I pulled into the gas station this morning and noticed a guy wearing a day-glo yellow vest lurking around the pumps. As I was getting out my credit card (with visions of having it snatched out of my hand and the robber escaping by shedding his vest-disguise), the guy introduced himself as being from the EPA. He was doing a survey and asked if I wanted to participate. Since I love answering survey questions (figuring there are no wrong answers), I agreed. As I was pumping the gas, he asked me if when I filled the tank, I stopped pumping when it shut off automatically, or if I topped off the tank, rounding the amount up. I wondered if this was a trick question, but told him that I just let it stop when the pump clicked off. Why spend more time at a gas station than absolutely necessary? I did mention that I used to top-off when paying with cash. He indicated that many people tell that story, with a tone that indicated he didn't quite believe it. He then handed me a brochure on the evils of topping off and a key chain that lights up. It's the first time I've actually seen my tax dollars at work in such a visible, tangible way.

The counter showing the number of times this journal has been accessed appears to be off, because the numbers are increasing at a rate of about 80 per day, when usually they go up by 5 or 10. There must be some web crawler out there that's getting stuck here and can't escape.

I still have not been invited to join Friendster or Orkut or even gmail. There is a site where you can offer to swap items/services for an invitation to gmail. I’m contemplating what I’d be willing to part with to get a gmail address.

TV: Nip/Tuck – this plastic surgery soap opera contains some fairly graphic shots (both of the surgery and the sex in which the doctors engage), although the story lines end up not being very engaging. Although there was a pretty clear moral of last night's episode: don't fuck the nanny or your ex-mother-in-law or bad things will happen. Who would have known?