ARGH! Okay, I know I should have better priorities, and I do, but one thing I've been looking forward to for four months is the season premiere of The West Wing. "Two Cathedrals," last season's cliffhanger, aired on May 16th, and the conclusion, "Manchester, Part I," was scheduled to run last Wednesday, September 19th. For obvious reasons, several of the networks, including NBC, pushed their schedules back one week, and the new air date was September 26th.

Now West Wing producer Aaron Sorkin has decided that, in light of the 9-11 events, he wants to create and air a special episode, to keep the show more in line with current events. He feels that it's important to do this before the season premiere, so the episode has been quickly written, and is currently undergoing filming, for a rushed post-production cycle and airing on October 3rd.

"Manchester," meanwhile, has been pushed back to October 10th.

Maybe it's escapism, maybe it's just withdrawal from a truly great television series, but I'm just glad that some new TV is still on the way next week, including Star Trek: Enterprise, and Buffy starts the following week. Maybe to tide myself over, I'll rent the first season of "Sex in the City" and start making up for not having HBO... It's something to do, anyhow.

This message was passed on to me by Gina. I think this message should be standard on all flights, and even taught in schools:

As it was at most U.S. airports, last Saturday was the first near-normal day at Denver International since the terrorist attacks. On United's Flight 564 the door had just been locked and the plane was about to pull out of the gate when the captain came on the public address system. "I want to thank you brave folks for coming out today. We don't have any new instructions from the federal government, so from now on we're on our own." The passengers listened in total silence. He explained that airport security measures had pretty much solved the problem of firearms being carried aboard, but not weapons of the type the terrorists apparently used, plastic knives or those fashioned from wood or ceramics. "Sometimes a potential hijacker will announce that he has a bomb. There are no bombs on this aircraft and if someone were to get up and make that claim, don't believe him. "If someone were to stand up, brandish something such as a plastic knife and say 'This is a hijacking' or words to that effect here is what you should do:

Every one of you should stand up and immediately throw things at that person: pillows, books, magazines, eyeglasses, shoes -anything that will throw him off balance and distract his attention. If he has a confederate or two, do the same with them. Most important: get a blanket over him, and then wrestle him to floor and keep him there. We'll land the plane at the nearest airport and the authorities will take it from there." "Remember, there will be one of him and maybe a few confederates, but there are 200 of you. You can overwhelm them.

"The Declaration of Independence says 'We, the people' and that's just what it is when we're up in the air: we, the people, vs. would-be terrorists. I don't think we are going to have any such problem today or tomorrow or for a while, but some time down the road, it is going to happen again and I want you to know what to do.

Now you know. And knowing's half the battle.

So one project I've been participating in recently is Phineas's Exquisite Corpse project.

It's an art experiment, where one person makes a panel 450 pixels wide by 200 tall, then they send the bottom 15 pixel slice to the next person on the list. That person uses those 15 pixels as a starting base and continues on from there, and so on until the list is done (either 4 or 5 people per corpse).

Anyhow, I've been put on three of the lists, have finished two panels (I got my third on Thursday and am still working on it) and this afternoon the first corpse that I'd participated in was posted.

It's really pretty fun, though I haven't felt this impatient to see results from something since the last time I mailed in UPC codes to get my very own Boba Fett action figure, and had to wait 'four to six weeks for delivery'.

Four to six weeks, as most kids probably discovered (but probably won't anymore, in a world of Amazon and UPS 2nd Day Air and 7 days of inventory), is precisely the amount of time where even the most strong desire and anticipation falls victim to the elementary schooler's attention span. Actually, that goes all the way to high school, as even my SAT scores would always come back a few days after I stopped checking the mailbox every day.

Anyhow, sidetracked -- sorry. Exquisite corpse. Cool, slow, neat. Look, participate, wait.

I have the strangest feeling, of sorrow and regret, a feeling like I've wronged someone, only when I actively think about it I've no idea who or how.

Argh. It must be stress. Anyhow, I find myself again on the verge of getting five and a half hours of sleep (gee, that couldn't have anything to do with it, eh?) so maybe I'll do the smart thing and work more normal hours tomorrow, and let myself sleep in until 8.

Such a luxury.

Well, it went reasonably well. Got home, bought a book, pried myself away from the computer for a good portion of the evening. Watched Gilmore Girls, was miffed when I realized that TiVo recorded Will and Grace instead of Angel on Monday, but that's my own fault. (Gotta have a nice sit-down with the season pass manager...) Took my shower in the evening (because I feel guilty that my shower has a window that's 5 feet from my neighbor's window, and if I shower in the mornings on this new schedule I wake him up at 5:30), got in be by 11:30 and went to sleep at midnight. (5 and a half hours of sleep is actually better than usual, though still less than I should make a habit of.)

Now I'm up, and I'll be outta here in 15 minutes. I wonder what time the cafe on the corner opens. Is it too early for Chai?

Oh yes, and the dreamhost database problems seem to be fixed now. I'm almost worried about going to check for the response to the venting email I sent to them after the site had been down for 5 hours with no response from my earlier support request...

Okay, so the site's been up and down again and again because Dreamhost still has problems. If you read my earlier message, you might be interested in the reply they sent me 10 hours later, and my immediate response.

Anyhow, sorry for the disruption. Tonight I'll be working on ways to make the site stay up, even when the Dreamhost database decides to eat it.

Lots of traffic, especially between 92 and 84 on 880 South, thanks to a four-car accident that had just been cleared when I finally got to it. In at work at 7:35.

Hey! I left work at 4:10 today! I got home at 5:40! Woohoo! And the traffic on 880 was really bad from 84 to 94 (funny that, just the same as on the way there). Maybe I should leave (home and work) 20 minutes earlier. Anyhow, the sun is out, the day is bright, and I'm going to go take a book onto campus and go read for a while.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....

Oh yeah. No word back on my 50lbs of laundry... Well, that's for tomorrow.

Dressed, showered, and out the door at 6:07 am. Let's see how it goes this time. :-)

I should be sleeping. This marks my final defeat for the day.

In the wake of a job that gives me precious little time of my own, I set out this morning to see, with everything arranged most favorably, if I could create a work schedule that would still give me some degree of personal time.

Despite all my efforts, I abjectly failed.

Okay, so I thought I would get to work at 7:30 this morning, and to do so (and to visit Em and Kisa) I stayed over at Em's house last night. Further changing my schedule, I took my shower before going to sleep, so I could be up and out and off to work early in the morning.

Morning came: so far so good. Left the house around 6:30, got in to work at about 7:15 (25 mile commute instead of 45). One of the first in the office, I actually got to relax. For the better part of the morning I was working on mocks and debugging my Powermac which inexplicably slows to crawl whenever I launch iTunes (v 1.1, running MacOS 9.1 on a dual 400Mhz G4 box) regardless of whether music is playing, or even if I quit the app. Every time this happens I have to restart, or suffer with a text editing experience much like typing over a 300 baud modem and a tendency to drop characters.

Ever resourceful in finding ways to increase personal time, I also brought laundry to work, to give our new laundry service a try. At $25 a bag it sounds like a good way to free up hours of my own day and a (relatively) reasonable price. The catch is we're supposed to pack laundry in their bags, but the first time you naturally don't have their bags, so you use your own. Mind you, my bag is huge, holding about 40 lbs of laundry.

Nevertheless, I was still set upon leaving at 4 to come home, only I forgot to let my manager know so come 3:15 I get a plateful of work that keeps me in until 6:45. At about 5:00 the laundry guy comes to my cube to pick up my laundry (nifty!) and he shows me what their 'regular bags' looks like. The site says their bags hold about 2-3 loads of laundry, but it looks more like 2-3 sinkfuls to me. The thing would barely hold a couple towels. Anyhow, I sent my bag off with him anyhow, though I really don't know why since I'll probably just get a call tomorrow asking for authorization for $150 to do my laundry (no thankyouverymuch) and I'll get my old dirty laundry back tomorrow or Wednesday and be right where I am now, only feeling like more of a humanitarian for participating in 'take your laundry to work TWICE day.'

Frustrated at that, and at being at work for nearly 12 hours on the day I was trying to prove that I can shape my destiny and make my life tenable, I finally finish up work at about 7:15 and decide, since my day is shot anyhow, to put a positive spin on it by bringing up from my trunk the parts to the POÄNG chair I bought on Friday and assembling it for my cube. I lug the four pieces (chair frame, ottoman frame, and two cushions) from the car to the cube, and take the boxes apart, only to discover that I got the wrong stain for the chair which, while it would look fine in my office, wouldn't match the one I have at home and, more to the point, wouldn't match the matching ottoman (truly a Will & Grace moment, yes).

Argh. Repack the chair, take it back to the trunk, drive home, stopping by IKEA 30 minutes before they close, making it out of there (god only knows why I happened to have the receipt in my wallet. I'm usually really bad about that) about 10 minutes after their 9pm closing.

Driving home I decide for one last stab at satisfaction and dropped by the Starry Plough for Monday Irish dancing and got to dance a four-hand reel for the first time in about 6 months, so that was good.

Parking, I just knew I'd get another ticket for expired registration tabs and, after grabbing a frozen dinner from the market and getting my mail, I notice my DMV registration has finally arrived, so I go back out to my car and put the sticker on, then come up to my apartment, about 28.5 hours after I last left it (or, to be more fair, 16 hours after I left for work).

Don't even get me started about missing Rosh Hashana tomorrow. Maybe it'll be something to atone for during next week's Yom Kippur.

Anyhow, I'm going to try again tomorrow, even if it means I only get five hours sleep tonight. Outta here by 6:00, at work before 7:30, leave work at 3:30 or 4 and get home around 5:30.

Well, at least that's the plan.