Speaking of travel reimbursements, one of the reasons I'm trying to get a newspaper to take a regular column from me is so that I can travel places and write it off as a business expense.

Boy, I've missed a lot of messages. But skimming through them, when can we expect ads for mad scientist gear?

-Alyce
The Death Ray 2000! On Sale for $999999.99! Steal it for free!

I am miffed. The employee (see vacation, below) accidentally configured a user's computer to dial into a long-distance (for the user) phone number. Now, the user has a seven hundred dollar phone bill that he just called to tell me about. Nice.

The user, with some justification, blames the employee for this. The employee does not have the money to pay the phone bill. As well, the business does not pay phone bills for users who dial long distance to access the internet. It says in the paperwork that the users sign that the business doesn't pay phone bills for users.

However, the user is not going to pay his own phone bill because he doesn't have the money either and it isn't really his fault.

I think we *all* know who's going to pay the user's phone bill. *sigh*

-- Jessica
On the plus side, there's apparently an hour-long chibi special for Prince of Tennis. Kawaii!!

[Mike goes running by screaming and holding his head.]

[The Emergency Toan Hologram flickers into existence.]

Please state the nature of your Toan emergency.

[Mike runs by the other way brandishing a confused-looking duck while shouting "I'm running with scissors!"]

Please stand-by while Mike is rebooted.

[Mike skips back into frame singing "Daisy", falling flat on his face in mid "give me you answer do".]

Thank you.

[Emergency Toan Hologram blips out of existence.]

Sorry I've been quiet lately. I've been working on a rather insane project for work. I've just finished the program, generated the files and just waiting for the client to tell me who they need to be sent to. They wanted the files by noon today (rather emphatically), and I stayed here until 10:30 last night trying to get the program done, and now I'm waiting for them to return my email. *sigh*

--Mike

Jesica: Just do what my company does. Get the most obnoxious hold music in the universe, and hire the person with the most irritating voice in the coast to explain in very vague terms that there may be monkeys answering the phone, they're not sure, and it will be handled sometime before the sun cools. (Had the pleasure of listening to our hold message earlier.. States nothing.. Irritating... No wonder most of my callers are so pissed off...)

--Ben

Ben: Don't forget "your call is very important to us." There's nothing more aggravating than hearing a machine tell you that, as if the call was really important to them surely they'd be answering it?

-- Mark

Mark: Well of course. That goes without saying I mean. Telling someone to include that is like telling them to remember breathing. I mean really. And I take it you've been rebooted and we don't have to get your PS2 and replace it with a Jaguar?

--Ben

Mmm, Atari Jaguar. I wonder what you could get for one of those on EBay these days.

(checks)

Oh, about $30.00.

-- Mark

That lousy Jaguar A. He's always causing trouble.

I think Rusty needs a reboot.

--Mike

The Christian Science Monitor thinks that I'm a neo-conservative.

Dread Mitch, they think I'm a liberal... and I read all the questions and answered them seriously and everything.

-- Jessica
Who knew?

No doubt because the questions were so War-on-Terror and so light on everything else. Betcha we'd meet each other passing if marginal tax rates and so on were on the questionaire.

It classified me as a Realist. I guess that's fine, although I don't like being associated with that dork Colin Powell.

-- Mark

I'm apparently a no good pinko Commie liberal, too.

--Fred

Is not no good pinko commie liberal... Is GLORIOUS PEOPLE'S VOICE OF REASON! Hrm... Bad Russian accents just don't translate over text, but it seems I'm a liberal as well.

--Ben