Don't tread on me.

Conditions: Overcast and hot.


Okay, so this was totally my fault

So I'm working away at my keyboard, when I hear the boss talking to someone in the next office. The general gist of the conversation is that ‘people’ (Who? The board of directors at Fuji Heavy Industries? Bill Gates’s secretary-in-charge-of-M&M’s? A freshly-reincarnated Bogart?) want to know if the power switchboard down in the lobby is related to the power switchboard we have up here. So they’re informally going to test it by switching it off down there, and seeing if anything happens up here. Ha ha. But I only half hear this. So I remove my headphones, rise from my seat and ask for clarification from any passers by. And Lo, I hear that my fears are true, someone is about to shut off a power switch downstairs and see if anything happens up here.

In a rush of adrenaline, I turn to a couple of machines that are not protected by a UPS, and try to shut them down. See, the last time the power left us unexpectedly, they never restarted again, if you get my drift. But before they’re off, I hear confirmation next door that the switch is off, and we are okay.

Like hell we are. Seeing as how our company is somewhat concerned with the application of power to each of our 14 thousand-odd computers, I’d have liked a little formal warning. So I leave my desk and walk into the next office, where I see a stranger in a beard. “Hey”, I ask, “Did you just shut off the power switch?” “Why yes I did” he replies, grinning friendily. But I am in no mood for banter. “Well, I’d appreciate a little more warning next time!” I retort hotly, (knocked the smile right off his face) before swinging around on my heel and returning to my desk, ignoring my boss’s call over my shoulder that it was his fault, not the strangers’. I don’t care whose fault it was, my fires of righteous indignation were aflame, and someone needed to feel them. There there, my pretties, all is safe now.


Cute Puppies Dept.




Awwww. Archeologists found two skeletons in what looks like an embrace, that had been buried 6000-odd years ago. Either this is a heartfelt resting place for an ancient couple, the neolithic version of a double-homicide, or a really neat hook for a story about a time-traveling couple.


End transmission.