October 13, 1995
Dear Everyone:
Happy
Friday the
Thirteenth!
To say that the past
week was rather brutal would be the greatest understatement since
Noah said, “I think it’s
going to rain.” It all
started last Saturday when I was up at 4:00 am and didn’t get home from
work until midnight. That’s
when we (we being four Technical Support people and
moi) took the
Versatile
Server, the CAP Server and Ivan the Indexer from San Francisco to
“Livermore”. I won’t bore
you with the gory details (if you want gory details, go see
Seven);
suffice it to say that everything that
could go wrong
did go wrong.
After that, things
got worse. As of today, both
the Servers are up and running, although Ivan seems to have picked up a
bit of colic or something.
He keeps freezing up and dropping his Token Ring, and you know how
irritating that can be. And
I’ve sent a half-pound box of Sees chocolate truffles to each of the
Tech Support people so they won’t throw stones the next time they happen
to see me.
In other news...
I’ve made a second
career out of not knowing anything about the
O. J.
Simpson case and I’ll be the first to admit that it hasn’t been
easy. My reason for not
knowing is so that, when asked for an opinion, I can truthfully say, “I
don’t know enough about the facts to be qualified to form an opinion,” a
technique I’ve also used regarding things like the relative safety of
nuclear power plants and what to do about
Bosnia-Herzegovina. (Can
you believe Spell-Check knows how to spell Herzegovina?)
I noticed last week
something about the “Trial of the Century” (sub-category, Simpson; not
to be confused with other “Trials of the Century” such as the
Hauptmann
case) having finally ended.
However, I don’t think the media is going to let go of it that easily.
Just the other night, NBC was trumpeting that it intended to
waste three hours of prime time on an ex-football player who used to
make his living running through airports.
In spite of my best
efforts to know nothing, I do know quite a few things.
I know there’s a
lawyer named Marcia
Clark. I understand she
had an impressive career until recently.
I don’t care what she wears, or how she does her hair.
I do think what she does with her children is her own business
and none of mine.
I know there was a
“former-detective
Mark Something (sounds like furlong)”.
Since he is a “former detective”, I assume that he left his job.
Either they fired him, or he quit
before they could fire him.
At any rate, if his greatest ambition in life was to make a
complete fool of himself in front of half the known world, I’d say he’s
succeeded. He’s also
succeeded in proving that:
a) he has a foul mouth; and b) you really
don’t have to live in the Deep South to be perceived as
white trash.
Or, as it’s known in California,
trash du blanc.
I know that one of
the lawyers kept wearing things on his lapel, but the purpose was never
made clear. Fashion
statement, or just trying to hide a grease spot?
I know there was a
lot of talk about
DNA and EDA
and maybe the EPA.
None of which made much sense to anyone.
On second thought, maybe “EDA” is the name of that special hand
cream that "Jeannie" gets from the hair dresser.
Or maybe the LA crime lab technicians use the same hand cream.
And I know that, if
you want to kill someone and get away with it, make sure of two things:
1.
You’d
better be rich.
2.
Do it in
Los Angeles.
I also know that the
Simpson case will stay in the news for quite a while yet.
If the day ever comes when a week goes by with no mention of it,
we should all jump on it quick and drive a
stake through its heart.
Love, as always,
Pete
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