ok, so i have been working on the tech boy stuff for WAY too many hours. i can now run the Bat Cave better than anyone else in that building. I have repaired the Monolith (the massive AV rack) at least three times and kept the expensive techs away, i have helped install the Video Conference system in two different racks and have helped it get connections in two new rooms around the office so that we don't have to stay in the Bat Cave to communicate with the outside world, and i have figured out how to work the new security cameras to the point where i can follow someone from the time they pull up in their cars to the time they enter the building almost seamlessly (it's kind of like that guy in SLIVER).
so it's almost unavoidable that i start going a little bit crazy with it (especially if you have been keeping track of me until this point).
i guess it all began when i started assigning codenames to the sites that we keep calling. I had set up a speed dial function on the video conference system and had labled one site LOOPBACK. what this site did was take our signal and send it back to us with a one second delay so that we knew that our signal had gone somewhere. i labled another one SBC TEST. It was the SBC/Ameritech conference room that had a camera on all the time so that i could see a different room for a while.
but after a while it got to the point where i was using the code names without really thinking about it. I called my contact at the chicago office and said "yeah, can you give a call down here to Funkytown?"
"funkytown?"
"ummm..." shit. well, i might as well go with it. Make it seem like it's an official thing. "yeah. That's our site name." I said.
"well if Springfield is Funkytown, what is Chicago?"
i racked my brains for a suitable codename. Suddenly inspiration struck. "Happy World Land!"
for the rest of the day i wandered the halls singing the Happy world Land theme song from the Tiny Toon Adventures movie How I spent my Summer Vacation:
Happy World Land
Happy World Land
Where the fun never stops
at only 80 bucks a pop
in beautiful Happy World Landwelcome to a land where the fun never stops
we've got six cool rides and 100 gift shops
see this Happy World Land, all things bright and new
this is Happy World Land, where all your dreams come true
I really don't think i could have come up with a more appropriate code name if i tried.
so anyway, Me and one of the management guys from the Fire Marshal's office went to a Video Users conference to interact with other people in the Funkytown area who had and used the video conference network. My impressions of the meeting were that it was like watching flys fuck on drying paint. About half-way through the meeting, they began handing a microphone around and asking people to stand up, say their name and agency and how they used it or inteended to use it in the future. Everyone got up and said pretty much the same thing. I asked Jim (the management guy) if i could talk or if he was going to do it. He said he would and asked me to write down what he should mention. I quickly jotted a script down and slid it over as the microphone reached Jim. He stood up and glanced at the script...looked again...and then said his own quick version of what the system had been used for so far.
on the way out of the meeting he looked at the script again and read it aloud as we walked towards the car.
"hi, my name is Jim and i use video conference equipment. (wait for audience to say "Hi Jim") I guess it all started innocently enough. I didn't use it all that much, but then i just kept on calling sites. i guess i just wanted to feel important. It got to the point where i felt like i coulnd't do business without using the video phone."
while he agreed it was funny, he didn't really feel that it would have been appropriate. No one listens to me at all.