Jesse, my folks used to love taking the Staten Island Ferry and driving around looking at the Mafia mansions. There is also an Old Sailor's Home turned Arts center caled Snug Harbor. Check it out: [link]

I am going in to the office as soon as I can work up the nerve to brave the hellish rain.

ita, I hope you feel better soon.

cranberry orange cake

That sounds like such an interesting combination! If it were possible to find cranberries here I'd ask for the recipe.

Fay, you probably just need a really good water filter system like Brita.

Last day of precious, precious vacation. I should actually spend it well. Hmm...

Me too. This will be my fourth day off. I haven't had this much time away from work since my honeymoon. No wonder the job was killing me.

Resolution for New Year: less work.

TV Guide has a "specia guest columnist' - some guy named Joss Whedon: [link] writing on the future of TV....

The networks will all be creating exciting, innovative new spin-offs of today's shows. Approximately 67 percent of all television will be CSI-based, including CSI: Des Moines, CSI: New York but a Different Part than Gary Sinise Is In and NCSI: SVU WKRP, which covers every possible gruesome crime with a groovin' '70s beat. (Jerry Bruckheimer will also have conquered Broadway with the CSI musical "FOLLICLE!" starring Nathan Lane as a frenetic but lovable blood spatter and Matthew Broderick as lint.)

Homemade BtVS mah jongg set: [link]

I would actually love to see a limited run of NCSI:SVU WKRP. Rarely would all my enthusiasms be so catered to, esp. if Belzer was in it. That Sweden guy is funny.

Fay, you probably just need a really good water filter system like Brita.

See, in Egypt I just don't drink the water. 'Cause bottled water is cheap cheap cheap (by foreigner standards) and Egypt...is very polluted. And the, ah, pharaoh's revenge is unavoidable, but drinking the water REALLY is asking for it. But it's weird finding that my body now considers British water to be strange and unfamiliar. Like it doesn't want home to be home anymore, or - oh, I don't know. Strange. Like finding your key doesn't fit in a familiar lock, or something.

...I'm not making much sense, here, am I?

I'm following, Fay. Should I be afraid now?

Erika! My sistah!

MWAH!

I think that following my logic just demonstrates that you are insightful and wise. Or possibly a freak like me. But I'm going to go with insightful and wise. Yes.

Hec, please don't work-die. Thank you.

...I'm not making much sense, here, am I?

Oh, no, you totally do. It's how your bed suddenly seems too soft after sleeping outdoors on the ground in discomfort for a few days, but it's your bed, so it's supposed to be exactly what your body wanted all along, something like that?

[Edited to note that this post was composed before I saw Fay's comments to erika upon agreeing. One of the most embarrassing sorts of x-post.]