Author: Purple Wyrm

Dumb it Down! No! Dumber!

Now I know what that guy on the train yesterday felt like…

So, some time ago I built a rather complex system for a client. I gave it a name, a good solid, Latin derived name that sounds good and has done perfectly well for the last two or three years.

Recently the client has licensed the system to a much bigger company, and I’ve been working day and night to add in new features and generally neaten up the edges of the whole thing, which is fine. But then I come in this morning and and am informed that the client has unilaterally and without so much as a ‘by your leave’ changed the name of the system. Changed it from its good, solid Latin based name to a weak, insipid, non-memorable, three-times-as-long name that isn’t so much a name as a description of what the system does.

This is like renaming the Ford Thunderbird to the Ford ‘Rather Fast Car’ or Coca-Cola to ‘Fizzy Black Drink’. And to add insult to injury they’ve hooked the name up to a crappy ‘surf the internet!’ logo that looks like something from 1997.

Bastards.

If I’d been informed of this at the start of the project I would be annoyed. But to have it dropped on me halfway through (oh, on top of all the other stuff you’ve got to do, can you engage in a total rebranding with our shitty new logo? thanks!) makes me f’ing furious.

I’m going to continue with the programming work and give this all the attention it deserves (ie: none) until I’m got some time free – probably in about two weeks.

Wacky Train Adventures

The wonders of public transport

The scene – the train to work this morning, stopped at Perth station. I’ve taken a seat towards the end of one of the carriages, reading a book while waiting for the service to get on its way again. Seated at the end of the carriage is a slightly scruffy yet basically normal looking man with a pair of crutches. Numerous other folk are sitting and standing around the carriage, minding their own business.

The automated voice thingie in the carriage comes on. “This train runs from Perth to Shenton Park, stopping all stations. Rail replacement buses to Fremantle are available at Shenton Park. Transperth apologises for any inconvenience”.

The fellow with the crutches looks up, startled, and opens his mouth…

“F***ING C****S!! F***ING C*** TRAINS!! F***!! F***ING C***S!! F***!!” he literally screams at the top of his lungs. He gets to his feet and charges down the carriage to the door, continuing to screech obscenities as loud as he can, and carrying his crutches. “F***!!! F***ING C***S!! F***ING F***!!!”.

On the platform he screams more obscenities at a rail guard before (apparently somewhat mollified) reboarding the train and proceeding back to his seat, muttering under his breath. “F***ing c*** train f***ing stupid c*** country, f***ing f***!“.

He was actually pretty quiet for the rest of the trip.

Nimboid

It’s new word time!

Nimboid – adjective – Highly musclebound, of low intellect and prone to violence, often as the result of hormonal imbalance (see nimboidism).

My brother and I invented the word ‘nimboid’ as children after seeing a TV news article about the z-movie classic A Nymphoid Barbarian in Dinosaur Hell and mishearing the title. We didn’t necessarily formalise the definition, I just always figured – after assuming one of the musclebound freaks show in clips from the movie was the barbarian of the title – that this is what it meant.

Go on! try it out next time you pass a rugby league player!

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