The past week I was caught off-guard by a small throng of misinformed miscreants bent and determined to take away both the will to live and the patience to educate them roundly. I’m sure those of you who have worked in technical support at any level are more than able to visualize, sympathize, and relate.

When the storm subsided, I found myself with some new topics on which to blog when one night I went to bed as usual, and the next morning woke feeling very maladjusted. It was only later that I started finding the evidence. I struggled through a couple of days, chilled to the bone, wearing my heavy coat about the office, and having people pass by the office door, muttering things that sounded much like “he’s a techno-weenie, but he’s looking like more of a cave-dweller than usual…” Later, I had one of those micro-naps (the times when you innocently pass out of conscience without knowing it, waking instantly and wondering if you had been “out” for two second, two minutes, or two hours), and woke in a sweat. Looking for a handkerchief, in my jacket pocket, I found two odd things: A 64MB memory card and the stub of a parking ticket. Neither of these was familiar to me in the least. The parking stub looked to be printed in Spanish, and I tossed it in the trash. I slipped the memory card into a reader and found one file, but it was not accessible.

Later at home, I put the girls to bed, and was traveling back and forth to the WC, wishing it would stop long enough for me to pass out when I noticed something ground into the carpet. It seemed to be dried play-dough, but the pattern on the floor made an almost footprint-pattern leading from the living room window back into my bedroom. Taking another look at the file on the memory card, I found that it’s a 3DES-encrypted file. Now I’m wishing that I hadn’t tossed that parking ticket stub, if that’s what it really was…

So I’ve come to the conclusion that it was more than what people refer to as a “stomach bug”. When I first felt it, I was thinking that I may have had some food poisoning, but I had made all of my own meals for a week solidly, and check and test the food compulsively, so that could not be the case. What I had was definitely the product of an alien abduction. The pieces just go together. It’s very likely a space-flight sickness, and being half-waking during that time, yet not conscious would explain the exhaustion. I have some cracking software brute-forcing the file (if you are with the FBI or NSA, I completely deny that statement), and have been cleaning house ever since. Anyone know how to get play-dough out of carpet?

I always wondered when I was younger why my mom would freak out to find that we were playing with play-dough, and would say things about the carpet. At the time, it was just another cool activity or toy to play with, and we couldn’t fathom why we shouldn’t be able to play with it just the same as the rest of our stuff. Now I know why. The stuff is in the carpets for good. Besides, It’s made out of alien foot-funk. Hey, Ben & Jerry, I have a flavor idea for you: Alien Tracks! With deeply-embedded green, blue, and white play-dough bits, and a Sigourney Weaver key chain with 7 UPC’s!

Another funny thing is that when I happen to hear the old Beastie Boys song Paul Revere (It was on twice today. Another case for having your mp3 players charged up at all times, kids. commercial radio has completely bitten it over the past few years), I get odd sihouette images as I hear the lyrics:

My name is MCA I’ve got a license to kill
I think you know what time it is it’s time to get ill
Now what do we have here an outlaw and his beer
I run this land, you understand I make myself clear.

Which strikes me as very odd. I am pretty sure that the music that the US sent up in the probe was the Beatles. The only “MCA” I know of for years now would be Mark over at Delusions. Mark?!? ‘Fess up!

Now that the little green goblins are out of my system, It’s time for a last-minute Amie Street post!