Stuck in the weblog with you

[andrewducker]

I'm in work this weekend and next, because these servers are being installed.

However, most of the time there's not a lot I can do because the installation expert is actually setting them up. So I've got to be here, but my time is mostly my own. Oh, and there's no users about to get in the way and annoy me. And I get 4 days off later in lieu, which is nice. So, in the end, I'm actually pretty much in favour of this.

But as I'm here with bugger all to do, and a free brain, expect more updates than normal.

Comments

[rahaeli.livejournal.com]

You've just more or less described my entire week at work. :)

I find that LiveJournal is a good place to start -- start reading your friends' friends list, and work out from there. Either that, or catching up with k5, which I haven't done in *ages*.

Killing Time

[andrewducker]

Well, I have about 25 RSS subscriptions running from Radio Userland(including Slashdot, K5,BBC,Plastic, Salon, etc.), 3 regular online comics, livejournal, I run 2 mailing lists for friends to chat on, one for jokes (although I'm getting bored of that one) and there's always MSN Messenger for chatting.

Oh, plus subscriptions to various newsgroups - I recently restarted reading rec.arts.sf.written because I figured the 300+ posts a day would keep me busy.

However, I'm now very tempted to install .NET beta on my machine and try to learn C# or VB.NET, just to sto my brain leaking out my ears from the sheer inanity.

Re: Killing Time

[rahaeli.livejournal.com]

Installing .NET on your machine would lead to your brain leaking out your ears far more quickly than inanity, trust me. :)

I don't suppose you guys have a TV there, do you? Last time I got stuck at a job where there were endless hours in which I didn't have to do anything, we had a TV in the operator office, and I would bring in my console gaming systems and work my way through various video games I was behind on. In fact, that's how I beat Suikoden II and Final Fantasy 9. My one coworker at the time actually got rather interested in FF9, and wanted me to tell him all sorts of things about the game. :)

Other ways I amuse myself at work is by picking fights with the coworkers (well, debate is more like it, but sometimes they get pretty heated), working on various web pages (I am always behind on www.mancer.net stuff) and, when all else fails, writing.

And gosh, it's really nice to randomly find someone else who knows about Usenet. I need to get back to reading Usenet; it's been ages since the news server on my primary shell account worked, and while I do have two other news servers I could use, I'm just lazy. Have you seen that Google now has tons of archives dating back to like '88 (or further, I can't remember) online?

Killing Joke

[andrewducker]

Actually, I'm a programmer originally, and I rather fancy giving .NET a go. I've got a project I want to work on (basically a chat server that does what I want), and I fancy being ahead of the crowd for change.

We don't have a TV, and unfortunately, I'm supposed to be working harder than I am. but the job is mindlessly dull (supporting untrained, stupid users), or I'd have CIV3 installed on this machine by now.

Debate does pass the time very well, and that's what I tend to use mailing lists for, but finding people to debate with can be tricky (most of my friends aren't that interested in the cut and thrust of debate).

And yeah, I've been using usenet intermittently since 1991. Google groups is a fantastic resource (if I have a problem, it inevitably turns out that at least 10 other people have had it before), and for sheer discussion and information there's nothing like being able to post a barely remembered description of a short story and have someone tell me that it's from the June 1957 issue of Amazing and which collections it can be found in.

I even managed to find some of my very early posts on the early google groups. And they weren't quite as embarassing as they thought they were going to be.