back to work

okay okay. i'm back at work in a regular way (though not in a bowel sense) (well, regular, as usual, in that sense too, it's just not the one i meant), so the diary should be getting updated regularly again. didja miss me? i probably shouldn't ask.

not only am i back at work, but i'm feeling an urge to actually DO work, which is unusual for me. however, i am, as usual, being foiled in my urge to do work by these people, who make the software i'm *trying* to use to design my experiment. the program requires a 'key' to be inserted in the printer port. the lab has only one key, and about 5 people trying to use the program. the software people claim that the other 5 keys we've ordered "should arrive in your lab by the end of december." [ahem]

so. i'm thinking of other, radical ways to do the experiment, like using the time-honored paper-and-pointing technique. or maybe programming the whole thing up in html. bleh.

[later] i bear the software people increasingly large amounts of ill will. grr. a package from them arrived just now. yippee!, right? heh heh, not so fast. the package contains: (a) a CD with version 1.0 (that i downloaded yesterday), (b) a "getting started" guide that we had downloaded and printed out ages ago, (c) the "user's guide" (a huge, nearly useless manual i printed out last month), and (d) the "reference guide" that i printed out yesterday. remarkably, there were included in the shipment NONE of the 5 keys that we paid $3000 for. grrrrrrrrrr. kelly, the lab r.a., is on it, though. hopefully she'll squeeze those little green pieces of plastic out of 'em yet.