may the devil throw pebbles at the feet of our enemies that we might know them by their limp
As I've recently been rebuilding this site, I've noticed a lot of occasions where I don't think that people are getting much value from their searches. Due to this, and a small surplus of time on my hands, I enlisted Mark's help on answering some of the queries that have come this way. I give you the first, and probably the only, edition of Ask arghh.
Personally, I've never been able to stomach his infuriating fitchtingyness and all too frequent nanocarsia.
So, in order to prevent similar such occurences in the future, I have devised a foolproof backup method, as detailed below :
1) Each night, I will UUEncode the contents of my hard disk.
2) I will then break the resulting file into 300kb chunks.
3) I will mail each chunk to a different person, who will be expected to index the files by date for safekeeping.
4) In the event of catastrophic failure, I can then simply reinstate the contents of my disk by asking everyone to mail back the latest chunk, join it all back together again and UUDecode the contents of the resulting ASCII file.
5) On the seventh day, I shall rest, content in the knowledge that I have created the World's Greatest Backup System.
Next week, I have an idea for image compression that involves mailing people the RGB values of each individual pixel in an image (one pixel per person - think about it, you only need 307200 contacts for each 640x480 image). The original image can then be deleted from your own disk. Bingo, 100% compression. Stick that, Joint Picture Experts Group.
It started, as so many things do, at a pub. I'd been drinking in an anonymous railway bar near to Luton station for three hours as I waited for the promised (or rather, threatened) train to arrive and take me to somewhere less godforsaken, when a stranger walked up to me and snatched the newspaper that I had been reading and began writing the word "BRANSON" in all of the suitably sized gaps in the crossword. I was about to remonstrate with him when the control in my brain which prevents me from arguing with six-foot tall, angry skinheads intervened. He went on furiously scribing the crossword until he'd filled all of the gaps and then, abruptly, walked outside taking the newspaper with him. From the flames visible through the glass shortly afterwards, I can only assume that my paper was immolated. The man did not come back and, deprived of anything else to do, I set about drinking with renewed vigour.
Five hours later, I was very drunk and had missed my train. In fact, I'd completely forgotten that I had a train to catch so I ordered another drink and fell into conversation with a bored middle-aged lady who was nursing a vodka and orange. It was this lady that challenged me to spend a year annoying one of my ex-flatmates by scratching his car at random. We placed a wager of one drink on the outcome, if I managed to spend a whole 12 months regularly scratching said persons car without detection, then I would go to the bar exactly one year later to the day and collect my free drink. If not, I would have to go there and buy a drink for the bored lady.
Well, you really don't know the thrill of randomly irritating people until you try it and the months fairly flew by. Every three months, I would change the implement that I was using to cause damage. I'd started with a teaspoon, hoping to choose something more fun later, and had ended up with a three month sponsorship from a Brillo pad salesman. Returning to Luton, not an activity that I could recommend by the way, one year later I was unable to claim my free drink because the bar was no longer there. I broke into the alcoholism advice centre that had taken its place but no one was around, certainly not the bored lady I had encountered previously.
Sadly the whole escapade was for nothing, imagine how annoyed I was.