Rands Weary

Scurry

An excerpt from the last three weeks of every significant software project I’ve shipped:

scurry scurry scurry scurry BUG! LOOKS BAD SCURRY SCURRY SCURRY OK NOT THAT BAD PROCEED scurry scurry scurry scurry BUG! LOOKS REAL BAD SCURRY SCURRY CONFIRMED IT’S BAD SCURRY SCURRY OK FIXED FOR THE LOVE OF GOD SOMEONE TEST THIS scurry scurry scurry scurry ARE WE DONE? scurry scurry scurry scurry scurry REALLY BAD BUG THIS COULD BE THE ONE SCURRY ALL HANDS ON DECK SCURRY SOMEONE CALL THE CEO WE MIGHT HAVE TO SLIP SCURRY NO? OK HACKING AROUND IT NO I DON’T CARE THAT IT’S 2AM ARE WE DONE? SCURRY SCURRY OK FIXED AND TESTED scurry scurry scurry scurry are we done?

20 Responses

  1. My colleagues and I were having an interesting discussion today about the feasibility of starting a kelp farm in Indonesia to try and get away from exactly that kind of project scurry.

    But I’m sure that even as a kelp farmers you end up rushing to dry the stuff OH MY GOD DEAD ROTTING FISH package it up IT’S LEAKING THROUGH THE CARDBOARD SOMEONE GET ME SOME PLASTIC and ship it out in time to meet unreasonable customer deadlines THEY WANT ANOTHER FIFTY CRATES, AND THE HUNDRED WE’VE ALREADY DONE SHREDDED MORE FINELY? WHAT DO THEY THINK WE’RE RUNNING HERE, SOME KIND OF FUCKING SOFTWARE HOUSE?

    We ended up figuring that the seaweed is always greener on the other side of the world.

  2. yeah that’s fantastic rands…

    BUT LEISURETOWN IS GONE! :EMOTICON:

  3. Wow. Leisuretown is gone.

  4. Yeah, what gives? Should we have sent more money? Did he feel bad for stealing focus from such gems as User Friendly or Penny Arcade? I KNEW I SHOULD’VE ARCHIVED THEM!!!1

  5. magister 21 years ago

    someone’s got to have an archive! i’m panicking at the thought that i can never read QA Confidential again!

  6. DAMN YOU TRISTAN FARNON AND THE HORSE YOU RODE IN ON

    I want to read “Geniuses” just one more time…

  7. Lloyd 21 years ago

    Whoa. Gone.

    Do you know what the score is Rands?

  8. Ryvar 21 years ago

    More to the point is there any way any of us can help? I didn’t realize it was in that much trouble . . .

  9. I doubt it was a money thing. I dontated $1 once!

  10. disco 21 years ago

    I thought you didn’t work for AOL anymore…

  11. For the obsessive and desperate:

    http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.leisuretown.com

    I’ve wondered why ol’ Tristan just up and stopped updating in the first place. That stuff was consistantly genious. Yeah, Rands, tell us what to do about this travesty! If “Mr. Farnon” reads this stuff, I hope he realizes that he still has huge fans!

    Although I do have to admit… it’s a pretty classy way to go out….

  12. reggaejunkiejew 21 years ago

    I am in the same state as the rest of you. A state of emptiness arose in me when I came to find the site devioid of everything but that single line….a single line that will haunt me for years to come, I am sure.

    You are right, Rands, we should have fucking archived them!

  13. TheNintenGenius 21 years ago

    I generally get involved in project scurry because I’m the world’s biggest procrastinator, meaning that IT’S 2 AM AND I NEED TO WRITE THIS ESSAY HOLY SHIT THIS LINE ISN’T WORKING BACKSPACE BACKSPACE WHERE’S MY CAFFINATED MINTS I NEED ENERGY HOLY SHIT THAT LINE WAS TERRIBLE DELETE THAT WHERE’S MY NOTES I NEED NOTES FOR THIS HEY NOW IT’S 3 AND I’M STILL NOT DONE SHIT!!!

    As for Leisuretown being dead, my reaction was about the same as it would’ve been if you would’ve punched me in the stomach. While I might not’ve ever read Leisuretown as much as Jerkcity, it was still solid gold! It needed to exist! QA Confidential HAD to always be there for me to read again and again. Should’ve known that, like the Dysfunctional Family Circus, it wouldn’t last. Maybe we’ll luck out, though, and there’ll be an unofficial Leisure Town archive put up like with the DFC. (on a side note, Rands was not the one that suggested archiving, reggaejunkiejew. the names of who wrote what go at the bottoms of the comments)

  14. Sedusa 21 years ago

    Holy shit, I just realized that Leisuretown was gone… LT was one of the funniest and surprisingly touching things I have ever read… Someone must have an archive somewhere, right? Agg! Comic genious lost to the sands of time? NO! WHY GOD?!

  15. You’ll notice that the donation page is still there…. I linked the URL on my own blog.

  16. OH MY GOD I AM SO FAT

  17. yidele 21 years ago

    I *did* archive everything through Q&A confidential. Holy moses on a popsicle stick! If I’d known he was that unstable I’d have donated my kids diaper money. Tis a pity.

  18. did anyone notice that jerkcity cartoon that consisted of just a single, horrible photo of a doll’s head?

    ( http://www.jerkcity.com/jerkcity1836.html )

    that appeared around the time leisuretown went up the dick.

  19. jerkaholic 21 years ago

    if anyone wants all of the archived leisuretown, let me know. i found out it was gone a couple weeks ago and found an old backup i had made. yay for OCD. it’s about 38mb if you’re interested.

  20. pedrofeo 21 years ago

    I’m trying to put together a complete mirror of the site before it died. As far as I know, I have everything except the chinese sticks splash image, and the _Down by the Freeway_ story. You can check out what I’ve got here:

    http://www.720.st/mirrors/leisuretown

    and download a bz2 of the archive here:

    http://www.720.st/mirrors/leisuretown-mirror-2.tar.bz2

    I’m not sure how pissed off all of this would make tristan. If I hear that hes upset about it, I’ll take my mirror down.