Today is the anniversary of the Shot Heard Round the World. As such, I offer the following links in a spirit of celebration and contemplation:

The Sons of Liberty RPG. A fast-paced game of crazy, over-the-top, steampunk Revolutionaries fighting the British Man. Though, as the game points out, if you think that’s crazy, consider what the real Founders actually did, and you’ll have to admit that was pretty crazy and over-the-top, too. (Photos are here.)

In his own words: Paul Revere describes his midnight ride.

Another account of April 18-19, 1775.

Finally, an old press release from General Gage.

Yep. The bacon vodka.

For those who can’t wait, I’ll try to remember to put something in my Facebook status message. For the rest of you, I’ll post here tomorrow and discuss how it went.

Plus, it’s playtest night, so it’s time for more Blood Red Sands!

And, in celebration, a different type of vodka. HT: Jeremy

I don’t know why! But I did it anyways!

My profile

silence n. a virtue found in few bloggers

Check out this post.

My comment is a lie; I could delete the post if I wanted. However, I wanted to mention something significant.

I didn’t write that post.

Really. Someone actually hacked into my blog and left that post. Now that’s what I call audience participation!

Now, I have my suspicions who did it, but even if I’m wrong, I wanted to mention that, after my heart stopped pounding, I had a good laugh. So, keep up the good work!

So, Friday night, I stay late at work to do a server move. For the uninitiated, this means that I was moving mission critical software and data from one machine to another. Specifically, I was upgrading our database software and moving our member data onto this new machine. This is the stuff of which Mountain Dew-fuelled late nights are made. Believe me. I’ve been at work until 3:00 a.m. before.

However, I had high hopes for this server move. We had been prepping for months to do this, doing dry runs, finding bugs, and so on. So, I figured that this should be smooth sailing.

I was wrong.

A little background: one of the functions that our database server does is to produce much of the form letters that we mail to our members. These are automatically created every night as a PDF file, which is then printed in the morning. Nifty, eh? The technical term for this is a “data-driven subscription”. The software that we use to do this is called Microsoft Reporting Services, which is a part of Microsoft SQL Server 2005.

This is a computer story, and I just invoked Microsoft. I’m sure that you already know that this can’t end well.

So, I finish the server move and start testing the server to make sure that various things work, including our data-driven subscriptions. I go to the place in the computer where they should be.

Nothing.

They are all gone.

Panic. Sheer panic.

There’s not even a button to let me create a new data-driven subscription.

I’m furious at the computer. Once again, balked by a MACHINE! Carefully, I put everything back in place, to avoid further disasters. (In a previous failed server move, I failed to put everything back, overlooking one small detail. That small detail required one of those infamous late nights. Once burned, twice shy.)

So, today, I’m doing research, trying to figure out what is going on. Come to find out that our edition of Reporting Services doesn’t include data-driven subscriptions.

Blink.

Now I’m not mad at the computer. I’m mad at Microsoft. It’s like they said, “Here’s a car! You can drive it around all you want! It does all sorts of nifty things. Oh, except we won’t include headlights.” A car will work just fine without headlights, but just try driving at night without them.

I will grant that the specification chart noted that our edition of SQL Server 2005 didn’t include data-driven subscriptions, so some might say that I should cut Microsoft some slack. But, you know, when I buy a car, I don’t check to make sure that it includes headlights, either.

Ours. That’s right. Since we are moving, my friend (who is also my landlord) is selling our current house, which is in the East Bluff area of Peoria. I can attest that it is a good house with good neighbors. For more information, go here.

This is hysterical.

For those who care, we are selling kefir grains on eBay. Buy early and buy often!

Andreas Katsulas dies of lung cancer. He played the One Armed Man in the movie version of The Fugitive and, more importantly, played G’Kar on Babylon 5.

silence n. a virtue found in few bloggers