Issue Twenty, this twenty-second day of February, 2004

'You could be put in jail'

Happy new fucking year.

You will comply. Safety is not an option. Sodium malonate is the new octyl glucoside (use it in your crystal screens!) and activated charcoal is the new ammonium sulphate (it turns your buffers yellow).

I must admit I've been putting off writing this - partly because I didn't have the energy but mainly because I'm working with a bunch of wankers and I really don't like dissing fellow lab rats. But, it's got to be done.

Lab Rats

For starters, they're all Windows users. Yes, I know they've got Macs on their desks (well, apart from one who has an desk in an office as well and runs Windows Tellytubbies. Through choice) but it's an id thing, isn't it? You might be forced to use Windows Tellytubbies every hour of your working life but at heart you're a Mac user. It's more than what computer you use, it's how you think. And the lab rats I'm sharing a cage with are all, to the last goddamn rodent, Windows users in the mind, in the blood, in the very soul.

I write web pages for a hobby. I code to the standards and I try to make them accessible: And I swear most mightily at one incarnation of one particular browser because it's as common as shit and is badly, sadly, horribly broken. One of the symptoms of the Windows disease is the unnatural reliance on this, The Browser that Dare Not Speak its Name, at Least Not Here and While I Can Do Anything About It. Another symptom is the inability to change behaviour in the face of repeated failure. How are these related? I hear you cry.

One of the signs of madness is the continued repetition of an action in the expectation that something different will happen. And I caught one of them at it last week - using one of those awful 'Webmail' services (to access the University's email system no less, not even HurtMail), clicking on the 'attachment' function invariably caused Eye Ee to crash. Sometimes it brought down the whole machine, too. And the rat in question did this five or six times in a row. Sorry, oh Red-Headed one - it was 'your' computer, too. I did wander over and suggest he use a browser that didn't spew questionable files all over the system and that didn't crash every five minutes. And I showed him an alternative, and lo! I beheld him use it with success, and I did repair the Mac so that it was again Good and the next fucking day did I behold him backsliding and using the most evil browser 'known to God or man'. Why do I bother? And another rat, like a sheep following the rest of the flock to the fucking slaughter, has installed the same browser on the Powerbook he uses - the oldest, slowest, clunkiest machine in the lab - and wonders why it's so slow and keeps crashing.

What's a guy to do?

I sit there at my desk, and I hear swearing and frantic clicking and banging on the keyboard (yes, 'your' computer, oh R-H O) - as if hitting the mouse or keys harder makes a difference. And I find that beautiful monitor (the big flat screen one, remember - we all swooned when we saw it?) covered in fingerprints and I want to cry and go home and drink a bottle of scotch and find an automatic assault rifle and come back and do some heavy shepherding of my own.

And someone else in the lab stinks of cigarette smoke all the time, and if that weren't bad enough (it certainly makes my working environment unpleasant. Perhaps I should take up farting in the lift) doesn't get in until after 10 (and goes home between 5 and 6) and frequently takes two coffee breaks. And has no sense of humour to boot. I suppose I should be thankful that I have two smoke-free hours a day.

I've previously whinged about yet someone else's MP3 collection, last epistle in fact. Nothing's changed. He doesn't take the hint either. Grrr . . .

Heh. I should, perhaps, have prefaced this installment with one of Sauron's favourite sayings, "Not to complain about anyone; I'm just observing." Riiight. Which reminds me; he has a new moniker: The Butcher of Babraham. Just ask Studmufifn about his ability to freeze crystals . . .

Mental Emails

'Someone left an item of rather personal nature in the rest area of the 6th
level female bathroom.  Please collect it from where you left it, if you
think it is your belonging.'

Wow.

All right, lab meeting report. I decided, in the face of the current round of butch homies running round with their bulging lallies, that I should keep score and describe the last meeting as if it were a rugby match.

Grasshopper started well, running over a try and converting it. But Sauron was straight back in the game, dominating possession and territory, scoring three tries in as many minutes; converting one of them. Your correspondent made a brave attempt at intercepting a cross-field pass and was on the point of scoring when he was professionally fouled. He was awarded a penalty try (I had to tell him twice that I'd been away which is why I'd not done much - and actually got an apology!).

The Doctor got the ball from the restart and scored a drop goal from the 22 metre line. He tackled Sauron and turned the ball over, making another very good run, but fumbled it 10 yards out. He turned the subsequent maul around and rucked over, when an accidental offside resulted in a five metre scrum. We were pushed back to the 22 before the ball came out. The Doctor again intercepted a pass but dropped the ball and Sauron kicked to touch. My very young apprentice got clean ball from the lineout and passed to Studmuffin on the wing. Studmuffin ran, dummied, but was brought down - not before passing back to my very young apprentice. Sauron came out of nowhere to turn it over; the Doctor missed the tackle and Sauron ran on. I made a tackle on the 5 metre line but was dragged behind him as he made it under the posts.

Conversion, then the Doctor got the ball and dropped a beautiful goal. Yay! My very young apprentice took a penalty; but fell over at the lineout and lost possession. Grasshopper took the next penalty and slotted it between the posts. A last minute penalty try (the Honorable Companion was set to score with his FRET assay but was brought down most cruelly) was enough to restore honour, but not victory.

I guess you had to be there.

Not as demented as God,

Richard