Henrik Lantz

Bored? Create a South Park-version of yourself (or your friends, or your boss, or anyone else) at SP Studio.

Here’s your’s truly:

Wise men say
Only fools rush in

… but when was the last time you heard about a so-called Wise Man getting laid?

(Lovelace from Happy Feet doesn’t count, because he is a) a penguin, and b) animated.)

I had a visit from the Helpdesk this afternoon; coming to help me install a new version of the client for our ticketing system (he’s the third one that has tried and failed after I repeatedly tried and failed myself [and I consider myself to be pretty good around computers]) and to sort out my Outlook reminder problems.

He tried the Remedy client four or five times before he gave up and said he’d have to come back on that one after researching the odd error message I got displayed. The Outlook reminders he actually made more progress on than the previous people; by creating a new profile for me and synching in all the old information he managed to pop up about 150 old reminders before he got back to the same error message again, and then we were back to square one. He resigned to asking Microsoft on that one and restored everything to the original state, before he left. The comments he scribbled down on his ticket printouts were pretty fitting - after 45 minutes with the Helpdesk engineer I was left with a “?” and an “X".

(As he had left the room, I had a stroke of genius and simply googled for installshield error 6001 and guess what? It turns out I only have to delete or rename the folder C:Program FilesCommon FilesInstallShieldProfessionalRuntime701 and suddenly it will all magically work.)

One of the more entertaining TV series I’ve seen is Brainiac: Science Abuse, a show that us non-UK-viewers can pick up via the Discovery Channel. The show should come in a big box that says “Don’t try this at home", as it tests various theories (such as “which kind of household tape is the strongest", “which office appliance is best to use as a floating aid” and “using CO₂ as the propellant, does a wheelchair go faster/further than a shopping cart") and conducts various experiments (eg. “does a person’s ears go red when people talk bad about him” and “can someone tell from the smell of your armpit what kind of junk food you had on the way home from the pub last night"). There are a lot of explosions (predominantly caravans blow up) and scantily clad big breasted women; so I assume that the target audience is predominantly male…

One of the recurring characters throughout the show is a guy called Jon Tickle (known from fantastic segments such as “Things Jon Tickle’s Body Can’t Do” and “Things Jon Tickle’s Body Can Do” - and not forgetting the memorable episode when he walked across a swimming pool filled with custard(!)), a former Big Brother contestant who has been given a new lease of life. When the program breaks for commercials, viewers are sometimes left with one of “Tickle’s Teasers” - according to Wikipedia “rhetorical, nonsensical or punning questions” - and some of them are actually pretty good. For the whole list, check out this link. Some of the better ones:

• If a word is spelled wrong in a dictionary, how would you know?
• Why does your nose run and your feet smell?
• Where does the white go when the snow melts?
• If quizzes are quizzical then what are tests? (Go on, sound it out.)
• And, I think my favourite:
• Where would we be without rhetorical questions?

An anecdote about a yellow plastic toy gun by Dilbert creator Scott Adams made me think of a story my colleague Andrew told me the other day about when he was crossing a border somewhere in Europe in his car a few years ago. The security officer pointed at his guitar case and commented something about “I hope there’s not a machine gun in that case, sir". Andrew, letting his mouth get the better of him replied “I hope so too, I can’t play the machine gun very well.".

They not only went through every inch of his car in the security check, he also got stopped in customs on the other side and had the car taken apart.

• After being severely hung over for more or less two days, without eating properly this morning, heading to the gym for the Long Workout Program. (I lasted about 30 minutes before admitting defeat.)
• Putting on a pair of contacts for the first time in six months and sitting down in front of the computer to typeset a 64 page poetry collection. (Oh, the strain on the eyes!)
• Figuring that I’ll have time to put on another round of laundry whilst frying chicken and peppers for the dinner salad. (At least I know my smoke alarm works. I was wondering about that.)

The other day, I was sat at home trying to find something, anything, on the telly since I was too lazy/snug to get out of bed and go over to the DVD player. In Stockholm, we have 108 TV channels via digital cable; the whole world in a little black box in our living room. What did I end up watching? State television channel 2, displaying a test card, accompanied by J. S. Bach’s “Air on a G String”.

The times of 57 channels and nothing on are gone. (But then, hasn’t Bruce Springsteen always been hopelessly out?)

As I write this, I am listening to my first ever iTunes Music Store purchase; The Pet Shop Boys‘ magical new album “Fundamental“ - the extended version (including the remix CD “Fundamentalism” plus two demo songs and the video for the single “I’m With Stupid” - total 24 tracks + 1 video) is priced at a reasonable €11.99. I created my iTunes account, submitted my credit card details and clicked the “Buy Album” button. After a brief warning telling me I was about to spend money, the songs started downloading, and I had the whole album before I’d finished listening to “Psychological”, the first track. Wow. Really impressed with this.

Then, of course came the big, and I mean ELEPHANTINE, stumbling block. I tried transferring the song to my MP3 player, which was a - in the words of Jack Slater - Big Mistake. You see, I am one of the non-believers who chose to go for a player of another make than Apple; and since people like creating their own monopolies, they of course were not compatible. Apple’s M4P files are only recognized by iTunes, and this FINE application refuses to convert them. It does, however, allow me to burn them on an audio CD. Windows Media Player 10, then, was kind enough to let me rip this audio CD into MP3:s, which could then be transferred. Not anywhere near impressed by these limitations.

I do like gadgets, I really do. But I am NOT buying an iPod until I really, REALLY need a video player. And I don’t.

…the massive backend system used for your intranet falls over (and it’s not your responsibility to fix it) and the error message presented to the user is actually visible in the URL of the returned page; like

https://……./error.aspx?ErrorText=Unable+to+connect+to+database.++Check+database+connection+information+and+make+sure+the+database+server+is+running.

This really inspires people to be creative in tweaking the error message to endless hilarities. I prefer the subtle changes (inserting a single word or changing some tiny detail), but the one that said “Your boss gave you 3 minutes to fix this 5 minutes ago, you are FIRED!” was good too!

Friends and former flatmates Ulrica and Paul gave birth to their first child at 22.45 last night (actually, I think Ulrica probably did most of the work); a 4.2 kg ginger boy by the name of Sid Morris. Congratulations to all three of you, looking forward to see you all again soon!