Anyhoo (yes "anyway" was already taken).

I've finished Colussus. Still can't spell it though, and I haven't finished the stuff I should have been reading instead.

Good book, tried a bit too hard to convince rather than inform. Lost me on some of the economic bits (basis points? Are they something you collect if you shop in Spar?), but fleshed out some other aspects I'd never quite thought about. Generally worth reading, although occasionally very dated (oil prices might rise to even $30 a barrel, albeit temporarily). Now figure out how much is exactly the same in his prequel, Empire.

What else? I'm still meant to be doing what I'm not, in a cold hissing building. This time I'm wearing double the number of layers, and brought food (ok, banana sandwiches, as I had bread but not much else)

Dan's getting back into his old habits: chocolate and photography (and being admirably childish). And so making me jealous on both counts (have you tried the marzipan Ritter Sport? Although I'm still not convinced on the soundness of designing a chocolate bar so it fits in a pocket). But I've just remembered I've got a bar of Green and Black's Espresso buried in my bag. I think I know what supper tonight will be. And hurrah for never being too old for stockings (the Christmas kind) which is where it came from.

AF is still AWOL, or maybe AWAIC (or AWOAIC for greater clarity). Hope you're ok, but you'll probably not be reading this as I haven't seen a .de in a while.

And this symbol inversion keyboard is really beginning to annoy me, especially as I've now discovered that there is no hash or tilde (the keys are marked with them, but it produces the same effect as the |\ key (and what does one call either of those? Has anyone ever used the former? Does anyone else annoy other people by calling the latter a "disk-drive slash" as opposed to an "internet slash"?). And what's really infuriating me is the fact someone has installed an MSN searchbar in IE (I know, but this computer is far too muddled without adding in Firefox), which insists on blocking any type of pop-up, including those generated by right-clicks, or control/shift-clicking, or even just clicking on anything which opens in a new window.

I was about to launch into a huge rant on my inability to turn the bloody thing off, but I've found out it's under tools\options. Although I think classifying all-pervading search/chat/advertising bars as tools is pushing it a bit (this computer has MSN messenger, Yahoo messenger, AOL messenger, something called Ares, something else called Utopia, plus the usual Quicktime, Real Player, Java-thingy combinations all hogging away in that little place reserved for clocks and volume controls. I've no idea who's been using it, but they've obviously never heard of deselecting the load-on-start-up option. It's amazing how many of them don't even give the option of turning them off. But at least I have alt-ctrl-del to bash any unrecognisable over the head (but I still don't like the newer versions of windows separating programmes from supposed system processes. If I want to gut it down to virtually only systray, I will, and I'd prefer if you'd stop trying to tell me that Windows Solitaire Player version 2.1.3 or MSN ThumbTwiddler is an integral part of the system). Maybe I ought to really confuse the thing an add ICQ. I suspect the only reason it hasn't got a hacked version of All Advantage running in the background is because they went bust (and did anyone else try that? I once got a check for 12 pounds and 87 pence (and I've found hash. Now all I need to do is find the pound sign) from them. I forgot to cash it and then lost it). Basically, I have a hunch I won't be using internet banking on here.

What else? Az is maltreating Simians. Ry continues in his quest to win Olympic golds in the 49ers, katana and SoCal insurance. And CiSo manages to be too depressingly good (and remind me that various exhibitions I wanted to get to close this weekend. Oh well. It's raining anyway).

Anyhoo,