I have seen footage of this and it FREAKS ME THE HELL OUT. Noses should not do that.

I think for me, the freakiest part is the sound it makes.

Much sympathy, shrift, on the digging out at work. I feel like I'm going through over a week's worth of emails and meetings in one day. Oh, wait. I was on vacation for over a week and I am. Well, today is not so much fun, but it was worth it.

This morning, I started watching the morning show on CBS, and then had a terrible feeling that Deb might be on a different station, so I channel-hopped for a while, seeing way too many iterations of the pantsless rescue. Poor guy. I finally decided CBS was the right station and set the VCR there, I hope. My VCR has turned to crap, so I'm never sure if I'm taping the right thing, or if it will be visible even if it is the right channel. On the positive side, I got the last Sharpe's movie tonight, so there will be good TV in any case.

As an aside, I am ALWAYS coming back on Saturday after a vacation. None of this straight to work crap. Lazing around yesterday was so incredibly wonderful. Of course, now lunch is almost over and I don't wanna go back to the looming piles. Alas, I must.

Netflix now has a friends page.

Okay. Off to chiro. Wish me miracle cure.

Many wishes for miracle cure for you, ita.

I need a miracle cure for my neck. It's pissing me off, at this point. Grrrr.

Grrrr. Just got grilled about the process I used on some work 5 months ago because a client disapproved of how many hours it took. Which involved a change in what we were actually supposed to be doing midway through the process, requiring me to go back and apply new standards to everything after half the work had been finished. Did I mention that back in the day, I wondered why the client didn't have their own employees doing the work, as it's the sort of thing I would have expected them to want an internal decision-making process applied to?

Matt, what is it with these folks. Last year was the year they tried to work you to death. This year is the year they're trying to annoy you to death. You poor guy.

It is early enough in 2005 that I feel justified in posting this poem by Pablo Neruda for all the buffistas:

This new year, compatriot, is yours.
It was born of you more than of time. Choose
the best of your life and surrender it to combat.

This year that has fallen like a corpse in its tomb
cannot rest with love and with fear.
This expired year is a year of sorrows that accuse.
And in the hour of festivity, in the night,
when its bitter roots break away and fall
and another ignored crystal rises to the void
of a year that your life will gradually fill,
give it the dignity required by my country
and yours, this narrowness of volcanoes and
wines.

-- Pablo Neruda, "You Will Struggle"

Este anyo nuevo, compatriota, es tuyo.
Ha nacido de ti mas que del tiempo, escoge
lo mejor de tu vida y entregalo al combate.

Este anyo que ha caido como un muerto en su tumba
no puede reposar con amor y con miedo.
Este anyo muerto es anyo de dolores que acusan.
Y cuando sus raices amargas en la hora
de la fiesta, en la noche, se desprendan y caigan
y suba otro cristal ignorado al vacio
de un anyo que tu vida llenara poco a poco,
dale la dignidad que requiere mi patria,
la tuya, esta angostura de volcanes y vinos.

-- Pablo Neruda, "Tu Lucharas"

English translation by Jack Schmitt.

Hey, posting from the WiFi at the Beyond Bread (what, exactly that is, we're not sure -- if it was 'Between Bread' then it would at least explain the sandwiches).

Tucson is temporarily at least sunny and warm, and my dirty laundry is now cleanly drying on the clothesline. (Which actually is a spinny line/rack contraption -- is there a name for those? We had one when I was a kid.)

The Wild Animal Park was fantastic -- I've been to the San Diego Zoo twice, but this was my first time there. Not at all crowded in the winter rain, so the animals were very cooperative and the keepers were very talky. And I went on my Photo Caravan Safari as the only passenger, so I got all my questions answered and fed about a dozen (okay, it seemed like that many) giraffes by hand. Their spit smells like chlorophyll, is as sticky as sugar syrup, and isn't too awful to detract from the experience.

There were many other cool animals too, including ostriches coming up to the truck and pecking at it. Did you know they're fascinated by Shiny Things?

Re: 24 What exactly is Jack's new job? It's not Secret Service or he would have been with the dude when the shit went down. Also, who in the hell says, "I'm falling in love with you?" Dude, either you're there or you're not. Now, had it been, "I think I'm falling in love with you" it could have been the old trick-a-roo of not saying you love the person but roping them in cause the word "love" is in there. It's a small nit but it still bugged. Jack is still hot. I also miss Tony and Michelle, but Chloe still cracks me up. "As usual, no one can hear you and where's your laptop????"

Me and QPB went over to the Arroyo to check out the dam.

[link]

It's usually dry.

x-post with Bitches, as several non-Bitches would enjoy this story:

12/18/04

Our route to India is thus: Dallas -> New York -> Paris -> Mumbai. We had a couple hours of layover in JFK, so we ate some pizza from Sbarro. After we ate, my brother went wandering around.

He returned and motioned urgently to me. I could tell he meant business, so I got up and followed him. The only thing I could think that would require such urgency in an airport was that he wanted to show me a really hot girl. And sure enough, there seemed to be an attractive female in white standing by Sbarro.

Huh. She looked like Mischa Barton.

Whoa. She sounded like Mischa Barton. Mischa Barton has a very distinctive voice.

"Excuse me," said my brother, "are you Mischa Barton?"

"Yeah," she said.

I said something like "How weird" or "How absolutely bizarre."

And then she walked away as if we weren't even there.

No chance for us to save how much we loved The O.C. while skirting around the fact that we didn't care so much about Marissa. This was my brother's first celebrity encounter (and my first completely unexpected one), and we totally got the brush-off. I mean, I get that she's a regular person too and we were total strangers getting in the way of her monthly meal, but I thought she'd be used to this sort of thing and be a little more gracious. It's a good thing neither one of us were, like, totally dying to meet her cause OMG we're ur #1 fanz!

Some supplemental information. My brother had seen her and her mother (and, I'm pretty sure, her sister, as the girl I saw with her bore a striking resemblance) at the gate for Venice. He had casually followed her when he saw she was heading for the food area, so he decided to get me. After our sole interaction, we saw the two of them in the Burger King line, and I later saw her with a BK bag in hand. So, rest assured, Mischa Barton is eating. Be proud. And finally, we noticed there had been a gate change for the Venice flight. It had used to be a hundred gates away. So clearly, we were meant to meet Mischa Barton.

For the record, she does look pretty good in person. And she's kind of tall, too, about as tall as I am.

When I was in NYC a few months ago, I thought I passed Chris Carmack (Luke) on the sidewalk one night. Maybe it really was him. My brother figures we're going to run into Ben McKenzie in Paris and Adam Brody in Mumbai.

But Mischa Barton's on our Bitch List now. We would have given good conversation, dammit! All we asked for was, perhaps, an acknowledgement of our existence. I think we're going to spend the entire trip making fun of her. I never got on the Mischa Barton hate train before; I had little problem with her or her acting. Now I have a personal vendetta!

Honestly, speaking as a non-famous chick, P-C, if a guy noticed me, followed me for a bit, called ANOTHER guy over to look at me, and then had the other guy tell me I was bizarre, I might be a little wary myself. However, a "Hello" might have been nice.