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    I started taking the decorations down, namely the Dickens Village. Comedy Central had a Whose Line is It Anyway? marathon but all the episodes were too familiar. At night I did some work on this very Diary section. I removed the Search function from my SFG site (since pMachine can handle searches itself) and moved it here. Before bed I watched Monster's Ball, finishing the other commentary track and allowing me to send it back to NetFlix. And thus ended my big long Christmas break.

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    We'd spent all that work going through all the receivers in our database just insure 101 would be set for the special shows this month, but now that the month began we found all the shows on 101 were not going to be select-site broadcasts after all. Reid and Jeremy switched shifts starting today too. Jeremy would now work evenings, Reid would work afternoons, and I would stay working evenings. My computer is still down so Reid got the production group to print out the Xytech schedule for us. And I heard that Fred from San Diego would be coming here to upgrade our software on the 21^st and 22^nd.
    My brother Mark came by to help fix the snowblower and the garage door opener. He couldn't repair the opener so a new one will be needed. Today was the day for the Christmas tree to come down too. I played some more of The Two Towers PS2 game and was alarmed to discover the hand control vibrations had caused a recurrence of my DeQuervain's disease! My left thumb was very sore, so I had to give up.

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    You have to like a two-day work week. It's definitely the way to go. Fast Food Friday was Wendy's this week. After work I went to the nearby Best Buy to get GTA: Vice City. They didn't have it. I went to the Southgate Best Buy on the way home, but they didn't have it either. I really wanted to get the game from Best Buy so I could buy it with my gift card. (I got perverse pleasure thinking how my workplace would be paying for it.)

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    I impulsively revamped my Troubled Loner homepage. I found a nice template from Blogskins, and really didn't change it all that much. I created a music background for it too (unsure whether this made my page sound like some cheesy Geocities homepage or not). I toyed around with writing another Super Evil theme, but nothing worthwhile came of it.

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    Spent the morning at Oscarwatch reading about potential nominees. Found a new Strong Bad fan site which was provided an opportunity to revamp my SFG Links page. Otherwise, I spent the weeend downloading.

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    Got the new garage door installed today. I stopped at Borders before work to pick up Cinefex with its big Two Towers cover story. I found out there would be some signal testing this Saturday. I'd been requested to work that day. There was one class scheduled and the testing would begin after that. A hardware guy had checked my computer this morning, confirming what we'd suspected: that the LAN card is perfectly fine and that IT guys are "idiots". We got a lot of calls today, and they all seemed to be about receivers that had video but no audio. Most often a simply reauthorizing the receiver would do the trick, but I had to wonder what the hell had happened to the encoder over the weekend.
    Strong Bad's e-mail (#57) showed up late today. The wait was worth it, since it was one of the best. I hated listening to it on Reid's computer though, since his version of Windows 2000 plays all audio too fast. It would probably be the same when Windows 2000 finally gets installed on mine too, damning us to a lifetime of Alvin & the Chipmunks audio. This would not do, so I once again did Google searches to try and find a solution. I was more successful than before, since this time I went to the Dell site and looked up our computer model. (I'm not sure why I hadn't thought of this before.) I guess this fast playback complaint is prevalent among the Optiplex GX150, and Dell had a downloadable patch to fix it. It worked fine, and it was a treat to hear Strong Bad normally, just like at home.
    My Mr Show package showed up (a Globo Chem mug and the Mr Show book). I worked with Swish to create a little audio-stinger button for one of my SFG entries. It's no Brothers Chaps cartoon, but I was pretty proud of myself when I finished. Just like with the weekend, I spent the night downloading too.

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    I think I forgot to set my alarm and I woke up an hour and forty-five minutes late! My cable modem died this morning too, but at least I was able to check my e-mail prior. I felt like consoling myself with Burger King, but I made things worse by missing the driveway. I got on the southbound side of Telegraph and looped around for a second go. The drive-thru line was so long it practically reached to the street. People who had dined in couldn't even back out of their parking spaces. This would only make me later, but now it felt like getting a double cheeseburger had become a challenge. I parked far off in the corner, allowing a woman in a van to back out, and I went in to order. There wasn't much of a line, but it still took a long time. I hoped my adventures were over, but they continued when I got to work. A huge Meijer's truck (picking up donated coats) was blocking one of the entrances. I was detained at the front door whiel some maintenance guys knocked snow off the eave. And the fluoresent lights were out in the hallway in front of our office. Yes, it was all nothing major; but I was rankled by how "off" and abnormal everything felt.
    At least Windows 2000 finally and properly got installed on my computer. Once again the IT guy had trouble connecting it to the network, but at least he got it eventually. And, remarkably, my version of Windows 2000 played audio fine, so there was no need to go to the Dell site for the patch. I spent the afternoon tweaking the GUI the way I like it.

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    I cleaned Fish IV's vase this morning. It was so much easier now that I was using those colored rocks; I just wiped down the vase and rinished off the rocks. I used the old fish cube as a holding pen for Fish IV while I cleaned; I hoped he couldn't sense that the previous owner had died there. I found out this weekend's testing had been postponed; I'd still have to come in, but not as long. Online, Mike and Joe and I started discussing SVCDs. My DVD player can handle them but their Toshibas can't. Mike started discussing DVD-R burners and even provided a link to a Dell unit which was around two hundred fifty bucks. This was close to affordable, so I started doing more research. It looked like a good one to get is the Sony DRU-500A; it was a hundred more, but it can handle both DVD-R and DVD+R and rewritables, and had good write-ups on several websites.

    I hadn't planned on it, but I suddenly consumed with an eagerness to buy the Sony burner. Shopper.com said that most online stores were out of stock. Circuit City's website said they had it, so after work I went to the nearby Circuit City. They didn't have it; so when I got home, I tried to order the burner through the website. I had problems with my credit card though. The order page kept asking me to resubmit my credit card information, and I could go no further. I ended up canceling out, wondering if this was a sign that I should save my money.

---

    I was woken up by a phone message. It was my credit card company asking me to call to discuss some suspicious activity on my card. The phone number the girl muttered seemed to have too many digits...until I realized she'd said "Call toll-free" and not "Call four-three". Evidently my credit card been suspended overnight, but I got it reactivated again. I have no idea why last night's purchase was any different than my other online purchases, but I guess that explained why Circuit City's site had trouble processing my order. I wasn't exactly sure if I should go back to the Circuit City site and try ordering again, or if that would end up with my getting two burners. I had the feeling my order had not gone through (since I never got a confirmatory e-mail), but to be on the safe side I'd just go to the Taylor Circuit City tomorrow.
    There was much more stuff to download. My computer had been busy all week. There were some special shows today at work, but we had no problems.

---

    The choice for lunch was Burger King. I stopped at Circuit Coty on the way, but they did't have the Sony DR-500A either. I realized I could try Comp USA after work too, but instead I went to Best Buy. GTA: Vice City was in, so I got my copy. One of our boards had failed this morning, so I'd needed to realign the channels before I left. Back at home, I went ahead and ordered the Sony DRU-500A from the Sony website. It was out of stock there, but expected in about a week -- and I figured Sony would be the first to know when their own burner would be back in stock. Just in case my credit card had another snit, I used a different card.

---

    There was a show from eleven to one today. Afterward, back at home, I messed aorund with Vice City (which seems far too involved for my casual interest). I went to Office Depot and Taco Bell. I actually got another postcard from Casual Male suggesting I should cancel my order since the jacket I wanted was unavailable. I had canceled the last time they'd sent me this postcard, so I couldn't believe they were so inept as to send another. And, there was more downloadng.

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    My biggest downloads were just about ending. In advance of my DVD burner arriving, I ordered some blank media from American Digital and some DVD cases from Sleeve City. I actually did some exercise in the evening. I listened to the beginning of The Lord of the Rings BBC adaptation and walked on the treadmill for about half an hour. Pretty much by accient I discovered The People's Choice Awards were on CBS. I guess I owe them an apology: last year I had ranted how The Fellowship of the Ring had been completely ignored, but I found out it was nominated tonight!

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    It had been quite a busy morning, but it quited down by the time I got in. Jeremy had discovered channel 301 had failed. He faulted to the spare board, but the production group called over to say they could no longer upload data. Evidently the data stream does not fault over along with the audio and video, which was news to us. Jeremy tried faulting back to the first board, but lost audio and video altogether. Reid had come in by this time and he and Jeremy took spare boards from the other chasses to try out. All these failed too, which seemed suggest 301's slot in the chassis was bad, which would be quite serious. It figured that Dennis was already on a plane to San Diego. We stayed on the spare and were forced to wait till after programming to do any more experiments. The production group would have to go without data transfers for the day. I also found out last week's video testing was rescheduled for the weekend of the 25^th.
    Reid stayed here the whole day, just to see the problem through. After programming was done, we contacted our tech support group and they walked us through some experiments. We got the old boards to work in a completely new slot and then moved them back to the first slot. They configured fine, and data transfers were able to resume. I have no idea why the boards hadn't configured this morning. Either they enjoyed being configured somewhere new (like going on a vacation) or they just wanted a few hours off. The guys in San Diego said they'd still send new boards out to us. I got home around ten. My Amazon UK package showed up, with season four of Absolutely Fabulous, Gormeghast, and the remixed version of The Fellowship of the Ring (the older version of which I'd just started last night). The new Lord of the Rings fan club magazine had arrived too. And, some time between my leaving work and my coming home, Strong Bad's latest e-mail had shown up as well.

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    Yesterday had felt so long that I woke up swearing it was Friday. The Sony site now said my burner would not show up this Friday but would show up on the 24^th. This was awkward since it was the day before Super Bowl weekend. I'd hoped to have it in time to show off, but there seemed little chance of my getting it the same day it was available. Our work last night had not been all that successful, it seemed. The encoder was reporting continual errors, although fortunately these were not affecting broadcasts or data transfers. It did mean though that we'd have another late night tonight. The other bad news was there was a select site broadcast in two weeks for eighteen hundred receivers! Reid printed the list out and it came to forty-five pages! We each got fifteen. Not for the first time did I wonder what is the purpose of limiting our broadcasts; it's not like they're highly coveted pay-per-view events. People who aren't interested them will simply not watch them, so why go to the trouble of having us spend countless hours deauthorizing eighteen hundred receivers for one two-hour broadcast?
    Our work with the encoder was actually pretty brief. We faulted some more boards, and were done in about half an hour. I screwed around creating a film clip, back at home. And I was downloading so much that I was forced to spend time burning older files onto CDR to make room for new stuff.

---

    I drastically overslept this morning. I got up two hours and fifteen minutes late! I either forgot to set the alarm again or maybe I unthinkingly shut it off. Fortunately, I try to get up a few hours early just so I can play online, so I was not late -- but I really had to hurry to get out on time. I once again felt like consoling myself with Burger King, and this time there was no line at all. I got in a little late, but not badly. Reid was alone however, saying Jeremy had been so sick he'd let him go home. We were still getting errors from the encoder, but now they were different errors. The guys in San Diego already had a hunch on what to do, after programming; it was simple so there was no reason for Reid to stick around. I worked on two sheets of my fifteen pages of select-site receivers. When the time came for it, I swapped boards, saw the errors go away, and I took off. It was very cold tonight. I'd my Rio Volt in the car and it was so cold it took about ten minutes for it to warm up and start playing CDs.

---

    Today was a horrible day. I woke up in an awkward position with my head off the mattress and resting heavily on the armrest of my futon. My skull felt numb, and when I sat up the room was spinning madly -- not spinning clockwise like I'd been drinking, but spinning left to right as if I were on a turntable. It was nauseating and I had to instantly lie down again. It was so bad that I couldn't get up. I stayed in bed for a couple more hours until I had to force myself to get the phone and call up the office. Jeremy was out sick still, so Reid was working alone. I told him that I'd be late today, but assured him I'd be in before he left. I did not feel sick or flu-like, so I assumed this was just a bad migraine that would wear off in a couple hours. I was confident I could continue working my evening shift.
    In fact I felt a little better already, now that I was on my feet. I drank some cold water and got an ice pack out of the freezer. I got in a couple hours late, finding out that those encoder errors were showing up again. Despite our efforts, they'd returned about fifteen minutes after I'd left last night. I worked with San Diego about it at night, after programming. We tried using one of our unused boards, but it failed completely (which explained why it was unused). I put the original board back in (since despite the errors it at least worked). The errors went away and seemed to stay away. This was good enough for now, until replacements showed up tomorrow.
    My brain problems moved to my stomach, and without going into any gory details, I had to use the lavatory an awful lot tonight.

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    My continual visits to the bathroom last night left me feeling extremely hollow, and I got up quite early just to have some food and vitamins and orange juice. I spent some of the morning finishing up my season four PAL DVDs of Absolutely Fabulous. Jeremy was back, since he'd written into my Shoutbox to say he and Reid were requesting KFC. Since Fred was coming Tuesday to upgrade our software, we'd need to prep next Friday's show ahead of time. I had nine out of fifteen sheets to do, so I mainly did that in the afternoon. We were even thinking of coming in this weekend, but I really did not want to. I got three done tonight.

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    Spent the day either downloading, watching movies, or writing.

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    On Friday one of the personals at Match.com had appealed to me enough that I actually paid money and subscribed to them just so I could e-mail the girl. She wrote back today, letting me know I'd blown twenty-five bucks. More downloads in the afternoon. And I spent pretty much all day watching Golden Globes coverage on either E! or NBC.

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    The day was quite quiet since it was MLK Day and a company holiday. Sadly, Homestar Runner was down, maybe because of the holiday. Luckily I'd caught the new e-mail in the morning; I missed being able to watch it agian, so I fished it out of my browser cache. I even uploaded it to my SFG page so I could unofficially mirror the e-mail until the site was back up. I did three more sheets for Friday's show.

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    I could go in late today, since I was expected to stay late to assist Fred in upgrading our software. The production group was worried sick that our changes might interfere with some big corporate announcement; they wouldn't, but that didn't stop us being bombarded with phone calls and e-mails. I finished my last three sheets before Fred showed up. Reid decided to stay tonight too, but he took off around four to get some Burger King. I checked the online Sony store and, as feared, jinxed my the arrival of my DVD burner. It wasn't coming out Friday; it had been rescheduled to the 31st. I complained to my friends through e-mail, and Mike wrote back to say he'd seen the same model in the weekend Best Buy circular. I grew restless wondering if that might mean the burner was at the Best Buy up the road. I took off, too, as soon as Reid got back. I hopped over to Best Buy but they did not have the burner. I went across the street to Circuit City but they still did not have it. And I went east to Comp USA too. A salesman there said they probably had one since they only put one out for display. He checked in back but they were out. He suggested using the Circuit City site, since he'd some available there. They hadn't been when I'd last checked, but I gave it a shot when I got back to the office. I visited the Circuit City site, saw that they did have the burner in stock, went ahead and bought one, and paid for overnight shipping so that I could get it before the weekend. Overnight shipping was $22 but at least I'd get the burner in time to show it off. Once again the site had trouble with my VISA card, so I ended up using my MasterCard. This time the order went through. It was after five though, so unfortunately the burner probably wouldn't be shipped till tomorrow.
    Dennis showed up too, for the big upgrade. I'm not really sure why we needed three people to witness this, since all Fred was make some backup tapes and then run the software installer. Even still, it lasted till around eleven:thirty. I was hoping we could start heading home, but Reid asked if we could install the new replacement boards that had come in this morning. Strangely, this caused one of our channels to go out. We faulted boards and reconfigured boards and eventually found out that our tech support dolts had sent a replaceent board with the wrong version number.

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    I didn't get home till one:thirty last night. I was definitely planning on going in late after that. I finally got to check last night's e-mail -- and was shocked to get a letter from Sony saying my DVD burner was on the way. This was the burner that wasn't supposed to show up till January 31. I even got this announcement before Circuit City even confirmed yesterday's purchase. I checked the tracking number and was further shocked to find the burner had actually been sent out yesterday, so it would be showing up today -- the same day as my Circuit City burner! The burner had already been received in Taylor and was on the road in transit to me. It worked out to be a good thing I could go in late, since it allowed me to wait for my burner. I assumed I'd need to sign for the package when it showed up, so I wanted to be home for it. I was even afraid to take my shower, for fear I might miss the UPS guy knocking on the front door. I checked the porch and then took the fastest shower I could. Then I spent the day online, with an ear open for the doorbell. I began to get really anxious as the day wore on. I hated to abandon Reid and Jeremy but I hated to leave without receiving my burner. I kept giving myself time deadlines, but then letting them pass. The mail showed up at around three:thirty; this wasn't a UPS delivery, but at least it was something. I grabbed my jacket and went out to get the mail -- and found a package sitting on my porch! I don't know how, but somehow it had been delivered without my knowing it; and it had been sitting there the whole time I'd been waiting for it.
    I couldn't resist taking the burner out and I couldn't resist installing it. I was even tempted to burn a test disc, but I knew that was too much. If I kept going I'd never get out. I showed up to work at four:thirty. Jeremy had already left so I told Reid about my DVD burner adventure. Fred showed up for his second night, ready to upgrade our other computer. Dennis showed up again too but he had to leave for a while. Fred ran into a roadblock shortly after beginning. He was unable to get the computer to start its tape backup. Coincidentally it had been losing connectivity with the network throughout the day. Fred ran some tests and discovered some system files were corrupted. It seemed like too much of a coincidence that the computer had crapped out the same day a field engineer was here to work on it, but that appeared to be the case. Fred assumed he'd have to reload the entire OS and then run the upgrade, which would probably take all night. Even though he had to leave tomorrow (and hopefully beat the Super Bowl crowd heading to San Diego) he did not appear to be in a hurry to get started. Reid and I sat around expectantly. After a while, Reid suggested I should go home, since there was no need to have both of us here. And perhaps he was aware the faster I got up to speed with my brand new DVD burner the faster I'd be making homemade discs. I got home around midnight, but still stayed up till around four playing with my new gadget.

---

    Because Reid stayed, I offered to work his shift, so I got in at nine. Fred and Dennis were still there, sitting dully. I guess the upgrade finished up right around then too. I'd brought a DVD-R in for Reid but I gave it to Fred as a reward when he left. I wrote to Mike and Schmoe to tell them I'd gotten the burner. Mike wrote back to say he'd found a compatibility chart that showed their Toshibas would not play DVD-R but could handle DVD+R. He also formally invited me into me to his house for Super Bowl Sunday. I got home by four, finding Circuit City's Sony burner waiting. I'd gone from having no DVD burners to having more than I could use. I then spent the evening burning discs for the weekend.

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    Fast Food Friday was Wendy's, and I brought in discs for Reid and Jeremy. The DVD-Rs played fine in my Malata DVP-520, Playstation 2, and portable Panasonic, but not in the Samsung MD-301 player. DVD+Rs played in the Malata and portable Panasonic, played glitchily in the Playstation 2, and would not play in the Samsung. I was stumped why the Samsung wouldn't handle anything, especially since it was only a year or two old and could handle recordable CDs. I did research on it all day. The news was contradictory and it boiled down to pretty much be a crapshoot. Sometimes it worked sometimes it wouldn't. Some guy said he never had a problem using the really expensive "authoring" discs. Another guy said that the brand of recordable DVD does not matter: it's the software you use. Nero, the program everyone seems to be using, does not create properly formatted DVDs. Since I'd been using Nero, this was definitely worth considering. One program I'd seen mentioned in newsgrous was Disc Juggler. I checked it out when I got home and, lo and behold, actually burned a disc that played on all five of my test players. So that one guy's advice had been correct.

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    Now that I had time, I took the second DVD burner to the Circuit City in Taylor to get a refund. As I'd expected, I could not get my shipping payment back. I picked up a couple blank DVDs and did some more shopping up the street at Best Buy. And I spent the rest of the day burning discs for tomorrow.

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    I finished burning discs in the morning. I doubted Joe would be at Mike's but I made him an allotment of discs too; and as Mike had specified, I made them all on DVD+R. I brought along a DVD-R for an experimental purposes. And I headed over to Mike's house at around three:thirty. It was probably too early, but I couldn't wait. But then again the Super Bowl pre-game had already been on for about two hours. If I was early I wasn't too early since there were plenty of platters and bowls already out. Mike tried out the DVDs...and every DVD+R, despite the webpages he'd consulted, would not play on the Toshiba SD-3109. I tried the DVD-R for the heck of it -- and it played fine! Every single webpage said the Toshiba SD-3109 would not play DVD-R, and here it was the only one it would play! I wouldn't've minded watching discs, but Mike left the pre-game on, watching all the interviews, the fortune-telling, and the lip-synching musical acts. Mike's sister and her fiancé showed up during the second quarter. I styaed late as usual, even sticking around to see the post-game Alias. (I guess it was a big episode with a big series-altering twist, but as far as this X-Files veteran was concerned it was just another case of a producer saying "Aha! And you thought it was all over!" again.)
    I really ate too much too. They had hot wings and chips and cheese cubes and platters of vegetables and fruit; they even had a honey-baked ham. I couldn't stop eating and by the end of the night was pretty much immobile and pretty close to pain. I struggled off the couch, stuffed myself into my car, and headed home. And I got back to burning discs again, but this time all on DVD-R.

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    I finished up Mike's DVDs and started on Schmoe's before work. I'd planned on giving the discs to Mike next weekend, but I didn't want to impose. It seemed easier to just mail them, so I e-mailed Mike and Schmoe for their street addresses. Schmoe told us how his furnace had gone out yesterday, so his house had been freezing during his Super Bowl Sunday festivities. One kid had stayed with him, but the other kids had gone with mom to her grandma's. Jeremy was not in when I showed up at work. He'd had car trouble so he'd gone back home as soon as Reid had shown up. I guess Jeremy had been using his fianceée's car and needed to return it. Dennis dropped by at around three:thirty, giving us our W-2 forms. I remembered that I'd promised Dennis a DVD back on Wednesday. I confessed that I'd burned stuff for my Super Bowl buddies first, but I promised him I'd make him a disc soon. Dennis wanted me to see if we get our remote diagnostic tool, the RDM, up and running again, so we could use it next week during our big signal changeover. I could not get it running, so I contacted San Diego and started a case number on the problem. At home, I burned more of Schmoe's DVD-R discs.

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    I woke up earlier than planned, which was the perfect opportunity to make Dennis's discs. I stopped at the Flat Rock post office to send out Mike and Joe's packages. I found out the LOTR fan club was taking more questions for their upcoming Peter Jackson interview. I'd sent in a rather softball question last time, but this time I got more serious. "Although I loved the movie, I am troubled by one of the final scenes, in Osgiliath, when Frodo shows the Ring to the Ringwraith. It would seem to suggest Sauron will find out the Ring is close to his borders. So does that sequence have repercussions in the third movie? Will this alter or remove the scene where Aragorn reveals himself in the Palantir in his attempt to distract Sauron's eye? Or am I just reading too much into it?" Late in the day we got a call from Traffic saying that tonight's State of the Union would simulcast on one channel, but it was to be authorized only for the credit department. This was so ridiculous that it didn't really sink in; they were asking us to limit a completely public broadcast. I guess they realized how stupid it was since they sent out e-mails afterward rescinding the request. I forgot to check my work e-mail till right before I left, finding out I was being requested to make several changes to corporate sites. I was almost out the door but had to sit back down and make the changes first.

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    Schmoe had his furnace repaired yesterday, so his house was almost warmed up to livable levels. Since President Bush had mentioned alternate fuel cars, I spent some of the day checking hybrid and fuel cell cars. Sadly, the two fuel cell cars, from Honda and Toyota, were a tad too expensive for me (and the Honda one is ugly). San Diego was still less than helpful in explaining how to get the RDM working.

---

    Reid had to take the day off, staying by his girlfriend during a brief stay in the hospital. Jeremy and I treated ourselves to Taco Bell. While wandering around the web I found out about a product called Prodikeys, something from Creative that was part typewriter and MIDI keyboard. It sounded cool to have a keyboard I could also play music on. The price was steep at $99, but it also came with a Creative sound card. So I went ahead and ordered one. Jeremy got some bad news about Dave, it did not sound good at all.

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    Buffett tour dates were announced yesterday but I didn't find out till last night. It appears he will be playing in Michigan this year after all. I passed the news onto fellow concertgoers Mike and Joe, who were similarly underwhelmed. Fast Food Friday was Arby's. The weekend looked busy since not only were there a lot of shows on Saturday but there was even some testing going on Sunday. It was Jeremy's turn for Saturday but I volunteered to do Sunday. I called San Diego about RDM again, answering questions we'd already gone over days before. A guy in the hallway asked me if I had change for a five; I did it, but as I handed it over I realized I'd ruined my chances of getting a snack from the machines. I felt so ripped off that I deliberately stopped at Rite Aid on the way to buy something.

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