View From the Bushes

Well, it's official -- I'm sick. I'm just glad it happened after I got the adventure out rather than before. And of course I burned through all my time off getting ready for and attending GenCon, so I'm stuck at work. At the moment I'm working on a campaign to convince people that I'm so contagious that I should be sent home as soon as possible. So far it hasn't produced any noticeable effect. I think I need to start coughing more vigorously while I'm in the boss' office; if that doesn't work I'll have to escalate up to spewing forth actual phlegm while I cough. By the time I get to blowing my nose into his drink, I figure he'll either send me home or fire me, one of the two.

I should probably try to avoid getting fired since I was almost fired already once this week (and it's only a four-day week). Yesterday, during lunch the phone guy and I went out and bought a new CD player, to play hold music. We found one for only $13 and brought it back. He immediately went to go install it and in the process left his computer unlocked. Traditionally whenever that happens I like to send an e-mail out of their account. The phone guy is one of the few people in the company who has rights to send e-mail to "everyone" mailing list. So I composed the following message:

We have purchased a new CD player to play hold music for the phone system. Unfortunately it's a very cheap CD player. In order to not wear it out please minimize the time people are kept on hold, or if it's going to be awhile tell them to call back.

I was sorely tempted to send it out to everyone, but (wisely as it turns out) decided not to, and instead I just sent it to a few people in my group including the boss. He got a big kick out of it, but agreed with my decision not to send it out, he assured me that if I had I probably would have been fired. I guess some of the executives really don't have a sense of humor.

Finally, I thought I'd include a link to this news story on fly-powered robots. I've long thought that rather than working on anthropomophic robots they should focus instead on making a spider robot, or something like that. One would think that technology and even AI has advanced to the point where a scientist ought to be able to make a reasonable replica of a tarantula.

Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero
Ross