www.alphadictionary.com

Posted: **Fri Oct 06, 2006 9:27 pm**

I Read Banned Books week is over;
the importance of reading them is not.

"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"
(Who will watch the watchers?)
-JUVENAL
Roman rhetorician and satirical poet (1st to 2nd cent. A.D.)

Posted: **Tue Oct 10, 2006 10:53 pm**

Try working at a large government agency where all the PCs are leased and mostly locked down. At home I'm in my own element, although I am one of the few blessed with the right to install software on my work PC. I used to pack up PCs for moves (and word processors in the pre-PC era long, long, ago), but no more. The government is farming out all that is not "inherently a governmental task." There's a few bastions of sanity left, mostly in the Security area where I'm now working, but for the most part, at least at our agency, "hands-on" technical jobs are contracted out and the employees are relegated to managing the contractors.

I went into work one day last week and, lo and behold, there sat new computers at each station (specialized for the type of work I do). I just love change.

I asked my manager if he was going to show me how to use these new beasts. Well, I guess I'm on my own there. A co-worker muttered to me, "how can he show you how to use the darned thing if he doesn't know how himself?" Good question. Oh, man...it was a tough week.

Posted: **Wed Oct 11, 2006 6:15 pm**

So do tell Gzr and Bailey; what do you'uns do for a living?

Inquiring minds want to know. (Which sounds so much better than "my morbid curiosity makes me nosey".)

I started bilking the public, I mean, working as a civil servant, doing data communications for the Social Security Administration, back before the personal computer was a gleam in the eyes of MITS. I later move HCFA, now CMS (the agency that does Medicare and Medicaid), also doing datacomm. I migrated into computer security in the last few years, but now work in personnel and physical security, more specifically, on the team implementing the new HSPD 12 PIV credentials.

Posted: **Wed Oct 11, 2006 6:20 pm**

. . .
I went into work one day last week and, lo and behold, there sat new computers at each station (specialized for the type of work I do). I just love change. I asked my manager if he was going to show me how to use these new beasts. Well, I guess I'm on my own there. A co-worker muttered to me, "how can he show you how to use the darned thing if he doesn't know how himself?" Good question. Oh, man...it was a tough week.

It shouldn't have been THAT drastic a change, unless maybe you were still using CPM or Microsoft DOS Version 2.0 . . .

BTW, I love that new tagline--it's all too true. I know too many people who should not be allowed to swim in the gene pool.

Posted: **Wed Oct 11, 2006 6:50 pm**

It shouldn't have been THAT drastic a change, unless maybe you were still using CPM or Microsoft DOS Version 2.0 . . .

BTW, I love that new tagline--it's all too true. I know too many people who should not be allowed to swim in the gene pool.

The entire company went from keyboards to touch screen and changed the layout of the menu. It still has lots of bugs that haven't been worked out. You know how that goes. Plus, the system works slower than my fingers. Now I can see the nasty little fingerprints left behind from others that use that terminal.

Also, I'm glad you like the tag line.

I have used that phrase for many years now and for some reason, some people don't seem to get the message...

Posted: **Wed Oct 11, 2006 8:22 pm**

. . .
The entire company went from keyboards to touch screen and changed the layout of the menu. It still has lots of bugs that haven't been worked out. You know how that goes.

Remember the Developer's Mantra: "Those aren't bugs, those are undocumented features!"

. . .
Plus, the system works slower than my fingers. Now I can see the nasty little fingerprints left behind from others that use that terminal.

Ah, yes; the latest technology is not always the greatest. I was sad to see the touch-screen voting machines come into our voting booths, replacing perfectly good mark-sense ballots that not only could be counted electronically but also gave you a paper trail that could be easily audited.

Also, I'm glad you like the tag line. I have used that phrase for many years now and for some reason, some people don't seem to get the message...

And how many of them fall the purview of the tagline?

Posted: **Wed Oct 11, 2006 9:59 pm**

Also, I'm glad you like the tag line. I have used that phrase for many years now and for some reason, some people don't seem to get the message...
And how many of them fall the purview of the tagline?

I try not to say it in front of mixed company, but in the presence of those in which the advice would most benefit.

Unfortunately, some people are oblivious to those who have subtle tendencies such as myself. Oh, well. All we can do is try.

Posted: **Mon Oct 30, 2006 7:54 pm**

Time to move along. Nothing to see here.

Sometimes opportunity knocks. Other times, you have to roam the streets until you find it, beat it over the head, and drag it back to your place kicking and screaming.

Posted: **Sat Nov 18, 2006 9:51 pm**

Time for a change. Hasta la vista to Piled Higher and Deeper:

"Of course grades don't matter," said Prof. Smith, "we only care about the lab work." Grades only serve to "feed the ego of the smart students, and break the spirit of the mediocre ones."
-Piled Higher and Deeper www.phdcomics.com

¡Saludos! to one in a more religious vein:

For God so loved the dog that He gave him His only Name, with which to spell his.
-- Canis 3:16

Posted: **Tue Nov 21, 2006 9:18 pm**

So long! Farewell! Auf weidersehn, goodbye!

"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the
dictionary."
-- William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)

"Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?"
-- Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)

Posted: **Tue Nov 21, 2006 9:27 pm**

but I was liking that one,

mark shouldda-tole-ya-so-afore Bailey

Posted: **Tue Nov 21, 2006 9:32 pm**

Why, thank you, kind sir.

Like yours as well! It reminds me of the line I've seen on an e-mail making the rounds... "Used to be we took pills to make reality seem strange. Now we take pills to make reality seem normal."

Posted: **Sat Dec 02, 2006 12:16 am**

The inertia of abject lexicographic laziness at long last gives way to capricious chalance and thus this one can be beat about the head and shoved into the paddy wagon:

"Gentlemen, get it straight once and for all. The policeman isn't there to create disorder; the policeman is there to preserve disorder." --Richard Daley, 1968

Jettisoned in favour of a hit of Bob frop (see Church of the Subgenius, The)

Posted: **Sat Dec 02, 2006 2:10 pm**

Time to move along.

I spent most of my money on drinking and women. The rest, I just wasted.

Posted: **Mon Dec 11, 2006 11:31 pm**

My long-time tagline "Don't get run over." was one thing my late mother used to tell me every single time I left the house as a child. My new tagline was the other thing. I never did get run over. I never pulled my socks up, either.

-- PW

www.alphadictionary.com

Tagline Graveyard