I mentioned in a comment on Friday that I’d post some links to weblogs that I read - well, I’ll do them one at a time so as not to overwhelm you.

(Especially since I’ve done three posts today - a new Greg Record!)

I’ve chosen a weblog that I’ve been reading off and on for a while now - BlahBlog which is usually a good read. I’m not a big fan of some of the “Blog scene” stuff that’s posted there - I couldn’t care less about a so-called “A-list” unless it includes all of the following: 1) a certified insane helicopter pilot, 2) a socially mal-adjusted tough guy with a distinctive haircut/personal style, 3) a suave con-man that can convince anyone of anything to get whatever he wants, and finally 4) a master planner who can disguise himself as all sorts of different people, usually old men. Optionally, 5) a large black van with a red stripe down the side, loaded to the gills with heavy weapons whose sights are broken.

>Anyways, I haven’t told the tale of the new coffee machine yet, so I thought I should do that at some point.

A couple of weeks ago, we got a new coffee machine here. The old “coffee” machine made some of the worst tasting coloured water that I have ever had the displeasure of experiencing. Plus, it was a pain in the butt to clean it, and the people who were on the list to clean it never used it, so it didn’t get cleaned that often. As an example, my month (month!) to clean it was July, and it got cleaned 5 times during July (according to the cleaning check-sheet). Of those 5 times, 3 of them were when I was on vacation (for a week.) Plus, I cleaned it twice as often as the person the month before me, and the person after me didn’t clean it at all (note - for those of you too lazy to do the math, I only cleaned it twice, some mysterious benefactor did it the other three times)

Anyways, the new coffee machine is about 1/3 the size of the old one, and the coffee actually tastes like coffee, and it doesn’t need constant cleaning. The way it works is this: User opens sliding drawer. User selects coffee packet from 4 varieties displayed conveniently on top of machine. User puts packet (really a tiny little plastic “cup”) into slot in drawer. User closes drawer, places cup on spot (not marked “X” but you get the idea) User presses button. Machine spits coffee into cup, discards coffee packet. User enjoys coffee flavoured coffee.

It’s pretty neat to see in action anyways, though it does seem a little wasteful. I’ve only tried two of the 4 flavours, and didn’t really care for either of them, but I recognize that lots of people would like those coffees - one was a French Vanilla (which always sounds good to me, but I never like it) and the other was a Dark Roast (again, I don’t like Dark Roast, and this tastes like Dark Roast, so I didn’t like it…) One of these days, I’ll try the plain-jane Colombian coffee, and see how it is. The fourth “flavour” is decaf, which I’ve never really gotten the point of (It’s like drinking near-beer as far as I can see)

Nice try - you’re not getting two Simpson’s quotes today.

Friday was an interesting day. I was downstairs in the food court enjoying my morning coffee break, letting my coffee cool, and talking about something pointless and silly. The CIO came down (as he does on a regular basis - to buy coffee and take it back upstairs) but instead of buying coffee, he made a bee-line for my table. My back was mostly to him, so I didn’t realize that he was coming over to see us until he was right behind me. Anyways, he taps me on the shoulder, and tells me that I’m needed upstairs for a meeting in 5 minutes.

I’ve been in a handful of meetings with the CIO in the 18 months that I’ve been working here, but this was the first time I’ve ever seen him 1) come down to coffee and get someone and 2) get me for a meeting at all. All in all, it felt a little like getting called into the principal’s office :)

As it turns out, I’ve been assigned to a new “top secret” project - the existence of the project isn’t what’s secret, basically I’ll be working on an “Intranet” type of project for the Board of Directors. What’s top secret about it is that the contents of this Intranet are so confidential that nobody within the company (well, not nobody, but practically) will have access to it, except me. That’s right, somebody’s got to do the setup/maintenance, and that somebody pretty much has to have access to the sensitive information in one form or another, so to mitigate the risk, I was chosen as the sole IT point of contact on this project.

When I first caught wind of this last Monday, I wasn’t sure what to think about it, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought it would be a good thing. Basically, it gives my work exposure at the highest levels of the company - if I do well, it looks good on me. Of course if I screw up, that’s a different story entirely ;)

On an unrelated topic, I don’t know if the titles of my posts make much sense to the majority of the people reading this page. I’ll explain this one, and then you can play along at home with future titles. See, this post was regarding my “Top Secret” project at work, so I lifted a quote from the movie “Top Secret” and put it in the title - if you haven’t seen the movie, then the title makes no sense, and even if you have seen the movie, it doesn’t really make much sense, other than the “Top Secret” tie-in. You’re welcome to disregard the stupid/inane titles that I put up there each day, but if you want to play along with the home version of our game, feel free to post in the comments section in the future if you think you’ve “got it.”

Simpson’s quote of the day: “Hey mouse. Say cheese. [Takes a flash picture of the killer robot Itchy, short-circuiting it] Hey, with a dry cool wit like that I could be an action star.” - Bart