Subject: Technicalities Resent-From: nystaff@agency.com Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2000 09:44:02 -0500 From: "Mitch Golden" To: "Staff (New York)" Technicalities Feb 9, 2000 *) Woodbridge, redux There was a particularly swift and brutal response to the last Technicalities, especially my description of the Woodbridge "Holiday" party. I hit the send button, and the ethernet on my computer had barely begun to cool when the complaints began to pour in. First was Molly Ker. Molly was indignant for having been excluded from the ranks of geekdom. She send proceeded to prove her mettle by sending me e-mails full of tech acronyms. "RAID = Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks", she explained. I had to hand it to her; she was right. Plus, she said, Richard Harris had a long way to go before he stopped being a nerd, and she didn't want to be saddled with the responsibility of reforming him. Oddly enough, the second e-mail was from Richard, who echoed many of Molly's sentiments. One of the vice presidents (who shall remain nameless) complained that I had misstated the reason for his/her absence from the party. It appears that he/she had some important magazine reading to do at home that night, not the excuse I offered. I do stand corrected. (I was offered a bribe not to mention this in this issue, but we couldn't settle on a price.) For a week or two I lived in fear. One doesn't lightly cross people from New Jersey. I wondered if I would awake to find a horse's head in my bed. I carefully steered clear of menacing figures on the number 2 platform, as I came home from work each night. On the other hand, Ritesh eventually recognized the underlying truth of what I was saying. After this week's town meeting, he went over to talk a bit with Team Benyo. "They just kept talking in Unix commands", he told me, "I had to leave." *) Class of 1999 Reunion Another one of the Stony Brook folks started here a couple of weeks ago. It's Zhizang "Alan" Wang, lately of a Masters Degree. Mr. Wang has had more than the usual wonderful welcome here. He came to his desk to find no computer and no phone. He's still not in Ontime, and he's not on the tech dept e-mail alias. Try to keep a straight face as you say it: "Alan, just put your request into Remedy, and it'll get taken care of within 24 hours." *) On a different note... I thought I'd dedicate this section of Technicalities to something that interests me more than the tech department, namely, myself. As some of you know, last Monday was my 40th birthday. I am, therefore, now officially Too Old To Be Doing This. "Don't you know, Mitch", my friends tell me, "that they call it _new_ media?" *) The end of the Honeymoon Well, it had to be over sooner or later. Ritesh made his first major misstep as VP of Technology. (Is that what he still is? What is his job exactly? Can someone explain it to me?) What Ritesh did, in fact, was to fail to show up to the tech dept bowling night out. As I explained months ago, this is perfectly understandable. As the leader, going to such an event is really a no-win situation - no matter what you score, you're in trouble. Comprehensible though it is, one can only regard it as a grave mistake. There are just some unpleasant duties that you have to do as the leader, and going out bowling is one of them. Amongst the assembled crowd there was a great deal of speculation as to what I would write about the actual goings on of the match itself. What interests me more it why they think that anyone else would be interested in their scores at all. I mean, it's only a few folks bowling. But unlike Ritesh, I'll live up to my responsibilities. Allow me to summarize this highlights this way: *) A great deal of truly revolting fried food was purchased. Actually, watching Scott and Eugenia order was almost more amusing than the match itself. "Deliberate" would be one word to describe it. Eugenia: Do we need a side order of fries? Scott: I don't know, depends how big the nacho plate is. (To the waitress) How big is the nacho plate? Waitress: Hey Joe, how big is the nacho plate? Joe: Huh? Waitress: How big is the nacho plate? Joe: Do you mean the $3 plate or the $5 plate? Waitress: (To Scott) Do you mean the $3 plate or the $5 plate? Eugenia: Maybe we don't need the fries. Scott: Do we want the $3 plate or the $5 plate? Eugenia: I don't know, maybe we don't need the fries? Scott: (To the waitress) How big are both sizes? *) David Bortnichak walked away with the high score of the evening, with a stunning 193. This soundly trounced everyone else, including any score from last time out. *) The trash-talking Mr. Huang was soundly defeated by Jamil both games. *) You're wondering how I did. Off to a good start, faded a bit the second game. When you're over 40 you get tired more easily.