FWIW, after some research, I went to Yale Electric & Appliance for my stove, and had a really excellent experience with them -- treated like a prize customer even though I wasn't shopping for the high end stuff. Also, they hauled away the old stove when they delivered the new. It's up in Dorchester, just off 93, and worth the trip even from where you are.

I'm constantly amazed that I can watch some things on television that become just too powerful and difficult when put on stage. I wonder why that is.

I think it's because me-and-the-tv are a private, closed system, and I can let myself sink into the story more. I'm not being observed in my reaction.

Theatre is a public, shared experience, and one never quite lets go of present reality enough to not be aware of other audience members and their reactions.

That's my theory, anyway.

Question: Is it bad to block access to electrical outlets?

Where I want to move my desk and filing cabinet will completely block the electrical outlet; I won't be able to get to it without moving extremely heavy furniture. I'm plugging in surge protectors so I can still use the outlets. I'm hoping that's safe enough, but this is an old building and I think the electrical system wasn't built to carry the number of appliances I have. I try not to overload any outlet, but I worry about not being able to get to the outlet itself. Anyone know if this is okay or not?

Have you started your new job, Katie? How's everything else? Exciting!

I don't see a problem with the outlets. A pain in the ass if you do need to get to it, but I can't think that would come up much.

zenkitty -- just don't be like that woman who tried to reach her outlet behind a bookshelf, became trapped upside down when she fell down the back, and was found about a week later by her family!

Theo, that's probably how I'll go! I'll be careful, I promise!

SNOW! We have SNOW. Nearly two inches in about four hours. It's pretty.

the couch that I, you know, don't own and have to go buy

IKEA!

Although I am sure it is a madhouse noon Sundays.

Woman Fired For Writing About Avoiding Work

(AP) DES MOINES, Iowa An administrative judge has denied unemployment benefits to a woman who was fired from her job for keeping a journal detailing her efforts to avoid work.

Emmalee Bauer, 25, of Elkhart, was employed by the Sheraton hotel company as a sales coordinator in Des Moines. While on the job, she kept a handwritten journal. A supervisor told her to stop writing on company time, but instead, Bauer wrote her journal, all 300 single-spaced pages, on her work computer.

In the journal, portions of which were introduced during a recent hearing regarding Bauer's request for unemployment, Bauer describes her efforts to avoid work.

"This typing thing seems to be doing the trick," she wrote. "It just looks like I am hard at work on something very important."

Bauer also wrote: "I am only here for the money and, lately, for the printer access. I haven't really accomplished anything in a long while ... and I am still getting paid more than I ever have at a job before, with less to do than I have ever had before. It's actually quite nice when I think of it that way. I can shop online, play games and read message boards and still get paid for it."

In her journal she speculated it could someday be published.

Bauer was fired for misuse of company time after a supervisor discovered the journal late last year.

Administrative Law Judge Susan Ackerman denied Bauer's request for unemployment last week, saying she the journal demonstrated a refusal to work, as well as Bauer's "amusement at getting away with it."