The Three Ninjas

Published on: February 27, 2009

Categories: Vehicles

Tags: cyborgs, RAC, Vehicles

Comments: 2 Comments

An interesting thing happened to me on the way to work…

Start Car and leave home heading to the Insane Asylum, Stop off at petrol station and fill up on diesel. I notice one of my tires is looking a bit deflated, so after failed attempts at humor to make it feel a bit better i pull over to the air compressor for a “top up” only the machine is broke (

“No problems“. Say I.. Off we head to work, about a half mile from the office there is a garage, so I stop, and make use of their working compresser.

Jump back into the car, turn key. and watch as the Glow Plug light flashes on and off doing an impression of an indicator light. “Humm” think I, “thats a bit odd“, but try starting the car anyway.

chugga chugga chugga….. chugga chugga chugga….

Nothing? no starting. nothing…

Arse, open bonnet, realise I not know much about the modern diesel engine, but prod about a bit in the male belief that “it cant hurt!“. Jump back into car… Nothing.

Ok, I may be male, but I admit my limitations. Quick phone to the helpful RAC people. And caused some slight amusement. examples:-

Me: “My car wont start, the diesel light is flashing and it just doesnt start”

RAC: “Whats the correct term for that light?”

Me: “err no idea… I call itthe yellow coil light”

RAC: “Theres a proper name for it”

Me: “Hang on, I’m googling it now.”

RAC: “You said you were stuck on the side of a road?”

Me: “Got to love iphones!”

So the emergency call was sent out, and so I just had to wait the one hour estimated turn up time. So I amused myself talking to the fellow inmates at the asylum on NetIM (See reference to Jibber Jabber)

RAC Borg

Ok, so RAC mechanic turns up. I get out of car and explain the problem, “yellow coil light flashes, and engine no work!” (I’m good with technical wordies me!). To demonstrate my point more, I attempt to start my car.

“Hummmmm, Odd!” says the mechanic, Who pops the hood, leans on the car looks at the engine “Humm” goes to the drivers side, and starts the engine on his first go. He then proceeds to stop and start the engine several times to check its working.

“This is my second call out today” He says looking thoughtful, “And both times the car has just worked as soon as I turned up!”

The mans a Borg. the one time he touched the car he released nanobots that repaired the damage. I will be recommending the RAC to everyone now.

POLL:

Feb26

by GothNinja

Published on: February 26, 2009

Categories: Poll

Tags: Blog, Poll

Comments: 2 Comments

I thought I’d introduce the odd Poll To this site :0)

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Chaos Seems To Follow Me.

Feb16

by GothNinja

Published on: February 16, 2009

Categories: Medical

Tags: Doctors, Medical

Comments: 2 Comments

I finally gave in to peer pressure and went to see the doctor about my eye. So a quick in/out to get it confirmed I have conjunctivitis and need drops, get a prescription, and sorted, all under 10 minutes.

So I’m standing outside the door to the doctors, prescription in hand with a decision to make.

Go to my normal Chemists (When I say normal, I’d not been there in 20 odd years) Which means a drive to the local village, park wherever I can, walk to Chemists and collect my drops.
Walk the 3 paces from my doctors door to the Chemists next door.

So I settle on the next door Chemists, Wander in and hand over my prescription. The chemist wandered off to her terminal

Chemist 1: “You’ve never been here before!“

Me: “I never been ill before“

So she starts to enter my details into the computer

Chemist 1: “How do you get to the next bit of the address, its wont go there?“

Chemist 2: “err you hit that button, then type there“

Chemist 3: “you just move the mouse over there!“

Chemist 1: “oh the mouse!“

So they finally get my details entered into the computer, print off the labels, and come to give me my drops.

Chemist 1: “Here you go, sorry but your address printed out wrong, and you cant really read it”

Me: “err, its ok, I know where i live!“

so. Doctors = 10 minutes, Chemists = 30minutes

Is it just me? Or does everyone else have these same problems?

Epic Epoch

Feb13

Published on: February 13, 2009

Categories: Geek

Tags: Geek, History, Time

Comments: No Comments

Today is a special day in the geeky calander.

Unix or Posix time is a means computers, part of the internet, and millions of systems across the world use for time keeping, calculating, and things like that.

Well today @ 23:31:30 (11:31 and 30 seconds PM to some) the posix time will be 1234567890

Just thought I’d mention this geek milestone.

Red Eye

Feb13

by GothNinja

Published on: February 13, 2009

Categories: Medical, Work

Tags: Medical, Work

Comments: 2 Comments

I have spent the last few weeks suffering for Conjunctivitis.

“A couple of weeks?” I hear you ask.

Well, The first week as it started getting worse I was convinced i’d just scratched my eye, making it inflamed. I was wrong, as my doctor told me withing 5 minutes of me finally going to get medical help.

Its an interesting experiance, If i close my good eye, its like I’m wandering about in my own fog of blurryness making everything look fluffier, Ok Driving has become a much more extreame sport, but you have to take the good with the bad.

The only thing left is to wait for the results of my co-workers poll, who are trying to work out if i now look more like the terminator, or an infected zombie with my one bright red eye.

I cant let you see that Dave.

Why oh Gods, Why?

Feb12

Published on: February 12, 2009

Categories: Customers

Tags: Customers, Work

Comments: No Comments

So we have a new customer, lets call him “MPD“.

Simple job (in theory) He’s fallen out with his web designers/holders and needs his site putting up somewhere else, (or he split from company and wants to go into competition, I did not ask which). Now he had a copy of his site, and database, so it just needed uploading, and tweaking so it could pretend to be dozens of different companies… Easy!

OK, data uploaded, db converted from access to mysql, testing site…. Part doesn’t work. Checking… OK we missing loads of tables, inform MPD and get “oh, didn’t i give you latest version!” new DB got, uploaded…

So yesterday afternoon MPD came into the Insane Asylum under pretense of getting a quote for a site re-write. But no! all afternoon spent going over code “tweaking things” since the code is not a live version and has bugs. And its written by the person who hid the bible code in the bible.

At one point i spent 2 hours trying to find a file in use to fix one problem, only to find out MPD had put wrong values in.!!! Arrrggghhhhh!!!!

Then this morning, MPD phones up again to say the site mysteriously stopped working since it was fixed day before. After checking, i notice the files have a timestamp on them of midnight, so i check he did nothing to them “no i done nothing.!” “no i done nothing” “oh. you mean change things, yes i did that”

MPD only uploaded code copy from his laptop overwriting my changes!

I HATE CUSTOMERS!!!

Jibba Jabber. Pt3

Feb09

Published on: February 9, 2009

Categories: Technology, Work

Tags: NetIM, Technology, Work

Comments: No Comments

Update time….

After the success of my “system monitoring reporting by IM” two things have happend.

1) Every member of the Insane Asylum is now setup on the new IM system. with very little hassle. It did help that i pre setup everyones accounts to have everyone elses accounts on their friends list, and already authorised. (Got to love scripting away repetative tasks).

2) Its been decided that we will no longer be sending our system monitoring messages via IM as it annoyed the Governor, :0)

Jibba Jabber. Pt2

Feb04

Published on: February 4, 2009

Categories: Technology, Work

Tags: NetIM, Technology, Work

Comments: No Comments

SO. work is progressing on my insane idea of a in house IM system for the Insane Asylum. Its currently going by the codename NetIM.

We have the server set up, a couple of users on there to test the functionality, while working out whats the best clients to use for Linux, Windows, & iPhone. (Keeping everyone happy is not an easy task).

Today we have NetIM plugged into to Asylums Monitoring System, So when something goes down the system tells the responsible people via Instant Messaging.

Nagios Monitoring System