Waiting. It sets my teeth on edge, has made me abandon doctors who routinely ignore appointment times, and causes a precipitous increase in blood pressure. It is rude and unnecessary and thoroughly unprofessional. Needless to say, I had to do some of it today. I have had multiple meetings scheduled over the past couple weeks with a new member of our executive staff. He did not show up for the first, was so late for the second that I gave up and left, and was on his third strike today. Because of the two previous bad experiences I was smart enough to call his assistant before the meeting to insure that he was in his office, not otherwise occupied. She assured me this was the case, and I left my office, crossed the street to his building, bought a Diet Coke from the vending machine in the kitchen, climbed the stairs to his office and lo, what should I find? Said executive in his office as promised, who greeted me with "Do you mind if I make one quick call? No more than 30 seconds." He ducked back into the office and while he was on the phone for no more than 30 seconds cobwebs formed, dust settled, empires rose and fell, the Boomers backrupted Social Security, and Mary Kate and Ashley were elected co-governors of California. And then we ended up talking way past the scheduled end of the meeting, making me late for my next appointment. Damned Diet Coke, it was all the fault of that vending machine.

And for the geeks in the audience, here is a complementary site to yesterday's old ads that includes hype for some of the earliest personal computers.

To add to the list of non-functioning electronic devices which bear my fingerprints - the power cord on my laptop no longer wants to make a connection with the part of the laptop that sucks up the electricity, thus draining the battery and providing me with no way to recharge it. If I push on it *REALLY* hard, it starts to charge, but as soon as I breathe it loses the connection. Sigh.

Books: Samaritan is moving along quite well. The dialogue rings true, the northern New Jersey setting is appropriately gritty, and the characters have convoluted motivations and histories winding just below the surface.

Movies: Three new ones from Netflix for the weekend - Miranda, In The Company of Men, and Mallrats (the only Kevin Smith movie I've not seen before).

Cats: Tabitha is lurking in the hallway outside my room. I suspect she's both autistic and anorexic.