August 15, 2001

The next person who complains about a lack of updates will be summarily executed.

There are three new pages up.  Please, go forth and enjoy.

No more talking.  Time for eating.  Go to forum for talking.  More verbose update will follow later.

August 2, 2001

I was going to do an update tonight, but I forgot to e-mail the new set of images to my home e-mail account, and I left my damn VPN key at work (yeah, it does me a lot of good there!) so I can't connect to my work computer and get them that way.

Sorry, guys.  Tomorrow or Saturday, I promise.

I gave blood today.  I am type O negative, and I'm told that my blood is in high demand because I am a universal donor.  While swabbing my arm with iodine, the nurse smiled and said that she was going to take three pints instead of just one.  I laughed a bit uneasily; she looked like she meant it.

The last time I gave blood, I stood up too immediately after it was over and ended up passing out.  This time, I was a bit slower in my standing.  Plus, I got cookies.  Mmmm, cookies.

July 17, 2001

There is a bit of news on the future of the Chronicles posted over in the General Discussion forum.  For those too busy or lazy to click, it says, in part, that there will be a few more updates before I exhaust all my source material.  Click the post for more detail, as I am pretty tired right now and do not feel like being redundant.

In other news, all pages on the site have been updated with frame-breaking javascript code.  I hate javascript as much as the next guy, and I usually browse with it disabled, but at least here it can serve a benevolent, useful purpose.  Mad props to everyone that responded with code suggestions, and mad I-hope-your-mother-gets-shots to the bastards framing my content.

Webmaster tired.  Need bed.

July 7, 2001

I've no new updates to the site today, but I wanted to make sure everyone knew that the site was still operating and that I'd not been kidnapped by aliens.  So, there you are.

Peacefrog (a forum poster from Austin) might be coming to visit me soon.  I shall probably honor the occasion by allowing him to post an update on the front page.  A dubious honor?  Probably, yes.  But is it better than a Hallmark card?  Almost certainly!

Most of you have read Peter's Evil Overlord List (the top 100 things that everyone should do to be a successful Evil Overlord).  But have you seen the Evil Empress List, the Hero List, the Sidekick List, or--my personal favorite--the Normal Innocent Bystander's Survival Guide?

There's also a page that lists most of the funny ones: If I Became a Link List.  Good for whiling away those long hours on the phone, when the luser to whom you're speaking insists that his computer's engine is too loud and you need to write for him some software that will make it quieter (oh, how glad I am that I no longer have to deal with that kind of thing...)

June 28, 2001

Happy day.  I am home today because I think I've got pinkeye.  Bleah.  My left eye is totally gross.  It's pretty cool looking, actually.  This all works out OK, though, because I'm expecting Unbreakable in the mail today.  This should make my being at home a bit more bearable.

I've put my time to good use and created three new pages of tickets for everyone to enjoy.  So, enjoy, damn it!

June 18, 2001

After about a million years, I've had enough free time to post an update!  So, there are two new pages of George available for your viewing pleasure.  Read, then discuss in the forums!

Also, it has sadly come to my attention that people have begun frame-stealing my site--framing it within their own sites and claiming this site's content as their own.  There is now an identifying piece of text at the bottom of every page, giving the correct URL.  It's sad that some people have such low self esteem and creative abilities that they have to steal content to make themselves feel spiritually whole.

June 9, 2001

Yes, I know, I'm a bad boy because I haven't posted any new tickets in a long time.  I was going to do so today, because I was supposed to work today, but I cannot drive into work because of tropical storm Allison.  I knew it was bad when I was driving along a one-way access road to reach the freeway and there were cars driving in the opposite direction past me.  When I reached the freeway, I realized why--Interstate 45 northbound is underwater.  Don't believe me?  Look at this and this!

So, I turned my vehicle around and became one of those wrong-way-driving cars.

I hate it when I have to wake up early for no good reason.  I got up at 6:00 so I could be at work at 7:00 (who the hell calls the help desk at 7:00 am on Saturday?), and now I'm back at home.  I guess that now would be a good time to play Freespace 2.  Yes, I believe I will do that.  All.  Day.  Long.

June 4, 2001

After a few initial hiccoughs, the forums are working quite well, and we're starting to get some people signing up.  Anyone who is a regular reader and hasn't stopped by the forums yet, shame on you!  Go do so immediately!  Anyone who isn't a regular reader, go look at tickets first, and then stop by the forums!  Tons of thanks to everyone who's signing up.

No new tickets today, as I've the day off of work.  I'm thinking of adding a "tip jar" kind of thing to the front page, to help pay for some super-fast dedicated hosting for the forums.  It would be strictly non-profit; I'm figuring I could put a maximum of $300 toward the site to cover the forum business, and anything past that would be donated to a worthy cause (like Lauren Pingel).

The only question is the legality.  Since I'm technically using copyrighted works without authorization (George's tickets), I think that any money coming from the exploitation of those works would be the property of my employer.  Anyone who's a lawyer (armchair variety or otherwise) care to clue me in on the legal issues?

May 31, 2001

Thanks to what can only be described as a terrifying amount of e-mail, I've picked Ezboard as the host of the brand new Chronicles of George Discussion Forums.  Go forth, my friends!  Go forth and discuss!  Discuss to your heart's content!

Moderators will be chosen in a little while--I want to get a sense of how much message traffic the thing is going to generate, if there'll even be any at all.  Go post something!  w00t!

Update, four hours later:  Already I'm getting some e-mails saying people are having difficulties registering.  I created a dummy account okay, so it's possible Ezboard is having some intermittent registration problems (it is free, after all).  All I can tell you is that it does work and I do have several users already successfully registered, so please keep trying.  You won't be able to log on until you get your confirmation e-mail.

Also note that you probably can't search for the board from Ezboard's main page, as I've left it unlisted.  Just navigate to it directly by clicking the discussion board links here, or enter this URL into your browser:  http://chroniclesofgeorge.nanc.com/board/ .

Sorry about the difficulties, but it will all work out, promise.  If Ezboard turns out to be too sucky, there are a number of other board options.  Watch this space (or the forums, if you can get to them) for details!

May 30, 2001

I'm toying with the idea of adding a discussion board to the site.  I frequently visit sites that have forums (or fora, if you prefer) running on InfoPop's OpenTopic, and I love the functionality.  The only problem is, it would be a few hundred bucks a year and I would need to find a moderator.

Ignoring the moderation problem for a moment, does anyone have recommendations for forum/discussion board solutions that are roughly feature-equivalent to OpenTopic?  I'm looking for the magic combination "free" and "remotely hosted", but I don't know if such an animal exists.  I'd love to set them up completely, but I simply don't have the time to set up and configure and maintain the forums and the associated databases myself, which is why I need them to be remotely hosted.  Knowledgeable parties, please drop me a line.

I'd also need a forum moderator, and based on the fact that I'm turning over roughly 60,000 hits per month, this would be a rather substantial job.  I'm not crazy enough to do it myself--after all, I have a life--but if the discussion boards become a reality, I'd be interested to see if there are any takers.

No new tickets today, sadly, since I'm a bit under the weather.

May 27, 2001

I decided to get started on the new pages before the festivities swung into high gear, and so I am proud to present five new pages of George.  Enjoy, everyone.  I am off to drink tons of Guinness.

May 25, 2001

Apparently, yesterday this site was the User Friendly Link of the Day.  I was certainly wondering why suddenly I received close to ten times my normal daily volume of e-mails.  Would you believe that only TWO people told me?  How am I supposed to know about these things if no one keeps me informed?

The ONE week where I haven't read UF religiously, and it's the week that my site is mentioned.  I'll never not read UF again <g>.

So, welcome, all new readers.  This weekend should be a time of great rejoicing--if I can remain sober enough for long enough, I have enough raw material to create FIVE--count 'em, FIVE--new pages.

w00t!

May 17, 2001

Well.

First, apologies for not updating the site in twelve days.  Real Life(TM) intrudes in my existence from time to time, as much as I wish it did not.  Plus, there have been many things happening at work.

Ah, work.

The main reason behind my lack of updates is that last week, my company laid off approximately 50% of its workforce.  Because I work Desktop Support, I--and my three brethren--were kept.  However, my manager, and my manager's boss, were both included in the layoff.  This caused a considerable amount of confusion, because my entire department was orphaned, and it took several days for things to settle down and for new org charts to be issued.

Included in the layoff were all but one member of the help desk.  It is with mixed joy and sadness that I must report that George is no longer employed at my workplace.  The event that I thought could never possibly happen--the firing of George--happened when 150 people were laid off en masse.

What does this mean for the Chronicles?

Buck up, friends, for this part of the news is not as bad as it might seem.  Searching through our support database for tickets written by George takes time, and it is a task with which I am nowhere near done.  So, while George will not be writing any NEW tickets, I will be able, for the next several updates, to present tickets that are new to you, the readers.  Astute followers of this site will note that such "new-old" tickets have made up the bulk of the past few updates anyway, so I do not believe that the quality of this site's content will decrease (if "quality" is the right word for that which I present...).

Now, for the bad part of the news:  While a 50% staff reduction might seem like not a big deal to those of you not in a service department, it's hell for us desktop guys.  Firstly, 150 computers don't just stand up and walk into storage all by themselves.  Then, 150 surviving employees will never be content to just sit where they are after our seating charts have been so swiss-cheesed.  Also, no facilities director would overlook such a grand opportunity to re-cable the entire company and eliminate all those duct-taped strings of Cat5 all over the place.

There's more to do, but those are the broad strokes.  For the next month I am going to be very, very busy, and updates will be very sparse.  I have nothing for you today, unfortunately, but perhaps by this weekend I'll be able to put together a new page or two.  I'm not promising anything.

Don't weep for George.  He, along with all the rest of my former cow-orkers, received two months of severance pay with benefits.  Last I heard, he was cruising around Galveston in his Camaro, picking up r4v3r g1r7zzz and enjoying his paycheck.  I, on the other hand, am looking forward to a month of moving computers and listening to people bitch about how they're moving and they don't want to move, or about how they want to move and they're not moving, and while I'm walking balancing two computers on my shoulders, could I please take a look at their monitor, because they think it might be a little dark and with the way the sun shines at their new desk, they'll be needing a new one ASAP because they're working on a task that is mission critical--MISSION CRITICAL, I TELL YOU!--and they CANNOT WORK under these conditions!

Argh.  Such is desktop support.  Such is my life.

May 5, 2001

We've moved again!

The site is growing in popularity--apparently, you people enjoy reading about my pain and suffering <g>.  Unfortunately for md-sites, I was pushing their 8gb/mo bandwidth cap.  Dan and Doug have been extremely gracious hosts, and I wish them the best.  For their own sakes, though, after being informed of this site's usage, I elected to choose a second hosting option and save Dan and Doug from Certain Death at the hands of their provider.

So, thanks to Bob at North American Networks, the Chronicles has a new home.  This is cool, because I get my own FQDN!  PLEASE UPDATE YOUR BOOKMARKS AND TELL ALL YOUR FRIENDS!

Redirectors have been set up on md-sites.com, and still exist at the original address.  The original ones will be coming down pretty soon, but I'll leave the md-sites ones up for the forseeable future.

In celebration of the move, I've put up three new pages.  Enjoy!

May 2, 2001

This world is a bad, bad world.

Someone at $MY_COMPANY got fired yesterday while I was out sick.  It wasn't George.  It wasn't me.  It was Greta.

Greta--not her real name, of course--has been with the company for a long, long time.  Greta was a fabulous help desk tech.  Greta had the highest number of first call resolutions out of all the help desk staff.  Greta was the most well-liked and polite person on the phones, as well as the most technically competent.  Greta was fired because she was habitually late for work.

Greta was a brilliant tech.  Greta was always late.  Greta was fired.

George is a pathetic tech.  George is always on time.  George continues to work.

I suppose I see the logic, but it pushes me one step closer to wanting to kill myself.  Our help desk is now slightly more efficient, and monumentally dumber.

No updates today.

May 1, 2001

Home sick again.  Ate something bad yesterday at lunch, and it's got me puking.  Bleah.

Rather than bore everyone with my pathetic life, I instead present to you my bounty:  three new pages of George's tickets.  Have fun, all.

April 29, 2001, part II

I'm playing around a bit with different navigation structures for the site, and I think I've managed to set up one that works for most browsing styles, from "I don't know what the back button is" to "I open every link I can find in a new window, then read-and-close".

Yeah, it's boring to be sick.

April 29, 2001, part I

I've no new updates today, sadly.  Been a bit under the weather since yesterday--I seem to have caught myself a summer cold.  Ack.

However, do not despair.  I have enough tickets for one new page, and by the end of Monday I hope to have collected enough for yet another one.  If all goes well, I'll have something up on Tuesday.

In spite of my best efforts, this page IS turning into an e/n site!  I mean, LOOK at this--I've posted an update in which I tell my readers that I've gotten a COLD!

I had better provide some links, and quickly.  If I could do anything this week instead of work, it would be this.  Okay, that's one interesting link--let me see.  Oh, I know--go play with this thing.  If this doesn't suck up at least a half-hour of your time, then you obviously didn't play with Legos when you were a child.

April 25, 2001

I've got to make this one quick, since I'm on my way out the door.  George continues to be off of work, but as promised yesterday I dug up some good ones from the archives.  Two new pages, numbers fifteen and sixteen.

Enjoy.  I'll post more when I can.

April 24, 2001

Sorry, no new tickets today.  George hasn't worked the past two days, so I have nothing to post.  This isn't a bad thing, though, because this means that my sanity has not degraded any since last week.

I'll see if I can't poke through some older tickets and dredge up some gems like on pages thirteen and fourteen.  I'm not promising anything, but I'll try really, really hard.  Or something.

While you're waiting, look at this.

April 19, 2001

We've moved!  Thanks to Dan of md-sites, I now have dedicated hosting, free of the whims of Southwestern Bell!  Die, SWBell, die!

This is actually quite a good thing, since it lets me do a bit of revision.  The old index page has been moved to the what is this site page, the What's New page is now the front page, and everything has been made a little cleaner.  Don't like it?  Well, even with the aid of Front Page I suck at HTML, so TOO BAD!  Nyah nyah nyah.

The new design should enable me to keep you guys more informed about changes made to the site.

AND!  As an extra special moving bonus, we have TWO new pages of content.  Hooray!

Look around and click on stuff.  Please let me know if there are any broken or weird links.  Super-duper thanks to each of the over 15,000 visitors that have come by the site in the past two months!

So, without further ado, let the fun happiness begin!

April 20, 2001

I don't plan to make this an e/n site, so don't expect front page updates every day.  No new tickets, but I do have an incident to relate.  This morning, a bit before lunch, I was sitting at my desk writing up my notes from a ticket when George called me.

"Dude, someone in marketing has an error on his computer."  Through the thick Texas accent, I could feel his concern.

"Okay," I said.  I was not in the mood to pump him for information, and I was trying to type notes, so I was just going to let him talk.  After about ten seconds of silence on his end, I sighed and prompted him.  "What kind of error?"

"Oh!" he said, like I had just poked him hard in the chest and startled him.  "Uh, it was something like, a log file or something."

"What do you mean?  What log file?  What was the whole error?"

"Idunno."  He made three words sound like a single slur.  "Something like--um, like about their file, that he had, with the log.  I think he can still work, though."

I paused in my typing and swiveled my chair around to look at him.  He only sits fifteen feet away from me.  "Who was it?"

"Huh?"  He stares at me with cow-eyes.

"Who's getting the error?  Who do I need to see?  To whom do I need to speak?"  I said this slowly, enunciating clearly, because if I'd tried to speak any quicker my voice would've shrilled into a scream.

"Oh.  Uh, hold on."  He turned around and looked at the papers on his desk for a moment, then turned back around and shrugged awkwardly, with the phone wedged between shoulder and ear (he rolled over his headset with his chair last month and broke it).  "Idunno.  I forgot to write it down."

Believe it, folks.  This is what I do all day long.

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