ok, so the water's fixed. The plumber came this morning and took an hour longer than planned, so I was late in to work :) dommage.

This bloody blaster worm's everywhere. In the office, on customer PCs.....if I catch the bastard who released it, why,I'll... I'll....probably ask him\her to teach me how to do it! Anyway, McAfee's Stinger program's a great one to get rid of it. Microsoft have released a patch(!) to secure the vulnerability that is exploited by this particular beast, so you oughta install that too. Another fun day in plug-it-in-and-watch-the-lights-change land. The guy pulling 2 PS2 and 1 USB extension cables managed to decapitate a co-ax cable used by some video conferencing kit, so there was a minor panic when the planned conference an hour later was endangered. Not to worry though, there was no danger of it! Frankly, I wasn't too worried, the phones were still up. What did we do before video conference, use smoke signals?? And what is it with some of these people who flip out at the slightest inconvenience?? MS Word has a blue background instead of white...aaagh I can't work like this! Ooooh, aaaaah, the margins in Word are too wide....try the macro button that is labelled RESET MARGINS! Oh Dear, I can't print....try setting the right default printer, dumbass!!
Sometimes I wonder why otherwise intelligent people turn into blithering idiots when put in front of a PC. Sometimes all you gotta do is restart the damn thing and it'll be fine, but no.....they'll sit in front of it for hours waiting for someone else to do it.

Do I sound bitter? I'm not really. I've been in this game for a while now, 2 years telephone tech support, another 2 and a half on desktop\LAN\WAN\telecoms, and it's just a fact. People are afraid of what they don't understand. And most don't even try to understand.

Anyway, it's time to leave this place. I'm going for a pint.

hmm....last one came out twice. Looks like I've yet to get the hang of this blogging stuff. Ah well.

Today the plumber came to fix the leaking, or rather fully flowing, tap. But, of course, there's a problem. They need to replace it, and have to present an estimate to the landlord. So that's 4 days without hot water. He just called to say he can come tomorrow, so the end is in sight. Still, it could be worse. It could be winter, and washing in cold water is NO fun in winter, I can tell ya from bitter experience. What else? We've been going out a little too much lately, the Green Linnet, a jazz\blues concert on Monday night that was great, but getting between four and five hours sleep more than two nights in a row isn't very conducive to, well, anything, really!

It's great fun, though.
Well, I've got work to do.....signing off :)

[ Sun Aug 24, 11:30:58 PM | John Mahony | edit ]
So here I am, Monday morning about to head out into another week of work. The tap in the bath won't stop running, so we have to get the plumber around later. Ahh well.....c'est la vie. No point flipping out over it. I'm beginning to get fed up with this whole work thing, though. It's just getting in the way of all the other stuff I'd like to do, but hey, it pays the bills. And I suppose that here, in France, it's not like you have to break your back. 35 work week, 5 weeks holiday a year and another dozen or so national holidays......whew, it's like the workers paradise here (now where have I heard that one before?!). So life goes on, I can't complain too much. My job pays pretty well, they've given me a laptop for work and a PC for my own use at home, all you can eat munchies and snacks, in the office, plus lunch....not bragging or anything, but just trying to find all the bright spots. They say far away fields are always greener, and I'm looking a lot at those fields now. I should be a little more grateful for what I have though. A beautiful wife, a nice apartment, a job, let's face it, that doesn't break my back on most days, and more than enough money to live on. Life's not so bad, after all.

So here I am, Monday morning about to head out into another week of work. The tap in the bath won't stop running, so we have to get the plumber around later. Ahh well.....c'est la vie. No point flipping out over it. I'm beginning to get fed up with this whole work thing, though. It's just getting in the way of all the other stuff I'd like to do, but hey, it pays the bills. And I suppose that here, in France, it's not like you have to break your back. 35 work week, 5 weeks holiday a year and another dozen or so national holidays......whew, it's like the workers paradise here (now where have I heard that one before?!). So life goes on, I can't complain too much. My job pays pretty well, they've given me a laptop for work and a PC for my own use at home, all you can eat munchies and snacks, in the office, plus lunch....not bragging or anything, but just trying to find all the bright spots. They say far away fields are always greener, and I'm looking a lot at those fields now. I should be a little more grateful for what I have though. A beautiful wife, a nice apartment, a job, let's face it, that doesn't break my back on most days, and more than enough money to live on. Life's not so bad, after all.

testing....this is a test post.