* The SLF(Special Lady Friend) and I tried out a new place in Sq. Hill last night, Cafe Asia. My dish (a sort of Japanese pad thai) was very good, and the SLF(Special Lady Friend) raved about her tofu-stuffed eggplant.* I _almost_ had a very expensive night the other night. I was doing some work on the computer, with Family Guy on in the background, and I look over and my TV screen is black. Turn it off, turn it back on. Still nothing. Unplug it for 15 seconds, plug it back in. Nothing. Call Sony's customer service line (more on that in a bit), but there's no people there at that time of night. Look on the web for help, and wind up unplugging the set for a good 3 minutes or so, plug it back in, and it works. Good thing, too, because an in-home repair would cost around $350. The most interesting part of the night, however, was dealing with the automated customer service operator. It's a male voice, very conversational. It would ask you things like what model number your component was, and use some pretty darn good voice-recognition software to spit it back to you. After everything you said, "Bob" would say "I thought I heard you say your zipcode was 1-5-2-2-1. Is that right?" It was certainly less frustrating than punching keys, so the psychology of it worked. *Update:* Just in time, check out this article from the NYT(New York Times) about the resurgence of the TV repairman. * I'm going to be trying a very gay thing soon; my friend Erin loaned me a leash/harness, and I'm going to attempt to take one of my cats for a walk. He's always trying to get outside anyway, so I figure it'll be a way for him to see and smell the outdoors (since he's such an adventurer anyway), without worrying about him getting run over, etc. Besides, it'll be some nice Sydney/daddy time.