Lee, I love the red bag (#3) as well. Aside from the looks, the things that tipped me over to liking it were the detachable shoulder strap and the number/types of pockets inside.

Well darnit, how do I edumacate my operating system? Crummy Mountain Lion, first it makes my mouse scroll upside down, now it's discriminating against proper spelling of theatre.

My problem is that I'm the sort of person who, with a book, or say, the internet, believes she can do anything described therein.

This is so me! The idea that just because I have the info I can do it is my downfall. Also, how I ended up sewing a friend's wedding dress when I was 30.

FTR, I also love bag 3, and feel accomplished that I replaced one of the bolts holding the toilet seat to the toilet. Renters R me.

I have the Readers Digest book and one called Fix It Fast, Fix It Right that's good. If you're doing something complicated, the Time-Life books are good and a lot of libraries have them. The This Old House website is one of the better online resources.

That's a function of your operating system, not the board

I doubt it's the OS--I'm pretty sure it's your browser. My Opera is set to UK English, and the others are set to US. But it's just like Microsoft Word. If you want it to stop telling you something failed spellcheck, right mouseclick and add it to the dictionary.

I'm trying to work out if the (incompetent) developer really did mean it when she said "I'm taking a day of vacation, and I'm shutting down the proof of concept until I get back, so that schedule you gave me that I got you one day behind on because I don't know when to cut my losses? You're now two days behind, minimum, and the people you have lined up to work this week are going to be delayed."

Like, it's bad form for the developer to take vacation in the middle of a stressful project whose deadlines can't move without clearing it with the rest of the project team (I mean, the schedule does accommodate us both with PTO that we'd planned in advance), but you can't give zero notice (an email on a Sunday does *not* count) and then take the keys with you when you leave.

I've replied to her email and left a voicemail message in the ten minutes I've been awake, but I'm a bit poleaxed at the very idea.

SERIOUSLY.

Who does that?

I texted my manager, who's going to be all "Why are you telling me?"

Because she's your employee, and she's doing random counterproductive shit like this, and I want you to be aware. Really aware.

Wow, that is some kind of bullshit.

OK, I realize I'm probably the only person watching Single Ladies on VH1, but OMGWTFcliffhangers! That show is....objectively really bad (writing, acting), but I just love how the relationships work. No one gets punished for sleeping around (or dating around without sex).

Well, great, Jesse, now you've (almost) tempted me to watch that show.

I do remember, when Emmett started getting into Friends a couple of years ago, being shocked at how much sex all the female characters had without being punished for it (beyond, say, Monica's momentary embarrassment at having been talked into bed by a liar with a fake sob story). Over the course of the entire series, Rachel slept with a *ton* of guys who weren't Ross, sometimes on the first date, sometimes on the only date, and it never affected the fact that Ross was her lobster and she was his ideal. And I couldn't remember any show since then that simply assumed that women like sex, just like men do, and can go out and have it -- and even have it end badly, or decide they don't like the guy they just had it with -- without the rest of their world collapsing.

ION, I need to get going quickly to ambush a garage saler. Late yesterday afternoon Matilda and I were walking home from the kids' consignment store and passed a little pink house with tons of glassware and toys out front, including a bucketload of Harry Potter stuff. Thinking like a reader and viewer rather than either a FAN or an EBAY PERSON, I bought a Gringott's savings book with all 24 commemorative coins for myself and a Fossil Quidditch watch for Matilda for a grand total of $3.

Ebay is now telling me that they're probably worth at least a hundred dollars each, and now my brain is telling me, "Holy shit, you're a moron for walking right past the huge box of NIB first edition action figures." It was mid to late afternoon and she hadn't sold much of anything, so I'm hope-hope-hoping I can go by this morning before church, or at least leave a note on her door, saying WANT YOUR TOYS CALL ME MAYBE or some such.