typical

ha!, typical. i just got a call about a job and it was to work for the last bank i worked at before i was at this one. i told them i would pass. there is no point in going there. why go somewhere that you know is shit and that i didn't like first time. actually it would have been a 3rd stint there because about years ago when i first got into IT and was a desktop support person, i worked there for 4 weeks and then left. it was shit twice. i suspect it will be shit again.

still not heard anything about that other japanese bank i got a call about last week. i think the job only went live officially yesterday because i saw it advertised. it would be nice if that came through. i want out.

my trip to the states is all coming together and it looks like this.
friday night - fly to NY, meeting up with a friend and seeing klaxons on monday night.
tuesday afternoon - fly to LA. seeing, does it offend you yeah, on tuesday night.
wednesday afternoon/evening - drive to san francisco, stay at my friends place.
friday - drive back to LA, seeing the la galaxy v red bulls on friday night.
sunday - drive to san deigo and then drive back to LA and fly back to london in the evening.

time is short and i have many people to see about many things in a short space of time. rather amusingly my work still haven't given me the time off, but that is their problem and not mine.

am working tomorrow. i suspect its going to be shit. we are moving 10 year old servers that run windows NT and ancient versions of sql to a brand new shiny data center. god only knows why they are doing this. production NT4 servers. i will say it again.....production NT4 servers!...running on hardware 13 years old. jesus wept. you hope they will notice the folly when they say the words out loud, but they don't. you just end up sitting there in the meetings looking around the room looking for someone else to acknowledge that its madness but no one does, and you feel like you are the only sane person left in the world.

at my last contract we did a project where we upgraded or retired any server that was not windows 2003 or later. OS older than 7 years was considered a risk and obsolete. they have a 15 year old OS running production applications. i am astonished. not just one or two servers either. there are dozens of them that i have seen. what is wrong with these people?.

for the first time, i let my real frustration come out today at work. not good. all day spent messing around on ancient NT4 servers had my blood boiling and i snapped back and made some sarcastic comments in front of my manager. i honestly don't care. in response to a couple of queries from one of the project managers, yes, it is all fucked because its been put in by a monkey, and yes we are contractors and we bill for all our time because this ain't charity, and in response to my manager who queried why i didn't know how to use some random obscure remote desktop software they use on the NT4 servers i replied, no i have never used it before because all the other banks i have worked at didn't download shareware off the internet and install it on 15 year old servers.

christ i need my holiday soon, before i say something that will really upset them. :-)

anyways, enough whining. here is a really nice story about a guy that spent his youth in orphanages and shelters and was homeless for a while but who has now signed for manchester united. thats why we love football. its got nothing to do with where you went to college or how tall you are or if you got coached from the age of 4, or if you had membership to courts or a course. its just about talent and how you apply yourself and its all about what you can do with a ball. its the same game that i played on the street, that i played in park, that is played by messi and ronaldo in front of millions.

thats about all folks. have a lovely weekend. will post some music tonight as network restrictions prevent me doing so at work.

today i have mostly been listening to klaxons - its not over yet. they better play this in new york. they probably will as its not like they have a huge back catologue.