As an IT support tech, my skills are constantly improving and I am learning new things. Troubleshooting Outlook was challenging and interesting two years ago, now it is easy and boring. Internet Explorer has its quirks, but once you’ve fought through them once or twice, you understand how it works and move on.
However, one thing about IT is that customers don’t change. Individual customers learn and improve and have less problems over time (at least some of them), but in general I always get stuck going back to covering the basics with users. You know, things that seem mundane and simple to me, like installing Firefox, sometimes aren’t totally obvious to people that don’t do it every day. So, while my job is interesting and exciting sometimes, there are days when I am stuck clearing browser cookies and updating drivers, because for people that don’t do these things every day, it isn’t completely obvious. This is job security for me. My brother sent me a video clip that is funny and true on so many levels:
I was recently surfing the net and came across my government’s Department of Defense website. I couldn’t help but notice the date being off by about 1900 years:
So I was thinking this must be due to some Y2K bug, that somehow escaped everyone’s attention for the last 7.5 years. Fred pointed out that it is actually something to do with the way the site was programmed and it clearly wasn’t tested with Firefox. So I tried it with Internet Explorer when I got to work (no Windows boxen at home), and sure enough, the page shows up with the correct date using IE. The weird thing is, that most of the subpages at that domain work fine in Firefox, so just the front page is broken. It’s a sad thing that even the government isn’t ensuring that their pages are compatible with other browsers. Oh well, it makes for a good laugh.
Today, in one of my German classes, we watched a short film and then wrote an essay on it. I thought the movie was great and found that it had made it’s way onto youtube. There is a slight idiomatic play on words in the title, as it is called “Schwarzfahrer“, which literally means “Black Rider”, but really is referring to a fare dodger, just as “Schwarzarbeiter” (black worker) refers to someone who “works under the table” or dodges income taxes.
The film is about 10 minutes long, but the end makes it worth every second of built-up anger that one feels towards that woman.
Some friends of mine and I were discussing some interesting questions the other day over a game of water basketball. What does a wet Wookiee look like? For that matter, how does a Wookiee dry itself? Does it use a hair dryer, a large towel, or does it shake itself dry like a dog? Or maybe a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, they had some special technology that allowed for super-efficient Wookiee-drying? Maybe George Lucas should have included some more info on this topic in the newer movies, instead of adding that Jar Jar Binks thing to the mix. And the dreaded question is, what would a wet Wookiee smell like? Can you even imagine?
I heard a German tongue twister today that I thought was pretty funny. Try to say this ten times fast:
“Junge Burschen, die vor einem Schokoladenladen Laden laden, laden Schokoladenladen-Mädchen gerne zum tanzen ein.”
Ironically my Russian professor taught it to me. Here’s the English translation: “Young boys that are loading boxes in front of a chocolate store, gladly invite chocolate store girls to go dancing.”
Not quite as funny in English. Thanks, Dr. Samuel!
They opened up a new smoothie shop in my apartment building and for the event, they have had one of these Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Men outside for the past couple of days.
And since no one can get enough of this, here it is for your enjoyment. The commercial from the Family Guy movie:
About Jabba Rants
My name is Justin Dow. My friends call me Jabba, and "Jabba Rants" is my personal weblog of miscellaneous things in my life.
