Sadly, I can't think of anything to say.

For those interested in the on-going saga of my software woes, I should report that yesterday, PoodleBoy finally shared the secret of the sekrit, invisible, buried code with me. Now I can create my own sekrit, invisible, buried code whenever I want!

PoodleBoy seems to be recovering his normal equanimity. (Did I tell you about PoodleBoy? Did I tell you about when, on a day when I was really, really, really busy and stressed and needed to make very second count, I needed some information from him and had to spend 20 minutes on the phone with him, sympathizing because one of his dogs had dug a potato chip bag out of the trash, got its head stuck in the bag while playing with it, fell in the pool, and drowned, and then find nice things to say about the picture he sent me so that I could see what the dead dog had looked like before it was dead, before I could get him to focus on work? I'm not sure I told you that bit.)

I am not a pet person, okay? I care about the pets of the people I care about because I care about the people.

Also? I have no way to code 20 minutes spent talking about a dead dog on my timesheet.

This timesheet things continues to present problems to me. I can't quite get the hang of what the R.C. assures me are the tacitly understood "timesheet lies" that everyone uses. (I've never really done timesheets and in the past, the one time a company tried to make me, I just drew a line on the paper every day and wrote, "working" next to it.) Apparently, no matter what you do or how long it takes you, the understood minimum time that any task will take is 15 minutes.

Finding myself unable to code 15 minutes to a single phone call, I wind up with entries like this:

1 hour - Misc - Inspect boxes w/Bernie, e-mail data storage provider for quote for storage and back-up, find previous quote for back-ups, mail invoices, e-m repair company about testing batteries, etc.

Mostly, you know, I'm working. I can either watch the clock every second of the day or I can get shit done. There isn't always brain power for both.

Moving on, let me add that we're still having Internet Issues here at the office. For the past week, e-mail (and IMs, oddly enough) works just fine, but trying to get on to any actual internet page is an exercise in frustration. Yesterday I was shipping a package via the UPS website and it took a full 12 minutes, when you factor in the time it took for pages to load. (You only have to go through four pages to ship a package.) Today, the internets seem to be running just fine, but trying to do anything on our network is mind-bogglingly slow.

Right now, I'm considering breakfast. It's not particularly diet, but if you choose your fast-food breakfast carefully, you might not entirely blow your diet. I didn't bring anything with me today, so I'm thinking of walking across the street to the mass-produced burger joint and seeing what they have to offer.


P.S. UPSteve just came in to pick up my package. He says that the bank downstairs told him the building has been sold and they're going to tear it down.

That's going to provide some...interesting logistical problems for these guys.