Idiocracy

I was listening to a radio quiz show on the way to work this morning. I missed the first few questions, but of the final three: 1) neither contestant knew that a Macintosh computer is referred to as a "Mac" (one guessed "Apple," the other--who ended up winning the game--didn't have any guess at all); 2) neither contestant knew the answer to "Europa is one of the moons orbiting which giant planet?" (one guessed "Pluto"--yes, that's right, the planet that is so small it is no longer considered to even BE a planet--and the other guessed "Saturn." At least he picked a planet that is actually a giant); 3) yet BOTH contestants knew what TV show used the phrase "yabba dabba doo." I told GF about this, and she said that on the radio station she was listening to, the DJs were trying to figure out on what continent the Andes mountain range is located. She said that they were only able to name 5 continents, and none of them were the correct one. I fear for the future.

The server was down when I got to work today, which meant that for 45 minutes we couldn't send or receive e-mail, print anything, or access the reports we need in order to input the sales data for last week. That may not seem like a big deal, but we have an 8:00 am deadline to get that entered, and when you have no access to the information until 7:55 am, it makes it a bit difficult.

Had to laugh at myself today. As I passed the doorway to the stairs, I saw that it had "caution" tape criss-crossed over it, and a sign saying "Wet Paint." I thought to myself that I would have to remember to take the elevator at lunch, then thought, "But what do we do if there's a fire?" Of course my brain kicked in almost immediately with "You idiot, like wet paint would keep you off the stairs during a FIRE!!"

Shawl update! I now have 28 rows completed, and have done the final increases. The 12 stitches with which I started have increased to a total of 364. I suspect the remaining rows will not be completed as quickly as these first 18 have. Thank goodness for lifelines, though. Twice I have messed up to the point of needing to frog, and those lifelines kept me from having to start all over. The second time I was particularly lucky; I had just knit the entire yoke (rows 18-27, 181 stitches per row) and was ready to start the last set of increases (double plus 2 extra) when I thought, you know, I'm going to move that lifeline up now rather than wait. Well, I somehow managed to totally screw up that increase row, and only had to frog just that one row without risk of dropping the stitches & having to frog down to the previous lifeline on row 16.

One last bit & then I'm done for the night. At lunch, as I was eating, I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye--a hand reaching over the back of my booth, reaching towards my table, reaching, reaching; then perspective & depth of field took over, and I realized it wasn't a hand at all, but a car outside the window going through the drive-up. Amazing what your brain will concoct before you have a chance to actually look at something.