It's kinda' amazing how much getting drunk figures into small town culture in Wisconsin. Also, drinking and driving was no big deal when I was growing up (although I never did it myself). OK, it was not a big deal until kids got killed in drunk driving accidents - then people talked about the problem for a few weeks. But nothing would change.

I always love the cranky diner/convenience store people. The crankier they are, the more I love them. Inevitably, they always turn out to be really nice.

There was more discussion of drinking in Wisconsin when I grew up. But it revolved more around drinking age. I grew up near the Illinois state line. After Illinois raised is drinking age to 21, a lot of people came into Wisconsin (where the age was still 18 at the time) to do their drinking.

Also, a lot of people liked to talk about cracking down on the liquor stores that would sell to underage kids. But if anything was done about it, it was after I left.

I can't even go to the starbucks in my building anymore b/c I'll get shit for my long absence!

I got that in my deli when I started working full-time again. "I thought you moved! We never see you!"

So, my little desktop weather thing keeps making noise at me and distracting me from work conversations -- first there was a tornado warning (!!) in my old neighborhood, but then it got cancelled. Phew!

I do think I'll make it so the thing doesn't actually make noise.

the servers

Okay, so, skimmy, I realize, but -- anybody else get very far into this discussion thinking it was a conversation about one's close personal relationship with one's tower of internet data storage and processing capacity?

Just me then.

I've never called a waiter a server, because my brain has to work double-hard when words have that many everyday meanings. Cleave, okay, it's a trivia thing and anyway I don't use that word very often. But server, like nose, needs to have only one meaning for me.

I keep complaining to my office-mates about the sounds that Weatherbug makes. They turn off the sound, but then a few weeks later, the sound is back on! Very annoying.

Doesn't Weatherbug install a whole bunch of adware?

I prefer waitron -- even more impersonal, almost machinelike.

Yeah, the Weatherbug sound is super annoying. This is some shit from the Weather Channel, so it just makes thunder noises in case of emergency -- or it did, before I turned the sound off.