Friends Without Faces

We sit and we type, and we stare at our screens

We all have to wonder, what this possibly means.

With our mouse we roam, through the rooms in a maze

Looking for something or someone, as we sit in a daze.

We chat with each other, we type all our woes

Small groups we do form, and gang up on our foes.

We wait for somebody, to type out our name

We want recognition, but it is always the same.

We give kisses and hugs, and sometimes flirt

In Emails we chat deeply, and reveal why we hurt.

We do form friendships - but - why we don't know

But some of these friendships, will flourish and grow.

Why is it on screen, we can be so bold

Telling our secrets, that have never been told.

Why is it we share, the thoughts in our mind

With those we can't see, as though we were blind.

The answer is simple, it is as clear as a bell.

We all have our problems, and need someone to tell.

We can't tell real people, but tell someone we must

So we turn to the 'puter, and to those we can trust.

Even though it is crazy, the truth still remains

They are Friends Without Faces, and odd little names.

This was sent to me from a jokes group I had subscribed to a long time ago. (www.petersjokes.com).

It made me think back to my mIRC \ ICQ days. Friends without faces. How true this poem is. The first mIRC channel I joined was based in Singapore. So for me, some of those people I chatted with, are still 'Friends without faces'.

My nick those days ranged from Lazzy - Lazygirl - Astrogirl - Kaka - Laz.

Don't ask why. I'm not even sure why I went through so many different nicks. I was still the same person behind those nicks. Actually, I can recall why I used the Lazygirl & Astrogirl nicks, it was because I found out there would be more people messaging me when they could reasonably assume they were sending a message to a girl. Where as I would log on as Lazzy or Laz when I was just looking for people I frequently talk to and on the days when I didn't feel like talking to anyone new.

I remember I stopped using the 'Kaka' nick when I found out it means something like 'Shit' in some other language. Can't remember which one it was though.

Anyway, to my friends without faces, if you can recognise any of the nicks mentioned above....

Hi.. :) *waves*

Users

A user identified a bug on one of our systems today, and had it lodged as a high priority support call. The Luser said the application they were using wasn't able to update when a certain type of change was made. After a quick investigation into the matter we realised the Luser had simply not clicked on the "Update Button" to submit the change.

Apparently this was the second time the same Luser had lodged the same call. (Albeit on a different form of the same application).

My colleague who sits next to me was assigned the task of explaining to the Luser why the form had not updated.

I feel for him.

He had to call the Luser and nicely explain to them why they need to click on the Update button to submit changes. And also to let them know, not being able to update a data field does not constitute to a high priority call. High priority calls are reserved for specific events, for example, the application had fallen over and no one can access it.

He handled the support call well. Calm. Voice although slightly restrained, he did manage to kept his cool when explaining the whole scenario to the Luser. Kudos to him.

If it was me, I think I would just run upstairs, half strangled the Luser, rubbed his head into the keyboard and write "Click on the Update Button" in big red letters on his monitor using a permanent marker pen.

Then again, maybe not.

I probably think about doing that to a Luser every single day. But so far its only been me banging my own head on my keyboard.

On the subject of users and support calls, I found a very funny website about one tech support guy's neverending saga with having to deal with another tech's calls. Its called The Chronicles of George.

After reading a couple of those entries, I feel glad that I atleast work with a great team of techies. And that I don't have to put up with something like this.

My favourite support ticket on the site is on page 18. The one about the ergonomic keyboard. Happy reading... :)

Skirmish !

"Skirmish, or Paintball as it is known, is the fastest action packed adult adventure sport in the world. It is for people from all walks of life over the age of 18 years. A combination of childhood "cops and robbers", "cowboys and Indians" and "hide and seek", skirmish is much more sophisticated and certainly more challenging.....and women stand on an equal footing with men. Physical attributes do not create good players, but quick thinking, luck, daring and teamwork do."

Women stand on equal footing as men ???

Not really when it comes to men being more comfortable\able-bodied with carrying more ammo around than girls.

More Ammo = More Firing Rounds = Greater Chance of Hitting Your Target

We had a choice of three different gun packages to choose from. The higher the price, the better the gun. Package A, consisted with a gun which could fire 1-2 paint balls at a time. Package B, 6-8 paintballs and Package C ... ~17 paintballs at a single pull of a trigger.

If you wanted a better gun, you would need to purchase more ammo or run the risk of running out of ammo on the battleground (No ammo, means you become like a squatting duck, waiting to be shot at - not a very good idea). Therefore the guys (the ones with a thicker wallet) had a slight advantage....

Able to Carry More Ammo = Much Better Gun = More Fire Power = RAMBO

The skirmish was on Saturday afternoon. And I can still feel the pain from my war wounds. I've counted 7 bruises on my body, not to mention the sore waistline from having to carry around 600 rounds of ammo. The worst part was actually getting shot on the top of my ear. Who ever mentioned that the ear is one of the most sensitive parts of your body was not wrong.

So just to reiterate again, here is a photo of one of my more painful bruises I accumulated from the skirmish.

By the way, this is my thigh, and not my arm. The bruise covers over half of my upper left thigh and is slightly bigger than my fist. The lighter colour in the middle is actually where the paintball hit. Because its still fresh, the bruise hasn't fully surfaced yet, but thats the area where it hurts the most.

And unfortunately is as painful as it looks.

Not to say I didn't have fun, but I think I enjoy my battles on the Online world a bit more.

Friday Again

Its exactly 12.31am and its Friday again.

Too soon. Too fast.

It feels like my week has practically flown past without me being apart of it. Or atleast thats how it feels like. Yet I have been so busy this week, I no longer can remember what I did on Monday or Tuesday anymore. All I can recall, is that I've had a busy week.

So here I am blogging at 12.36am, in an attempt to make myself feel tired and eventually fall asleep.

I know if I pick up my book to read now, I probably wont put it down until I have finished the whole book. And Warcraft is definitely out of the question. That would just make me more awake than ever.

Wide awake still @ 12.48am.

My one year mark with Pete came and went yesterday. And I am left with a sudden urge to scratch the so-called 'One-year-itch'. Maybe its because he didn't get me anything. Which at first, I wasn't actually that concerned about. Especially since I only managed to remember the occasion and grab a box of chocolates on my way out buying lunch that day. Or maybe its because when I asked for my present and he mentioned something about getting me a 'Poker Set' - because we don't currently have one.

Thats just about the most unromantic thing I had ever heard.

Not sure if my insomnia has anything to do with this. Its 1am now. If I am ever going to have enough sleep to try and wake up tomorrow then I think I should try closing my eyes now.

Good night all.

Its a Sign

One of the disks of the Server where we are going to be doing a massive database implementation tomorrow has just crapped itself and died.

If it had crapped itself tomorrow then the implementation would have been called off.

But I still think its a Sign on how our impending implementation will go tomorrow.

*Sigh... Why do all major implementations have to be done on Friday nights ?

I.T. people have a life too you know. (Yes, I know about the 2 extra days we have available to get everything back to normal again). But we seriously don't like it when an implementation goes wrong and then been told that luckily we have 'planned' two extra days for you to have the issue fixed.

By the way, those two extra days are called the Weekend.

Saturday & Sunday.

And its not like we get the next Monday off or something. Because Monday is a working day.

For now, I am just twiddling my thumbs, waiting for the new parts to arrive on site. So that the crapped out disk can be replaced and the new one rebuilt.

Fingers X the implementation goes well tomorrow, as I have plans this weekend.

Warcraft is a plan.

Housework

"FORCING your wife to kneel down and scrub the house floor clean is a crime because it amounts to mistreatment, Italy's highest appeals court has ruled."

I wonder when the day would come when it would be illegal for any one member of a household to do more than half of the domestic chores.

I've realised that the "other half" in my relationship has a huge issue when it comes to cleaning. I'm talking about the Real Cleaning - Bathroom.. Toilets... Bunny's poo poo and his other bodily wastes. He just refuses to touch it. Therefore, cleaning it would be out of the question.

To be fair, he does have the garbage duty and does the vacuum for the apartment as well.

However, during the past month he has been on holidays (i.e. Free and bumming around at home). So I experimented in trying to get him to do some of the cleaning. As I'm not exactly a Tidy person myself, my level of threshold when it comes to the tolerence of being 'clean and tidy' is actually quite high.

So began the battle to see who has a higher tolerence threshold.

With me not doing anything with the hope that someone else will pick up the chores. While dropping Not-So-Subtle Hints along the way.

The result ?!

The carpet not being vacuumed for the whole month.

It appears that he has decided.. 'If I don't do my bit - he doesn't need to do his bit either'.

Dammit.

However, I'm not calling this a failed experiment yet. I think I can still hold out for a couple more weeks. Or atleast until a watermark rim starts appearing above the water level of the toilet bowl.

Calendar Girls

Lately there has been alot of hype about a Calendar showing images of scantily clad IT professional women. A lot of people are saying the calendar is not portraying the right image to the public. While others are saying it gets rids of the "Geeky" image associated with IT, thus attracting more females to the industry. The calendar proved to be so controversial that the ACS (Australian Computer Society) has even pulled out of the calendar's sponsorship.

The aim of the calendar was to promote awareness and to attract more females to the profession.

I'm not sure about the rest of my female associates in the IT industry, but I did not become a Systems Engineer because of pictures of scantily covered women.

Truth to tell, I do not totally condemn it. Atleast this year's calendar has certainly succeeded in meeting it's 'awareness target'.

However, while I would love the idea of getting rid of the "Geeky" image so often associated with IT. I doubt having a calendar showing semi-naked girls would be the way to go.

Training Course

It took me about 10 secs to realise there was no external Internet access. The training room computers were only linked together on a hub. I figured it was probably due to past experiences, where trainees were spending too much time surfing on the Internet and not enough time paying attention to the instructor.

About 2 hours into the training course and three coffees later, I could tell it was going to be a very long day.

The training course I am attending is a study unit for one of the Windows 2003 Server (MCSE) certification exams. I was by far the youngest in my class. With some of the other guys having spent 8 - 17 years at one company. 17 years ago... I was still in primary school.

The training course was on stuff I pretty much knew already. Only that I don't have the certification to prove it. But since my company is paying for the training course ($5000), I though why not just go to refresh my mind.

After realising there was no Internet access, I totally regretted my decision. The training course is for 5 days. 5 days no Internet access during the day. Just the thought of it. Die. I was getting more and more bored. The 3rd cup of coffee I had still wasn't working. And I had to keep pinching myself, just so I wouldn't fall asleep on the keyboard.

Being the only female in the class, I kind of felt out of place. That was until this 40ish-geeky-looking-wearing-Microsoft T-Shirt guy starting talking about Warcraft during the first break. I asked him which realm he played on and told him my main character is a Druid. Turns out he has a lvl 60 warlock. I told him I have a lvl 39 warlock as well. The conversation went pretty well from there on. And I feeling more at ease, especially now that I could find some common ground with the group.

That was until he said this:

"I'm surprised you didn't play a priest. There aren't that many girls on the server either. And the girls that do play, most of them are priests. Are you a Resto Druid?"

"There are plenty of girls on my server. My guild leader is a girl. I do know of one girl who did play a priest as her first character, but she hated it. She is however, a killer Hunter. My best friend, who is also female, plays Warrior. And I'm a Feral Druid by the way".

Ok, had to admit I was a bit peeved. And it kind of did show in my tone of voice. Unfortunate, I know. But my temper sometimes, does get the better of me. Especially when I'm talking to people like this. It was just like saying girls don't know how to fight properly in WoW.

I could tell he was about to argue back. But at the same moment, the instructor walked back into the room, and I went back to my seat. Thus calling it a truce for the day.

p.s. No offense intended to the people who do have a priest. I think Shadow priests rulz. If I see a horde shadow priest coming my way, I know I might as well stay put and just rez myself at the spirt healer. And every group needs a healing priest. The groups that don't have one might as well put gold aside to prepare to mend their armor. But I don't believe that the girls out there who do play warcraft should be restricted to playing healing characters only. And it's stupid for guys to think like that.

Presentation

I have to do a presentation on the Systems I look after to some of the other teams at work. I guess it's ok. After all, I am presenting on something I should know inside-out. The only daunting part maybe that some of the higher managers might attend the presentation as well. I guess they would like to know where all the money from the past expenditures that they have been approving is going into.

I borrowed my manager's mp3 player which is able to do recordings as well and found a spare room to do a test trial. After taping myself through the first half of the presentation, I stopped the recorder and started to play back the recording.

"Umms" repeated during the first 5 mins : 21 (I stopped counting the 'umms' after the first 5 mins were played -- 'Umms' are bad infront of a sentence, makes the listeners think you are uncertain on what you are talking about).

The playback also made my voice sound rather high pitched. Something I had not realised before. Actually, not just high pitched, it made me sound like some highschool girl. Not at all professional. The worst thing was I actually thought I sounded ok. And I was feeling pretty good about the test trial (before actually hearing back the recording that is). Talk about anti-climax.

The main objective of the presentation is to present our latest achievements and what we have been working on for the year. I guess I should go and work on my presentation slides a bit more now and add some more diagrams and graphs. Hopefully, I won't have to speak as much if I can keep them occupied with the diagrams and graphs.

Finally Did It !

I finally did it ~~~~~~~ !!

Finally went and got my ears pierced .... :)

I'm spraying my ears with this antiseptic spray every 30 mins or so just to cool them down. My ears are still throbbing and they do sting (just a bit).

As I sleep on my side, I'm not sure how I'm going to sleep tonight. I guess I will just have to worry about that later.

To the people with pierced ears : Any ear caring tips I should know about ?

From Gym to Shopping

I had finally decided to go to the gym today. Armed with my gym bag and dressed in my gym clothes I left the apartment to head to the gym. Only to realise when I had reached the city that I had left my gym pass at home. (Duh!)

So I decided to do some retail therapy instead. After all, shopping for 3+ hrs in the city would atleast equate to 30 mins of gym.

I started off at QVB, as I wanted to do some window shopping. Also because the only thing I was interested in buying were a pair of boots. And there were around four shoe shops in the QVB.

And finally an hour later, on the 2nd level of the QVB, I found the perfect pair.

Black. Nice shape. Heels not too tall. Front not too pointy. (I have issues with walking in pointy shoes with high heels).

The boots were on the window display unit, so I walked into the shop and tried to locate the same pair inside the shop.

Having browsed for about 5 minutes, and still unable to locate the exact pair, I approached a sales lady and asked her if I could look at the black boots on display in the window.

"These my dear, are $795. You have good taste."

And then she turned around and walked away, back to the counter.

WTF ???????????!!

Ok. I know I was dressed in my gym clothes and sport shoes. But did I really have "Will not buy - looking only" etched on my forehead ?!?

I definitely asked to look at the boots, and did not ask for their price.

Ok. At $795 a pair I probably wouldn't have brought them. Well, lets be sensible here. I definitely wouldn't buy them (even if they were made of gold, and these weren't). But that isn't the point. I asked to look at them and the sales lady took one look at me and just told me the price and pretty much gave me the "You-Are-Dismissed" kind of look and walked away.

The worst part is the walking away. She didn't even bother to ask what I was looking for or even show me other boots which I may like.

I hate it when sales people grade and label you the moment you walk into the shop.