What a day this has been. I would have been better if I had just curled up into a little ball and hidden in the back of my closet, behind my shirts.

First, I woke up early to try and shower before a contractor showed up to replace a support post on my front deck (yay dry rot), so my head wasn’t firmly on my shoulders. Then I checked my email, and found this image waiting for me, created by my good friend Eric after reading my last post.

Then I received a phone call from my boss, who asked me if I would be willing to join a campaign into the depths of Hell next Friday. It’s a daring mission to wrest some control over our future away from my eternal nemesis, support-person Debbie. [Mission Objective: be trained on higher functions of our new computer system, that we may perform those functions in-house.] My only concerns are that we’ll be facing off deep within support-person Debbie’s home turf, and that I’m the only person on my side who is clearly on my side. I’m also the only person who has yelled at Debbie over the telephone. Despite these reservations, I agreed to go.

Will this be the end of Brent and his blog?

I headed into work, where I was presented with a few hundred refund checks to enter into QuickBooks. I’ve been entering refund checks for a few years now, and I’ve noticed the difficulty of the task has slowly been increased—namely, the ink on the checks gets lighter and lighter. Combine faint print with security patterns, fold into a general headache I developed from getting up too early, and repeat a few hundred times, to see the entire world spin.

To top it all off, then confused music starts playing louder and louder as the computer starts flashing text at me over and over: NO BRAIN/CAN’T THINK/KILL/KILL ‘EM/KILL ‘EM ALL. I don’t recall what happened next, but some guy from the FBI wants to chat with me.

Actually, that wasn’t the worst part of the day—by far. That dubious distinction goes to the events that occurred around 4:00 pm. I, weakened by my earlier battles and thoughts of the boss battle to come, wandered into the bathroom to take care of some business. I there discovered that the person who used the toilet before me (unknown, so I shall refer to him/her as Jackass from now on) failed to fix the toilet that Jackass had clogged. A fierce battle ensued. My battle. Against the creature known as “Jackass’ Toilet.”

I had foolishly left all my equipment outside, and so grabbed the only weapon lying around: a cheap $2 plunger. Although I attacked first, and my aim was true, I didn’t faze Jackass’ Toilet. [The $2 was almost certainly all invested in the wooden handle, I’m afraid—the plunger itself is a real piece of junk.] The toilet immediately counter-attacked with its most powerful move: Eau de Jackass’ Toilet. I couldn’t dodge the spray. At all. [No matter what Mitchum says, my deodorant wasn’t strong enough to skip this day.] I immediately went Berserker, grabbed the Real Plunger from the bathroom next door, and destroyed Jackass’ Toilet.

I then drove home, burned my clothes, underwent an exfoliating shower, and then disinfected everything I had dealt with.

Jackass.

[Note: Marin pointed out to me that I had actually been calling the mystery person who clogged the toilet “Jackass,” not “Asshole,” when I ranted to her at work. To be more true to history, I’ve thus changed my “Asshole” references to “Jackass” references. Also, a point of clarification: this happened at work, not home. At home I’d have advanced torture interrogation techniques that I could employ to determine the true perpetrator—which are sadly not appropriate for work—and thus I wouldn’t have had to resort to generic name-calling.]

I tried to take a nap early this evening, but even failed at that. [I wisely decided that today was not the day to call females.] Marin and I finished off the first disc of Geneshaft, which I somehow ended up enjoying despite everything that’s wrong with it. We then finished the evening off with Hoshi no Koe/Voices of a Distant Star—the 25-minute product of one man and seven months. It really is an amazing feat, and is remarkably touching…you all should search out a copy. Mike Toole was right.

In other news (i.e. stuff from yesterday that I forgot to tell y’all about), Marin has acquired color-changing contact lenses. Her eyes are supposed to be green now, but the overall result seems to mostly be a lighter brown. Nevertheless, it doesn’t look bad or unnatural…. Since these contacts aren’t daily-wear, we went to Fred Meyer’s after work yesterday so Marin could pick up some contact-cleaning solution. I, being lazy, waited in the car with the windows rolled down—which set me up to see a familiar face from the UHC: Phil. As in “why don’t girls like me?” Phil. He’s now sporting a crazy surfer-dude haircut (longer, wavy hair with—what I think gals would describe as—a great deal of volume). He and his friend (male, of course) were each packing a six-pack. I bet they had a better time than I did last night.

And that leads up to now; once again I’m on the back deck with the Powerbook, but this time I’m actually updating my blog while enjoying the evening. The days right now are a bit too warm for my tastes, but the nights are pretty much perfect—especially for stargazing. Knowing how today has gone, though, I won’t be surprised if I wake up tomorrow covered in mosquito bites.