I think there may be something really wrong with me. It's sale time here (by law, apparently, Greek merchants can have sales only twice a year and this is one of those times), so pretty much everything in the city is 50% off. And I haven't been able to find anything I want to buy.

This could be serious.

Gah. It's Monday. Who let this happen?

Gah. It's Monday. Who let this happen?

I don't know, but I'm one short minute away from escaping the nightmare.

WASHINGTON - Frustrated by Democrats, President Bush will circumvent the Senate on Monday and install embattled nominee John Bolton to be ambassador to the United Nations, a senior administration official told NBC News.

Wanker.

Both of them.

I'm one short minute away from escaping the nightmare

Stupid international-date-line-having echidna lover.

Reasons I am having a crappy morning:

1. Boss calls, lost, asks me to find address of office furniture store. I do. She disbelieves me. She calls another person to ask her to check the phone book. Gets same result. Other person reports that location Boss was thinking of closed 4 years ago. Note to boss: I can consult a phone book, thanks - we are all REFERENCE LIBRARIANS!

2. I receive email, dated Friday after 5pm, requesting departmental letterhead for a department I just began ordering supplies for. Requestor needs it "Monday morning." Note to person: I am not a miracle worker who can maginally summon weekend custom-print job elves. Also, I go home at 4:15. Get used to it.

3. Discover Father will be in same space-time location as me next weekend. I let him know my travel plans in June, just in case this would occur. How did I find out that he will be in the same place and time as me? Through my mother, the woman who divorced him 24 years ago. Note to father: now that I've finally gotten over you ignoring me my whole life, you've got to rub it in and ignore your completely innocent 2 year old only granddaughter? More brownie points for purgatory for you, fucko.

Stupid international-date-line-having echidna lover.

Dat's me, stoooopid. Truth will out.

Billy Idol grinned at me. Who wants to touch me?

Is there any answer other than 'Billy Idol' that actually interests you?

The DH is working on a paper detailing the "Strategic Vision" of various US leaders. Compare and contrast:

We do not know where this journey will end, yet we know this: human beings are headed into the cosmos.

I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.

One of these is from a Kennedy speech, and one is from a GWB speech. Can you guess which is which?

One states that he doesn't know where his vision will take us, and uses general terms like "cosmos." The other specifies who, what, when, where, and includes the follow-on "returning him safely to the Earth."

(Both are from speeches that detail the steps; Kennedy's asks Congress for specific monetary amounts and Bush's tells what equipment we'll have by certain years).

tells what equipment we'll have by certain years

At which point every individual who has ever been involved in an engineering project of such scale and political dictate starts laughing and laughing and laughing, trying somewhat hysterically to dig up the stated timelines of past projects to compare with their reality.

And if they are in NASA of today, they just hit their head on a cabinet, were buried in a pile of bids, workorders authorization forms, and budget projections. They lost consciousness.

Hey!