rest of the system updates were finished off.

If I’d had any money, I’d have wandered off and had a crafty Chai. Not the stuff downstairs, which is like drinking hot water mixed with a quarter cup of sugar and a pinch of cinnamon; what’s THAT all about?! No, I’d have walked a couple of blocks to where i can get a decent cup of — albeit pre-brewed in a bottle – chai.

Perhaps that’s one of the things bugging me. No, not the bloody chai. The money. Probably. Comes from being constantly whacked over the head with “you need money” from my father for twenty fucking years… my brother believed him and got money obsessed, I took the other route which occasionally leaves me in the shit, but on the whole removes the whole fear-factor of financial ruin. I’ve been penniless in France and Australia; it’s hard but I’ve worked through things like that, as I’m working through them now.

So the computer started up again, and I tried out the wiki… except it took Freaking Ages To Load. Even got a warning message saying “a script is taking longer to load than expected, do you want to abort”.

No, I don’t. I want to get to the bottom of why this Server with not one but TWO processors is grinding to a halt like it’s been dipped in a bath of Golden Syrup.

There’s a funny memory – I used to eat Golden Syrup on bread as a kid.

No bloody wonder I can’t handle sugar now.

I started uninstalling things; Google Desktop was the first. That was an utter bag of powdered offal if ever I saw one. When I was running it on twin displays it crapped-out like it was the victim of a dozen cases of salmonella.

I progressed to windows components that weren’t useful; easy done and happy to remove them. I had to restrain myself with my desire to frag the whole OS; unfortunately I don’t know enough about Linux to install it, and would have had to spend a couple of days reinstalling TWiki.

And I restarted.

No, I Don’t Want To Fucking Change My Password.

Churn…churn…churn…

Right, up it comes again.

Silly me, let’s try it in Internet Exploder.

A message came up talking about PHishing and whether I’d like to enable or disable the filter, or be asked again next time until I caved-in and did what the heathen gods at Redmond want me to do. Never!

Only I couldn’t do anything. That’s because the damn thing had locked-up. IE, already low in the opinion scales, in the same way that chewing my own elbows off is, had disappointed again.

I killed the process and tried again.

And killed the process after chucking the mouse at the screen, while uttering “fucking Microsoft Crap”.

I tried again in Firefox, and got the same error (the one about the script).

I tried the defrag…but it conked-out at 3% and didn’t move again — even though there’s hardly anything on the bloody computer.

I think it’s going to kark it. I should get it changed-over.

*sigh*

What else is irritating me? Could be a conversation I had with a friend yesterday… could be emails from over the weekend…

Could be I need something to eat. I’m down to Very Fucking Little at home, but thankfully am being paid tomorrow. This means there will be much rejoicing and a big breakfast out to reward myself for my hard yards in the malnutrition department.

I might even do a Bikram class; I’ve been too shagged this week to do one… especially after the hardcore coding I did over the weekend.

But you’re a writer I hear you say… go on, you can do it.

Yes, comes the answer… but I’m branching out for the sake of my sanity into other areas: web design and pinching other people’s CSS and Javascript to name but three.

And seeing as the first time I actually used JavaScript was in the wiki at work about a week and a half ago, the things I’ve achieved in the site I’m putting together are nothing short of Bleeding Miraculous.

However, the site isn’t quite right yet, and lacking the years of experience in web design that most people who happily use that moniker share, I have catching up to do.

Doing my best is sometimes all I can do… but again, I am tripped up by the vampiric hordes of Redmond with their twin abominations, Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 7.

Render a website one of you.

Why won’t you do it properly.

You are doing it properly?

How come your distant cousin Firefox, and the grrl down the street Safari can do this.

Oh, it’s because you’re the mutant offspring of your ex CEO and new CEO.

And you try, and I understand that you do… the issue I have is that your creators can actually fix you both up, and refuse to do so, that’s what I find so awful.

Really.

Can someone explain to me why IE6 and IE7 can’t be patched to render pages in Exactly the same way as every other damn browser on the market?

Is it some kind of perverted weird-arse Holier-than-thou, we’re-bigger-than-anyone, 90% market-share arrogance of their cross-eyed knucklehead management?

Someone? Anyone?