paperdol, crash diets are not good. If you go too low on the calorie count, the body goes into emergency mode and lowers metabolism. Bummer. (Mmmmm...hummus good, but baba ganouj better. For me. Aladdin's has the best baba.) Try foods that are low fat but high nutrition--whole grains, legumes, fresh veggies and fruits. You can fill up but not with calorie dense foods. (And remind me, please, to follow my own advice. Here I am sipping wine and eating fresh mozarella. Bad.)

While not excellent at following my own advice, I do have some great recipes.

And mazel tov on the fan letters.

paperdol, I pimped your book at my local comic shop. The owner is going to buy a copy. Whoohoo!

Since I just got done with an interview today, I found a lot of what's being talked about interesting. Particularly the goals question (I hate that puppy with a fiery passion - I want to frigging retire with enough money to survey without SS, okay?) From what I've been reading I think I've been handling that so-so. The flaw - I'm too picky, I'll stay forever to do the job right. What I liked about today, though, was that I talked with the department heads first and then HR. I got to talk to the people who mattered about the actual job and its duties. But, the cool thing is, even if I'm not selected for that particular job, the HR rep felt I had a lot of transferable skills and suggested I apply for a couple of other positions, so she's going to put my resume in front of those department heads, too. And you know what did it? When I asked if they used SAP for their production operations software and she said they just started using it in January, while I've got two years experience with it. I felt a lot better about the entire process with the way this company handled it. It would be nice if more of them worked that way.

Goals. I,too, hate goals. My goal is retirement. Not that it's happening anytime soon.

It's just as well I lived at home and never roomed with anyone in college, because detectives would still be trying to find out what I did with all the bodies if anything like that had ever happened.

Matt-You were wise. It ended up that getting married, having a full-time job and finishing two majors simultaneously was easier on me my junior and senior years that living on campus!

My goals: Not hate my job. Perhaps even vaguely enjoy going to work. Make enough money to have fun outside of work. Have enough vacation to go to do things other than work.

We have to write goals every year at work as part of our annual review process. My unwritten goals each year include "Don't quit" and "Don't kill anyone".

My unwritten goals each year include "Don't quit" and "Don't kill anyone".

This is what early drafts are for. It gives the real goals a chance to be written goals

Well, that was interesting.

Out walking the dog. Just up the street a news crew filming: across the street, a bunch of people clustered around a pair of unmoving legs sticking out from between two cars.

As it turned out, it was a news crew interviewing someone and an entirely unrelated group across the street attempting a search and retreive on a cat who got all up in some SUV's business.

Lucy was able to help pinpoint the cat's precise location, at any rate. Rather emphatically.

Just up the street a news crew filming

Did you see the story? A woman was attacked on your block around 2am this morning. She was tackled and trapped under him, she sprayed him with pepper spray and got away. The attacker is still at large. So, please please please be careful. Keep Lucy with you while you're out.

Yeah, my neighbor just told me. Freaky.