12/14/2005: "Expletives"

I am installing Windows 2k3 Server EE on a box right now, and I have to pull my image file for the install from St. Louis. The install is taking...a long time. The morning is quiet, very dark and rainy outside, and as late in the year as it is, the icy clutch of winter is strangely absent from the day. Most of the rest of the staff is on vacation already, and there is hardly any sound beyond the soft hum of the HVAC stuff and the far-off rattling of someone else's keyboard.

I had almost forgotten Massurah was here today, in his usual seat behind me, when he suddenly muttered, "Cocksuckers, that's a fucking lie! That's bullshit!" His tone was belligerant bordering on violent, and I started giggling at his outburst. What, I asked him, could provoke such vitriol?

"Two things," he said. "First, this fucking manual--" he pointed to the PDF document up on his screen, which detailed how to troubleshoot errors with whatever application he was using--"says that any error messages I receive will be recorded and explained in the error log file, but the error I'm getting says 'UNKNOWN ERROR' and the log file is empty. Second, the error also tells me to contact my system administrator, and I AM THE SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR."

I told him that if he wanted to, he could pick up his phone and give me a call, but he didn't seem too keen on that idea.

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