No matter how many times I pack everything up, no matter how many times I try to be organized, whenever I move, I wind up with 20 boxes labeled "misc. stuff." I'm only on box #2...this is going to take a while.

:::

Whenever I try to clean the car, I'm left with a mess in the house. When I try to clean up that mess, I wind up with crap back in the car. It's amazing how many cycles it takes before I actually notice this.

:::

Attention span is a problem lately. I'm not sure where it comes from exactly, but I do know....hey, cool! Check out that butterfly!

:::

Wireless technology is wonderful for two purposes: working/talking/doing things pretty much anywhere, and reminding us that microwave frequencies don't travel well through obstacles with high water content. Too bad people have a reeeeealllllly high water content. I feel dizzy.

:::

It used to be floppies, now it's CD's. I wonder what the next storage technology will emerge that becomes so entrenched in daily life that I lose, break, place in unlabeled stacks, and otherwise abuse it?

:::

*blink* *blink* *blink* *blink*

Ugh...it's SUNNY out during the day. Gotta talk to someone about that.

Yes, I am still alive. For those who I personally told that the Week In Review was returning this past weekend...oops...I missed. I apologize.

It's returning soon. Really!

Other than that...nothing much going on.

Bullshit...all kinds of stuff going on, but most of it isn't gonna show up here.

Hey, I'm not happy about that, either. But that's the way it is.

_sigh_

Thought for today:

"Back Door Bill" is a common phrase in the modern vernacular.

It's used in reference to Bill Clinton and his Oval Office follies.

It's used in reference to any attempt to sneak a law past the public right under everyone's nose.

Now it can be used in reference to one Bill Gates, specifically due to the latest hole he took a hit in...

I park the car, and head towards the bar/restaurant set in the middle of an outdoor shopping complex/mall. It is about 200 feet from the parking lot to the door.

So why the fuck do I have to walk 6 miles to get there?!?

Perfectly cut bricks inlaid in a winding pathway through nothing in particular to get nowhere important, except for possibly the bar, serves no one in particular, except for perhaps the bricklayers. What happened to a straight walkway to where you want to go?

I mean, I'm all for beauty in the details making the mundane aspects of life more bearable, but this isn't quite what I had in mind.

The post-techno-ultra-modern-new-age-feng-shui whatever has resulted in carefully engineered concrete courtyards encrusting shiny chain stores in simulated organic layouts. The plasticine peacefulness is worse than not trying in the first place.

If I was so interested in finding a little peace and quiet in my life, I would go to an actual garden with winding pathways and pretty flowers far removed from the modern world. I would *not* go to a strip mall at the intersection of three major highways. I don't appreciate having it thrust upon me, either.

What possible motive could a developer have here? Do I need more serenity in my shopping? Hardly. I hope someone mercifully shoots me if I ever claim otherwise. Shopping is a necessary evil of a consumerist society, something to be endured to get what I need from people I don't know who are paid too much for pretending to like me. Don't insult my intelligence by trying to pretty up the place and forcing me to window-shop at the bridal boutique and video store on my way to get a beer. If there is any pleasant experiences to be had here, I will seek them out at my destination, not in the navigation of an annoying random pathway for the sake of being random. It only comes out as annoying.

Otherwise, I'd be somewhere else in the first place.

I suppose there are some people who prefer to meander aimlessly along roads to nowhere, blissfully forgetting what they were here for in the first place. Fine. Leave the yellow brick road in place for them.

I'm not one of them. Put in a straight line for me.

Remember the days gone by, when doing battle was an honorable thing? Vanquishing the wrongs against your person or humanity elicited a swift and just response?

Oh how I miss those days.

Rather than attempting to retrieve and reset the nuclear launch codes from Norad using a crystal radio, I decided to take on the daunting task of changing the name on my cable bill.

Next time I'm going for the nukes.

Through a chain of events far too complex to detail here, I found myself with cable service that was delivered to my house, but not billed to my name. In my extreme naïveté, I honestly believed that I could head off television and Internet exile with a phone call. Why I believed this was possible is something that I still am not sure about, however the fact that the modem has been running for several months now lulled me into a false sense of trust....trust of competence that, deep down, I know is not there.

"Sir, your cable is scheduled to be disconnected. Are you saying that you would like to change the order?"

"Yeah, that's what I am saying"

"Unfortunately we cannot move the account into your name, however we can set up a connection order for a new account."

"OK, can you arrange it so I have no interruption of service?"

"No, we cannot actually schedule a connection until the old service has been disconnected."

"OK, just so I have this straight...you are telling me that in order to keep the service I have now, I need to wait for you to come here and disconnect it so I can reconnect it again?"

"Yes, that is what I am saying."

"Do you have any idea how moronic that sounds?"

"I'm sorry sir, that is how we must handle it."

After talking with a supervisor for nearly an hour, hand delivering a letter and showing two forms of ID, they graciously decided to allow me to keep the service I already have, that has been continuously paid for. How fucking benevolent.

I'm gonna nominate them for a Nobel. Yes I am.

There is a sport where the participants hit each other as hard as they can with foam covered sticks. I need to find a place nearby that hosts that sport. All the better if you can slip off the foam.

Then I'll challenge the Comcast accounts department to a match. I think it would do everyone involved a world of good.