I've been out terrorizing the bunnies. They like a warm day and you can usually find two or three of them sunning themselves on the grass beside the building whenever possible. And they're not too skittish--they don't head for the hills the minute you come into view or anything, but they don't want you closer than ten feet or so. Unless you keep an eye out, you can find yourself in the middle of a panic of running bunnies.

Most days I give them a wide berth. Some days I play the opposable thumb card and stride arrogantly through a pile of them, scattering bunnies far and wide.

The Argonuts across the cubicle wall are cooing and gooing. At least, the male portion of them are. Someone just booked a job for a movie maker (initials FFC) who did some of those glorified crime family/cop drama movies that men inexplicably find so riveting. (Pop culture is not my strong suit.)

I am, as are most of you, one assumes, watching the news about the China quake. I found an interesting table on the BBC site. It didn't show today's quake, but I've added it in:

May 2008: 7.9 quake in Sichuan - at least 8,500 dead, an unknown number hurt
March, 2008: 7.2 quake in Xinjiang - damage limited
February 2003: 6.8 quake in Xinjiang - at least 94 dead, 200 hurt
January 1998: 6.2 quake in rural Hebei - at least 47 dead, 2,000 hurt
April 1997: 6.6 quake hits Xinjiang - 9 dead, 60 hurt
January 1997: 6.4 quake in Xinjiang - 50 dead, 40 hurt

Domestically, I'm watching the news about the weekend's twister toll. Something I've been noticing in the past few years is that they're starting to talk about the ecological consequences of these storms. You never used to hear about that.

Locally, I'm remembering that when I was out Saturday, it was alternately sunny, raining, hailing, and snowing. It's gorgeous today, but we're supposed to get more rain or rain mixed with snow tomorrow. This is unusual for us. While it can snow in the mountains during any month of the year, mid-May usually signals the end of any danger of snow for the Denver metro area.

Weather worries me.

Closer to home, maybe you're wondering about Gidget's get-together with Jason and the fate of the Next Level Plan?

Remember that, after asking her for a comprehensive plan, fully footnoted and with web references, and then not bothering to read it before they met to discuss it, Jason agreed to read it and give her his actual feedback on Friday?

Well, that didn't happen. But rumor has it that he did actually read it this weekend and they were scheduled to meet today to finally discuss it all because, as Gidget was told, he had "a lot of questions and comments."

Now we're told that that's not going to happen, because now Jason's telling her she gave too much detail. He wants her to prepare another document, a spreadsheet, that just lays out the steps, the timeline, and the costs at each stage.

What. A. Tool.*

In the meantime, Vela is acting like the plan got a 100 percent go-ahead and, from what OpieGirl told me, is using it in interviews to explain what the position she's filling entails.

It's all very weird and schizophrenic. It's almost like Gidget gave Jason exactly what he wanted, but he just can't bring himself to say so.

Anyhow. Speaking of get-togethers, I had one myself this weekend. Brunch Saturday morning, then an afternoon of good and bad videos. The cream of the crop was Corner Gas, a little Canadian sitcom that charmed me and made me laugh right out loud.

In closing, let me encourage you all to try something for a week. Reset your browser's home page to Google news but make your default some other country than the UsofA. (Go to news.google.com and check the bottom of the screen. There are a variety of countries to choose from.) Because we all need a non-UsofA perspective on life sometimes.

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* As I have admitted before, I'm a passive-aggressive type with lousy people skills myself, but at least I'm fairly careful not to put myself into jobs where these character flaws can actually bring a company down or drive some coworker to drinking straight from the bottle, okay? So I figure I'm entitled to throw the occasional stone.