ell, the match.com fishnet pulled in an interesting haul. This is probably an unnecessary designation, but well call her "MB" for Murphy Brown. Apparently this person works for WHOI 19 in front of the camera during their really early morning show. She didn't actually tell me this, but based off her e-mail address and a few other data points it became apparent who she is. I've never heard of her, but the WHOI website had enough description that matched her story for me to extrapolate. Go Perry Mason. Anyhoo, she seems to spend her off-time getting soused with her buddies, and you all know how much I go for stumbling drunkards. Woo hoo. Actually I don't know how prevalent that plays into her free time, but I got an e-mail at 6am Saturday morning stating she had just got back from her night out... Wow. The consignment shop down the street had some cool stuff. They had a print of Andrew Wyeth's that was possibly signed by the artist, but that wasn't for certain. And it was only $75. A good deal (!) if it was signed, sort of high if it wasn't. So off to art.com and other poster shops to look for a match. Turns out it's a poster with the signature as part of the print. No big surprise, I guess, but I did get pretty excited after talking to Shep. He's a Wyeth fanboy, so he filled me in on what a deal it would be. So that's a bit of a downer, but for some reason I remember a fractional number on the left bottom corner that I don't see on this poster - like 74/300 or some such... I may have to call on the shop one more time. Another item there that does seem legit is a print of a sketch by Dali that's signed by him. For real. A limited edition print of a nude that's got his signature in the corner. No price yet, but I said I would be very interested. We'll see if my piggy bank can afford to have me be a snobby art collector.

Thought for the day: For all you kids who use a beige or white keyboard for your day-to-day input, have you noticed the build-up of gunk over time? The thin brownish layer of crud that starts to cover certain keys? Yeah, I've got this theory that 10 years from now, gypsys won't be reading tea leaves anymore, but instead you'll bring them your keyboard and they'll read your crud marks. "I see much filth on your 'INSERT' key... you are a very forgetful person and you need to wash your hand more often..."

Lance Armstrong won the Tour. Go Lance. He's a good ambassador for our country, and shows that we're not as tactless and ill-mannered as many like to claim that we are. I say "we" in a blanket reference to 250 million citizens. How's that for generalization?

A friend of mine in my line of work recently got his walking papers. I feel frustration and sadness for him, because even if you think something like that may happen, unless you own the company, you never see it coming until it actually takes place. It reminded me how blessed I've been with my business, and helped me feel pretty dumb about some of the things I whine about. Its all a matter of perspective. I'm constantly chewing my nails about landing the next job or whether a client will pay up. If it all goes in the toilet though, it won't hit me out of the blue when we close the doors - I'll see that train coming a mile off. I guess that's the better position to be in. Honestly it sucks either way you go, so maybe I'll just pray for some general job stability for everyone. My preference would be to do something that allows me to guarantee job security and/or financial security to everyone I know for the rest of our trip on this planet. We aren't here long enough to spend all our time worrying about income. [idealism rant off - soapbox returned to closet]

Stay frosty, kiddies.