Happy Birthday, Beth!

Happy Birthday, Beej!!

Mice (and rats) are creepy. They make my skin crawl. I don't want them hurt and in pain, I just want them to exist in a separate universe, where I would never have to interact with them ever.

It was book geared towards teenagers/young adults and the author was rather proudly writing about a time when his teenage daughter came to him about some problem and he laughed in her face.

Cases like this always make me think it's the kids who are going to have the last laugh when it's time to pick the nursing home.

e-mail etiquette/ client relations question. I sent someone a paper for review one of the days Comcast was having all the problems. I was not sure it had gone through so I followed up a few days later just to make sure it had been received - explaining that I knew it was way too early for the work to have been reviewed - but Comcast had DNS problems that day, and some e-mails sent failed to go through (with no bounce messages).

He wrote back telling me he had received it, and was in fact very happy with my work, even though he had not had time for a formal review yet, and will in fact send a formal review in a few days. (If he does this he will be sending the review earlier than agreed. The fact that he is happy makes me happy because it was part of the deal that if he was not happy I would redo it at no extra charge.)

OK - well normally I would send another note thanking him for his kind words. But I'm really afraid that another e-mail at this point would be taken as a nudge to hurry up and do the review (even if I explicityly said otherwise). And I don't want that to happen - both for the sake of good relations with him, and because I know how freakin busy he is, and don't want him moving this any further up his schedule than it already is. He is a genuinely nice person, and if I send a message he takes as a push he might actually move it up his priority queue.

I don't like not thanking a client for a compliment right away, but I'm really leaning towards waiting for the formal review so as not to be a nudge. Good instinct, or is the delay in expressing appreciation too much of a no-no? Cause I really think no matter how much I said "I don't need the review ahead of schedule, please don't take this as a request to get it done more quickly", he would take it as a request to get it done more quickly.

Happens all the time. Margaret Cho had me at "Me love you, long time." Nova linked me to a really awesome Veronica Mars article where Logan says he wants to be like Kyle Secor...I could link it, but not if y'all have seen it.

Oh my god, I don't want to do anymore work today. Can't I just skive off and go spend too much money at the bookstore?

Yes.

He wrote back telling me he had received it, and was in fact very happy with my work, even though he had not had time for a formal review yet, and will in fact send a formal review in a few days.

I'd write "Thanks; I'm really happy to hear you liked the work." That doesn't pressure him at all.

What Betsy said.

If only she'd put it on vibrate...

Romanian police searching a woman suspected of theft found her hiding a mobile phone in her vagina.

They made the astonishing discovery after dialling the number and hearing a muffled ringing coming from somewhere under the woman's skirt.

A witness said he had alerted police when he saw Ruxandra Gardian steal the phone from a customer in a restaurant.

Police questioned the 34-year-old and were about to let her go when the witness suggested they ring the phone to determine whether she was hiding it.

On dialling the number they heard a sound coming from under Gardian's clothes and took her to police headquarters to be strip-searched.

Police officers conducting the search were shocked to find the phone stashed in the woman's vagina.

However, the owner of the phone has since refused to have it returned to him saying it was damaged beyond repair and he would be filing an insurance claim.

Officer Aurel Popescu commented: "I've seen a lot in my time as a policeman but never anything like this."

How does she answer call waiting?

t shudder

Thanks Betsy and Jesse - advice taken.