Flight of the Conchords – Something Special For All The Ladies

Some of you are probably wondering where I’ve been hiding and why I’m not posting. I’m still alive and kicking, it’s just that lately at work I’ve been consumed by a project to tidy up our server room. Basically it was an embarassing mess when I started, it was hard to maintain and figure things out through all the cable spaghetti, and some of our delicate fibre was not in an ideal location – tangled in with the mess. It was so bad that I personally would not allow any other sysadmin in there, for fear that they’d destroy our rainforest.

So I have put in a lot of hours moving servers around, getting them racked together in their various subnets, while minimising disruption for the users and making sure that power, network and console availability remained, while gradually tidying up cabling and giving some structure and standardisation to the room. In the process I removed a considerable pile of crap, including a length of 4×2″. How freaking New Zealand is that?!

Unfortunately my digicam is being repaired, so my camera phone will have to suffice for now. And I estimate that there’s maybe another two days of work before everything is sorted, and once that’s done we can remove two more racks and begin some long overdue network upgrades!

Anoushka Shankar & Karsh Kale – Easy (Feat. Norah Jones)

I’m not happy again. This time because the government in its wisdom has banned outright BZP.  So you have two weeks to stock up, and a six month amnesty period to use it. Now, I’m not keen on party pills, which is what this legislation is all about, however I am keen on the BZP-based metabolism enhancers that I have been on for the last few months.

Wait, what?

Allow me to explain. I worked shift work for three years, which absolutely destroyed my body chemical balance – specifically my testosterone and seratonin levels dropped to dangerous lows. The screwed circadian rhythm also resulted in a pretty badly affected metabolism – basically meaning that while I was sitting there at my desk in a zombie like state, miserable and depressed, alone in the office babysitting a couple of datacentres, my slow metabolism was simply not touching the copious energy-dense foods and drinks I was consuming in an attempt to stay awake; essentially the six red bulls and three coffees I was having every night was immediately stored.

Couple that with my maternal family’s history of thyroid gland problems (the thyroid gland helps to regulate metabolism), and you can see that I’ve been up against the odds for the last year while I’ve been trying to straighten things out.

The alarm bells went off for me when I got back from France, and the so called “Heathrow injection” effect was beginning to show – in three weeks I had piled on the kilos, and for the first time in my life I was well over the ton (for those not familiar with the term, that’s 100kg/220lbs). I have since lost 15kg through playing Touch and embracing a focus on boosting my metabolism. Why the focus on metabolism? Because regulating your metabolism will adjust the rate that your body burns energy while you’re at rest, and as I work mostly at a desk it’s the most useful thing one can do for a primarily sedentary role like mine. Because exercising at your desk in an open plan office is going to make you look like an idiot. I also get the occassional workplace exercise by moving servers about and contorting myself around racks and such, which is my equivilent to Fartlek (speed/interval training) which also increases metabolism.

What else have I been doing? I’ve been taking BZP based metabolism enhancers, along with breakfast every day. Regular breakfast also increases your metabolism, and it doesn’t really matter so much what you have for breakfast – just that you have something, as the whole point of breakfast is to kickstart your blood pressure, blood sugars etc. These pills might have a slight high the first time you take them, but the second day you take them and onwards they have NO high and NO come down. And any high you do get on them is barely equivilent to a couple of short blacks back to back. I got more of a buzz out of the thimble size espressos you get in France.

They are not party pills, they are dietary suppliments, and abusing them in an attempt to get a lame high will only result in, I’m told, a splitting migraine and the runs, which is just a massive incentive isn’t it? If I don’t focus on correcting my screwed metabolism, I will over-time bloat to blimp size proportions and then the taxpayer will have to pay to get my stomach stapled. Great going there, Hon. Jim Anderton. This is a prime case of “everything in moderation” being able to be applied sensibly that was flat out ignored by a stupid piece of rushed, ignorantly and poorly thought out legislation.

So I’ve just had to dish out a wad of cash for three month’s supply. After that I guess I’ll just have to chug flaxseed oil and switch to thermogenics, which are more expensive and not as effective, oh yay.

Dave Dobbyn – Beside You

Now for something different – the wavy locks and the clean shave are both gone. Welcome to my first kina baldy in about a decade:

Did it myself, can you tell?

Ministry Of Sound – Heater

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The Killers – Smile Like You Mean It

Today I went into work with a holesaw to drill some cable routing holes into our brand new credenza, and while I was in the office I was scheduled to move some network equipment between 3pm and 4pm.  An email was sent to all staff at our office notifying them of this fact, so the change window was all mine.  I got in about lunchtime, drilled the cable routing holes and assembled the credenza, wiped it down and installed the video conference equipment.  The intention was to just get the gear inside the credenza and hook it up and re-test connectivity on Monday, after installing the gear I would have been about due to do the network upgrades, which is a little more important.

Well, people showed up at the office before 3pm and their requirements prevented me from doing the network upgrades within the window that I had been scheduled. I was due to be out of there by 4pm but instead due to waiting for these people to finish what they were doing, I didn’t get out of there until 6.30pm. While I waited, I put in some extra work on the video conference equipment, getting all the cabling in place and hooked up, then I powered it up and tested. Now all that’s left is to setup, configure and test the PC we have connected to it.

Sitting at work twiddling my thumbs on a Saturday… at least it’s raining so it’s not so much of a loss I guess. Would rather have been at dinner with a friend instead though.

Also, want.