Interesting insight about myself: As annoying as I find spam, spam with grammatical errors really makes my blood boil. From a Dell co-worker:

I am inviting everyone to church service [sic] for the open [sic] of my new church [sic] Rhema Word Ministries [sic] on July 23 at 10:00 a.m. at the Wynndham Hotel off the Donleson Airport exit. Come out and lets [sic] Praise Lord [sic] together.

And when he says "everyone," he means everyone. That is, every Dell employee in Austin, Texas, and Nashville, Tennesee.

I don't care how cool your church is—that's one heck of a commute. Hypothetically, anyway, since he doesn't specify which state it's in.

Random thought that may be useful to me later: "It's a web, web, web, web world."

I got ev1 to correct the technical glitch that was preventing me from accessing www.cichelli.net. It exists now, and I'm working on putting some nifty stuff in there before I officially unveil it to my family. ('Course, if any of them deigned to read my blog, they'd know already, now, wouldn't they.)

Here's a list of the movies I've seen recently, as a reminder to myself to comment on them: Tombstone (neat), Dead Again (sweet), Being John Malkovich (challenging), Arlington Road (distressing).

I had an amusing realization while discussing M:I-2 with Jon. Ethan Hunt (Cruise) puts together the perfect D&D adventuring party. He's the Fighter: unimpeachable morals, extreme physical dexterity, cute as a button. The girl is the Thief (no duh). Then he's got the computer whiz, dressed in impractical clothing and kept far from the skirmishes, yet absolutely essential for clearing away the opposition to let the hero in: The Mage. Finally, the cute Australian guy, who is a reasonable fighter but is mostly used for his disguises and tracking skills, is clearly the Ranger. Some formulae work, ya know? (But I lost count of the rip-the-mask-off-to-reveal-I'm-the-bad-guy bits and couldn't help thinking, "And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn't been for those meddling kids.")

On Sunday, I performed the most effective rain-summoning ritual I have ever witnessed.

We scrubbed my car with tar and bug remover (made by Gunk), packed up the hoses and such, and went inside to let it dry so I could then wax it. Within ten minutes--ten minutes--it started to pour.

And to think, Austin officials put restrictions against washing your car in drier months.

I made a cup of coffee in the break room at the end of the hall. I then walked the entire length of the hallway, back to my desk, over 100 paces, with a full cup of coffee, trying desperately not to sneeze.

Oh, the adventurous life I lead.

The deadline at work that was stressing me out got pushed back a month, and I made some headway with the project, so I'm feeling calmer all-round. It's still creepy to have gotten so many messages from strangers; I haven't written them back yet, so I don't know what prompted that.

What on earth caught everybody's attention? I downloaded email last night (first time in about a week) and had 35 messages, four of which were from strangers, with three of those about my breast reduction page. And Grandma Cichelli had written me about it the other day. Nobody said what pointed them to the page. Jeremy, did you do something?

Oh, I am so offended. The Dell cafeteria features on today's menu the "Atkin's Diet Selection."

What next, Slimfast in the shake machine? Diuretics in the espresso? (Oh, wait...)

Free hair band with every lunch--when you need an extra hand for that oh-so-refreshing purge...

Sheesh.

I'm dressed for winter.

There's a big thunderstorm, and the sky is dark—conditions a co-worker ominously described as "tornado weather." Ever since that car accident, I've been really skiddish about driving in the rain here (people are stunningly dumb about rain—I'm on the highway in total white-out conditions from the spray, and people don't have their headlights on!). I keep having sympathetic nose pain; the memory of the moment of impact is gonna stick with me for a while.

So the storm had me feeling uneasy and cold. I grabbed comforting clothes. Now, here I am, in Texas, in June, wearing a long-sleeved, hooded t-shirt, my Grandpa Joe flannel shirt, and jeans. My only concession to summer is my sandals.

You know, that "ull" syllable is really rediculous. There should be some standardization. I mean, sandal candle label—what's up with that? Let's pick something we can all agree on. I suggest "ull." That would make those syllabulls much more spellabull. Don't you agree?

The sky is much more salient in my life now (as is traffic, but never mind that).

A new poll is clearly long past due. The results are that the majority of you (7 of 13) "just like clicking on polls." The top vote-getter on the actual topic, the breakup of Microsoft for anti-trust violations, is "Power to the people, Man," with three votes. The other options each got one supporter: "Good enough for Ma Bell," "Success is not illegal," and "Benefits us, benefits them."

And speaking of Martha Stewart [pillow-bomf on the head from Jon], I went to a scrapbooking party (like a tupperware party) last night. I'm totally ashamed of myself, but I thought it was really fun. I bought some of the simpler supplies (I've been wanting a photo-safe album for many years) and went to town. I took photos of Tameka's wedding out of the stupid Wal-Mart sleeves I had them in, trimmed here and cropped there, and created a beautiful page that showcases the photos and includes a long essay on my part in the wedding and my feelings about my best friend. Ten years from now, I'm gonna sit down with her, and we'll laugh and cry over it all over again. And sixty years from now...

I'm totally hooked on this new hobby.

NPR played a song by Tom Chapin this morning on Morning Edition. ^_^ It was about the magazines Martha Stewart Living and O by Oprah, which is new. Martha Stewart tells us how to get our houses in order, and Oprah tells us how to get our psyches in order (since people on yo-yo diets have so much to teach us about self-esteem). Tom rhymed "posies" and "neuroses." I sat in traffic and laughed out loud.

Have you ever had one of those semi-dreams, just as you're falling asleep, that you're falling, so you jerk your body to catch yourself, waking yourself up? (Just-falling-asleep dreams are hypnagogic hallucinations.) I had one last night, but instead of falling, I dreamt I was slammed in the face with something really heavy, like a wrecking ball. That triggered the hit-in-the-face reflex of jerking backward, which I did with no small amount of force. Good thing Jon wasn't spooning too close. Yikes.

I have registered www.cichelli.net using DomainMonger.com, and I created a web hosting account with ev1.net ($10/100Mb/month), so I am now thinking about site design. Nothing's up yet because it's the weekend, so EV1 hasn't set everything up yet. But soon.

Mission Impossible 2: Delightfully predictable.

Tom Cruise: I could eat him with a spoon.

I didn't used to be so enamored of Mr. Cruise, but in M:I-2 he's got this adorable Beatle haircut. While sifting through the photos from the movie premiere, I found this shot of my boy Jack Nic--er, Christian Slater.

I just received a resume that lists 11 years of HTML experience. Should be an interesting interview.

Maybe she knows Al Gore. You know, the guy who invented the Internet?

Sheesh.

Aunt Joanne put me onto the idea of a family website. I'm psyched. Ideas I've had so far are:

• password-protected page of real-world contact info


• links for email and personal websites


• posting of Granddad's monthly newsletter


• weblog for which we are all members


• photo album


• gift registry application, if I can get database access from somewhere (Dad?)


• space to host individuals' pages under the cichelli.net domain name

I intend to get an account or use part of my 300Mb with ev1.net, which is $10/month (good service, gang! Quick response on tech support, too.). And I also plan to register www.cichelli.net through www.DomainMonger.com for $17/year (less if you sign up for more years). (I think I'll snag one for myself, too.)

I'm so pumped. This is neat. I should be able to make some headway on this on Saturday, after I book travel reservations for the reunion.

No, no. September, 2001. We'll get hitched then. This way, I can get all the friends (from all over the dang world, these days) there I want. And we have time to rent the zoot-suit tuxedo from the tux shop on Pleasant Valley. Yay!