Gecko Bloggle

I’m trying to write this before the shock wears off, so apologies now for rambling or moebius story-telling.

So, today I got some news from a succession of people at my old job that the guy I spent the last year and a half sitting next to passed away at his home some time after Monday evening. He’d gone home Monday morning complaining of trouble breathing. Maybe his heart gave out, I dunno. He was a big guy, sizewise, but he always was during the five years I worked there, so it’s not like he suddenly took a downturn in his health. Who knows? Maybe when he went to doctors, he was told to lose weight, instead of actually looking at what was going on? That response from hospitals almost killed my mom last summer. But I digress.

I was laid off from that job three weeks back, and the first thing both my wife and my mom said when I told them was (verbatim) “But you loved that job!” It was true, too. I liked the work, mostly, and enjoyed working for the largest studio of the largest gaming company in the world. Mostly though? It was the people. The people I worked with were the best thing about the job, and for the last 18 months, I’d been working a Nerf-dart’s throw from the sort of techie who would spend an hour figuring out how to mess with another tech’s machine and not get caught. Not for snooping purposes, not for bragging rights, but because it was funny.

We used to joke that we had to sit together in our department, because we would drive anyone else crazy if we were placed elsewhere. We were like the kids’ table at your Grandma’s Thanksgiving dinner: throwing food, making funny faces, quoting Monty Python and Little Britain at each other. In short, we were two big geeks who would often be amazed that we were paid to do what we loved. Even when we didn’t love it, we could commiserate about how much we hated it, and get the poison out of our system before getting back down into our mental trenches and reconfiguring the Retro Encabulators.

He always had a big stainless steel coffee-can full of jelly beans, and while he might have moaned about having to refill it so often, it gave people an excuse to come talk to him, and see what he was doing, without necessarily feeling like they were interrupting. He also had a big red spinning light, like you’d find above the radiation room, referred to as “The F-O Light.” If it was on, it meant he was busy, so “F-O.”

When we weren’t talking shop, we would mostly talk about comedians and comedy. Things we found funny, and things funny people found funny. We could spend ten minutes trying to remember where we’d heard a joke, or the first time we heard a Bill Cosby record, or just randomly saying “Yeah, I know” in Little Britain accents to each other without breaking our different trains of thought. You know how old married couples can finish sentences? We would speak in half-conscious nerdese: deeply obscure IRC and BBS terminology would get bounced back and forth between us, like a pair of HAL9000s talking in their sleep.

I haven’t worked with anyone who so deeply “got” me as a technician. He understood and could help with what made me livid with rage at the injustices of the job (even if he was arguing the other side, and had already resolved to just get it done), and he also joined in the celebrations and Zulu war-dances of finding solutions that were the vastly dangerous shortcuts and time-crunches we were hired to create. The self-taught techs we were? He had done it all, too, and knew how hard it was to put something down when there was still a problem to be fixed.

There are 2,500+ staff at that location, and damn near 3,000 computers running, and if they were running Windows, he was at least partly responsible for each of those machines running as well as they did. I know how hard his job was, ’cause part of my job description was to be his backup when he was away, and brother, that was one hell of a huge ship to try to captain when he was away.

The day after I was laid off, I started to write an email to the department, as my goodbye. It didn’t go anywhere really, so I put it aside, and tried to write a goodbye just to him first, thinking once I got over the barrier of saying goodbye to the guy I could sit next to for eight hours a day (without wanting to yell “Would you shut UP!” even once at), the rest would be easy.

In writing that letter, I got as far as “It was” before I burst into tears.

I know Han Solo, and I’m no Han Solo, but I sure feel like Chewbacca’s gone.

This past weekend, when I was in Bellingham with the kids getting stamps for Arwen, there was a giant bag of Jelly Belly beans for cheap, so I grabbed ’em, thinking “I’ll bring these with me next time I go out there, or send ’em via courier” or something equally nerdy.  While frowned upon, sending food in the interoffice mail system was also one of the things that made us giggle like idiots, and I thought he would know it meant I was still thinking about him, and would make him smile.

He was active in the BBS/modem scene way back when, before most of you fair readers knew what a computer was.  Before a few of you were even alive.  Before we talked about the Internet, and LONG before the World Wide Web.  It’ll take me a while to figure out where his online haunts were, but www.b3ta.com won’t have him making obscurely funny animated graphics.  He won’t be overly harsh with the helpdesk guys any more, ’cause sometimes he would forget that not everybody was seeing the system from his satellite view.

There was one woman he loved, that I know of, and he had wanted to marry her, but she was betrothed to a needle long before he came onto the scene.  Being young and naive, he didn’t see the signs until it was too late, and didn’t get a chance to pull out of the emotional dive before reality came up fast to meet him.  When he spoke of her, which was rarely, he always seemed to miss who he thought she was.  Perhaps he can finally meet that woman again, and this time, they’ll have a chance at something good together.

He was a huge nerd, a good friend, a great technician, and will be missed.

Goodbye Jan, you magnificent bastard.

89 Minutes and 50 Seconds of us talking, with the occasional song thrown in to make it seem like there’s a point to it all.

Enjoy. Download here. More (faster) download links to come soon.
Download from here, too.
Alsoplus from Mediafire, too.

Tracklist:

1. Talkybit 1
2. Time to Pretend – MGMT
3. Boy With A Coin – Iron and Wine
4. Magic Doors – Portishead
5. Talkybit 2
6. Saturated Vietnamese Radio – Orientalist
7. Never, Never Gonna Give You Up – Cake
8. Reasons (Saturday Night) – Faithless
9. Talkybit 3
10. Run (I’m A Natural Disaster) – Gnarles Barkley
11. Artsy – edIT (feat. The Grouch)
12. I Got a Man – Positive K
13. Talkybit 4
14. Top Drawer – Man Man
15. Race In – Battles
16. Reasonable Ability – General Fuzz
17. Talkybit 5
18. Lust – Raveonettes
19. Trust Me – Martina Topley-Bird
20. OutTakes of Two Idiots Doing Soundchecks

Eep Omnibus Pablum.
(Translation: I got nothin’.)

Yeah, no, I got nothing. This past weekend was good, partly ’cause I deliberately didn’t get into anything from work ’cause I knew this was going to be “hell week,” due to some stuff that’s coming up fast for a Friday deadline. Today, I felt like I was battling all day to stay on target, which was made worse when I suddenly ground my gears to switch tracks entirely for something that’s due tomorrow, instead of something that was due last Friday.

Heh. Ooopsh.

On the upside, I spoke to someone on the phone today who talks even faster than I do. It was awesome. I didn’t necessarily feel confident that he could do what he said he was going to do, but omigod did he ever BELIEVE he could do it. It was one of those rare moments when I found myself thinking “You might be full of it, but I hope you manage to pull it off.”

I wonder how often people think the same about me at work?

So what have I been doing lately? Just for fun, ’cause I’m crazy like that, I installed VMWare, and created a virtual Ubuntu Server. I just wanted to see what it could do out of the box, and found that there was a step with a “do you want fries with that?” checkbox screen, and two of the items were web server and mail server. The very same two things that don’t really work very well on my current server rig right now. So I fired ’em up just to see how scary they were, and they just. Plain. WORKED.

I didn’t install an FTP server (oops), so I couldn’t just start hauling stuff from my currently IIS server into the virtual Apache, but I was pleasantly surprised once again by Ubuntu.

The server version isn’t as exciting as some of the vertigo-inducing effects you can find with the Compiz stuff under Ubuntu workstation, but hey, who needs all those windows doing the hokeypokey like that?

(/me waves hands back and forth, going “Oooh! Ooh!”)

I’m becoming a zealot, aren’t I? Shoot.

If I keep this up, I’m going to end up being the guy running around in shorts, suspenders, and a backpack, telling people “He got Linnixth running on his watch! On his watch he runs it!” I don’t think I’ll ever be as uber as Mister Aardvark, but I’m happy to claim to have been there when he was still a guy working in a bagel place and thinking maybe he should learn about this Linux stuff after he finishes his first album.

Arwen and I went to Deb’s birthday on Saturday night, just like when we didn’t have kids. Rip and I went out yesterday to the park, and there’s some fun pictures up on Flickr (of both events).

On the way home, we hit the bargain bin at London Drugs and bought Super Monkey Ball Adventure, which is a little over Ripley’s head, but sorta slap-happy fun anyway. Two hours of fun for $9.00, not too bad.

OH! I might be going on a business trip soon. Probably. Most likely. We’ll see. Second time in my career I’ve been paid to go somewhere. Last time was when Service Pack 2 for Windows XP came out, and I spent more time going through customs than I did in the air.

This time, I’m gonna have to travel on a Sunday, and come back on the following Saturday (I think, we’ll see). S’gonna be fun (I think, we’ll see). Arwen keeps saying I said I was going to Daytona, but I *know* I didn’t (I think, we’ll see).

For the record (hah!) I bought CDs last weekend, and forgot to tell the world. Despite what groups like the RIAA might have us believe, FREE streaming of music pointed me to music I’d never heard of before, but I like, and then that led me to BUY some for SOMEONE ELSE, ’cause I thought they would like it too…

She just turned 19 (happy birthday last week!), and I’m happy to say she’s my cousin, from that freaky-music-over-talented wing of the family. Somewhere on Youtube I’ve got my uncle John playing a badly tuned piano. I seem to have got the funny gene, but not the musician gene.

Okay, enough nothing from me. ‘nite yall.

Oh, and this song makes me want to do a new style of dancing Mr. Mills and I spoke about in one of our podcasts, and I’m a call it “grumping.” A little moody, and little blue, but funky. Think DeeeLite, but bummed. But diggin’ it. Y’know?
(probably only shows up at http://www.geckotemple.com/blog).

Let’s see.  What’s going on over here?

Caught part of the recent Golden Globes awards “press conference,” which was just kinda painful.  Mary Hart from Entertainment Tonight fame just couldn’t seem to figure out how to turn it off for a moment, which gave her segments this weird “The Office” tension.  You kept expecting her to do/say something desperately inappropriate, and then try to get a high-five from someone while saying “Am I right?  Huh?  People?  You were all thinking it, right?”

Caught CBC’s “jPod” tonight.  Very close to the book, plot-wise, but not very close to anything to do with the geek culture the book had.  What’s missing is the odd people who work at the company in question.  Through personal experience via professional placement, I happen to know the author knows the ex-president of the real “Neotronic Arts,” and the question that Arwen had was a valid one:

“Do you think Coupland thought the company was like that,  or did the president think it was like that?“

Yikes.  I probably don’t want to know.

What they don’t seem to have any of is the alarming humongousness of “Neotronic” Arts.  It doesn’t look like a University with low fuzzy walls instead of classrooms, fortified with games-that-don’t-yet-exist posters, and nerf-hurling railguns.  Not at all.  It looked like they took over the set of Good Rockin’ Tonight and Switchback combined* (see that flicker of tin? just me flashing my “old guy” badge), and put some big freakin’ LCD panels on ’em.  The acoustics in that place would be repugnant.  Nobody has headphones on, so you know it’s fake.  Actually, come to think of it, I didn’t see speakers, either, so they’ll never have a round of “My music has more bass than yours,” which is a near-daily tussle in our department.

They’re also missing the wonderful genius weirdo types.  The ones that wander the common areas, muttering to themselves, listening to $800 worth or portable audio equipment while wearing $8.00 worth of clothes.  You can’ write these people, or put them on TV.  No one would believe you.  People don’t like to think that the chainsmoking sketchy dude at the bus stop might have had something to do with a game like Playground.

There’s no Dodgeball League (I kid you not) in Neotronic Arts.  Of course, the book was done before Phase II of our Burnaby campus was completed, so I guess I can’t fault Doug on that one.

That, and playing “let’s hide the ringing cel phone someone left on their desk,” which is, I’m pretty sure, why cube walls are hollow.

Beyond here be the brayings of a techie…  Non-geeks might wanna take a pass on the rest of this post.

Click here to read more.. »

Another show?  In LESS than 45 days?  What up with THAT?

Duncan was nice enough to join us for another one, and we were a little more wired (read: we’ve had a few) this time around.

Covers show.  Check it.

Via this link right here.
{Or put our RSS feed address into iTunes, and let it download automatically for ya. }

1 – Talkybit 1

2 – Toxic – Mark Ronson F. Tiggers

3 – Three Is A Magic Number – Blind Melon

4 – Love For Sale – Fine Young Cannibals

5 – Talkybit 2

6 – Heartbeats – Jose Gonzalez

7 – Hallelujah – Jeff Buckley

8 – Don’t Fear The Reaper – Jenny Pinkertone And The Bluetones

9 – Talkybit 3

10 – Happiness Is A Warm Gun – Breeders

11 – I Will Survive – Cake

12 – Love Will Tear Us Apart – Mainsqueeze Accordion Orchestra

13 – Talkybit 4

14 – Rhinestone Cowboy – Radiohead

15 – Crazy – A Random Find On Seeqpod

16 – Stairway To Heaven – Dread Zeppelin

17 – Talkybit 5

18 – Human Behaviour – Decemberists

19 – Kiss – Age Of Chance

20 – Mission Impossible Theme – The Meatmen

Here ya go.

1 – Meet Me – Nora Smith-Hisler

2 – Talkybit 1

3 – Oh My God – Mark Ronson F. Lily Allen

4 – California – Marlena Shaw

5 – Track 24 Off Duncan’s Cousins Hip Hop Compilation – Guy of the Hip Hop Genre

6 – Talkybit 2

7 – Ultimate – Gogol Bordello

8 – Purple – King Kooba Meets DJ P-Trix

9 – Can’t Stop Talking – Betty Hutton

10 – Talkybit 3

11 – Nature Of The Experiment – Tokyo Police Club

12 – Goldrush – Yello

13 – Track 4 Off Duncans Cousins Hip Hop Compilation – A Series of Samples from Other Songs That Have Been Strung Together to Make One Song in It’s Own Right

14 – Talkybit 4

15 – Kinetic Stereo Kids – Barefoot In The Rain

16 – How You Sell Soul to A Soulless People Who Sold Their Soul – Public Enemy

17 – Fantastic Plastic Machine – Theme Of Luxury

18 – PiAno – Richard T. Hatch Says Round Evry Corner

19 – Talkybit 5

20 – Dead from the Waist Down – Catatonia

21 – Strma A Uzka – Susuma Yokota

22 – Once in a Lifetime – Wolfsheim

I’m the administrator (and one-seventh of the membership) of the John Burton League on Facebook.  The only rule (and single requirement) is that all members be named John Burton.   Caitlin wanted to join, ’cause that’s how she rolls, and I rejected her, and here’s what happens:

Allow me to plead my case:

Raised in the swinging 60’s by a pack of wild dingoes in the remote northwest of Queensland, I learnt early on the importance of self-sufficiency and also that, really, dingoes don’t taste THAT bad.

It was some point in my early teens that I noticed I was ‘different’. Firstly, I had a distinct lack of fur. Secondly, I felt quite comfortable spending long periods of time on my hind legs. Thirdly, I possessed what can now only be described as an ‘amoebic’ quality. And alas I can only describe it as such because my vocabulary is distinctly (some might even say devastatingly) lacking.

Please, a few moments more – I shall expound. This characteristic seemed unique to me. It was difficult to explain even to our family’s patriarch and my mentor, Papa Dingo. The poor fellow was mono-syllabic at best. His only real conversational pieces involved the prospect of ‘tucker’ and to a lesser extent, his unbelievably debilitating paw rash.

But back to my…uniqueness. What I’m talking of is the ability to change form constantly. And not only in the sense of the present world – I mean across time, space, etc. I possess the remarkable ability to become any type of entity, both living and…inanimate, I suppose? It sounds interesting and perhaps even a desirable gift to possess but at such a young age, John. Never knowing who you truly are. Your name. Your background. Your true self!

Such a burden upon such young and fur-less shoulders! A young lass forced to traipse the outback, vainly attempting to hide her depression at being misunderstood behind the face of a clown, John. (No, really. I found a clown mask on a dead man’s body that my good friend Willomina Dingo had savagely torn apart, and the mask became a part of me. So much so, that when I was shot in the face by a vacationing Dick Cheney several months later, Mr Cheney actually shot me in the face again, and then in the heart, because he was convinced I was ‘It’ from the Stephen King movie of the same name…Don’t worry, I publicly apologised afterwards for causing Mr Cheney so much pain and heartache…After I’d mastered the English language, of course.)

It was a tough time – and it still is. I get by with the help of my friends, and a chronic heroin addiction. I am telling you all of this (and leaving big, conspicuous blank spots) so as to let you know that I am worthy of your exclusive club.

Spike Lee, Moll Flanders, Spartacus, Jupiter – I’ve been them all. (I also spent a brief period as Che Guevara, although only in screenprint form – it made me feel terribly anarchic, and hackneyed also).

Am I making sense, John? I AM John Burton. That is to say, I have been before, and will be again.

Let me in please, sir. Or may God have mercy on your soul.

The *only* thing that’s stopping me from letting her in is the danger of her NOT sending more things like this.

So yeah, so… yeah.

Song list coming shortly, but you’ll all be happy to know the categories are fixed, even though none of the OTHER podcasts MP3s are back online after our main drive exploded a few weeks back. The data’s all safe & sound, but still offline. It’ll be back up again soon, kay? Kay.

Not entirely safe for work, or the faint of heart, so grab some headphones and send the kids to bed.

So start listening by clicking the play button (if you see one), or clicking this.

• Talkybit 1
• Check The OR – Organized Rhyme
• Pressure Drop – The Specials
• Hey Ya – Mat Weedle
• Talkybit 2
• Everybody Wants To Rule The World – Patti Smith
• Who Am I (Animatrix Edit) – Peace Orchestra
• Sea Lion – Sage Francis
• Talkybit 3
• Xltronicradio 20060118 – Mike Paradinas U-ziq
• Rainbowarriors – Cocorosie
• Where’s Johnny Sabatino – Dzihan & Kamien
• Talkybit 4
• Icky Thump – White Stripes
• Parting Of The Sensory – Modest Mouse
• Perpetual Dawn – The Orb
• Talkybit 5
• So Much For Everyone – Dan Mangan
• Body’s In Trouble – Mary Margaret O’Hara
• Bonus song & Easter Egg

Try downloading the site from a much-faster (but might-not-be-there-any-more) mirror.

And if you’re one of us evil Facebookin’ types, you can join the FB group found here.

Or put the RSS feed URL into your iTunes/Podcast grabber, and get ’em that way.

I gotta say, I’m really diggin’ Sony’s Bravia ads for the “Color Like No Other” campaign. This one’s just sorta… Pretty.
The Hole – video powered by Metacafe Nice little tune, too.

Perfectly healthy baby girl born at 9:54pm on Thursday.  Everyone’s fine, but very very tired.

Click here to read more.. »