(no subject)

I think I'm in love and it's with an IT disaster recovery company. I swear, the facility I toured on Friday felt like it was designed by gamers- gamers with names like Van Hoose. That's how redundant their security, power, and fire prevention systems were. They even keep a team of white-hat hackers paid to attempt intrusions and discover weaknesses on a regular basis. They take N+1 redundancy to extremes- I mean, they've got enough generators there to light up bloody Albany, they've got the security system rigged so that if you get into an area you aren't authorised to be in (and several areas of the building are only available to three people's badges) you can only follow the path to the outside world, which is quite naturally ringed with security cameras and motion sensors... oh, did I mention that if the sensors indicate that more than one person has gone through a door that calls for both your badge and your matching fingerprint ID, the nearest other doors will refuse to open, except to let you out in case of fire?

Even the fire suppression system is localised and redundant. Unfortunately it uses water, but I think the power is cut out to any machines that catch on fire when two separate sensors pick up on any combination of smoke and 160-degree temperatures. Foam was written out of the equation because once a foam system discharges you have to call the company to come and reload it, whereas on New Year's Even with six inches of snow on the ground and evil temperatures outside, the local utility companies still run water, so if a fire breaks out and is suppressed, another one can start an hour later and be suppressed even if the fire department has already left.

SO. PRETTY. From a purely technologically sensible point of view, of course.

(no subject)

I have in my possession a DVD of the first season of Real Ghostbusters. It is undoubtedly illegally ripped from VHS or something similarly cheesy, but I do not really care. It's got the cartoon that I loved most as a kid and a high schooler and ...

... I am afraid to watch it.

It's all down to the Suck Fairy, you see. The Suck Fairy comes in the night when an artist does her or his work, and finds some piece that the artist hasn't looked at in a while. Then she takes away as much good as she can carry, and leaves only suck.

She's done it to me more times than I can count. I've taken to making sacrificial drawings for her before starting my good stuff, but it doesn't always work. She's done it to novels I've read and loved, stealing the good away from the authors. She tried to do it to Cosmos but all she got was the UNBELIEVABLE OMG SO WONDERFUL graphics I remembered, and they were so good she could only carry away part of that. She had very little suck to leave, and so Cosmos was not rendered sucky, merely not as visually appealing.

I am terrified that I've got a DVD full of suck where a magnificent cartoon used to be.

Three weeks' worth- no, four- of not opening the packaging because of that fear.

*stares pensively at case*

Can anyone who still has it on tape tell me if it's worth opening, or should I stick to my memories and pass this off on someone else?