Categories
It Happened to Me

A slice of last night as a play in one act

The scene: A table at a ROOFTOP PATIO. The air is abuzz with mildly
inebriated conversation and the intoxicating scent of spring air,
budding flora and cute women. Seated at the table are the ACCORDION
GUY, MELLOW VELO, VIDEO CHICK. They are talking to an ENTHUSIASTIC
YOUNG LADY who has come over from another table to converse.

One of the ENTHUSIASTIC YOUNG LADY’s friends comes over to the table
and tells her its time for them to loeave. The ENTHUSIASTIC YOUNG LADY
takes her leave of the table. The ACCORDION GUY waits a beat before
talking.

ACCORDION GUY: She’s cute and seems both clever and fun. You should’ve asked for her phone number. If I were a free man and a shade younger…

MELLOW VELO: Ehhhh…I dunno.

ACCORDION GUY: Dude, have you
been falling behind on your testoterone payments lately? Girl! Possibly
available! You! Available for too long! Go! There’s still time to catch up! Go!

MELLOW VELO gets up, makes a half-hearted five steps toward the door, stops, turns around and returns to his seat.

MELLOW VELO: Naaaaah.


ACCORDION GUY: Why’d you stop?

MELLOW VELO: If she was really interested, she’d have given me her phone number.



ACCORDION GUY (slaps hand on forehead): Oh, dear God, you are so stunningly wrong. I’m calling in experts. Hey, Video Chick, I need a woman’s opinion here in aisle seven…

VIDEO CHICK: Sure. What about?

ACCORDION GUY: I know that’s
its the 21st century and all that, but…let’s suppose you meet a guy
and you like him. Would you prefer that he make the first move and give
you his phone number, or would you rather do it?

VIDEO CHICK: I prefer it when
the guy does it. But that never happens anymore; I have to make the
first move. You know why? Because boys are pussies these days. Pussies!


ACCORDION GUY (making pelvic
thrust motions under the table, arms lifted above head): Ask The
Redhead. Not all boys. (Turns to MELLOW VELO) Dude, as soon as you
found out she was outdoorsy and an enginner, you were looking at her
the way Marlon Brando looks at pork chops!

VIDEO CHICK: Boys suck.

MELLOW VELO: Yeah, but I didn’t get an interested vibe from her.

ACCORDION GUY: Even when the
odds seem bad, I always step up to bat. Or at least I did, when I was
available. Which I’m not anymore, because I stepped up to the plate every time. This is just like the time that girl was checking me out and you told the entire table except for me.

MELLOW VELO: If something was going to happen, something would have happened.

ACCORDION GUY (clasping both sides of his head): You don’t know that, and I can’t act on information I don’t know! When did you get into predestination, anyway?

MELLOW VELO: I’ve seen you play
the odds, and you always worked the interested girls harder. There are
the ones who don’t pay any attention, and then there are the ones
pawing the accordion, and then you. Remember what’s-her-face from Lee’s
Palace?

ACCORDION GUY (wistfully): [Sigh]
Yeah. (snaps to) But — uh — as I was going to say, you have to
actually step forward and make some kind of move before you can even
hope to determine who’s interested and who’s not. Do you agree, Video
Chick?

VIDEO CHICK: Boys. Are. Pussies.

Categories
Music

Someone agrees with my theory

I’ve been saying this for years:

Categories
It Happened to Me

Untold Tales of the Hot Tub Party

Here’s an excerpt from an entry that’s been sitting as a draft for far too long. It’s only the beginning, and I have every intention of finishing it this weekend.

For those who were there: yes, this is the story of what happened when the cops came.

I was not the only birthday celebrant at my party featuring the hot tub on a truck last November. Another celebrant was my coworker and guy-at-the-neighbouring-desk-at-Tucows, Guile, who shares a birthday with me. Yet another guest with a November 5th birthday was Ashley Bristowe, whom I met twelve years ago back at Crazy Go Nuts University.

“Ash,” I said to her sometime shortly after one a.m., just as the party was kicking into high gear, “you’ve go to try out the hot tub. It’s like being in a Puff Daddy video! Did you bring a bathing suit?”

“Bathing suit?” she retorted indignantly. “What is this bullshit about bathing suits?”

She’s actually quite demure most of the time, but gets all potty-mouthed when the tequila comes out.

“I will go in the tub…nekkid!”

I raised my right eyebrow, which I do whenever I am presented with an intriguing idea.

“But I will only do it if you do it too.”

“Bristowe,” I said, putting an arm around her, “I’ve been to Burning
Man, baby. I’ve had my wang out in a sandstorm, so this is child’s play. Nekkid we shall be.”

Categories
Uncategorized

Six clicks…

…is all it takes to migrate your blog to Blogware.

Categories
It Happened to Me

Assignment

This afternoon, Boss Ross gave me an emergency assignment. Luckily, I’m pretty good at this sort of thing  and things didn’t end up like the comic below:

Categories
Music

KEXP

In case you hadn’t heard, one of the best radio stations out there is Seattle’s KEXP,
which broadcasts both on regular analog radio and online. They are an
independent, commercial-free radio station with amazing DJs, playlists
to die for, and have shows and guests that nobody else could have
possibly landed (one recent treat was french synthpop duo Air peforming
live in their studios).

Give them a listen, and if you like what you hear, send them some
money. Remember, it’s listener-supported radio, so it’s our bucks (as
opposed to Clear Channel’s) that keeps them going. In the open sewage line that is commercial radio, these guys are like a fresh pint of Guinness.

Categories
Uncategorized

What Happened With Blogrolling

In response to a posting on Chris Scott’s blog, Boss Ross points out what happened with Blogrolling yesterday:

Acutally, it was a Tucows mistake that caused the problem. A few weeks
ago, we had to fail over to a non-production box because one of the
servers that Jason had colocated us on died without much warning. It
was the only way to keep the service alive on short notice.

Problem was, it was running slightly outdated code – the production
server, at the time, had already been patched by Jason. By failing over
to the older development box and turning it live without patching it
properly, we reintroduced the problem that Jason had kindly fixed for
us.

The box with the patch was never brough back online because we are
in the process of moving off of the colo that we’re currently at and
into the regular Tucows environment at IBM – no sense in going through
more trouble than it was worth we thought.

So the long and the short of it is that I really messed this up.
Jason has been an amazing source of support through all of this
(post-purchase) and I’d really hate for my mess-ups to reflect on him
somehow. Tucows, and more to the point, me is the root cause of the
problem that we saw today.

And now we need to pick ourselves up, dust everything off and move
on – without repeating the same mistakes that we’ve just fixed.