Now that I've sucked you in with that riveting paragraph, hello!

I am writing this for purely selfish reasons, in that it's a reasonably slow afternoon and if I am typing this entry, it will stop me from trying to scrounge up food. (Scrounging up food is very easy in this office. Yesterday we had bacon and eggs on the fourth floor, sushi on the second floor, and cake on the first floor. Today we had bagels, and there's allegedly pizza on the fourth floor. I don't bother anymore unless the food is on my floor. Otherwise I get there two minutes too late and then I feel like the girl who is fat enough to want the free food, but too slow to get there in time.)

This morning I caught some guy using my Starbucks mug, which I bought to replace my old Starbucks mug, and which was stolen right off my desk. I might have to stop bringing in Starbucks mugs, as they seem to be very popular.

I have to print a semi-retraction to the whole issue of "email/e-mail" after having a conversation about this with Jen. To me, the most persuasive argument was that separating the E out like that made it clear that it was a letter, not part of the word, and should be pronounced as such. But she pointed out that--as in "emu" and "emergency" and "emancipation proclamation"--the word "email" can be pronounced the same with or without the hyphen.

I am happy to have a cogent rationale for why email might work. Now it's come down to more of a stylistic choice. Which makes my job a little harder in that there's a gray area now in my head, and yet I still can't bring myself to let "email" slide. (My dictionary and style guides still insist on e-mail.) But anyway, I'm no longer willing to say that "email" is flat-out wrong.

Aren't you glad you stuck with this entry so far? First allergies, now hyphenation! I am on fire with these compelling topics.

As some of you eagle-eyed readers have noticed, I did in fact buy a new digital camera. I got it right in time for my trip to New York, and now I have to use it to take photos of my porn room because it's a moral imperative.

One disappointment-- I ordered a poster from Allposters.com that would have matched the decor perfectly, and the poster showed up and the color quality is just awful. Part of it is that I am spoiled here at work with professional-quality proofs landing on my desk fifty times a day, but the other part of it is that human flesh is not supposed to be orange, unless you're Charlize Theron at the Oscars. So back it goes, and my room is slightly less porny as a result.

Also on my list of things to write about-- reader Beth Cherry (best name ever, by the way) sent me a link to a page all about the "Monkey Magic" song-- where it came from, all the remixes that exist, basically everything you ever wanted to know (or possibly didn't) about this bizarre song.

Also, she sent me a link to this picture:

About which, really, what can you say? Except thanks, Beth!

In other news, I've decided to take up poker. Tim has been playing for about a year, and very successfully, as his brand new "oh my god it's so huge" Penisvision 5000 can attest. In our days of having poker nights, I was able to hold my own. Of course he's gotten a lot better with time and practice, but I see no reason why I can't improve as well. I love cards, I love statistics, and I love gambling, and it seems like fun. We'll see how it goes.

The only problem is that I can't access the internet at home. I don't seem to have magical DSL anymore, and now I don't even have dial-up, because my phone service seems to have gone out! Which would be okay, except the phone company just went on strike. It's like the universe is conspiring against me to keep me from playing some goddamn poker.

I feel as though I should wrap up this entry by talking about sex or something. Hmm. Everything that's coming to mind (like the "can I call you a dirty whore" story) are things I should probably keep off the internet until more time has passed and I've lost all sense of shame. So instead, here is a picture I took in Chinatown.

Not quite the same, is it?