The Road to the Horizon

yeah, we’ve got our backups all over the world,
from Kazakhstan to Bombay;
payin’ the bribes like yeah, pluggin’ the leaks like yeah;
interrogating the scum of the earth,
we’ll break them by the break of day!

yeeeaaahhh, it’s a party in the CIA!

by Weird Al Yankovic

[i-Wisconsin protests]

Fact:

The battle against Republican attempts to undermine trade union rights is spreading with Democratic lawmakers fleeing the state of Indiana in a bid to block anti-union legislation, and workers' rights protests swelling in the US Midwest.
(..)
Thousands of protesters have occupied the state Capitol in Wisconsin for eight days now in an attempt to block a bill that would strip public employees of most of their collective bargaining rights.

Governor Scott Walker insists he is unbowed by the protest -- which reached a peak of 65,000 people on Saturday -- but the bill's passage was stalled by 14 Democratic state senators who fled to Illinois Thursday to deny the necessary legislative quorum. (Source)

[Loband: Object Removed - application/x-shockwave-flash]
The United Nations now offers your home the same security that countries have enjoyed since 1945. If your house is broken into, the UN will send unarmed observers to watch the burglars and debate the appropriate response.

Hilarious.

Video courtesy BabelGum, discovered via AidBlogs and Alpha

[i-Apple upgrade]
I keep most of my applications and software on my laptop and iPad/iPhone up to date, but this starts to become a full time job.

I don't have many applications that I don't need, or don't use. Some I can not do without. For instance I need iTunes as it is the only "easy" way to get music on my iPhone/iPad. And I need Safari to test browser compatibility on different blogs I am working on. So am bound to Apple. But that means I am bound to upgrade the software regularly.

Then I get notices of (make the calculation 43 + 4 + 34 +93 = 174 Mbyte ?!?!) of Apple upgrades? That does not even include the latest iPhone OS upgrade. People, people where is this going to lead us?

I have nightmares of how depended we will become on IT suppliers, and how much overhead this will cause for us. Will we start to be a slave to technology?

Nightmares... How far are we off from this (fictional) scenario:

I overslept this morning.My iPhone had a bug, and the alarm clock did not go off (nonfiction Jan 1 2011 scenario). I can't afford that excuse twice or my boss will fire me. It's like "the dog ate my homework" excuse. So I decided, as I was brushing my teeth, to upgrade my iPhone's operating system. But, as I was avoiding to get toothpaste on the screen, I found out that it is not that simple. Need to do that via iTunes.
But that needs the latest iTunes version. Which is 93 Mbyte (non fiction). Decided to do that. Takes an hour to download (non fiction). Then download the new OS. Another hour (non fiction). Then need to upgrade the iPhone, another half an hour (non fiction).

Only to see that half of my apps then also needed to upgrade. Decided to upgrade the apps on on my iPhone. But when I came home in the evening, saw that also requires I download them in iTunes. Which also upgraded the apps on my iPad, and installed iPhone apps on my iPad (all nonfiction).

As I was getting into the car, I found out my Bluetooth did not work anymore, so could not pick up my calls while driving. Found a patch for that. Installed the patch, but then found that the patch conflicted with an earlier patch I needed to direct my Internet 3G home to the right page. So now I have Bluetooth, but no Internet. Installed a patch upon the patch.

To find that that crashed my iPhone. Which crashed my iTunes. Which crashed my computer. Found the patch for the patch actually contained a virus. Upgraded my computer virus programme, but it did not detect the virus. Installed another antivirus programme, which crashed the first one. Decided to reinstall my computer's operating system.

Etc...

[Loband: Object Removed -]

Ah those idealic youngsters. Where would humour be without them?

"You don't know how to farm. You have never been on a farm."
Hilarious.

Discovered via Chasing Carla and AidBlogs

[i-Google ad for Pakistan floods]

When searching for "Pakistan Floods" on Humanitarian News, the Google ad at the bottom of the page displayed the appropriate advice. Kind of.

Google could also have displayed an ad for one of the aid agencies or something, but maybe they were thinking of more longer term solutions....

[i-aid versus bullshit]
Once upon a time, a red box was delivered to a large aid agency. The courier was a bit confused because of the lack of a clear addressee. It only had the street and the city on it. But as it bore the logo from a big donor to the aid community, he delivered it at the agency's front gate.

After a while, it ended up on the desk of the "Director Donor Relations, Press Relations and other Public Stuff". He was a bit surprised. "Hmmm.. a big red box, what do we do with this. Can't throw it away as it apparently came from a donor", he thought as his trained marketing mind started on a roll. "And red... hmm.. Communism.. Not much I can do with that. But wait. Wait a second...".

He immediately called in his whole team and presented The Box: "This green box here, will be the center of our new fundraiser and awareness efforts..", he started. Immediately some eyebrows were raised, but as trained PR professionals, nobody said a thing: If it was to be a green box, green it would be. Even if everyone knew it was red, and wondered "WTF ?". The trick was to sit, look, but not see. Have your mind wonder off somewhere else. Nod when everyone else is nodding, smile when everyone else was smiling... That is the trick of a PR professional.

The PR team immediately went to work. Took pictures of the box. Photoshopped it until it was green. They pasted their agency's CEO (who had not been in the office for two years and moved off to the Bahamas, but nobody was to know) standing next to the green box. Several well known actresses and actors, which are always part of their PR conglomerate, were also photoshopped in it.

The "PR content" team had a bigger challenge... "What can we tell about a red, euh, a green box?", they brainstormed. "It is green. Which is good. Green is good. Green is in. Green is Eco-stuff. It is a box.... represents mystery,... like development is a mystery. No, wrong, like.. Many poor's needs are a mystery.. Better. Like.. euh, many problems in the developing world are a mystery. Good. Think further. Green. Islam.. Good. Green is Islam, but only Islam knows that... Will not piss of the Americans which will think of Eco stuff. What more..? "Empty the box"... no "Join the box".. Better... "Join the Box". "Wrap the world in green paper of change"... Work on that.. Mmm.., "Green Trap, Change Wrap", no. More."The Green Wrap" Right... Green, the colour of change. Al will like it. The Iranian people will too. Shit, for all we know, the Taliban might like it!" It went on for hours. It was clear all PR staff, who were seconded for three months from big PR companies, as a collective tax writeoff, knew their marketing stuff.

Then it went to the operations department, the finance department, the risk analysis department (who indicated that green was also the colour of the election protests in Iran, but all wiped it off the table as "nobody cared about that Iran shit anymore"), the IT department (who distributed green mousepads) and even the catering people (who wore green caps for two months). The security department suggested to scan to box as nobody had opened it. And there was an awkward smell coming from it.. But they got orders from "up above" to keep their hands off.

In short, it took less than two months to prepare the campaign, and to present it at the next "General Government Meeting". They got the nod from the Americans and the Brits, which was good enough to roll out the campaign globally. None of the other donors were important anyway.
Neither the US nor UK knew what it was all about trusted the organisation to know what they were doing. It was also as a trouble-free way to empty their budget before the year's end. Otherwise questions were asked. And by nodding, they stepped up as a major donor, so they'd see their logo on all PR material. "Donation from the American and British People". Solid deal, man. Solid deal..
Some rumour that the US and UK representative to the General Government Meeting had been drinking the night before, and were actually dozing off. Which would explain their enthusiastic nodding at the proposal. But that is just a rumour of course.

The Green Box was put in a huge display case, stuck on a massive rotating pole with flickering lights and all, in front of the agencies' office. It even dwarfed the McDonald's sign right next to it. McDonald being one of the main private donors to the agency, did protest every so slightly. But they were quickly reminded that Burger King was just around the corner and waiting... Indeed, the main private donors: McDonald's, Bayer, Shell and Bureau for the Promotion of Tourism in West-Agriculturia (which later turned out to be a tax outlet for the Albanese Mafia, but that is another story), all supported the idea and made small green boxes for change collection in their offices and outlets. "Change for Green".

In one of the roll-out meetings that followed, some staff did question the content of the Green Box. One even opposed the idea, but the cold stares she got, had her sit down and be quiet. After all, nobody wants to be a lone tree. They catch a lot of wind. And she had only a temporary employment contract, so 'not extended due to funding limitations' was easy.

Once this initial opposition was dealt with, all went very fast. Everyone was enthusiastic. Directors pitched in their support, as they knew the Green Box campaign had a huge budget. They all wanted a piece of the pie. Staff stepped up to be the "Champion of the Green Box". There was a competition to collect the most money from family. Kids had a worldwide "Green Box" painting competition, you name it,...

The press had a ball. They pitched everything from "Turning Development Green", "The Green movement: turning evolution into revolution". "The Largest Green Aid Campaign Ever"... Millions, Billions, it did not matter, figures were thrown. Everyone loved the hype. I mean apart from Putin having the flu and the Americans invading North Korea, it was a slow news month.
Even Foxnews feature something. "Large Green box, center to Obama Tax Evasion" in which they proved through extensive investigative journalism, that the box was sent straight from Obama's office, and contained money left over from his election campaign...

Three years later, the Green Box campaign was declared a success. It went in the books as a school example how to to strategize for a good fundraiser, how to motivate staff for your causes, how to rally donor support.
In the next government meeting, the UK and US reps gave an enthusiastic nod on the final evaluation report, and approved funding for the next project.

So, everyone was happy. Loads of money went around. And they even helped some poor along the way. Not many, as their 10% declared overhead cost, did not include 50% staff cost, and 20% transport cost, 10% security cost, plus the agreed 10% miscellaneous cost.

It did not matter. Everyone was happy. With the funding generated, the organisation survived another year. There were no scandals, so donors were happy. And does it not feel good to help the Poor of the World.

Oh and the box? It was delivered to the wrong address. It was supposed to go to the recycling company next door, and contained 300 dead AAA batteries.


Question to be asked:
How many green boxes exist in the aidworld? How many times are we all sitting in a meeting, enthusiastically nodding at eachother, although we all know the proposal is shit, the product is shit, the purpose is shit, but it does not feel right to ask questions or to oppose. How many times are senseless things done, because "donors want it", because politics want it, simply because the boss wants it? Do we leave enough room for critical thinking and opposition? How many times are we sucked up as part of this massive dynamic which includes all the "wins-wins", and where it is almost impossible to stand up in the stream and say "Is this really what we should be doing?". There is no reward in opposition, after all. Loser!

A Wise Friend told me not long ago, that in the Aid World failure, incompetency, "half-half" are much more common and accepted than in the Commercial World. I think I will start to believe that.

Picture slightly modified from a find on Words, Pictures, Humor

[Loband: Object Removed -]

A video guide for TV reporters on how to make news reports.

With thanks to Jan for the tip! :-))

More satire on The Road

Send Sarah Palin to Clean up Gulf Oil[i-Send Sarah Palin to Clean up Gulf Oil]
Sarah Palin reminds me of a Belgian artist many years ago. She competed for the pre-selections of the Eurosong festival, but did not qualify. Nevertheless, she made it as a real TV hit, made good money, and eventually ended up as a politician.

I guess Sarah Palin only made it thus far, as she appeals to hidden sexual fantasies of the middle aged US male electorate.

If women had as few braincells as men all Chippendales'd be senators by now.

[i-the public bar is closed]
I read through the last (for now) post of Harry Rud, an aidworker who returned from several years in Afghanistan, now working at the organisation's UK HQ. Someone mentioned in the comments, we should start an ex-aidworkers' bar. A place to indulge in reminiscent memories of dusty pasts...

I thought.. What would be the ideal ex-aidworkers' bar? The bar is to be called "Erbil", for sure. To remember the UN bar up there as the only safe place to drink (and eat for that matter) after the Iraq war (the second one that is).

The bar is really the only place you can go, to meet those in the same "zone" as you. THE spot to chill out and exchange another story "I remember when I was in.." after yet another day trying to save the world and realizing you didn't make a shit of difference. Was mostly after catching your two drivers syphoning out the petrol from your car. That was this morning. This afternoon, you fired the guard as he fell asleep on his stool next to the gate and did not wake up even if you hooted right next to him.

There are old yellow-ish pictures on the wall showing people in happier times. All of them taking in the same bar, of course. Mixed with postcards sent from holiday places. All reachable within the R&R cycle.
There is a trace of stains from the time John thought it would be fun to shake that cheap champagne bottle on his birthday, years ago. A bottle he risked his life for, smuggling it through airport customs.

The tables and chairs are a mishmash of different makes. Mostly cheap plastic. Collected after the bombing of a local community center back in 2005.

The servings of drinks differ as the weeks go by, dependent on what container Patrice - the MSF logistician - was able to smuggle into this darned muslim country. Some months, whiskey is the only drink, as the beer container got stuck at the port, lack of sufficient baksheesh.
It is amazing in how many different ways you can drink whiskey. And in how many ways you can use it. Including lightening up a short shot, and then, flame and all, put it on your forehead where it sucks itself out of oxygen. The half burned round sucking mark stays on one's forehead for a week. And is the trademark of "Erbil", our bar.
Mal once tried the same trick by sticking two of those burning shots onto his balls. He can only grin at that memory now... As I said, there are many things you can do with whiskey.

Andrew is always sitting at the same stool at the corner, no matter when you come in. You wonder if he really has a job at Care International, or if he became a beneficiary himself. His brother, Jolly -nobody knows his real name- is famous for the fancy dive he took in the swimming pool in the back. Forgetting the fact they never filled it up again after the 1995 earthquake which cracked up the foundation of the pool. And the spilling water flooded the underground safety shelter. Something which really upset that ex-Foreign Legion security officer we once had. Remember him? I remember his face, but can't remember his name. Rodriguez, wasn't it? He did not last two days after we took those shots from him dancing naked on this very same bar, and emailed it to the director of UNDSS in New York.
Little did we know they wouldn't think that was not funny. Bureaucrats!

They serve a mean chicken, here. Full of spices to kill everything living in your stomach. Special recipe of Paul, who once owned the bar. Until he drove over a landmine up-country, shopping for two lambs to put on the barbie on Xmas.
It takes about one hour to get the grilled chicken serving, as all is fresh. The chickens roam in the backyard. After the order the cook disappears for 10 minutes with an axe in her hand.
If you want to understand what food poisoning means, you eat the salad too.

The music is always the same choice out of five CDs. The rest was nicked. Aidworkers can be thugs when it comes to personal entertainment. The CD of Tom Jones' "Sexbomb" is kept for special occasions. Diana Ross' "I'm coming out" always keeps hicking up at the same spot, until the bartender gives the CDplayer a kick.

But you don't hear the music, you concentrate on that drink, and the distant noise of your VHF handheld, as a desperate radio operator tries to go through the daily radio check list. And on the distant muffled sounds of yet another grenade attack (all pre-recorded of course).

There is a large, half torn poster of Bukavu, at Lake Kivu. Must be from the Fifties, as the cypresses are not chopped into firewood yet, and the Hotel Karibu is still there. Those were the times when the living was good, and aidworkers were well respected civil servants, representing the social welfare and education arm of the colonizing country.

The electricity is cut twice a day, after which Abdul, the current owner, manually kickstarts the old grumpy 5 KVA generator, which makes the lights shimmer slightly in a rhythmic pattern.

The guests are always the same. Julie, ex-Jalalabad (shagged on R&R in Islamabad) sitting with Patricia (shagged in Juba), and Olivia, the ex-UNHCR reproductive health specialist from Goma (shagged in Mombasa). Olivia actually picked you up with the catch phrase "I have a container full of condoms, expiring next month" (HT Michael). Or was that Shelly? Anyways, does not matter, all of them give you the evil eye anyways. As if it was your fault you wanted to remain celibataire and were only looking for a quick fix?

At the next table we have Joaquim from ECHO, still looking for that single killer project to fund. A project that would propel him into the higher echelons of the Brussels Ivory Tower. For the moment, he is doing his best looking important, going through the 50 pages assessment report, full of baseline data and stakeholder interviews.
Cathy, the Texan chick (shagged in Monrovia) from USAID sits next to him, reading Bush's new book "How I won the Iraq war". As usual, Antoine, the head of mission Lutheran World Relief, joins in (tried to shag you in the Kigali transit lounge, of all places). Bible at hand, as per habit. You remember the fight you had with him, as he kept on spilling profanity on the security repeater in the middle of the night. Usually after he crawled back from the bar to his compound. You've never seen anyone wasted like this.

And then there is the table of the three OCHA dudes. Normally the loudest of all tables, as each keeps on raising their voice on top of the other. They never shut up, do they, those OCHA dudes? Professional deformity, the talking. They are either the youngest or the oldest of the whole bunch. Either fresh graduates naive enough to think aidworkers want to be coordinated, or the pre-retirees fired from every single other agency for incompetency.
Just last month, they all had a fit when their office was closed. Security phase IV, meaning "essential staff only". It was the public acknowledgement OCHA was not essential, all found. Except the Humanitarian Coordinator, of course, who got NY to intervene and allow the "Holy Threesome" as you call them, back into the country.

But all of that is "what once was", of course. Memories mixed with the cheap whiskey. Memories as all of us have decent jobs now. Jobs none of us likes. With only one common thought: "I wish I was back there". In Tblisi, Luanda, Bor, Djamena, Peshawar, Dili, Mogadishu, Nazareth (in Ethiopia, not Israel) or Gulu.

And then at 21:45 someone rings the bell (an old ship's bell that George found on the shipwrecks' beach near Karachi) and shouts "Last call, curfew at twentytwohundred!". After which we order those last 10 shots-to-go. Hand back our make-believe handhelds and safari jackets at the reception, pick up our attache case, straighten our tie, and step into our BMW.

Driving back to our suburban villa we make a mental note not to forget to pick up the lawn fertilizer tomorrow morning. And the tickets for the mid-term holiday in Tenerife.

Picture courtesy Lost in Berlin

[i-BP new advertisement]

[i-Italian trash on the streets]
When I landed in Rome, finally home after five months, there were three things I noticed on the way back from the airport:

1. A beautiful sunset, the kind you only see in Italy;
2. I had no mobile phone signal most of the way;
3. Trash piled up everywhere next to the waste bins.

[i-link]

Seriously. Humanitarian aid is complex. Seriously complex. And open for ab-use, miss-use,.. and wrong-use. As an aidworker, I am standing in the midst of it all, often shaking my head in disbelief. Part of me gets cynical and sarcastic at times. Specifically when it concerns something that starts with good intentions. But then the road to hell is paved with good intentions: It is not because you mean "well", that you do "well".

Yesterday I got really cynical. I aired some of it on Twitter, suggesting a number of initiatives which I meant as sarcastic jokes, only to find out some of those stupid suggestions had actually been implemented. Seriously.
I also found fellow aidworker/blogger "Tales from the Hood" wrote about the same subject, Twitter-tagging it "#SWEDOW" - or "Stuff WE DOn't Want".

Let me just list the initiatives I meant as a joke yesterday (mostly inspired by 1millionshirts), with after-thoughts between "[ ]":

• I will start 1millionFlipflops.org where people can donate their old flipflops to Africa [This one is for real]
• 1millionToothbrushes.org for old toothbrushes... I mean dental hygiene in Africa is a real must
• 1millionCondoms.org to ship used... ah.. no, that won't work
• 1millionShades.org ... donate your old shades for a good cause. ! On top of that, they might look cool too! [This one actually does that]
• 1millionKhalashikovs.org will donate old weaponry to the Armies of Africa, as stability is a real must
• 1millionSunBlock.org ... I mean the sun must be a real bitch in Africa, right?
• 1millionAssessmentReports.org -- so that the NGOs can do a free pick for any kind of assessment reports, and not spend time doing their own
• 1millionDonorReports.org - so you don't have to make your own donor reports at the end of your project... we will auto-generate it for you.
• 1millionUsedTires.org -- send your used car tires to poor Africans today!!!
• 1millionWipers.org : ship those old windshield wiper, in preparation of the rainy season... shipping cost: $120 a pair. yeah
  >> at this point fellow aid-fanatic @Katrinskaya intervened and pointed to her excellent post #1millionsextoys for Africa. Yeah!
• 1millionFreeContainers.org -- to ship all that useless stuff to the poor kids in Africa
• Don't burry your granny with her set! 1millionFalseTeeth.org can use them!
• 1millionLessonsLearned.org (as we will never learn, and the lessons are always the same: "read the previous lessons learned")
• 1millionPropaneBurners.org - how many of us don't have old propane stoves from our camping days stowed in our garage? They can use them in Africa!
• 1millionPETbottles.org - I mean those poor poor people going to the well everyday. How to store water? We will airfreight them used PET bottles...!
• 1millionFamilyPictures.org -- so they can see what they miss... (dah.. that is real scarcastic... stop it!)
• 1millionHairExtensions.org -- why throw away your hair, while in poor Africa, they have to buy extensions? [This one comes close. Not for Africa but for the Gulf Oil Spill]
• 1millionDates.org on "Date for Africa Day" signed agreement with 1millionInflatableDolls.org and 1millionDildos.org [You ain't gonna believe this: Date For Change. Quote: Your money goes to charity. The first time a guy sends a message it costs at least $1 and that money, once again, goes to charity. And the best part is... we can raise millions with your help]
• 1millionUNjobs.org aims to fund an extra 1 million UN employees in an effort to exterminate unemployment in Africa

For the "oh boy" department:

The results of this evaluation were presented to the IASC Working Group, which has created a Task Team on Coordination that will create a management response plan in reaction to the recommendations made.

[i-Afghanistan suicide bombers cartoon]

Muslim suicide bombers in Britain are set to begin a three-day strike on Monday in a dispute over the number of virgins they are entitled to in the afterlife. Emergency talks with Al Qaeda have so far failed to produce an agreement.

The unrest began last Tuesday when Al Qaeda announced that the number of virgins a suicide bomber would receive after his death will be cut by 25% this May from 72 to only 60. The rationale for the cut was the increase in recent years of the number of suicide bombings and a subsequent shortage of virgins in the afterlife.

The suicide bombers' union, the British Organization of Occupational Martyrs ( or B.O.O.M. ) responded with a statement that this was unacceptable to its members and immediately balloted for strike action.

General Secretary Abdullah Aziz told the press, "Our members are literally working themselves to death in the cause of Jihad. We don't ask for much in return but to be treated like this is like a kick in the teeth".

Speaking from his shed in Tipton in the West Midlands in which he currently resides, Al Qaeda chief executive Osama bin Laden explained, "We sympathize with our workers concerns but Al Qaeda is simply not in a position to meet their demands. They are simply not accepting the realities of modern-day Jihad in a competitive marketplace.

Thanks to Western depravity, there is now a chronic shortage of virgins in the afterlife. It's a straight choice between reducing expenditure and laying people off. I don't like cutting wages but I'd hate to have to tell 3000 of my staff that they won't be able to blow themselves up."
Spokespersons for the union in the North East of England, Ireland, Wales and the entire Australian continent stated that the strike would not affect their operations as "There are no virgins in their areas anyway".

Apparently the drop in the number of suicide bombings has been put down to the emergence of that Scottish singing star, Susan Boyle - now that Muslims know what a virgin looks like that they are not so keen on going to paradise.

With thanks to Jeff for the tip
Cartoon courtesy StrangeCosmos

[i-link]They did not tell anyone, to keep them stocks floating high, but actually Yahoo does not exist anymore. It has become a virtual team of pre-teen hobbyists, working from their garage.
At least that is what I can tell from the (lack of) support for some of their products. Yahoo Pipes is one of them.

The Yahoo Pipes servers, previously running in a cloud-environment, have all been replaced by a single laptop owned by Johnny, a volunteer, in Santa Monica. When his mum cleans his room, and accidentally hits the power switch of his laptop, Yahoo Pipes goes down. Down until Johnny comes back from kindergarten. He is 5 years old, and mostly uses his laptop to play the "Musti" DVD.

The support for all their products is done by automated bots saying "Issue solved now, can you try it again, and report back if you experience more problems?".
They did consider to outsource the product support to a single call center in Bombay, which also caters for Johnny's Pizza Take-away, Rent-a-Girl Escort services and Gary's Route 66 Tow-away road service. It was too costly.

Yahoo apologizes for any possible inconvenience, but reminds its faithful clientele: "When reaching the bottom, there is only one way. Up!"

Market experts say this phrase has now shown up in several of Yahoo's press releases, which confirms the rumour all Yahoo services will soon be renamed as "Yahoo Up!", to distinguish from their current service level, which is now commonly referred to as "Yahoo Down!". It is said that the key to Yahoo's increased service level will be Sarah, the 6 year old girlfriend from Johnny. She just got her dad's old laptop for Xmas.

More satire on The Road.

[i-Twitter Swineflu posts]

It seems the number of Tweets about swineflu has considerably dropped over the past days. [sarcastic] Until further notice, I guess we will call the swineflu emergency as "over"!

I will update the latest updates still for a another week.

Source: Trendrr on swine flu, with thanks to AidWorker Daily for the tip.

[i-computer problems]

It is already bad enough that we're battling technology problems in a project at work, but it seems every bit of equipment that has a byte of data in it, decided to make my life more difficult today.

While my personal laptop is doing a scan for that virus I just can't seem to get rid of, now my work laptop is starting to have a life by itself.

I spend minutes just watching the small harddisk LED flicker, and I have no clue what it is actually doing. Because *I* am not doing anything. Just watching the darned harddisk activity.

I gathered it might be running out of diskspace (which in retrospect it is not), so start to clean up, but the laptop decided a 0.5 Gigabyte file can not be moved nor deleted. Cause? Unknown!

Meanwhile, I am waiting for a call from a friend on Skype, but find out he disappeared from my Skype account on my work laptop. So when he calls me, it is the second laptop that rings. Not the one I have the headset on.

After the Skype conversation, I see the second laptop decided it had done enough, and went into hibernate. For no reason I can see, as it was plugged into the wall socket..

Several restarts later, followed with just as many hibernates, I figure out that it is either on strike, or might be too hot - even though I am wearing a sweater.. Maybe try to put something underneath it? Need some air, baby?

That worked. Except that while starting up, all of the software that was running before the hibernate decided it has to re-build databases, restart indexing, and checking data consistency. And halfway through the process, it gets too hot again.

So, being obedient to technology, I persist in cleaning up files and making sure it has gigabytes and gigabytes of virtual memory space (why it needs that much, I don't know as I don't run that many programmes at the same time).

I decide to update some of the software I use, just in case. Big mistake. As it usually is.
The regular Apple update of Safari and Quicktime+iTunes. 100 Megabyte. 100! How on earth does anyone keep their software updated without access to cable or ADSL is a mystery to me...
Checking for Microsoft updates leaves me equally dazzled. I just upgraded all Microsoft software two days ago. And it keeps on finding new stuff. 15 new updates in two days...

Just not a good day for computers. But look at the bright side: at least I got this blog posted. And it was a glorious sunny day today! :-)

Picture courtesy Jineg

Within a while, we won't even remember this temporary economic hiccup anymore. US Congress has found the solution to save the economy with the Pelosi GTxi SS/Rt Sport Edition.

Not only will it beat the pants off any imported car (for the time while importing cars is still legal), it will save the economy, save your wallet, save the environment AND is safe too.

Here is the answer:

[Loband: Object Removed -]

More satire on The Road.

Discovered via PreSurfer.

• ►  2012 (3)
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    • Hans Rosling: The only way to stop population grow...
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    • Calling on the good and willing
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    • A move towards ethical advertising?
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