If you go here and search for "Chile" in the search box on the right, you can get to a video of the Chile eruption. I've been wondering if this is connected to 2007's earthquake. (I mean, something must have triggered an eruption from a volcano that's been dormant for millennia.) I think there's audio, but I don't have a sound card in my computer here at the office.

There are a lot of cool videos on the National Geographic site. (I don't know why I have a thing for volcanoes. I just do. And floods. And tsunamis, tornadoes, earthquakes, etc. Natural disasters have a weird fascination for me.)

No disasters, natural or otherwise, these parts at the moment. Gidget is still scheduled to present the NLP to Jason on Wednesday. In the meantime, her boss, Vela, has requested a budget and a list of the things that we want done in May, so she can start implementing them. (I guess her mind is already made up.)

And our communications person quit, leaving a position open that's right up OpieGirl's alley, so Gidget's having her send a resume in to Vela. Vela's already interviewing a couple of other people, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed for OpieGirl. She really wants to get out of her current crazy employment situation.

The weekend was gorgeous. Weather was threatened but didn't really materialize. I didn't really do anything, but on the plus side, I spent very little money! headscratch I remember eating lunch on Saturday and stopping by Target for a few necessities, but other than that, I'm drawing a blank. I walked over to Whole Foods and didn't buy anything. I did three loads of laundry and cleaned the bathroom. I gave myself a facial and a pedicure.

What happened to the other 42 hours of the weekend is anyone's guess.

I suspect that having spent an inordinate number of hours playing Phantom Hourglass on the Nintendo DS has a lot to do with my Lost Weekend. I haven't found a new game I enjoy as much as I'm enjoying this one in a long time--years, maybe--so thank you to the R.C. who purchased and recommended this one.

I got my latest box full of amazon.com indulgences on Friday, but I'm in the middle of a series at the moment and haven't stopped to read any of the new ones yet. (I did pause to gloat over the luxury of new books several times during the weekend.)

Workwise, my Original Job Responsibilities are all under control. My Add-on Job Responsibilities are humming along smoothly.

This is all fortunate since, last Thursday, I was handed a whole pile of Brand-new Job Responsibilities that have nothing to do with my current job, current job title, or current list of skills. Sigh.

It's because the communications person is leaving. Management realized (in a panic) last week that they have no one here who can produce the monthly Argonut-targeted newsletter or the sporadic client-targeted bulk emails. Somehow, my name always seems to come up in these situations.

They don't want me to write these things, of course. No, they just want me to learn the software so I can generate them. Here I am, brain the size of a planet full of nothing but opinions and they're giving me a pain in my diodes nothing more interesting than shoving someone else's stilted prose into a pre-fab newsletter template.

I am going to have primary responsibility for the company blog when it's up and running but, again, they want someone to handle the software and keep the sp*mm*rs at bay. Only the Serious Employees with lame stories about packing and shipping weird items will be allowed to write posts.

Seriously, I probably wouldn't let me write my newsletter either. Or my blog. Doesn't mean I'm not going to hold a grudge about it, though.

Brooding.