joost
March 15th, 2001, 04:28 PM
(the big sleep mode)
<Bogart>
I tilted back in my ergonomic chair and watched the rain screensaver. The drops smacked against my monitor like a streaming video. Outside my window, the dusk quickly darkened into midnight as black as the inside of a toner cartridge.
I cranked open a Jolt and sucked back some caffeine goodness. It was late; I'd just finished a dirty little job, pulling evidence from some poor schmuck's PC that his wife had brought in. She wouldn't be happy to see the pictures I'd pulled out of his Internet cache. Poor sap. I almost felt sorry for him, but I don't get paid to sympathise.
I'm a Private Geek. It's what I do.
I had another shot of Jolt, and started thinking about some cold pizza and a warm bed when my office door opened, and she walked in. I guess the dame never learned to knock. Maybe because she was a knock-out.
She had long blonde hair that curled around her shoulders like ribbon cables. Her skin was the color of 20 lb. bond. Her lips were full and tempting, like a set of red parenthesis lying on their side. She had on something tight and beige, and it encased her nicely. Yeah, she was a pretty hot server all right...with a pretty nice rack to boot.
"You must be Jack Dinn. Word on the street is you do good work with your hands," she said. Her voice was huskier than a Cambridge SoundWorks subwoofer.
"That's what it says on my business card," I told her.
"How good are you with networks?" she asked.
"I can sniff your packets from here, if you'd like," I replied.
I offered her a chair and a drink. She asked for a double-tall latte with a spritz of gingko biloba. I got up and walked over to the espresso machine.
"So, you're into smart coffee?" I said. "I'm partial towards amineptine (http://www.amineptine.com) frappicinos myself."
I fixed our drinks, and took my place behind my desk.
"I'll be honest with you," she lied. "I think I'm...infected."
I pushed back in my chair. "You should be careful. It doesn't pay to hang out in bad sectors."
"There's no trace of it," she insisted, "but everything's become so fragmented lately. I need your help."
I stood up, walked around the desk and looked down at her. "What, do you think I'm DIMM? I can see through you like an iMac. You think you can keep me going around in circles? Well, I won't be your token fall guy," I growled.
She stood up. "But we're just the same, you and I."
"I don't have any parallel connection with you," I muttered.
"You're wrong," she said, and she slid her arms around me. "We both have drives..."
"Yeah, but yours are SCSI. Fast Wide SCSI (http://www.scsita.org/terms/Fast_Wide_SCSI.html)," I said. She gave me a blue look, and stood there frozen in place. Normally, she wasn't the kind of dame I would put on my compatibility list. Then again...any port in a storm. My head swooned. It was difficult to think outside of the box.
"To hell with protocol," I said. I tried to pull her towards me, but then she played coy.
"You don't think I'm FAT, do you?" she asked.
"Are you kidding? You're stacked baby; you could be an OSI model." I told her.
It was the analysis she needed to hear. Much later, I would realize that it was the best interface I'd ever worked on ...although I wasn't too happy when she started running Performance Monitor.
As she was walking out my door, she asked me, "Will I ever see you again?"
I nodded. "Don't worry sweetheart. Wherever the chips are down, I'll be there."
</Bogart>
A. J. Axline
Byte Back News
------------------
Windows has crashed.
I am the Blue Screen Of Death!
No one hears your screams!
<Bogart>
I tilted back in my ergonomic chair and watched the rain screensaver. The drops smacked against my monitor like a streaming video. Outside my window, the dusk quickly darkened into midnight as black as the inside of a toner cartridge.
I cranked open a Jolt and sucked back some caffeine goodness. It was late; I'd just finished a dirty little job, pulling evidence from some poor schmuck's PC that his wife had brought in. She wouldn't be happy to see the pictures I'd pulled out of his Internet cache. Poor sap. I almost felt sorry for him, but I don't get paid to sympathise.
I'm a Private Geek. It's what I do.
I had another shot of Jolt, and started thinking about some cold pizza and a warm bed when my office door opened, and she walked in. I guess the dame never learned to knock. Maybe because she was a knock-out.
She had long blonde hair that curled around her shoulders like ribbon cables. Her skin was the color of 20 lb. bond. Her lips were full and tempting, like a set of red parenthesis lying on their side. She had on something tight and beige, and it encased her nicely. Yeah, she was a pretty hot server all right...with a pretty nice rack to boot.
"You must be Jack Dinn. Word on the street is you do good work with your hands," she said. Her voice was huskier than a Cambridge SoundWorks subwoofer.
"That's what it says on my business card," I told her.
"How good are you with networks?" she asked.
"I can sniff your packets from here, if you'd like," I replied.
I offered her a chair and a drink. She asked for a double-tall latte with a spritz of gingko biloba. I got up and walked over to the espresso machine.
"So, you're into smart coffee?" I said. "I'm partial towards amineptine (http://www.amineptine.com) frappicinos myself."
I fixed our drinks, and took my place behind my desk.
"I'll be honest with you," she lied. "I think I'm...infected."
I pushed back in my chair. "You should be careful. It doesn't pay to hang out in bad sectors."
"There's no trace of it," she insisted, "but everything's become so fragmented lately. I need your help."
I stood up, walked around the desk and looked down at her. "What, do you think I'm DIMM? I can see through you like an iMac. You think you can keep me going around in circles? Well, I won't be your token fall guy," I growled.
She stood up. "But we're just the same, you and I."
"I don't have any parallel connection with you," I muttered.
"You're wrong," she said, and she slid her arms around me. "We both have drives..."
"Yeah, but yours are SCSI. Fast Wide SCSI (http://www.scsita.org/terms/Fast_Wide_SCSI.html)," I said. She gave me a blue look, and stood there frozen in place. Normally, she wasn't the kind of dame I would put on my compatibility list. Then again...any port in a storm. My head swooned. It was difficult to think outside of the box.
"To hell with protocol," I said. I tried to pull her towards me, but then she played coy.
"You don't think I'm FAT, do you?" she asked.
"Are you kidding? You're stacked baby; you could be an OSI model." I told her.
It was the analysis she needed to hear. Much later, I would realize that it was the best interface I'd ever worked on ...although I wasn't too happy when she started running Performance Monitor.
As she was walking out my door, she asked me, "Will I ever see you again?"
I nodded. "Don't worry sweetheart. Wherever the chips are down, I'll be there."
</Bogart>
A. J. Axline
Byte Back News
------------------
Windows has crashed.
I am the Blue Screen Of Death!
No one hears your screams!