by Matt Beland
Now that I seem to have joined the Gang, I thought it only appropriate that I add to the story, so that I could show I'm willing to laugh at myself, as well. Anway, here it is:
Regarding dragging Brian into the Gang:
I have a mental image of JerryPournelle sitting at one end of a dimly lit table wearing a green eyeshade. BobThompson, BoLeuf, ShawnWallbridge, SjonSvenson, and the others straggling down each side, cigar and pipe smoke swirling up in the dim light. Under the lone bright light in the room we see Brian, sweating nervously as Tom paces around behind him, juggling balls in his scar-knuckled hands. “Do you really know what you’re getting yourself into? Do you? Eh?” Tom says, leaning heavily over him. Jerry has Royal Armadillo open in front of him, muttering about his Earthlink connection, nodding sagely as he eyes the page layout. Bob is cleaning a large-caliber handgun, muttering “Microsoft Delenda Est” under his breath, and playing with a Windows 98 cd that already has more than the regulation number of holes in it. Bo is picking his guitar, looking over Jerry’s shoulder at the laptop, and nodding; he likes what he sees. Shawn is buried in papers, looked decidedly rumpled, frantically coding new additions to his ASP scripts, muttering “yeah, sure, let him in, fine, just let me get this DONE!” The others are fixing Brian with piercing stares. In the background, there’s a gigantic precision balance, balancing a heart against a feather.
“Well,” Jerry says with a sigh, “we could use a Linux guy. So, if you can modify your site to the weekly format, combined or separate news and mail pages at your discretion, presto pocus, you’re in.”
Everybody else is nodding sagely, the scales disappear, Brian looks relieved as Tom offers him a beer (Canadian, of course) and a gigantic gold plaque (made from melted-down CD-Rs) drops into his lap, with the words “We do these things so you don’t have to…” engraved on it.
Or I could be way, way off. I dunno.
* * * * *
I wasn't.
I just knew I should've kept my mouth shut, but there I was, sweating under the lights, squinting and trying to make out the shadowed forms around me. I'm ALMOST sure that's Brian, giggling with glee (that he's not in my chair, probably) and tossing a stuffed penguin from hand to hand.
I clutch my cable crimper tightly in one hand and try to see who's behind me. Suddenly Tom looms out of the cigar (and pipe) smoke, waving a baseball bat and leering. "So, can I register a second domain, Mr. SysAdmin?" he asks. "Eh? Why isn't Saskatchewan on the list? Are you READY for the spotlight?"
I nervously look back towards the table. There's a lot of chuckling going on, and I see Bob peering at my page. Slowly he turns and fixes me with a glare. "You call this an OFFICE?" he scoffs. "I can still see the floor!" The scales in the background tip, the feather flies across the room, and I feel a sickening lurch as the trap door opens...
Only to land a few inches lower, still in the chair, with Chris Ward-Johnson grinning down at me. "Sorry for the joke, old bean," he says. "But we had to test the trapdoor somehow."