Today was my first day back at work and I did survive. In fact, it wasn't quite as bad as I had imagined, despite getting up at 6:30am in the morning. It was fairly quiet, since some people will be back tomorrow, I guess.
I've decided that the best thing I can do to solve the anonymity problem is to simply add a level of abstraction. I can refer to people as the owner of their pets. For example, I enjoyed talking with the owner of Curious today and I had a nice chat with the owner of Sable and Sheba. The owner of FIFO is going to strangle him if he doesn't stop chewing on her chair. Oh wait, that's me. Maybe this would get a little tiresome if I kept it up.
Intel's announcement of chips that will make large flatscreen televisions more affordable should push off my purchase by about 6 months. I had planned on getting one shortly after I move into my house. I guess that's ok. Maybe I can get some new dining room furniture. More realistically, perhaps I can pay my electric, gas and water bills and even buy groceries. In fact, this is great news. I had my eyes on the 50" 16:9 Sony Grand WEGA LCD Rear Projection TV, model KF-50WE610. I read several consumer reviews on it and they don't sound good. You see all these reviews from people who say the picture is beautiful and they are so glad they didn't get some other brand and then you see posts saying that the same wonderful television has spontaneously completely quit working and that there are rumors of a recall. I'm thinking that I'd rather put my $3,000 in cattle futures right now.
I've been taking care of Google Earth Evangelist's Siamese Fighting Fish (Betta splendens) while she's been attending a conference. It's nice having a little company on my desk, especially since he's so quiet.
Eventually, I decided that he would be more comfortable near the warm vent of my laptop, since bettas prefer 80F waters, but I doubt it makes much difference at all. It just makes me feel like a more thoughtful guardian. Plus, I think he may be mildly entertained by windows on my laptop monitor, which is pretty amazing since he doesn't even drink coffee.
