"A million monkeys banging on a million typewriters for a million years will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare."

I got absolutely nothing accomplished today. Sat myself in front of the tv and watched a NASCAR race and then some wrestling. Next on my agenda is losing some teeth, donning a mesh hat and heading out to the trash heap for some target practice on the rats.

I met up with some of my friends from DuPont to see off (yet another) former co-worker who was leaving the company. I swear us alumni are beginning to outnumber the actual employees at these things.

At our table a couple of the girls were expecting their first children, so naturally the conversation turned to baby stuff. Beside me was my friend Mary who was offering some advice based on her own experience raising kids:

Her: ...and if you're nursing and the baby is cranky at night, give yourself a shot of Bailey's before the feeding and he'll go right to sleep.
Me: So what can the husband do about his cranky wife? Her: *smack* He can get up and feed the baby himself!

My astute observations are rarely appreciated.

Yesterday evening I met with my CMA group to get some work done on our case presentation. After about four hours of animated discussion (none of our members are shy about expressing their opinion), we decided to wind down with a drink at the local watering hole so we didn't go home pissed off at each other.

When will we learn? Somehow (again) just one beer transformed itself into four pitchers, and it wasn't until about 3 o'clock this morning that I finally stumbled in through my doorway, knowing fully well that I'd be hurting at work the next day.

My investment in a gel wrist rest for my desk paid dividends this morning, however. I discovered that in situations such as this it's the perfect place to rest your forehead, perpetually "picking up that pencil" from the floor. It also saves you from having to explain at the lunch table why you're picking keyboard letters off your face.

Thank you, Business Depot.

Literally. I don't know what I did this weekend, but as of Friday night it kills to turn my head or raise my left arm. I had to switch to my other hand to lift my beer this afternoon while watching drivers bash each other's cars up in the Daytona 500. Oh woe is me.

It got a little better on Saturday but I woke up this morning in pain again. I must be getting old. Y'know, two years past the quarter century mark. Time to apply for gimp parking and go shopping for adult diapers. Wearing those at least I could have saved on a few trips to the can during the race.

The hard drive in my dad's computer died this week so I had to go out and replace it. How did I spend my Saturday night? Installing software.

I bought this drive just recently and its short lifespan really surprised me. The expert informed me that they're making them cheaper and cheaper and two years of operation before it chokes is kind of the norm these days.

Buh? I understand that, as with everything, "they don't make 'em like they used to", but this is people's data we're talking about here. I imagine most users don't think much about backing up their files.

To add insult to injury, when I punched the serial number of my old drive into Maxtor's website, the warranty according to them expired this past December. Seems like they've got planned obsolescence down to a science.

Remind me in 2007 to introduce this new drive to my ball pien hammer so I can collect on the warranty before it expires. I just hope that "pre-emptive strike" qualifies as a manufacturing defect.

I learned something during a stroll around the office this afternoon: Low-rise pants, while they may make great pleasure attire, are not entirely appropriate in a business setting. (The exception here of course is if pleasure is your business.)

Unless you look like this, please be a little modest. Due to a tight labour market there's a shortage of hot female tennis stars on my floor, so really ladies and gentlemen we can do without your impression of the Grand Canyon.

You may be wondering about the domain name. I picked 'sqvish' for two reasons: First, all the cool ones were taken. Second, there was this recurring skit in the 90's on the tv show Kids in the Hall where Mark McKinney would put his hand near his face and squeeze his thumb and forefinger together which would 'squish' (or crush) the heads of passersby across the street. Heh... I never got tired of it.

So at last I've got my own domain and a little more server space, thanks to this guy and a few bucks out of my pocket.

I've also finally scratched down something representative of a bio. I hate writing those things but whenever I find myself reading a new weblog, the 'About' section is one of the first things I look for.

Dave warned me against monopolizing his bandwidth, but I'm willing to test those limits. Streaming porn, anyone? I've got a webcam...

Shoot Gonzo out of a cannon. If you're good, you score a lot of points. If you're not, Gonzo scores a ride in an ambulance.

Anisa: (pointing to a picture of herself) That's Anisa!
Me: What an ugly baby!
Anisa: No-o-o-o.
Me: What are you then?
Anisa: (angry) I'm not a baby!

Never give a ride on your shoulders to a kid with a lollipop. Based on the stickiness I suspect that the back of my head tastes remarkably similar to grape Jolly Rancher.

Well the good news is I've stopped puking. In its place, my allergies were acting up really bad last night. I was over at a buddy's place playing some X-Box and I guess coming back home covered in his golden retriever's hair had set them off.

I probably used half a box of Kleenex until I got out of bed this morning. I would have been better off just throwing away the tissue and putting the box under my nose.

My entire dinner tonight managed to find its way into the toilet, and not via the usual route. I was feeling perfectly fine until I got home from work, and now my stomach hurts like a sonofabitch. The strange thing is that I feel okay otherwise; no fever or chills or headache.

I did go out to Kelsey's for lunch. Maybe they decided to test market their salmonella special on me, who knows. In any case I'm off to bed. Hopefully tomorrow I won't have to taste my meals twice.

I've been tied up lately working on this Board Presenation I have to do with my group in order to get my CMA designation this year. We have to come up with and execute a strategic plan for a fictional company that provides home care services for the elderly as well as manufactures wheelchairs, blood pressure monitors and other medical accessories.

The case is 44 pages long and our written report due in May will be somewhere in the neighbourhood of 75 pages or so, before we do our final presenation in June. The whole thing is worth 40% of our mark.

I was up late the other night doing market research to help us determine what businesses this company should be focusing on. If anyone needs to know anything about wheelchairs and power scooters, I'm your man.

Crap. The roof in my house is leaking. Guess I have to go and give my tenants a bucket... or an umbrella.

I was planning on doing the roof anyways sooner or later. Guess this will have to be sooner rather than later. Hopefully it holds out until spring, or else one of them is going to have to stand on a chair with their finger plugging the hole in the ceiling.

While trying blindly to plug a microphone into the back of my computer I wrecked my exhaust fan by sticking the plug in the wrong opening.

Sigh... story of my life.

Across from the Square One shopping centre is a set of four glass buildings occupied by various tenants, one of them my employer. Around lunchtime today we were told to evacuate, and all four of the buildings were emptied as most of us headed to the mall. When I got outside I checked for any airplanes sticking through the windows but found none. I later found out that someone had phoned in a bomb threat.

Who would want to blow up a building in Mississauga? While authorities used various means (including bomb-sniffing dogs) to solve this question, the rest of us were stuck in the mall for a good three hours. Our cars back in the parking garage were off limits.

A couple of my female co-workers made the best of the situation and went to check out "a couple" stores while I sat in the food court with one of their laptop bags. From the married men I received looks of pity; they know that drill all too well.

Around 3 o'clock we got the all-clear to return to our desks. Back to the grind. I think we should do these field trips more often. If any of you can sound threatening and/or deranged on the phone, let me know and I'll give you my boss' number.