The Lair

Yeah, so all the things I’ve found funny recently are of geek interest. Sue me.

I’m coordinating a programming effort where we’re using Soap. No, not the detergent; but the “protocol for exchanging messages across a network”. We’re doing Soap over HTTP; which is a fancy way of saying that we’re sending XML messages over the internets. We have a series of suppliers (with test servers) that we need to exchange said XML messages. One supplier, despite our best efforts, kept on throwing an error. So I got in touch with their tech support. After several hours of to-and-fro, during which we didn’t get any response from their server; I had the following conversation snippet.

drac: wooo
drac: we got our first error *shock and amazement*
support person: what?
drac: no SoapAction set .. that’s the first time there’s been a response body at all
drac: ok, I know how to fix that
support person [triumphantly]: i told u! soap action [to be fair, she did. But she also said that there would be an error message when, in fact, their server kept crashing and throwing an HTTP error code]
drac: let me tell them [the programmer types] and we’ll see if it works
drac: this is the FIRST time we got any error at all
support person: somehow programmers are always forgeting about soap action

…

*sniff* How rude. If you didn’t get the joke (to do with a stereotypical Loonix/Programmer hippie’s attention to hygiene), then never mind.

So I step outside into the glorious 30c sunshine and I am as happy as a puppy. So what if it’s a heatwave? This is the age of global warming, of greenhouse gases, extreme sunshine and other things most unYorkish (not to mention unEnglish). Get used it, ya pasty faced Northerners.

I really do try not to leak the radiant beams of happiness leak out at the most uncustomary Northern European sensation of sunshine on skin. I also think people huffing and puffing and saying it’s too hot to work get a trifle annoyed when I display this much happiness. The cheery smile and automatic “nice weather, innit?” also seems to get to them, but I cannot imagine why. *innocence*. But anyway, onwards to the city to buy train tickets and the first leg of my journey towards a much hotter place. (No, not down there. Well, I hope not anyway. It’s warm enough here, thanks very much).

The visit to the city reminded me of why I avoid the place like an ancient Roman plague. It’s crowded, absolutely teeming with people and there is lots of traffic. Funny, I don’t mind traffic and crowds in Colombo but get all shirty and worked up when people numbers on Yorkish streets reaches oh .. about the same levels as a small sidestreet on a normal Colombo weekday. There is also (mentioned casually, in passing) much flesh on display. The fact that most of the exposed flesh is sported by teenagers and *shudder* even younger detracts considerably from the spectacle. That’s a high falutin’ way of describing my reaction; which really goes something like “*blink blink* Hmmm, not bad.” … pause while the probable age is determined. “Oh, gawd. She’s just a kid, dammit!”. Disappointment and a hasty aversion of eyes follows.

Anyway, a minor digression – the curse (or blessing, if you want to call it that) of Colombo strikes again. Nuptial photos (I didn’t know the people involved, so I wasn’t all that interested) appeared on a local aggregator site recently. Various people also posted photos to Flickr and sundry other quarters. I was happily oblivious to it all. Then Chickenbutt noticed that two of the photos had inadvertently caught someone we both knew in the background – near the steps of a church. So, during a social “how are you doing” IM conversation yesterday; I brought up the topic of a recent wedding. Yes, this person we both know did go to the wedding. And it also turns out that I also know the sister of the groom. Ye gods. 4 degrees of separation to anyone in Colombo. It’s still holding true.

And finally to the point, The Apprentice hasn’t started screening the latest seasons in the UK yet. Pity. I could have used a few tips; but the beloved tellybox has let me down, so I’m resorting to Dilbert instead.