Dear Download,

Please finish so I can close the laptop and take it somewhere where the temp is much less blast-furnacey.

Dear COBRA,

You suck. I blame GeorgeBushCo.

Dear State of MA Healthcare Program,

Thank you for giving me one more reason to love my Commonwealth.

Yours Truly, -Theo

Hey, I just wanted to thank y'all again for the kinds words (and wow, kudos from the entire MiracleFam!). I dropped a driveby thanks and little story about Abe meeting Geneva in Music (natch) if anyone's interested: Corwood Industries "Buffista Music III: The Search for Bach" Aug 3, 2007 9:27:43 am PDT.

I really, really loathe people who express helplessness in the face of clear instructions

A million times wrod. "How do I do that?" And you're not allowed to say, "We just did that, you moron! A mouse in a maze would have already learned how to do it, the number of times we've done it!"

A few years ago I had a woman on the phone tell me with a giggle, "Oh, I'm 43 years old, I don't know how to do this sort of thing." In as chilly a voice as I could manage without being fired, I said, "I'm 45 years old, and I support this sort of thing all day." She said "Oh" in a small voice and proceeded to get with the program.

Abe could very well be an Emmett in training. Very cute.

So red velvet cake isn't read for any good reason. Interesting.

The icing is similar to the one that went on CI's test spice cake, but less rich. I must make a note to make this icing next time I do the spice cake instead.

Thanks, Kat!

Abe sounds like he'll be a great big brother! Geneva is a lucky little girl..

And, for a good giggle and renewed hope for the next generation, there is this:

"Oh, George Bush, don't go by the bridge! You'll just make things worse!" --Katie Fecke (age 4), responding to a news report that President Bush would visit the 35W Mississippi River Bridge site on Saturday.

I really, really loathe people who express helplessness in the face of clear instructions.

You must work in my office.

The learned helplessness is bad, but it's the melodramatic "I don't know what to doooooo!!!1!" breast-beating that really chaps my ass. Listen, dude, all you have to do is click a link. I'm not asking you to file taxes in three states or properly use "Tazdingo!" in a sentence. It is a link. You click on it. No, you can't click on it "wrong". Good god, man, did you have some kind of traumatic Goatse.cx experience and swear you'd never click on a link again so long as you live?

You know, I somehow COMPLETELY missed the "Dear Work," part of this post and thought these were the clear instructions you gave a person.

To be fair, I have given those instructions to more than one person.

Jeez, shrift. No offense, but I'm kind of glad I was late enough to work today that you were off the road before I got to my bus stop.

A faculty member said, out loud, to my colleague recently, "I am a Looniversity faculty member and I am too highly paid to waste my time with X." X being putting links to articles in her course website.

It's lucky I wasn't on the receiving end of that remark, because I might have replied, "Do you wipe your own ass?"

Seriously, have people never heard of MANNERS?

High pay as an excuse not to do something is a new one. Generally I think "yes, they pay me enough to put up with this shit."

Relatedly, what gap is this photo referring to? [link]