Classes are done and finals are coming up. Yuck. At least two of them will be pretty easy, relatively. But I'm not looking forward to DiffEQ or Physics. At least I don't have any 10 page papers due, like some people I know.

Tyr finally registered for classes, and I wasn't even here to nag him into it.

Which brings me to my next topic: How Much the New Registration System Sucks.
The Vice Chancellor for Information Services (my top-boss as an employee of the Helpdesk) decided, in his infinite wisdom, that we should switch over from the slightly slow, nicely reliable Touch-Tone Telephone Registration system to the hugely bogged down, more error prone than a Russian nuclear power plant, Peoplesoft registration system. We know it sucks, because we at the Helpdesk have been trying to support ever since they switched the grad students to it in the spring. Let me set the scene for one of the more common errors.
Poor, blind-sided grad student, has no clue what he's about to be subjected to. Jumps through the several hoops he needs to get through in order to find out what his userid and default password are. Except, the system may have your birthdate wrong, and thats what your password depends on. Whoops, disadvantage number one, said the bi-colour python rock snake. So, Mr. (or Miss) Naive Grad Student logs in. The system prompts the PSIQ (poor sucker in question) to change their password immediately from the default to something else. Hopefully, something they will remember, or at least write down. They do so. They play around a little, trying to find the classes they want and actually sign up for them. Except, Whoops! They need a permission number. Okay, call the instructor. But, wait, the instructor does not know what, where, or how to get a permission number that will work, despite the fact that they went through the training. So, your average PSIQ gets one class registered on the first time. They then discover that they have no more time today, because it took them an hour and a half to find out their login id and password and they are now thoroughly disgusted and frustrated. So they decide to finish tomorrow. Cue laugh track.

Well, the next day comes around, and guess what? They can't log in. They keep getting an error called "Invalid Operator ID and/or password." Have you ever heard of a crappier error message? So, they try their password (the one they changed it to, the one they wrote down) some more. Maybe they mis-typed it. Nope, doesn't work. Why not? No one knows. Disadvantage number two, said the bi-colour python rock snake. The PSIQ is gonna have to call the Helpdesk, at which point we will transfer them to the Accounts Desk, and the poor, superhuman, wayyyy overworked ladies (both of them) at the UITS Accounts Desk will reset their password to a 'w' followed by their birthdate. Oh, right, I forgot to mention. The password Must start with a letter. So, if you're in the habit of using numerical sequences, you are SOL right away. The system will never tell you this, anywhere, let alone on the password change screen. I would mention the bi-colour python rock snake at this point, but he thinks he's overworked. I believe he's up to disadvantage number two hundred and thirty seven at last count.

Anyway, thats just getting started. For the Grad students, over the summer. The point of having the grad students try it first is to test it for reliability with a smaller number of people. So, they did. And they found out that it sucked. I'm not even going into the number of times it crashed for various reasons over the first couple weeks. Or how badly the user interface warps one's mind. And how very, very, non-intuitive the course catalog is. The course catalog, I might add, that is only available through this system, because using more of that infinite wisdom, the Registrar's Office decided to forgo paper course catalogs, just because they go out of date almost immediately as class schedules are changed and sections are added or removed.

It's a bad time to be a student here. Being an advisor or faculty member is bad, too. They have had just as much trouble.

Anyway, thats my rant of the semester. Ya'll can go back to bed now.

Song that is currently playing: Alien Ant Farm, "Universe" Good song. There was some Metallica in between. And probably another song or two that I don't remember right now. *shrug*