You like the new look? I think it's pretty.

I haven't changed my template in a long, long time and I was dismayed to see that Blogger now offers only about a dozen choices. I must go read the FAQ and see if they've moved the other 20 or 30 they used to offer somewhere else or if there's some reason why they no longer offer a lot of different templates. I know a lot of people were offering templates on other sites, maybe Blogger just assumes everyone is going somewhere else these days?

I came in today to find our office internet access out, which is frustrating since I've been trying to get online to post an apology for a rude remark I made.

(I'm going off the whole political blog thing, anyhow. I've been at it for two years and it's been very entertaining but I do find it a strain to be constantly trying to give the impression that I'm well-informed and intelligent.

I liked having a political blog at first - no one was reading it and if I wanted to rant and rave and call people names, I could. I mean, that's why I started it, you know? So I could be rude and say things that were stupid without caring if I was right or wrong. I'm not quite sure when I lost track of that goal, but the strain of being open-minded and tolerant is starting to wear me out. (As witnessed by the fact that when we get our internet service back today, I have to go apologize for ranting and name-calling.) I mean, I'm not tolerant by nature, okay? I figure people can either agree with me or go away.)

(For the record, I find that really, really annoying. There must be half a million political blogs out there, most of which are being maintained by people posting stupid or ill-informed opinions twenty times a week, and no one cares. No one bothers to read what they say. I didn't invite anyone to read my political blog and I rather resent the influx of strangers and the moral pressure that came with them.)

Where was I? Oh, yeah. Internet access, or the lack thereof.

There are times it's no advantage to be the person who shows up in the office an hour or two before everyone else rolls in, you know? I mean, since I usually spend that "before official hours" time dinking around on personal stuff, it's not like I can even leave early.

Ah well. I guess I could have gone all conscientious and started work early, but I do a lot of my job via e-mail and the internet (our call-tracking program is internet-based) and without both of those, I'm sort of twiddling my thumbs sometimes. (Yeah, I have phone calls I could make, but I'm not really at my best and brightest at 7:30 in the morning. I'm usually better off sticking to e-mails for the first hour or so.)

The Tweenybopper showed up. She noticed the absence of internet access right away. She logs on to IM every morning and has chat windows open all day. She seems to find it hard to settle down today. (I know the feeling.) I give her credit, though. She is working, which puts her one up on me.

(... pause ... Okay, I went and made a phone call.)

I'm putting weight back on, I'm sure. I meant to weigh myself this morning, but I forgot. Anyhow, I'm trying a new breakfast thing. It's called Nouriche Light and it's a sort of drinkable yogurt thing. It's strawberry flavored. It's not bad. I'd try it again. Not maybe every day, it's a little too sweet, but I'd drink it once a week or so. I have to stop eating my previous breakfast food. It was a sort of oatygranolabar thing and I really liked it but when I checked the label, I realized it has four kinds of sugar in it. That's not good.

Ah...the Three Stooges are here. If they can't fix the internet, no one can.

(They couldn't. The phone company is having an outage for some reason. I have internet based meetings scheduled for tomorrow morning so I told everyone if the access doesn't get fixed, I'll be working from home tomorrow.

Except that it just occurred to me that when I was trying to send someone an e-mail last night, my net access seemed to go out. I was tired, so I didn't really think about it, I just closed down the computer and went to bed, but now I'm wondering if my service it out at home, too.)

I'm not really fascinating these days, am I? I'm obsessing about my weight, my access to the electronic world, working, but without massive enthusiasm, and doing much less in the evenings than I really should be. I mean, last night I went out to dinner (salad bar) and went to the grocery store. Came home, read, played computer games, went to bed.

I may find it necessary to invent a fictional life full of drama and excitement to spice up my blog entries.

A man...no, two men. Maybe employed by some shadowy, government agency, you know?

The kind of men likely to be sent undercover in some weird or unlikely locale to ferret out naughtiness the regular police force is unaware of. That leaves plenty of room for me to spin fantasies for almost any otherwise improbable scenario.

I need to start with one situation...one case...just to try the idea out, you understand.

I mean, say they dislike each other (except when no one is looking), then being forced to rely on each other exclusively for an extended length of time might produce some interesting emotional complications, don't you think? Especially when it's a case of lies, misdirection, danger, and information gathering. Something very hush-hush that keeps them out of touch with their agency for a while. They need to be forced to deal with each other without allies.

A run-down neighborhood and some kind of gang that the local police inexplicably don't seem to be able to catch and a curious conflict of instructions from their boss. Toss in an armload of innocent and oppressed bystanders (maybe some elderly shopkeepers or some vulnerable homeless people) for the gang to pick on. There's some potential there. For one thing, you could use the assignment to force the guys to play along, or at least seem to play along with the gang for several consecutive weeks. That would create a lot of emotional conflict for a couple of law-enforcement types.

Mmmm, maybe one of them should be something of a drama queen. The other one could be the kind that adopts stray kittens but is protective of what he thinks of as his "tough guy" image.

The drama queen needs to be the type to pick up sudden fads and get obsessive about them. He probably does it in part to drive tough guy bonkers and tough guy probably knows this, but he usually can't resist reacting anyhow. A sort of add-on complication, just to ratchet up the tension the guys are feeling, you understand

Tough guy is probably constantly on the simmer...always about to grab the drama queen and punch him in the head, because they really don't like each other except that they do when no one is looking or they're not thinking about it, or maybe he winds up kissing him but that might be getting a little ahead of my plot, there.

It could work.