TCP Towers - The Next Generation

...and thus and so, it did come to pass, that Simon the Stressed did thusly recover from syadminning. And it was good (lucky sod). And henceforth, and onward, the mantle of 'bofh@tcp.net.uk' did fall upon the not-quite- as-broad-but-still-manly-and-not-girly-I-hope-you-understand shoulders of John the Unstable.

It's been an interesting 10 days at TCP Towers. Very very painful, as far as I'm concerned, but shit - I have sysadmin genes[1] in my DNA, so I, er kinda enjoyed it, in a perverse way.

TCP Towers itself has been undergoing a physical transformation. Well, not so much the keep of TCP Towers, where we serfs slave away by candlelight, as opposed to the mighty castle that we are attached to, by virtue of the mighty King of the Towers extending his domain and building new fortifications. Now, this is all well and good, but the noise of the artisans extending the fort is a little irritating - they are knocking holes in the side of the fort, unfortunately not for pouring boiling oil out onto the hordes of revolting lusers, but so the King and Queen of TCP Towers can look out and survey their domain. The constant sound of hammers and drills is almost (but not quite) as irritating as the sound of 1000 lusers whining in your ears...

Phil the Peeved and I have made protestations and representations to the King of the Tower, complaining about his artisans (no, that's NOT the same as courtesans), but despite his assurances some days ago that this had ceased for all eternity, it started again today. Hmm. Fortunately, Eris was on our side.

Just when it seemed that I would have to go outside and wave Thumper[3] around threateningly, Eris did smile upon us, and the heavens did open. Quite literally. It was just as if some higher power had decided they wanted a bath in the back garden of the Tower, and did proceed to turn some heavenly tap on. This had the benefit of driving the artisans from the Tower to find some shelter, and of producing a spectacular lightning display, which I found particularly pleasing[4].

Of course, Eris, fnord had the last laugh. 230 minutes after the storm had passed, there was a dip in the power, and the normal rumble of grinding cogs and machinery in the base of the Tower did abruptly cease. A mighty cry of "Oh fuck" did rise from the bowels of the tower, as Phil the Peeved was up to his arms, whipping the Demons that talk to the lusers modems into shape. I rushed in, to find the mighty lurking gremlin that is supposed to protect our cogs and shafts from such events had gone into a sulk. That's right. The UPS had crashed. It needed power-cycling to fix it. Never has the phrase "what IS the point?" ever been so apt. A half-hour later, all the escaped demons had been put back in their cages and the Tower was rolling on once more. A UPS gremlin that sulks in bad power surges is like an invisible sock. Nice idea, but...

The other problem with Simes leaving is that he left in the middle of a major re-arrangement of the Demons. A very messy process, because it leaves trails of sulphur and demon bits all over the place as you coerce them into moving from one cage to another. He wasn't supposed to leave in the middle, he was supposed to leave at the end, when it was all finished. As ever in the Tower, normal temporal laws broke down, and "there just wasn't enough time".

This meant there was lots of bits to fix and sort out. None of the lusers noticed anything was wrong, but the serfs and scribes had all of their quills broken and the inkpots turned over, and muggins decided to try and fix it all. That was the first all-nighter. By then, everything was OKish, and most of the rest was just wrinkles.

Then, the mighty Informix beast did rear its ugly head. The owner of the Informix beast is not familiar with the Solarium (where it lives), and so instead of being able to hit it on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper when it shits on his carpet, he has to get us to kick it and tell it it's naughty. Now Simon's gone, this means me.

The Informix beast isn't a small, cute St Bernard like SMTP. It's a monster of a black dragon, breathing smoke and ESQL C at anyone who dares to approach it. On Wednesday last, the beast did poop mightily upon the carpet, and I was called upon to clean up and teach it a lesson. That was the second all-nighter. After much R'ing of TFM, the beast was tamed, and was not going to do that again.

The end of the week was taken up with hitting the accounting Demon to try and move it into a new cage (still not done - there's still bits of demon all over the place, and it's still screaming bitterly about doing it's job - then again, you'd scream bitterly if you were a many-armed behemoth with a viscious temper and a voracious appetite). That's still not quite done, due to the Informix beast running round leaving bits of smelly stuff all over the carpet which I had to chase around with a monster pooper-scooper. That was a 90 hour week. I've never been so mentally tired in my life. Physically, yes, but there's usually a reason for that...

For those who worry about SMTP, she's fine. I haven't quite got Simon's SMTP food recipe down pat, but it's pretty close. She only hiccups sometimes, and that's only when she detects a particularly luserish bit of mail is being thrown for her to fetch.

And then there's the lusers. Oh yes. Unfortunately, Simon didn't take them with him. It seems, all of a sudden, that people are having problems using Windoze 95 <spit> to connect to us. I detect a conspiracy[23]. I think M$ are about to release their own ISP-in-a-box service, and all of a sudden, Luse 95 is not going to work with USR, Ascend, Livingston or any other semi-decent kit. All of the ISPs in the world are going to have to use M$ ISP 96. Yes. "Hey Bill, why doesn't everyone just setup a direct debit/standing order directly into your bank account so you don't have to bother developing any more software and can just take all the money in the world that way." Fie. A pox on the lad. May all of AOL spam him multiply with Make Money Fast. But, he'd have to send all the money to himself anyway.

Microsoft ISP. I can see it now. It doesn't work half the time. It needs bug fixes every other hour. It has no security. Each modem needs 16 meg of memory so you can install an entire OS on it because the modem software is part of it (the OS is codenamed "Meadville, PA", so my sources tell me), and every packet is personally inspected by Bill before it goes anywhere. It also sucks. Big camels. Small straws. You get the picture.

Everyone in the world can call themself a 'Microsoft Solution Provider'. All they need is a blunt object to Solve the Microsoft Provision problem. thwack

Anyway. That's about it from me. Don't throw money. Just offers of sex and chocolate. In that order.

[1]	Commonly known amongst psychologists as "masochism". [2]
[2]	Pain. Ah yes. My favourite.
[3]	My new LART. Actually a 4 foot, solid wood baseball bat. A birthday present from Simes. I love that man.[5]
[4]	Lightning & Thunder good. Hot sun for days on end bad.
[5]	On a purely professional basis of course.
[23]	fnord

Posted on 28 Aug 1996 by John Vaughan