Down the wrong trouser leg of time.*
If you have the special little widget you'll see that CJS has added a GNU to the web server headers.
No, we've not gone completely stark raving bonkers (although I sometimes wonder), with several Terry Pratchett fans in the office we've joined the global memorial of keeping him name alive forever, for as he himself wrote
Find out more about our small piece of crackpottery here: http://www.gnuterrypratchett.com/ or get your own little widget from the links.
Fire, fire, fetch the water...
Leaving Discworld behind things are not much more sensible here on earth, our latest lot of IT gremlins are running amok and hanging their washing out to dry on the computer network. A lengthy list of minor bugs, glitches and general IT annoyances to be fixed was given to our IT consultant and we arranged that he'd come to make a start on Tuesday however at quarter to four we received an email that said "Sending this from back of the fire engine". You see he's also a retained fireman and there was a moor fire that required crews from several stations to attend. Real fire takes precedence over our gremlins.
It sometimes feels that our trousers of time belong to the office dogs (ie have four legs to get lost in), I felt like I was down maybe the third leg one day this week when a particularly aggressive telemarketer was trying to sign us up for health insurance. She'd tried a few months ago and was put off but on the third phone call this week it was easier to let her get on with her spiel and as I was in the middle of boring paperwork and filing for end of year accounts it was a, I'm not going to say pleasant or even welcome, distraction. Despite saying right at the start that we didn't have or want health insurance I was 'treated' to the whole performance. With this particular insurance company you get cash back and benefits, she was most adamant that we'd feel the benefits of gym membership and we could get reduced or even free membership of a certain group, so after a quick google later when I find that our nearest one is 40 miles away, I asked if it was really worth travelling for an hour to spend 30 minutes in a spin class before getting showered and an hour back home when it's so much easier to walk out of the door and exercise the dogs across the wonderful rolling North York Moors for an hour or two. Ah but that's not free (which is news to me) but she could get me reduced membership of the National Trust (some confusion over National PARK and TRUST there I think) and then I wouldn't need to pay the entry fee! Um... No, no deal. So she tried "how do you relax?" and before I could even offer an opinion launched into an offer of free cinema tickets once a month or more, when I informed her that our nearest cinema in their chosen chain was over 30 miles away I was actually met with stunned silence - the first time she'd shut up since I answered the phone 15 minutes previously - before a stuttered "but that's not possible; everyone has a local cinema." which allowed me to get a word in edgeways and asked if she actually knew where we were? I didn't get an answer before she launched into the benefits of their treatment plans when she finally ground to a halt I said, as I had the beginning, that we're weren't interested and would not be taking out health insurance with them or anyone else come to that. At that point she slammed the phone down - and good riddance say I as I exited the trousers at the ankle and waded onward into the mire of end of year accounts.
By the way, if you fancy joining us on our journeys around the trousers of time, the right or wrong legs, we're looking for a new Team Member, find out more here.
(and if you understood even half of today's waffle you'll be well on the way to fitting in!)
*A typically Prachett way of describing parallel universes or even multiverses.
It looks like this (the little lit up lantern)
or even this (little domino):
No, we've not gone completely stark raving bonkers (although I sometimes wonder), with several Terry Pratchett fans in the office we've joined the global memorial of keeping him name alive forever, for as he himself wrote
"A man is not dead while his name is still spoken." - Going Postal, Chapter 4 prologue.So it's not really a wildebeest running around the website, just a special little message.
Find out more about our small piece of crackpottery here: http://www.gnuterrypratchett.com/ or get your own little widget from the links.
Fire, fire, fetch the water...
Leaving Discworld behind things are not much more sensible here on earth, our latest lot of IT gremlins are running amok and hanging their washing out to dry on the computer network. A lengthy list of minor bugs, glitches and general IT annoyances to be fixed was given to our IT consultant and we arranged that he'd come to make a start on Tuesday however at quarter to four we received an email that said "Sending this from back of the fire engine". You see he's also a retained fireman and there was a moor fire that required crews from several stations to attend. Real fire takes precedence over our gremlins.
It sometimes feels that our trousers of time belong to the office dogs (ie have four legs to get lost in), I felt like I was down maybe the third leg one day this week when a particularly aggressive telemarketer was trying to sign us up for health insurance. She'd tried a few months ago and was put off but on the third phone call this week it was easier to let her get on with her spiel and as I was in the middle of boring paperwork and filing for end of year accounts it was a, I'm not going to say pleasant or even welcome, distraction. Despite saying right at the start that we didn't have or want health insurance I was 'treated' to the whole performance. With this particular insurance company you get cash back and benefits, she was most adamant that we'd feel the benefits of gym membership and we could get reduced or even free membership of a certain group, so after a quick google later when I find that our nearest one is 40 miles away, I asked if it was really worth travelling for an hour to spend 30 minutes in a spin class before getting showered and an hour back home when it's so much easier to walk out of the door and exercise the dogs across the wonderful rolling North York Moors for an hour or two. Ah but that's not free (which is news to me) but she could get me reduced membership of the National Trust (some confusion over National PARK and TRUST there I think) and then I wouldn't need to pay the entry fee! Um... No, no deal. So she tried "how do you relax?" and before I could even offer an opinion launched into an offer of free cinema tickets once a month or more, when I informed her that our nearest cinema in their chosen chain was over 30 miles away I was actually met with stunned silence - the first time she'd shut up since I answered the phone 15 minutes previously - before a stuttered "but that's not possible; everyone has a local cinema." which allowed me to get a word in edgeways and asked if she actually knew where we were? I didn't get an answer before she launched into the benefits of their treatment plans when she finally ground to a halt I said, as I had the beginning, that we're weren't interested and would not be taking out health insurance with them or anyone else come to that. At that point she slammed the phone down - and good riddance say I as I exited the trousers at the ankle and waded onward into the mire of end of year accounts.
By the way, if you fancy joining us on our journeys around the trousers of time, the right or wrong legs, we're looking for a new Team Member, find out more here.
(and if you understood even half of today's waffle you'll be well on the way to fitting in!)
*A typically Prachett way of describing parallel universes or even multiverses.