My Boss is Not a Jerk... But I Must Harass Him Anyway!

He's not a jerk... But that doesn't stop him from "letting" me work this weekend. Or last weekend, or the one previous. He isn't insisting... But there's a hella lot of work right now, and he keeps, well, mentioning the really, really important deadlines...

He's actually a really swell guy. Which is nice! A really nice change from my last boss! She was kookoopants! I hear she still is. (Some other post!)

We're kinda in the middle of switching around security stuff, and we have these goofy workarounds for getting files from the ftp into the inside network. It's old, it was never set up right in the first place, and now it's completely broken. So, we're changing the workarounds to be even MORE workaround-y, and work around their NEW brokenness.

So, I have this idea. He wants me to set this one program up so that whenever files hit our ftp, it will email all the programmers. Okay! But there will be one addition. It will send him FIVE emails!

At first, he'll assume it's a mistake! A weird mistake, because wtf? But, a mistake of some sort, nevertheless. But when he takes a look at the program, he'll see. It's a loop. A loop specifically set up to send him five emails for every email it sends everybody else. What! Okay, very funny. He'll take it out, and assume that he'll be getting just the one email from now on.

But I'll have left more code in the program that checks for whether the loop has been removed... And when it has? He gets TEN!

my $snot=-1;

sendemail(nickprogrammer@work.com);
sendemail(jeffprogrammer@work.com);
sendemail(annekatprogrammer@work.com); # ME!
for (0..5){
   sendemail(BOSSprogrammer@work.com);      $snot++;
   (Way off to the side, a loopcounter increments!
    He won't see it in his editor.)
}


way down below, the second loop!

if (!$snot){
   for (0..10){
      sendemail(BOSSprogrammer@work.com); # hee hee hee
   }
}


So, my boss is not a jerk... Which I hope continues, despite having employees who like to screw with him. I'm sure I can work out a way to find out the status of how many emails he's getting from outside the program... but I have too much work anyway.

It's Been 3 Months... I'll Post About Cat Puke!

I bought a little tropical plant today at IKEA. Three dollars! I put it on top of the dryer to sit until I can take it with me to work. When I was about to come downstairs, I noticed the plant had been knocked over.

I thought, that's weird. I guess I knocked it over, but I don't see how. I thought, my brother didn't put anything on there, I don't think... Huh. Oh, well.

Coming downstairs, I saw a strange dark mass on one of the stair risers, maybe halfway down. It was too large and dark and compact to be like normal kitty puke, but I figured, maybe a mousie toy, or maybe somebody had an unprecedented poop or something. The kitties are very good about pooping properly, but maybe someone was sick. {worry, worry.}

I went down the stairs. When I reached it, it was weirdly bright green. I thought, uh, oh. Someone is REALLY sick, if it's bright green like this!

Nope. Just one, big, nearly whole, leaf from my new tropical plant. Undigested, puked up just as swallowed. I don't even have to worry that someone's poisoned. All I have to worry about is what ELSE they'll swallow entire. ...wait, where's my car keys?

...Till You Get Hurt

You know that song, by World Party?

Put the message in the box,
Put the box into the car,
Drive the car around the world...
Til you get heard.

I JUST TODAY finally realized that line is "Til you get HEARD." Not "HURT."

Makes much more sense this way, I tell you what.