Came into the office today to discover 155 messages in my blind "Webmaster" inbox. They were all (except for one, written in Spanglish, asking information about a patient that would be a HIPAA violation to give out) variations of the newest e-mail virus.

You know the one. The one that has a subject line of test, and an attachment of about 30K? You have to open the attachment and unzip a file, then run the exe file to infect yourself.

I guess there are people using computers who do just that (asshats). Christ, even my 86-year old father, who has never in his life even turned a computer on, knows better than that. Even he knows about computer viruses and how one gets them and how one never opens e-mail attachments.

But there's 154 virus e-mails in my in box. My personal e-mail is crawling at a salted slug's pace today, because the servers are clogged with virus-laden e-mail.

I swear, how do these people live? How do they operate heavy machinery, or even lap tops, huh? Even Oprah must have talked about computer viruses at some point. Even the Star or the Weekly World News has to have covered the issue.

So why, in the name of all that is holy, do people insist on opening bogus e-mail, and launching the bogus attachments? Surely by now, they know that when the body of the mail says something like "This my first game. I hope you like it." or "Testing." or "You first to see new thing. Open fast and enjoy!" that nothing good is going to come from opening the files.

Well, you'd think that, but you'd be wrong. I've gotten 157 (they're still coming in, even as I type) messages to prove you wrong.

PS-- Voting is still open in BlogMadness, and I still need your votes. Please? I'm down on my knees, I'm begging you please. I'm number #18, Back Home.

Despite the title of this entry and the fact that the New Hampshire primary is tomorrow, there is nothing political here. At least, not on the presidential scale. On the scale of BlogMadness, this is national, and meaningful. To me and about fifty other bloggers who don't get out much.

The voting is open, and I'm seeded 18th in the Bills division, against #15, the fabulous SeaDoc, who is also shamelessly whoring for votes. Seeding and division placement is random, they say, and I should just hope so, seeing as I'm from Miami and those damned Bills have a special place in hell for Dolphins fans. Unless the Bills is just like, you know, bills to pay. In which case I have a lot of experience.

Either way, gentle readers, I'm begging here: please don't let me lose in the first round. I'll write about reality tv and Paris Hilton if it'll get you to vote for my entry. Or not write about them, if you prefer.

I was out of pocket over the weekend, and just discovered that the voting opened on Sunday. There's only 34 hours left to keep me from shameful dismissal.

My self esteem is in your hands.

Oh Captain, my Captain.

Captain Kangaroo, dead at 76. So he looked like a kindly grandfather when he was, uh, thirty? No way.

I remember the white braid on his black jacket, and how large his pockets were. I remember that nobody made fun of his hair, but when the Beatles tried the same style they were lampooned. I remember that it was the first "must-see TV" of my life. I realize that I thought he'd been dead for years.

Yep. I knew it this morning. It was going to be a sucky day in my neighborhood.

Goodbye, Captain. You were the first, and the best.

Everyone knows that when the phone rings at midnight it's either a drunk, a wrong number, a drunken wrong number or really bad news.

When the phone rings at 7AM, it usually isn't a drunk, but it's probably still bad news.*

This morning it was my friend Jeffrey in New York calling to say thanks for the really cool flannel jammy bottoms, he liked them very much and the RLA and I are two of his closest friends, and oh yeah, he'll be killing himself today.

It just doesn't get any better, does it?

* or it's just my neighbor calling to tell me someone's walking their dog

UPDATE: Jeffrey called to say he's going to commit himself to an in-patient program for a while. The RLA is still a little pissy about me calling Jeffrey's girlfriend to give her a little heads up on his plans for the day.

I forgot my bite plate last night and woke up with a clenched jaw and a blinding headache, halfway to a migraine.

To make things more interesting, I had to go to the pharmacy when I got to work. They've given me a personal representative, so the entering of refills is painless, and in return I've decided to try and pick up my scrips before I go to my office. It's a compromise on both our parts.

But the service quality was its usual abysmal self. The snotty clerk behind the glass refused to make eye contact with me at any point in our transaction. This included handing forms back and forth, asking for a pen, turning in new prescriptions and taking the drugs that were ready. I was there for at least ten minutes. Not once, not even for a nanosecond, did the bitch make eye contact. She spoke at me, or in my general direction, but she never looked at me.

This sort of thing just drives me wild. I'm a freaking customer. Take my money, look me in the eye and say Thank you.

And that goes for customers, too. Put the fucking cell phone down for a minute, look at the clerk and make your request. Do not point or wave vaguely at something and expect the clerk to know what you want or mean. Do not keep yapping about your inane and inconsequential crap to the invisible person at the other end of the line. Put the phone down. Be polite. It won't kill you to be polite to the worker bees of the world.

Can you break your teeth from grinding them too hard?

I'm supposed to be making soup right now, Yellow Pepper Soup from the Silver Palate New Basics cookbook, to be precise, but I'm in my studio, typing. The RLA loves Yellow Pepper Soup, and I thought my dad might like it, so it was on the to-do list. Earlier in the evening I went out to get my car radio repaired (check) and stopped by the auto parts store for a gallon of anti-freeze/coolant, 'cause the lovely Zelda Bleu is leaking fluids.

Well, you know, once a gear head, always a gear head, right? So I loitered up and down the customization aisle and found a cool stick shift sock that had tiny little neon strips in the seams, and a set of techno/racing style pedals (gas, clutch and brake -- I only drive a stick), and took those and my anti-freeze up to the register.

The kid looks at the pedals and the stick sock and looks at me and says, "Are these for your son's car? Or yours?"

Well, bite me.

When did I start looking like someone who's old enough to have a son who drives a custom car? Or any car, for that matter. And that's when it hit me, like the wet kiss at the end of a hot fist.* I am not only old enough to have a kid who has a custom car, I'm old enough to have a kid who has a kid.

I turn fifty this year, and while that's never bothered me** it's never bothered me because I don't look or feel my age. Until now, I suppose, if some pasty-faced kid in a polyester shirt with his name on the pocket is asking if I'm buying custom accessories for my son.

I can't even write that off as some kind of male chauvinism, because if I DIDN'T look old enough to have a kid who drives, he'd have been asking me if it was for my boyfriend, right?

Well, crap. Let me count the blessings here. I'll get to join AARP and get some nifty discounts that I'm currently not even aware of. I'll get free checking at the bank, except I already do. Discount movie tickets? Um, hmmm. Stumped. What other benefits are there?

I'm not dead yet.***

So, what should I do this year to keep the wolf at bay? I'm thinking Paris for my birthday itself. Learn something new? I started teaching myself how to knit better, and how to write better code. I could learn enough French to get by in Paris. I could force myself to learn to roller blade. I could force myself to listen to top 40 radio to see what's popular these days.

Or I could revel in the fact that I'm finally old enough to have earned my bad attitude and curmudgeonly ways. Yeah. That. And Paris.

*Firesign Theater: The Further Adventures of Nick Danger
** Much
*** Monty Python and the Holy Grail