So the boss took his department out to lunch today. Well, three quarters of his department. Lunch was good. Tried a place I hadn’t been before. Had lots of ribs on the company dime.

Cut to five hours later, and I’m getting ready to leave work. Backpack, check. Jacket, check. Wait, where the hell’s my liner?

Oh, crap. I must’ve left it at the restaurant.

Called the place. Got transferred a couple of times, only to (eventually) find out that nobody’s seen my fleece liner. Great. But they took my name and number and if the day shift happens to know where it went, they’ll call me. Hopefully.

Otherwise, someone made off with a well-worn, well-loved two-year-old Columbia Sportswear fleece liner. And my trip home from work was quite a bit colder for the loss of it.

Argh. I’d say “I can’t believe I did that,” but the problem is that I can. I’d literally forget my head if it wasn’t attached. Again I say, argh.

It took three buses to get me to work this morning.

What happened to the first bus, the #9, you ask? I noticed as I boarded that it looked a bit off-kilter, but didn’t actually worry about it. A few blocks down, we hit a couple of mild bumps. Normally when a bus hits a bumpy stretch there’s some gentle bouncing and mild creaking of suspension, and that’s all she wrote.

Not today.

Bump! Bang! Bump! Bounce! Bang! Bounce! Bang!

Whoah. It didn’t take long to realize that the suspension for the back half of the bus was completely shot. We bounced and banged along until we reached the Rose Quarter transit center, at which point the driver asked us all to exit the vehicle. Nobody really had a problem with that.

I, however, was the only one other than the driver to really take a good look at the outside of the bus afterward. The body was dramatically slouched, practically sitting directly on the right rear wheels… if I knew more about such things I’d say that the suspension there had completely given way. I didn’t have time to snap a picture, though, as a #8 arrived just then and I wanted to get downtown quickly for a spot of breakfast.

Turns out I was too late for that, but oh well…

I went to bed early last night, and slept in late this morning. I accomplished almost nothing of consequence throughout the day, even going so far as to deliberately avoid online activity other than checking my email a few times.

So what did I do all day? I finished reading George R. R. Martin’s “A Game of Thrones,” which turned out to be quite the solid piece of work. I watched “The Bourne Identity” for the first time. I watched several episodes of “Bleach” and one of “Hikaru no Go.” In fact, I spent a lot of time downstairs, some of it tinkering with the Meedio computer and some of it actually watching shows with it. In the evening, the usual gaming buddies came over so we played “Evo” and “Settlers of Catan.” As usual, I lost both games. No biggie, though, since I had fun playing. That’s what it’s about, yes?

What didn’t I do? Oddly enough, I managed not to stress (overmuch) about the moderately hellish workdays I have before me, or about my relationship stuff, or finances, or any of that. My biggest stressors today were a quirk with the downstairs computer (turned out to be a broken Meedio theme, argh) and a very sore shoulder (which was a large part of why I spent most of the day offline… typing and gaming when your shoulder’s screaming isn’t my idea of fun).

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to listen to some music and seek the comfort of my bed. I have a long day ahead of me. At least now I feel rested enough to take it on…

When it’s the Saturday before Christmas, one should probably avoid going to the mall. You’d think that most people would be cognizant of this sort of thing, but then you’d also have to remember that I’m not “most people.”

I did find one of the things I was looking for, mind you. Yes, because my Treo 600 geekphone can utilize SD memory, it now has some SD memory. My first great experiment will be something along the lines of, “What Sort Of Audio Ringtones I Can Come Up With.” I’m thinking musical cues, random movie and TV show quotes, you name it…

Yes. I’m a geek. You all knew this.

Anyway, next year at this time I’ll try to remember not to risk the massive crowds. It got so bad that I went back to the cold outdoors for a while just to have some personal space. Bleh.

Here’s a quick word of warning, in case you actually needed it: When the item on the menu includes the word “stuffed,” they’re referring to how you’ll feel after eating said menu item.

This has been a public service message from your friends at greyduck.net. Thank you, and be careful out there.

Some days it just doesn’t pay to gnaw through the straps, you know?

If there’s one surefire way to ruin your day, it’s reading a distilled synopsis of all of the character flaws that led to the breakup of your marriage. I don’t recommend looking in the mirror of someone else’s pent-up bitterness as a fun way to pass a quiet afternoon.

Of course, one of those character flaws got me into today’s mess in the first place, so I have nobody to blame but myself for how lousy I’m feeling right now.

It’s awfully hard to like myself, most days. It’s even more difficult today.

(For the record: This is not a pity party. I’ll be okay in a while. I just needed to get this “down on paper,” as it were. Think of it as being not entirely unlike writing something down so you don’t forget it later.)