big news, possibly speaking too soon

my manager just told me that they're talking about making me a permanent employee!

random bits of stuff

on my way to work, i saw a Mazda 6 in the next lane. i thought, "wow, that's a good-looking car. didn't tritone get one of those? wait... is that a shaved head i just glimpsed?" i pulled up. sure enough, it was nj, but i couldn't get his attention, even though i beeped and waved frantically until the guy behind me started to get pissed.

i overheard a great conversation in the kitchen a couple of hours ago. one of the Sims2 engineers was explaining to another guy that no, there won't be zombies in Sims2, but there will be ghosts. then he said that in Makin' Magic, if you have the man-eating plant kill the maid, she comes back as a ghost and does a better job. he discovered this while trying to get the plant to eat the paper girl. she's too quick for it, though.

tongodeon asked me recently about jobs at EA, and yesterday one of the recruiting people sent around an email listing jobs they really wanted to fill. i forwarded it to Søren, and three of the positions looked right up his alley, so i forwarded his info along -- and got a quick response saying he looks great and they're going to move on it.

in other news, there's a bunch of stuff i haven't got round to mentioning lately.

• that mushroom soup, in the end, turned out mediocre, and i have decided that dried mushrooms and wild rice just don't go together as well as my intuition told me they would.
  
• i was in a four-car pileup on 19th avenue on Saturday, but everything's ok except that the car behind me punched a couple of holes in my bumper with the bolts on their license plate -- which left a perfect impression of itself in the dirt on the bumper. all on the scene agreed that they were ok and no insurance involvement was necessary. my neck's been a little stiff, but that's only to be expected. i do wonder if it's what brought on that migraine, though.
  
• still not king.
  
• i finally have a working phone on my desk. if you want the number, email me.
  
• i have a rental DVD that i think is more than a month overdue. i'm so embarrassed i don't want to go back to return it. suggestions? right now, i'm considering returning it via the handy slot while Sheila isn't in, with a $50 bill stuck inside and a note of abject apology. except the late fees might be even more than that by now.
  

i'm torn.

it's a defeat for free speech, but a victory for good taste: Clear Channel Drops Howard Stern.

in other news, how is it "promising" that only 328,000 americans filed for unemployment last month?