Nowhere near as interesting as yours. But 3 of the last six have been spent asleep. . .

I put off my flash homework. There are two things that I have to do, one of them is try to get a tic tac toe game (which I didn't write) to work, by modifying a single line of code's logic. What's the use? I didn't write it, it's not commented, and I've tried figuring it out.

The other thing has us copying code from the book. Literally. Isn't that just busywork?

Also, been talking about going to the Game Developers Conference, we're going to try holding a fund-raiser, but I think our school has some scholarships available. In the interim, I'm trying to decide what kind of running code I should slap together in order to present myself as some sort of "Game Designer" in an impotent effort to score an internship.

i really wish i could tell you now, but maybe later.

How was your last six hours?

You'll wish you hadn't asked. I've had probably one of the worst days I've had in ages.

It started at 8am with someone phoning me who I'd sent a reject letter to last week. He's not the sharpest tool in the box, and I spent 45 minutes on the phone to him trying to explain why his complaint had to fail.

Then he phoned again. And again. And again. And when I was on the phone to somebody else he phoned ten more times. Then he said he did not want to take it further, so I closed his file and told the other party.

So, lunchtime comes, and, having spent the entire morning dealing with this brain donor, I needed a walk. So I and two teammates headed out at 1pm.

Normally we'd walk downstairs but as we reached our landing the lift was waiting so we got in. We reached the ground floor (the first floor to USians), and the lift doors wouldn't open. They opened about six inches, then there was a horrible grinding noise and they slammed shut again. The alarm was sounded and someone answered the intercom.

"How many people are in there?"

"Four"

The security staff tried to pry the doors open, but couldn't. After about 20 minutes, the senior guy said "We're going to shut the power off, and wind the lift back up one floor, and try to open the doors manually." Nobody liked the sound of this but there was nothing we could do.

Then the voice came over the intercom again.

"How many people are in there now?"

"Still four. We haven't had time to reproduce, and we're not so hungry yet that we've eaten somebody."

"So that'll be four then"

"Er ... yes"

Every few minutes the lift would judder and then not move. It was really quite unsettling. There's a basement below, so still a little way to plummet.

Eventually we felt the lift move and we were moved up almost to the first floor where the doors were prised open. We were still about four feet below floor level.

We were greeted by firefighters who told us that they would try to get us to the floor level, but we might have to climb out through the gap. After another five minutes or so, we were at floor level and could escape. Sadly, the firefighters were not the ones who adorn my 'Essex Firemen' calendar, but were an older guy who looked ready to retire, and a woman. So all my jokes as we were trapped about wanting firemen to rescue us were for naught.

Our facilities manager was waiting for us, and he was livid with the building management because the first he knew about all this was when the Fire Brigade arrived. We'd been trapped for almost 90 minutes.

We were all a bit shaky after this, so we went to our Cafe and got coffee. I came back to my desk to find 17 missed calls from Mr Arsehole from this morning. He's now decided he wants his case reopened.

Then, on the way home, I had to wait half an hour in the rain on an open platform for the Tube because someone had fallen under a train at Bethnal Green (actually, my day is probably not as bad as his) and when the train came it was packed.

I'm too short to reach the overhead handles so I had to try to grab onto a pole and a man near me kept leaning against my arm so I thought it'd break. I asked him to stop doing it but he just kept on, and I couldn't move an inch to get out of his way.

I had to walk home in the rain, and as I got to the traffic lights a car came round the corner and I was splashed from my knees down, so my legs were soaked.

I got home and realised I had nothing nice to eat for dinner, and nothing defrosted so it'll be cheese, nuts, fruit and yoghurt instead of nice hot comfort food.

So, yeah, that's how my day's been. Pretty fricking shitty so far.

Oh I hope that does end up on YouTube! And thanks for reminding me that I need to take the cat to the vet and how much I HATE to take the cat to the vet.

My first grader is home today with some kind of icky diarrhea stomach bug that she is MILKING for all it's worth. At one point, she and her brother were both sitting on my lap whining and fighting with each other until I'd had enough. I put the boy down and put my hand on the small of her back to let her know she needed to get up and she launched herself across the room and onto the floor and said, "Ow! You pushed me!" And I replied, "CHILD, I INVENTED DRAMA!!! You need to find a new tactic, because I see right through that one." Then we had soup.

Aw, Jan. You win. I hope tomorrow is better.

Oh, and I forgot, I heard this morning that a friend of mine died of cancer, aged 54, on Saturday. He was a lovely man, and a wonderful jazz musician.

Mine have been absolutely dull compared to the rest of y'all.

It's been a quiet Monday morning at work, and I was able to hand in a couple of finished segments to my producers, officially bringing my current project almost to a close.

"How many people are in there now?"

"Still four. We haven't had time to reproduce, and we're not so hungry yet that we've eaten somebody."

"So that'll be four then"

I know it was no fun to go through, but this had me laughing like a fool.

"CHILD, I INVENTED DRAMA!!! You need to find a new tactic, because I see right through that one."

Thanks. . .I now have latte all over my screen. . . *smile*

Boo to your day, essexjan!

Holy crap, EJ, that sounds like a horrible day. *whuffles EJ*
If I were you, I wouldn't leave my house again today if I could help it.
Can you order out to get some hot food?

msali, I get a ton of menus through the door every week from Indian, Chinese, Pizza, restaurants, but when you order and ask them to deliver they refuse and say it's too far. My local Chinese is about a mile away but is closed on Mondays.

I've just eaten about half a pound each of cheese and nuts and will probably regret it in the morning.

Good god, everyone's been having super shitty days.

I've just been slammed on the one queue (I opened it when I came in this morning with 6 requests. It JUST NOW finally cleared to zero. Well, there's one missing, but I put that one on someone else.)

Oh jan - that is - well, it sounds awful, but very well told - it makes a good story.

jrossi4r, do you really call the child "CHILD"? Because that's awesome.

I am working on a project on my house, and made lots of progress today, and tomorrow I'll be able to put everything together and paint. Good thing 'cause it's supposed to perhaps rain or snow after tomorrow.

Sad about Obama's grandmother, but my Obama pin from MoveOn came today, so that's good. At least I get to wear it before the election.

I'm gonna make a sammich with dried chorizo, and lay down to read.

"CHILD, I INVENTED DRAMA!!! You need to find a new tactic, because I see right through that one."

*takes down copious notes*

I wish I could click a button and send you a bowl of this lovely potato and leek soup I made essexjan.