Author: scriven

Fruit [and some vegetables]

What’s with the fruit?

The fruit represents my nickname, Scurvy. Many years ago, I was in a summer camp in the town that I grew up in, one of those that’s supposed to keep us kids out of trouble. I was given this nickname by a guy named Sean Palmer (name not changed, to expose the guilty). It’s probably based on my last name (Scriven, remember.), but he’s never really told me why he named me after a disease. At the time, and for many years afterwards I actually didn’t like him, for that one reason, but since I started to train with him, when I was about 16 or so, I’ve realised that he’s a cool guy.

BUT, enough about That… Now that I have the nickname I’ve taken a liking to it. Scurvy is, as you know, the disease that comes from a lack of Vitamin C in your diet. The sailors used to get it a lot crossing the oceans without fresh fruit.

This page is dedicated to all the fruit and veggies that give you large amounts of Vitamin C, and thus combat Scurvy. It doesn’t, however, get rid of me.

2014 WordPress Update: I’ve realised just how old this page is, I had collected the various images here because there weren’t many available online… in 1996ish when this page first started. I’ll keep this images for historical reasons, but if you really want more pictures follow the links!

2019 WordPress Update: Old yanked pictures were lost in a move, so I’ve re-captured them. Added some new ones of new fruits and vegetables too.

Continue reading “Fruit [and some vegetables]”

AdamSpeak

[Recovered from pages past via The Internet Archives and moved here for completion and posterity…]

From Adrian MacNair [when we worked together at Martinet] (apparently he thinks I swear alot).

Adam Scriven’s vocabularyTranslation
No fucking way!I’m not sure that is feasible.
You’ve got to be shitting me!Really?
Tell someone who gives a fuck!Perhaps you should check with someone else.
It’s not my fucking problem.I wasn’t involved in this project at the beginning.
What the fuck?Interesting.
Fuck it… it won’t work.I’m not sure I can implement this.
Why in the fuck didn’t you tell me sooner?I’ll try to work that into my schedule.
When the fuck did you expect me to do this?I’m not working late.
Who in the fuck cares?Are you sure it’s a problem?
Fuck him, he has his head up his ass!He’s not familiar with this situation.
Who died and made you boss asshole?I’m not helping.
He can fucking blow me!I understand, but I don’t really care.
Fuck you.I don’t understand, AND I don’t really care.

Abort, Retry, Ignore

Once upon a midnight dreary, fingers cramped and vision bleary,
System manuals piled high and wasted paper on the floor,
Longing for the warmth of bed sheets,
Still I sat there, doing spreadsheets:
Having reached the bottom line,
I took a floppy from the drawer.
Typing with a steady hand, I then invoked the SAVE command
But got instead a reprimand: it read “Abort, Retry, Ignore”.

Was this some occult illusion? Some maniacal intrusion?
These were choices Solomon himself had never faced before.
Carefully, I weighed my options.
These three seemed to be the top ones.
Clearly, I must now adopt one –
Choose: “Abort, Retry, Ignore”.

With my fingers pale and trembling,
Slowly toward the keyboard bending,
Longing for a happy ending, hoping all would be restored,
Praying for some guarantee
Finally I pressed a key —
But on the screen what did I see?
Again: “Abort, Retry, Ignore”.

I tried to catch the chips off guard —
I pressed again, but twice as hard.
Luck was just not in the cards,
I saw what I had seen before.
Now I typed in desperation,
Trying random combinations.
Still there came the incantation –
Choose: “Abort, Retry, Ignore”.

There I sat, distraught, exhausted, by my own machine accosted;
Getting up, I turned way and paced across the office floor.
And then I saw an awful sight,
A bold and blinding flash of light,
A lighting bolt that cut the night and shook me to my very core.
The PC screen collapsed and died,
“Oh no — my database”, I cried.
I thought I heard a voice reply,
“You’ll see you data — Nevermore!”

To this day I do not know
The place to which our data goes
Perhaps it goes to Heaven where the angels have it stored.
But as for productivity – well,
I fear it has gone straight to Hell.
And that’s the tale I have to tell –
Your choice: “Abort, Retry, Ignore”.

[Not my work, it was attributed to “anonymous” in my original posting of it. Recent interweb searches turn up https://www.poemhunter.com/bridgid-patrick/ who claims ownership.]

The Saga of Scurvy’s .Sig

[Originally posted in 1996ish, on http://www.lore.com/~scriven/, recovered here from the Wayback Machine.]

A friend of mine, Scott Tadman has always hated my .sig files, and this newest one: 

                 URL = http://www.lore.com/~scriven/
*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+*+

has caused him no end of grief and heartache.
He has decided to fight back, to try and get me to fix/change the .sig to something more acceptable and appealing, and so the saga begins…

Continue reading “The Saga of Scurvy’s .Sig”

Q: What is the Information Superhighway?

  • A: It’s just like the Internet, except:
    • It’s a lot more expensive.
    • You can’t post, and there’s no killfile.
    • There’s no alt.sex or alt.drugs.
    • The new rec.humor.funny has a laugh track.
    • There’s a commercial break every 10 minutes.
    • Everything is formatted to 40 columns for TVs.
    • The free software costs you US$2 per Mbyte to FTP, more for long distance.
    • There’s a commercial break every 10 minutes.
  • A: It’s just like cable TV, except:
    • It’s a lot more expensive.
    • The picture isn’t as good.
    • There are 500 channels of pay-per-view and home shopping.
    • You can watch any episode of Gilligan’s Island or any Al Gore speech for only $2.
    • There are no public-access channels.
    • There’s a commercial break every 10 minutes.
  • A: It’s just like renting videos, except:
    • It’s a lot more expensive.
    • There’s only 1 percent of the selection.
    • There’s no porn.
    • There’s no pause, fast-forward, or rewind, and it costs you another $3.95 if you want to watch something twice.
    • There’s a commercial break every 10 minutes.
  • A: It’s just like the telephone, except:
    • It’s a lot more expensive.
    • There’s no one to talk to.
    • Every number is a toll call.
    • There’s a commercial break every 10 minutes.

(posted anonymously to the Net)

Borrowed from Wired Magazine 2.11, page #37.
I just thought it would fit in perfectly, and it did. Thanks to the wonderful anon. poster.