i woke up this morning feeling sore all over from yesterday’s street hockey tournament. it was fun, but only because we won. in your face, other teams!

afterwards i took Josh’s new (to him) 240sx for a spin around an empty parking lot. the stock suspension (which i found out firsthand is totally shot) generates frightening amounts of body roll when you try kicking the tail out and even more when you actually succeed so i told him i’d come back for a second try after he gets his Teins in.

in other news, i’m tired, hungry, grouchy, and am generally in a bad mood today.

i do not want to go to work tomorrow.

so instead of sleeping, i’m going to spend the next six hours playing with fire and sharp objects in hope that the ambulance fairy will come in splendor and deliver me from all this madness.

or i could just go to bed.

woops, looks like my host was down for most of the day. uh…yeah. sorry, though it’s not my fault.

congratulations, Jeff and Laura!

please don’t kill me if my coverage of the ceremony doesn’t turn out as well as you (and i) hoped. the lighting is a total nightmare!

unsurprisingly, the office is a veritable ghost town today. the department in which my cubicle is situated is completely devoid of all but five life forms (myself, three co-workers and a festive plant in the corner). i don’t want to be here, especially when i look outside and see children frolicking with vigor and glee. okay, so i actually see a parking lot fenced off with razor wire. but still, i don’t want to waste such a beautiful day being shut inside my cubicle. i want to waste it shut inside my home.

anyway, i saw something semi-amusing on my way to work: a construction worker driving a bulldozer at top speed (or something close to it) over some rocks while screaming “WEEEHEEE!!!”

i guess you’ve got to enjoy the little things in life before the big things kill you.

is it just me, or has anyone else noticed a dramatic increase in the use of emergency vehicles? i kid you not, i’ve seen no less than 25 (twenty-five) ambulances/firetrucks/police cars tearing about with lights ablaze and sirens screaming within the past three days. so either this is all extremely coincidental (as i’m barely outside) or the number of emergency situations in Chicago and its surrounding area has suddenly gone up.

on another note, i think ants have, for some horrifying reason, made their home in the piping of my bathroom sink! i caught a few of them crawling out of the drain this morning (only to meet their untimely and painful demise) and have come to one of two conclusions: 1) they’re a newly evolved breed of aquatic ants capable of navigating the complex plumbing system of a modern building or 2) they’re just very, very stupid.

either way, i’m going to torch the pipes when i get home.

as some of you are no doubt aware, the first episode of Top Gear’s sixth season aired just a few days ago in literally dozens of homes across the UK. then, some indeterminate time later, it was recorded, encoded, tracked, waxed, defibulated, refibulated, and made available to the masses via your friendly neighborhood bittorrent client.

anyway, so i finally finished downloading it sometime last night and i, in childlike excitement, couldn’t help but watch the first couple of minutes before leaving for work this morning. i will not lie, i almost shed tears of joy.

as is customary, they gave a quick preview of the night’s episode at the beginning and man, i don’t know how they do it. this week’s episode includes playing football (soccer) with Toyota Aygos and a Range Rover trying to outrun a Challenger 2 MBT!

the anticipation alone is going to make work a hellish drag today.

i finally got my computer here at work upgraded from Windows95 to Windows98. i guess having a seven year-old operating system is better than one that’s been around for a decade. also, i covertly swapped my rickety old keyboard for one of less ricket from an unoccupied cubicle and hung up some of my prints to sort of spruce the place up. this little grey box is starting to feel like home.

ha! yeah, right.

i drove to work for the first time ever today. the morning rush hour was pretty bad, i took about an hour and fifteen minutes to get to work and it would’ve been longer if an ambulance hadn’t disrupted traffic and conveniently blazed a trail.

do they seriously think the big “DO NOT FOLLOW” sticker on the back really works?

James: i just saw a girl get her head cut off by a laser beam

James: from a computer

ivan: you need to stop watching TV