Bills, and no news...

There was a time -- I think it was in my childhood -- when receiving mail was something to look forward to. Today, of course, the 50% of mail that isn't unsolicited advertising is 95% or more comprised of people wanting money out of you, in a variety of ever-more creative ways.

In any event, after opening the store this morning, I came home and between the two of us, Galina and I managed to whittle down the pile of junk in my office down to where I can now see (most of) the opposite wall. I've also moved the filing cabinet that used to sit in the corner next door and shoehorned it into the corner next to the dish cabinet that's doing duty as a bookcase right now.

Talking about storage, Galina prevailed upon me to watch something called Mission Organization on one of the cable channels, ostensibly to see if I could pick up any hints. The big hint I picked up was that one can never have too much storage space. (And in my view, bookshelves only really work for books, given their relative narrowness.)

Occasionally, the paper chase uncovers something that's gone missing for a while. Today I ran across the original copy of my ham radio license, which will come in handy if I ever go in to take my General Class license exam (theoretically, I am told, my 5 wpm Morse code certificate from sometime around 1992 is still valid, though I figure it shouldn't take too long to work myself back to that level of proficiency should the need occur).

No translation calls this week so far, though I am waiting for a piece of snail mail with a copy of a client's diploma. It's mildly depressing, but it has given me an opportunity to catch up on other issues.

Cheers...

...and while I'm on the subject (not!)

I managed to catch part of the rather long segment devoted to His Billness on the Letterman show last night, and I have to say that the image Slick Willie tried to convey, of terrorists soon being able to buy "assault weapons" (this, due to the expiration of something called the "assault weapons ban") was some of the funniest material I'd heard on Letterman in a couple of weeks, even though it's obvious that it was meant seriously. Clinton seems to still have an awful low opinion of the ability to terrorists to think clearly if he believes said terrorists will turn to legal channels to obtain firearms.

Perhaps David should consider Bill as a guest host for those times he is tempted to take a vacation?

Cheers...

Strictly hypothetical...

So let's posit the following hypothetical situation.

In response to my routine question "Is there anything hazardous in the package?" that is asked of a customer who is dropping off a FedEx envelope, let's say I get the response, "Oh, just some anthrax powder."

When my head comes up wearing a face you don't ever want to see, the person says "Just kidding!"

Let's additionally hypothesize that this is said in front of witnesses.

[Poll #331273]It should be noted that right after the post-September-11 anthrax scare, we actually did have a client pull this stunt and ended up doing nothing... mostly.

Cheers...