Has anyone else's friendslist exploded this evening?

I just came over to the computer about 20 minutes ago (after watching a very good Doctor Who episode - Derek Jacobi is incredible), and my friendslist appears to have been the victim of an unfortunate convulsion on the part of the Village Voice, from which savagelove is syndicated. (Or, because it's savagelove, perhaps "ejaculation" would be a better noun than "convulsion". ;) ) Looooovely.

I discovered on the weekend that my answering machine, which is built into my phone, appears to have gone to the great electronics graveyard. whitesangria called me on Sunday morning, around 10 or so, and woke me. I was lying there thinking, "Why isn't the answering machine kicking in?" when I suddenly realized that it must have given up the ghost. I had suspected as much because I hadn't gotten any messages from telemarketers or their wretched automated diallers since before Dragon*Con, but I hadn't thought to check it to make sure. I did pop up to Future Shop yesterday before heading off to meet up with scapersuse and aprilsnark to go to gurudata's and kanecool's place, but they didn't have any non-cell or non-cordless phones, and the Bell store wasn't open yet. I may, if I remember to do so, pop into the Source that's about a ten minute walk south of the office tomorrow.

This would also explain why I didn't find out until calling Bay/Bloor this afternoon that another of my malfunctioning electronic toys has been ready for me to pick up from the shop since August 29. They called while I was in Atlanta, and despite my having given them my cell number, they keep insisting on calling the land line. One would think that after calling, and not getting an answering machine, they would try the cell next. Unfortunately, I can't pick it up until Saturday because they insist on closing before I can get there, and not opening until after I've left for work. Why an electronics store in the downtown core keeps bankers' hours, I'm not certain.

So, yesterday's gathering at gurudata's and kanecool's place... it was a lot of fun. We stopped on the way to pick up snackage at Loblaws, whereupon we discovered that the cinnamon/sweet potato Pringles that I'd bought in Farragut are, indeed, available here. I'd seen the other flavours in my local Dominion last week, but not that one, so we picked up a bag, as well as some other chips, pop, and 30 chicken wings - mainly because when aprilsnark called and asked kanecool what we could bring, kanecool didn't have anything specific in mind so aprilsnark said, "Okay, we'll wing it." Sometimes I like to take things literally. *grin* But they were good wings, and I'm not normally a big fan of chicken wings - too much work for too little meat. These, however, were nice and meaty.

As ennisdl and chanilye were both there, naturally, we had an impromptu Programming meeting for Polaris 22. Though we can't do a whole lot until we know everybody who's coming back to the team for this year - we know we lost a few people, who either left concom altogether or who have moved into other departments.

gurudata's and kanecool's new big-ass television is, indeed, one big-ass television. Jack Black in HD is a vision devoutly to be avoided, even if it was only a two-second clip in a commercial for The Hour With George Stromboulopoulos. The evening turned into an unplanned Emmy party, so we all gathered in the living room and snarked the evening away. Much fun. (What the heck was Hayden Pannetiere wearing? She looked like an opium dream.)

scapersuse had left early as she was feeling unwell (hope you're feeling better today!), so kaelsu2 and protegeboy gave aprilsnark and me a ride home after the evening ended, and I got home around 12, I think it was. I should probably have gone straight to bed, but I hadn't read Saturday's paper yet, so I ended up not getting to bed until 1:45 or so. *facepalm*

Today got off to a slow start - first the bus I was on at Finch wouldn't start, forcing us all to get onto the next one, so I had to stand until Richmond Hill Centre. Then we ended up stopping for about 15 minutes at 16th/Carrville, because someone got on the bus who needed to be strapped in (I'm not sure if it was someone in a wheelchair, or if they were being strapped in for some other reason - I couldn't see) but the belt they use was broken, so we sat there for about 15 minutes waiting for someone to come and help fix the problem. (Had I been the one, I would have just said, "Never mind, I'll wait for the next bus.") So I didn't get into work until about 11. Fortunately there's not a lot of work to do at the moment - we're waiting for the client to give us feedback on the most recent new stuff, and I finished the next batch (the ability to renew multiple boards at once) on Friday, so we're way ahead. I spent most of the afternoon installing some testing software and trying to figure out what I need to do to make sure that I get 100% coverage of the code from my unit tests. More of the same tomorrow. Ooo fun.