What the hell happened to Boris Yeltsin? I was watching the news this morning, and paying a little attention for once, and they referred to Russia's President as "President Someonewho'snameIforgetalreadybutisn'tBoris." Good Lord, eh? I don't mind that I have to ask who won the final on the Monday after, or that I don't have any kind of idea about general news. But I'm a bit worried that I missed whatever it was that happened to Boris. What did happen?

The CEO was wandering around today talking in B-grade chinese. Like you hear in jokes about kung fu movies. We heard it while he was still a fair way off, and I bet it was him. Because he's so loud. He got to our section and looked at the stats for last month then launched into a long kung fu harangue.  read more »

My Grandad stopped in this afternoon. He looked at the Mac and asked what I was playing, and I told him it was the 'net. His reaction: "I 'ad a look at that internet thing a couple a weeks ago. It's a load a crap, innit?"

(excerpted from old journal)

When I got down to the galleria level there was a guy in a motorised wheelchair whizzing around the second level of the atrium. There's only one way he could have got up there, and I got the impression he'd forgotten where that was. He was making hurried laps of the second deck of the atrium. Had a good lick of speed going, too. Rather than ask if he needed help (I judged that he might just run me down), I thought how he reminded me of the sparrows that get stuck in there sometimes.

(excerpted from old journal)

Nothing quite like working with a classy nut. She is currently single(ish), but early this year she had a man. He'd lost his liscence a year prior, and before he got it back he had to do stuff including some kind of drink driving re-education course. After the first session she went to collect him - and eventually found him down the road in the pub with the rest of the class.

After a few sessions, she got suspicious about what he was doing after class. The deal was that he called her for a lift afterwards, but she thought he was going to the pub for a while before he called. So she decided to stalk him.  read more »

I noticed there's a new category in our IT support database at work. Now in addition to "NFI" we have "Man Made Disaster," which it is now my aim to legitimately use.

(excerpted from old journal)

On the way out the door V took a thing from the front desk. I say thing - they're some kind of chocolate but they don't look like it. They are in individual white plastic wrappers, a little larger than an after dinner mint. I waited until V was starting to eat it, then shared my observation that they looked like condoms. They have our company name on them, too.

Someone had done an olympic torch run today and they had the torch and all, so we got to hand it round. I was impressed by the way the CEO flipped it open - you can tell he's been playing with his one at home. He reckons he's going to work out how to refill his and run around the bed with it each night for inspiration.  read more »

Cable's pretty good when you're sick. I watched the end of a Mad Max movie last night, the one with Tina Turner in it. There's a part where they rescue a pig keeping dwarf from Tina, and they run away, then get on a plane. As the plane is taking off, and Max is left stranded, the dwarf salutes - and he looks just like John Howard.

(excerpted from old journal)