A quiet, um... Saturday?

I've noticed it's not easy keeping track of what day it is just off the top of one's head when your work schedule runs between midnight and 8 am or so. As I was driving up 35 toward the beltway on the way to work, I noted loud, LOUD music coming from a little honky-tonk called "Scooter's" located off to the side of the road. It hit me, then, that it was (technically) Friday night, and the joint was hopping with celebrants paying homage to the great God of the Weekend.

Me, I'm back at my post in the MSR. The good news - both today and tomorrow - is that my shift ends at 8 am sharp (emergencies notwithstanding); there'll be no waiting for my relief, who showed up at 9:15 am yesterday, to set me free.

If, in the Beginning, there was The Word, then it was not long afterward that The Word was Changed. My assignment to do space-to-ground on Monday has gone "poof" and in its stead, I have a four-day stint doing the late-shift Execute Package, from noon to 8 pm, starting Monday.

Normally, the Execute Package is a one-person job, but the amount of relevant traffic goes up during and just before significant events, such as the EVA that will take place next week. I'll likely be working with Alex K., and am thus assured of ZPB (zero probability of boredom), as he has a propensity to discourse on the most varied and outrageous subjects when not actually working.

Friday finds me unoccupied, which is okay by me. I'll likely spend the weekend going back to Colorado unless something comes up.

* * *After watching three episodes of Roger Moore playing the role of Simon Templar (aka "The Saint"), I wonder just what it was about the series that made such an impression on me in my childhood.

Don't get me wrong, the shows are well written and I enjoy them tremendously, but for some reason I remember them as a lot more... noir in the telling. Also, I remember Moore as more of an insouciant kind of fellow; if it wasn't for the eyebrow that's used actively to react to dialog, the actor I've been watching lately would seem to have all of the dynamic emotional range of, say, a Bill Shatner. As it is, watching these old episodes shows that Moore played the role of James Bond pretty much the way he played Simon Templar (including the business with his eyebrow), except that the character of Templar never descended to the level of buffoonery that the latter Bond flicks did.

I'm sure this is old hat to people who pay attention to these kinds of things... I thought I had, but apparently, I was mistaken. For some reason, however, I still like Moore as an actor. (I've nothing against Bill Shatner, while I'm on the subject.)

* * *I've got a third-party assignment on the back burner; it's due Monday morning. I might glance through it during the slack times here in the MSR. Everything is so, so quiet!

Cheers...

Looking forward to the "day"...

The solid rack time I logged two "nights" ago was repeated again yesterday (making it two nights in a row that I've gotten something like 7 hours of sleep at a time). Not surprisingly, what I call "the 5 o'clock yawns" - the nearly irresistible compulsion to doze that grabs you at about that time of the morning - have stopped (they'd plagued me since I started working the night shift last Saturday midnight).

I've got another 40 segments of text to work on, but that should not take very long. I want to go visit Lee, but in calls over the past couple of days, she's sounded less than enthusiastic to see me; certainly unenthusiastic to come down to Pearland (then again, I can see where the prospect can be easily considered an invitation to a terminal case of boredom).

I did some shopping yesterday (I'd run out of dog food), so it wouldn't make sense to make more purchases today (there's an Auchan "hypermarket" not far from her soon-to-be-vacant apartment), though it wouldn't hurt to visit. [Love that "hypermarket," by the way; obviously, it's a translation of the French "hypermarché," but it does grate on this native American's ears.]

One thing I've observed over the past couple of days as a result of my Canon BJC-80 having run out of ink: refill kits seem to have disappeared from the market (at least locally). Here, I'm talking about small vials of black and color ink - and accessories - that you can use to refill printer ink cartridges that are normally hideously expensive (discussed previously in my post The imp's ire strikes back! of just about a year ago). CompUSA didn't have any in stock. K-Mart had none; nor did Wal-Mart.

The only viable explanation I can think of off the top of my head is that people may have experienced significant problems using them (I've used them with success with Galina's Epson color printer and my Canon BJC-80, and without limited-to-no success with my old Hewlett-Packard Deskjet 650 and the H-P Color Copier at the store). If I do go visit Lee, I'll stop by Auchan to browse (their wine and cheese selection is impressive) and will check to see if they sell any such kits. Failing that, I seem to recall that Sam's Club stocks some pretty impressive kits of this sort.

In any event, I shall have to make sure that Lee and I spend some time together "tomorrow" afternoon - actually, it is tomorrow! - when I won't be under pressure to get to bed "early" so as to be fresh for another midnight shift, since my work day on Monday will start at noon.

Time to start getting ready to quit the MSR for the day.

Cheers...