So here I am at home....

...squinting at the brilliance of the living room window.

Why am I at home? Because my office is closed today--due to inclement weather. I kid you not.

Mind you, I drove downtown (which is where I work) to drop my lovely and talented wife off at her office, then drove home again. But, hey, my office closes when the Multnomah County schools are closed. And they are. So I've got a day off.

Heh.

A Brief Poll

Firefox 2.0.0.1 sucks like:

a) A Hoover
b) A whore behind on her rent
c) Wrong. It both sucks and blows!

I say this because

a) I just finished restoring my OS (good thing I'd just backed it up a couple of days ago), because
b) I upgraded to Firefox 2.0 this morning, and
c) It hosed all my nifty extensions (Greasemonkey, Flashblock, NoScript, etc), so
d) I tried to "downgrade" back to Firefox 1.5 but the damage was done, and on top of that,
e) Whenever I tried to load ANY version of Firefox at that point all the buttons on the toolbar vanished and it just sat there whirring away forever, "downloading data from Google, which
f) Prompted me to say, "WHAT is it downloading from Google!" (in rather more colorful language).

So I pulled out the backup DVD and restored the system. This was a good opportunity to test it and make sure it works.

It does. However, I lost the last day or two of emails I'd saved. On the other hand, Firefox is back to its original, reliable, familair status. All in all, a net win.

I won't be upgraded to Firefox 2.0 again for quite a while.

It is to laugh!

So I've had the boob tube on most of the afternoon. The History Channel. They've run a bunch of specials, like one about how various kinds of junk (autos, garbage, electronics, aircraft) are handled and recycled. It was kind of interesting. Another one about the history of cocaine (it's discovery and history, mostly). That sort of thing.

Then I went out to deliver the car to my lovely and talented wife after work so she could drive herself to her Calculus class. I took the bus home again and eventually turned on the television again. The History Channel is now running an hour-long show about conspiracy theorists and their beliefs about all the secret symbols on the U.S. Dollar bill, and their real significance, and about the Freemasons and their secret cabal of 33rd degree Masons who are the real movers and shakers in the world.

Not exactly what I was expecting. Now in the second half of the hour they're dealing with the debunkers. It's vaguely related to history, I suppose, but still....not the sort of thing I was expecting to see.

Color me naive, but it strikes me that if I were going to start (or join) a secret society determined to rule the world, I would not advertise our existence or plans in even the most obscure fashion. Putting our "secret" symbols on something as ubiquitous as the U.S. dollar strikes me as comical.

Smallville: "Hydro" or, "Why Isn't This 'Chloe Sullivan' like 'Veronica Mars'?"

So we discover that the gossip columnist for the Daily Planet is--gasp!--a meteor freak! She can turn to water and flow under doors or vanish into a conveniently placed water feature to escape from the wrath of a steroid-using professional athlete she's exposed. (No doubt she got her story by lurking the locker room shower--the perfect hiding place for Hydro-Gal!)

Meanwhile, Lex is waiting with remarkable patience for Lana to decide whether she'll marry him. His patience is especially remarkable given that he asked her in, what, November? And here it is January and still no answer. Okay, okay, I know that in story time it's been no more than a couple of days, but still....

Lana is, of course, conflicted. She lurves Lex. But she also lurves Clark! Maybe more than Lex, as she tells Chloe. Chloe, who actually loves Clark, no doubt is thrilled to hear this but still tells her that she and Clark really should get their wires uncrossed before she decides anything. Wise words--which guarantees that they'll not be heeded. Gossip Gal overhears and spreads the dishy tale of Lex's proposal all over Metropolis.

Clark tries to see Lois. Lex intercepts him.  They glare at one another, doing their best to ignore the slashy sparks between them. Clark tants Lex and vice versa. Clark leaves. Teh Gay Lust remains unslaked.

Lois has a sub-plot in which she thinks she's uncovered Green Arrow's secret identity--as Oliver Queen, her very own boy toy millionaire! But Clark and Oliver conspire to convince her otherwise. Clark appears as Green Lantern and rescues Lois from the rent-a-thugs who showed up to make her pretend mugging a reality. Lois, thinking it's Oliver, gives him a smooch. Cue the entrance of Oliver at the same time. Oops! And so we witness the first of what will undoubtedly be a lifetime of schemes to screw with her perceptions in order to maintain secret identities. Better get used to it, Lois!

Chloe and Lana conspire to find out Hydro-Gal's secrets, but Hydro-Gal turns the tables and discovers Clark's secret--and that Chloe has been helping to hide it. Lana nearly discovers the secret, but not. Hydro-Gal tries to kill Chloe, but Chloe is pretty good little scrapper (as well she should be, given how often someone tries to kill her) and fights her to a draw until she throw Hydro-Gal into Lana's speeding jeep and she goes SPLASH!

Chloe unwisely assumes she's dead. Has she learned nothing from her years in Smallville? I don't doubt Hydro-Gal will return to cause trouble another episode. Hydro-Gal's secret ID is apparently believed dead, though I wonder why. It's not like there's a body. At worst, she'd be a Missing Person. But whatever.

Clark and Lana have more angst together. Yadda yadda yadda. They've been doing this dance since Season One and it's really, really old. Besides, Clark is a moron. Chloe wants him badly and she's way hotter than Lana can ever hope to be.* Meanwhile Lois is all swoony over the way "Green Arrow" kissed her--he's even better than her boy toy Oliver. Chloe no doubt is grinding her teeth with jealousy.

Lana return to Lex. Lana tells Lex she loves Clark. You can practically see Lex thinking, "Then I will make it my life's mission to DESTROY HIM!" behind his outward calm. Then she tells Lex she loves him too. Lex: "Okay, maybe not just yet." Then Lana says that she can't love both of them. I pause the show to say to my lovely and talented wife, "This is the perfect situation for poly! But you know the real problem is--she can't be a beard for both of them." She disagrees.

Lana tells Lex that she couldn't marry him if she was going to have regrets. Lex: "I will DESTROY HIM!" But, says Lana, who clearly enjoys tormenting Lex, she won't have regrets. She's looking forward now, not backward. This time for sure! Lex, not being entirely dim, asks for specificity. "Yes," Lana says, "I'll marry you!"

Lex is...pleased. They hug. Lex has this...pleased expression. Not so much "Yay! The love of my life has agreed to marry me!" but more like, "Heh heh heh. This is really going to get Clark's panties in a bunch! Mmmm...Clark's panties...."

*My wife is baffled by my attraction to Chloe. Which baffles me. How can anyone not find Allison Mack a total babe? Ah well. Some of her lust objects leave me scratching my head too.