This story is an absolute hoot and still makes me crack up every time I think of it.
My main design client on the Internet is an Australian company called Community Enabler. They are setting up a wonderful, free, worldwide Social Networking system called Cagora which will enable people to advertise, share and connect with others both locally on Local World websites (eg USA, Texas, Costa Mesa or Far North New Zealand ), and also on what we call Worlds of Interest (eg Dogs, Photography, Travel, Christianity - whatever people have a passion for). This very special Social Networking complex has a substantial architecture behind it, including live chatrooms for meetings or seminars.
My function is to design page headers for the various Worlds, and I attend regular company meetings in one of the chatrooms, to keep up-to-date with the latest company news. I need to explain that once in a room you can hear the voice of whoever currently "holds the mic", and to speak in the room you need to press your CTRL key when no-one else is talking.
One memorable day I attended the early morning meeting (my time) and then went upstairs to do something - wash dishes or bake some bread or muffins, I'm not sure which. In any event, I was gone for some little while: there always comes a point when you actually have to catch up on all the stuff you've been rushing away from every day...
Suddenly the phone rang. It was the Boss, ringing from Australia, no less. "Are you allright?" he asked. "Yes" I replied in amazement, "I'm fine - Why?"
Well, here's the story. Everyone had left the chatroom except me and the moderator. One of my cats must have walked on my keyboard and set off the CTRL key so that all of a sudden my household was broadcasting to the room. (Thank goodness half the membership wasn't still in there!) My mother was doing her rave, and the cat was cheerfully stomping around on the keyboard. Why is it that cats always HAVE to walk where they are not supposed to?
Poor Steve listened in horror, convinced that I had finally gone totally bananas and was sitting there in cloud cuckoo land warbling and banging on the keys. He couldn't get a word in edgeways because the CTRL key had locked itself and finally in panic mode he IM'd the Boss in Melbourne and told him what was going on. Rob being the caring guy he is, promptly got on the phone.
Beloved cats - beloved mother! Beloved Internet. The ripples went from New Zealand to Minnesota, from Minnesota to Melbourne, and then back to New Zealand. When you think about it, it's quite marvellous how good friends from across the world can set off the alarm to check up on you. Hilarious and embarrassing as it all was, it gave me a wonderful feeling of being cared for by others, albeit thousands of miles away!
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